that Caleb Evans delivered to the students on April 12, 1770, he forthrightly declared at the very beginning of the address that the only proper way to become “a good and useful preacher” was to “learn to be a zealous lover of Christ.”12 As a means to this end, Evans went on to recommend “reading the word of God with other practical and experimental [that is, experiential] writings, meditation, self-examination and prayer.” This attention to the cultivation of one’s own walk with God, Evans stressed,
Page 20