Quiet Hints, Chapter 8–"Impatience”

Notes taken from Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers by Charles E. Jefferson, Chapter 8, “Impatience.”

“Excessive boldness is recklessness, and recklessness wrecks a church.”

“Spunk is good, but the servant of the Lord must be something more than fighting-cock or bulldog.”

“No other single sin works such havoc in the Christian church as the impatience of her ministers.”

“It is a minister’s work to lead, not simply one man, but a company of men from one position to another, and then another, along that upward and difficult road, and unless his spirit is held in firm restraint he will not be able to brook delays or endure the oppositions and retrogressions which are sure to come.”

“A leader of men must be patient with them. Even the malcontents and the cranks must not be snubbed or squelched.”

“It is the province of the preacher to see the New Jerusalem hovering in the air, but he ought not to break the skulls of the saints in his haste to get the fair city squarely located on the earth.”

“In making changes a minister should ponder Josh Billings’s counsel to young men, ’If you want to get along quick, go slow.’»

“Because a thing is good does not mean the parish must have it before sunset.”

“If a man is convinced in his own mind that a certain step is advantageous for his people, and his people will not let him take it, let him not lie down and turn his face to the wall, watering his couch with his tears, neither let him stride stormfully across his people’s wishes doing the thing of which they disapprove, but let him be resolute and patient.”

“Patience is the queen of the ministerial virtues.”