“Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?”
That the Lord should select for His divine commendation such men as Job, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel, is marvellous in our eyes, but it reveals to us that even here and now our Lord graciously anticipates that day when He shall say to His servants “Well done.”
W. J. McClure was one who faithfully served his own generation. Over sixty years ago he grasped with a firm grip the lighted torch extended to him by those who preceded him in the Christian relay race, and now, having finished his part of the course, he has handed intact that light which he received, to the generation following.
As a servant of Christ he was a living example of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 12:9. By wise words, words of truth, and acceptable words, he taught the people knowledge. His oral and written ministry so commended itself to the conscience in the sight of God that we know its source to have been the One Shepherd. To those who aspire to public service for Christ we would urge a careful study of his “Word to Preachers,” with the hope that it will stimulate them to emulate him in faith and works, for thereby their testimony would be, like his, a hundredfold more in this present time, and fruit gathered to life eternal.
As one who listened to Mr. McClure’s ministry with deep appreciation, we can testify to its unique presentation, its Scriptural accuracy and its wholesome edifying character. His preaching was not “spoonfuls of truth and bucketfuls of words” but the very opposite, for preeminently he could give “much in little,” a condensation of the essentials in the fewest necessary words, words withal easy to be understood.
Happily for us, he has left a rich heritage of sound doctrine by which in days to come we shall still hear Mm, though dead, yet speaking. May it be ours to listen, learn, obey, and thus adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
The volume now in our hands is the product of much labor—a labor of love—on the part of Mr. Dickson. His untiring efforts to fittingly put on record the life and service of “a brother beloved and faithful minister” have had a most estimable result, by means of which the people of God are greatly enriched, and thereby are correspondingly under deep obligation to him as a fellow-laborer of the one whose praise was throughout all the churches.
H. A. Cameron, M.D.
Detroit, Michigan