Eternidade no Coração

A um membro de igreja que lhe disse que o seu pastor morreria das muitas pregações que fazia, Spurgeon respondeu: "O que mata bons ministros é pregar a congregações sonolentas."

Now, my brethren, one sign of a true revival, and indeed an essential part of it is the increased activity of God’s labourers. Why, time was when our ministers, thought that preaching twice on Sunday was the hardest work to which a man could be exposed. Poor souls, they could not think of preaching on a week-day, or if there was once a lecture, they had bronchitis, were obliged to go to Jerusalem and lay by, for they would soon be dead if they were to work too hard. I never believed in the hard work of preaching yet. We find ourselves able to preach ten or twelve times a week, and find that we are the stronger for it,—that in fact, it is the healthiest and most blessed exercise in the world. But the cry used to be, that our ministers were hardly done by, they were to be pampered and laid by, done up in velvet, and only to be brought out to do a little work occasionally, and then to be pitied when that work was done. I do not hear anything of that talk now-a-days. I meet with my brethren in the ministry who are able to preach day after day, day after day, and are not half so fatigued as the were; and I saw a brother minister this week who has been having meetings in his church every day, and the people have been so earnest that they will keep him ver often from six o’clock in the evening to two in the morning. “Oh!” said one of the members, “our minister will kill himself.” “Not he,” said I, “that is the kind of work that will kill no man. It is preaching to a sleepy congregation that kills good ministers, but not preaching to earnest people.” So when I saw him, his eyes were sparkling, and I said to him, “Brother, you do not look like a man who is being killed,” “Killed, my brother,” said he, “why I am living twice as much as I did before; I was never so happy, never so hearty, never so well.” Said he, “I sometimes lack my rest, and want my sleep, when my people keep me up so late, but it will never hurt me; indeed,” he said, “I should like to die of such a disease as that—the disease of being so greatly blessed.” There was a specimen before me of the ploughman who overtook the reaper,—of one who sowed seed, who was treading on the heels of the men who were gathering in the vintage. And the like activity we have lived to see in the Church of Christ. Did you ever know so much doing in the Christian world before? There are grey-headed men around me who have known the Church of Christ sixty years, and I think they can bear me witness that they never knew such life, such vigour and activity, as there is at present. Everybody seems to have a mission, and everybody is doing it. There may be a great many sluggards, but they do not come across my path now. I used to e always kicking at them, and always being kicked for doing so. But now there is nothing to kick at—every one is at work—Church of England, Independents, Methodists, and Baptists—there is not a single squadron that is behindhand; they have all their guns ready, and are standing, shoulder to shoulder, ready to make a tremendous charge against the common enemy. This leads me to hope, since I see the activity of God’s ploughmen and vine dressers, that there is a great revival coming,—that God will bless us, and that right early.