Prayer and preaching

William Arnot, in his Studies in Acts: The Church in the House (135), gives the following illustrated advice:

Prayer and preaching, alternate or simultaneous, are the right and left side of a living ministry. The preaching work may be laboriously and conscientiously performed without comfort or success if the other side be from any cause paralysed. I watched once with interest the operations of a brick-maker in a field of clay. There was great agility in his movements. He wrought by piece, and the more he turned out the higher was his pay. His body moved like a machine. His task for a time was simply to raise a quantity of clay from a lower to a higher level, by means of a spade. He threw up one spadeful, and then he dipped his tool in a pail of water that stood by. After every spadeful of clay there was a dip in the water. The operation of dipping the spade occupied almost, if not altogether, as much time as the raising of the clay. My first thought was, if he should dispense with these apparently useless baptisms, he might perform almost double the amount of work. My second thought was wiser; on reflection, I saw that if he had attempted to continue the work without the alternate washings, the clay would have stuck to the tool, and his progress would have been altogether arrested. Right well did the skilful workman know that to plunge his instrument in water every time it was used furthered and did not hinder his work. Indeed, it was this that made his work possible.

I said to myself, Go thou and do likewise. The ministry of the Word, as the world goes, is like the effort of the workman to lift the clay; prayer is the baptism which makes progress quick—makes progress possible.