"While other ministers gather worshippers into their churches from all conditions of life, you expect to labor chiefly among the less prosperous, the destitute. It may be thought, at first, that this peculiarity must make a wide distinction between your office and the common ministry; that is must demand almost a totally different style of preaching; that all your labors must take a hue and impress from the condition of those whom you teach. I counsel you not to be misled by this natural impression. I see no great distinction between you and other ministers. I advise you to bring habitually to your mind, not the outward condition of men, but their spiritual nature, their participation of that "divine humanity" which is the only wealth of rich or poor. My brothers, look on your hearers as children and heirs of God: and remember that your work is to call out and to build up the divine nature within them, and let such thoughts give you a consciousness of the dignity of your office.
First, Preach the Truth, and for this end you must seek and get it. To see things as they are, to see them through clear, uncolored medium, to strip them of every disguise, to put to silence our own passions and prejudices, to resist the intolerance, the servility, the established errors and earthy modes of thought, the arrogant pretensions and nervous fears of the multitude around us, and amidst all these hinderances and obscurations, to discern the truth in its simplicity and majesty; and hold fast this truth openly, fearlessly, amidst outcry, scorn, desertion, persecution, is a heroism before which the exploits of conquerors grow vulgar and tame." William Ellery Channing.
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