When I am big enough,” said little Willie one day, “I want to be a preacher.”
“What is a preacher?” asked his grandmother.
Willie, who was very much astonished at this question, said: “But, don’t you know, grandma? A preacher is a man who reads to the people from the Bible and explains it, and who says at the close, ‘Thirdly, my beloved.’... ‘I find it nice to have hearers.’” Grandma smiled and said:
“I think you are big enough now to begin to preach.” Willie opened his eyes wide and said:
“Do you really mean this, grandma?” After a pause he said: “I have no fear to preach, but I don’t know how.”
“What does the preacher do first?” asked grandma.
“He selects his text and then explains it I could not do this.”
“O, yes, indeed you could,” said grandma. “Here, for instance, is a nice text you could expound to me:
“But that does not need explaining, said Willie; “one needs simply to be kind to everybody; that’s all.”
“But it is none the less a nice text for my little Willie’s first sermon. I would like to have you preach on this one week.
“To preach on this text for one week, grandma, how could this be possible?”
“Say, Willie, can you not be kind to all with whom you have to do, for a week?”
Willie looked thoughtful, then said astonished:
“Would that be a sermon?”
“It certainly would be the best sermon you could preach, my little man. A good preacher must himself do what he tells others to do, or else no one cares to hear him. At any rate the living sermon is the strongest one. The Saviour does not want words only, but deeds. The people, too, want to see in the preacher what they hear from him.”
“Well,” said Willie with a deep sigh, “I think I might make an attempt with this sermon, but I have never thought of this kind of a sermon.”
“I am much pleased, my dear, to hear you will be a preacher from tomorrow,” said grandma. “Remember your text: ‘Be ye kind one to another!’ Expound it well; show to all its meaning.”
And Willie began. The first thing next morning he said to himself:
“It would not be kind to the teacher if I should whisper in school today, so I will not do it.”
So Willie was careful and never whispered once. This gave the teacher joy. She was pleased with Willie’s sermon, yes, all the more, since the sermon was continued the next day, and so on every day in the week.
During recess, and on the way home from school, Willie had often amused himself by annoying his schoolmates and had been into all manner of mischief at the cost of others. But now, since he had become “preacher,” he remembered well his text:
“Be ye kind one to another.”
The evening of the first day his grandmother said:
“Willie, how did you get along with your sermon?”
“O,” said the young preacher, “this is a long sermon from morning till night, but I got along very well; the Saviour helped me.”
Willie continued daily to preach on this beautiful text. Later on his grandmother gave him yet many other texts, and though the young preacher often stumbled his Saviour ever reminded him of his lesson, for Willie loved Him in his heart.
And now, dear children, what do you think? Would it not be nice if every Sunday school scholar, big and little, boys and girls, who love the Lord would become such preachers? Will you not, by the grace of God, begin today?
ML 03/06/1938