It was while in the Ozarks that Harold Bell Wright preached his first
sermon. Being a regular attendant at the services, held in the little
mountain log school house, he was asked to talk to the people, one
Sunday, when the regular preacher had failed to appear.
From this Sunday morning talk, that could hardly be called a sermon, and
others that followed, he came to feel that he could do more good in the
ministry than he could in any other field of labor, and soon thereafter
accepted a regular pastorate at Pierce City, Missouri, at a yearly
salary of four hundred dollars. True to a resolve, that his work should
be that through which he could help the most people, he had now chosen
the ministry. A further resolve that he would give up this ministry,
chosen with such earnest conviction, should another field of labor offer
more extensive measures for reaching mankind, took him, in later years,
into the field of literature. He left the ministry with many regrets but
with the same earnest conviction with which he had earlier chosen it.
Following the publication of "The Shepherd of the Hills" his publishers
assured him that he could secure greater results from his pen rather
than his pulpit and prevailed upon him to henceforth make literature his
life work. This was in every way consistent with his teaching that every
man's ministry is that work through which he can accomplish the greatest
good.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263