Whitefield was just twenty-one when he received deacon’s orders,
and he at once leapt into fame as a preacher. “I intended to
make 150 sermons,” he says, “and thought I would set up with
a good stock-in-trade.” As a matter of fact, this greatest of
English preachers only possest a single sermon when he began his
preaching career. In his humility he put his first and solitary
discourse into the hands of a friendly clergyman, to show how
unprepared for the work of the pulpit he was. The clergyman
used one-half of the sermon at his morning service, and the
other half at his evening service, and returned it to its
astonished author with a guinea by way of payment.--W. H.
FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”
(2457)
See CONSECRATION; EDUCATION TO BE PRIZED; SPEECH, COMMON.
=Preaching, Call To=--See INFLUENCE, INDIVIDUAL.