One cold winter afternoon the philosopher Thomas Carlyle was sitting before the open fireplace in his library. The door opened and the new pastor of a local church entered the room. After Carlyle and the young minister had spoken for a few moments, the young minister asked the great philosopher, 'What do you think this parish needs most?' Carlyle, without hesitation, replied, 'What this parish needs is a man who knows God otherwise than by hearsay.'
David Hume said of John Brown of Scotland, `That old man preaches as if Christ were at his elbow.' How much we need men of this kind today.—Indian Christian