04/17/2026
"Those elders who have gifts for evangelical work should be willing to engage in it, for people listen with peculiar interest and attention to an unprofessional witness for Christ. This makes even a few stammering words from a layman sometimes weighty and useful. I was standing one evening beside my old friend Robert Flockhart, the good old soldier who preached at the west corner or St. Giles' Church, Edinburgh, every night for forty years. A scoffer came up and listened for a few moments, when he indignantly exclaimed to me, 'Men like that do more harm than ministers, for nobody can say he is paid for his preaching.' While we do not labor in Word or doctrine, we should be ready, according to our ability, to speak for him of whose love we have tasted. Now that most of our elders have been Sabbath-school teachers, we should have a large number of them able and willing to take part in evangelistic meetings either in mission halls or at open-air services. To be able to give short addresses and to lead in singing praise is well worth some time spent in self-training."
—David Dickson, The Elder and his Work.
David Dickson was an elder in nineteenth-century Scotland. At the age of thirty, he was ordained as an elder in the Free New North Church, and he served as clerk of session for thirty-three years.
