They read the Bible, and
expounded its great moral truths as they understood them. Few of these
even knew that it had been in part originally written in the Hebrew
tongue, and the other portion in that of the Greeks; but he knew it
contained the promise of salvation, and felt that it was his mission to
preach and teach this way to his people, relying solely for his power
to impress these wonderful truths upon the heart by the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. For this reason the sermons of the sect were never
studied or written, and their excellence was their fervor and
impassioned appeals to the heart and the wild imaginations of the
enthusiastic and unlearned of the land. Genius, undisciplined and
untutored by education, is fetterless, and its spontaneous suggestions
are naturally and powerfully effective, when burning from lips
proclaiming the heart's enthusiasm. Thus extemporizing orations almost
daily, stimulated the mind to active thought, and very many of these
illiterate young Methodist preachers became in time splendid orators.
It was the celebrated Charles James Fox who said to a young man just
entering Parliament, if he desired to become a great orator, and had
the genius and feeling from nature, all he had to do was to speak often
and learn to think on his feet.
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