il's last card and in Emmanuel's crowning commission; that is, if
our eyes are sharp enough to see any difference.

5. The first thing, then, on the devil's last card was this, 'A
sufficient ministry, besides lecturers, in Mansoul.' Now, a sufficient
ministry has never been seen in the true Church of Christ since her
ministry began. And yet she has had great ministers in her time. After
Christ Himself, Paul was the greatest and the best minister the Church of
Christ has ever had. But such was the transcendent greatness of his
office, such were its tremendous responsibilities, such were its
magnificent opportunities and its incessant demands, such were its
ceaseless calls to consecration, to cross-bearing, to crucifixion, to
more and more inwardness of holiness, and to higher and higher heights of
heavenly-mindedness, that the apostle was fain to cry out continually,
Who is sufficient for these things! But so well did Paul learn that
gospel which he preached to others that amid all his insufficiency he was
able to hear his Master saying to him every day, My grace is sufficient
for thee, and, My strength is made perfect in thy weakness! And to come
down to the truly Pauline succession of ministers in our own lands and in
our own churches, what preachers and what pastors Christ gave to
Kidderminster, and to Bedford, and to Down and Connor, and to Sodor and
Man, and to Anwoth, and to Ettrick, and to New England, and to St.
Andrews, and places too many to mention. With all its infirmity and all
its inefficiency, what a truly heavenly power the pulpit is when it is
filled by a man of God who gives his whole mind and heart, his whole time
and thought to it, and to the pastorate that lies around it. His mind
may be small, and his heart may be full of corruption; his time may be
full of manifold interruptions, and his best study may yield but a poor
result; but if Heaven ever helps those who honestly help themselves, then
that is certainly the case in the Christian ministry. Let the choicest
of our children, then, be sought out and consecrated to that service; let
our most gifted and most gracious-minded sons be sent to where they shall
be best prepared for the pulpit and the pastorate,--till by the blessing
of her Head all the congregations and all the parishes, all the pulpits
and all the lectureships in the Church, shall be one garden of the Lord.
And then we shall escape that last curse of a ministry such as John
Bu