God’s Use Our Personalities   "How marvelous is God’s providence in the mental and social character naturally possessed by His people, so as to fit them to act their several parts in life. In illustration: look at the ministers of Christ. One is timid, and God makes him especially useful to the diffident in encouraging them, and to the self-confident in awakening salutary fears. Another is bold, and he alarms the guilty and encourages the wavering. One is full of love and so wins the coy and melts the hardened. Another is borne down by an awful sense of the danger of the wicked, and so he cries aloud and spares not. One is a son of thunder. Another is a son of consolation. One excels in logic, another in rhetoric. One is best at explaining the doctrines, another is excellent at exhortation. One does most good by his pen, another by private conversation, and another in the pulpit. Yet all these men are giving expression to their respective natural and social dispositions, now sanctified by divine grace, and turned to a holy work."   -- William S. Plumer (1802-1880) -------------------------