Levity Destroys Holy Influence

 HOW LEVITY DESTROYS HOLY INFLUENCE

From the 1858 Primitive Methodist Magazine

Preacher, is your levity "out of the pulpit" destroying your holy influence "in the pulpit"? -- A solemn question!  Every pastor every evangelist should give it serious consideration. -- DVM

In early life I well knew and greatly loved a brother minister. In all respects but one he was consistent as a Christian; few men could preach so ably, so evangelically, or so tearfully as he, and no small good was effected by his ministry. He had one Sabbath exchanged pulpits with a neighbouring brother, and in the evening dissolved his congregation in tears by the force and solemnity of his sermon.

A Christian gentleman, having observed several of his own children in tears during the preaching, invited the minister home with him, hoping his conversation would deepen their holy impressions. But, alas! two hours were given to the lively witticism, the cutting irony, the biting sarcasm, and the droll anecdote; so that the gentleman, grieved at heart, could not feel it proper even to ask him to close the visit with prayer. The minister left, the Christian wept, and the young people were hardened in sin, one of them observing, "When he was in the pulpit, I really thought he meant what he said, but you see it was all pretence." On his dying-bed this minister said, and his words have never been forgotten,

"Oh, ___ never efface by levity out of the pulpit the good impressions you have made in it. If tears of blood could wash away the mischief I have done in this manner, I could freely shed them."
Bitter was his grief in the solemn hours of departure on this account.

And yet another fact, better than all these, and presenting a striking contrast to them. A Christian lady, speaking to me but the other day of her pastor, who yet happily presides over one of our churches, said, "For five years he was usually in our house three or four times a week, but he never suffered us for one moment to forget that he was the minister of Jesus Christ." He seems, indeed, to have been "a Christian in all company." May we, dear reader, "go and do likewise." Gaius.