The Essentials of Prayer by E.M. Bounds

The preaching is but a voice. The voice in silence dies, the text is forgotten, the sermon fades from memory; the preacher lives.

The man makes the preacher. God must make the man. The messenger is, if possible, more than the message. The preacher is more than the sermon.

The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer.

Men of God, before anything else, are indispensable to the furtherance of the kingdom of God on earth.

Should Sorrow lay her hand upon thy shoulder,
And walk with thee in silence on life’s way,
While joy, thy bright companion once, grows colder,
Becomes more distant day by day;
Shrink not from the companionship of Sorrow,…

To men who think prayer their main business and devote time to it according to this high estimate of its importance does God commit the keys of His kingdom, and by them does He work His spiritual wonders in this world