“Men’s hearts are very hard to affect. If you want to get at them for any worldly object, you can do it. A cheating world can win man’s heart; a little gold can win man’s heart; a trump of fame and a little clamor of applause can win man’s heart. But there is not a minister breathing that can win man’s heart himself. He can win his ears and make them listen; he can win his eyes, and fix those eyes upon him; he can win the attention, but the heart is very slippery.
Yes! The heart is a fish that troubles all gospel fishermen to hold. You may sometimes pull it almost all out of the water; but, slimy as an eel, it slippeth between your fingers, and you have not captured it after all. Many a man has fancied that he has caught the heart, but has been disappointed.”
-–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Power of the Holy Ghost” in Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 123.
