Active at home to be active on the missionary field

Candidates for the sacred office (church pastor) are too much accustomed to think “I will prepare myself to serve God as a preacher in my native land, and if I should be specially moved, and loudly called, I will become a foreign missionary.” Here there is altogether an error, and an error so great, that we need not be surprised to find him who harbors it, as really unfitted for the ministry at home, as he supposes himself to be for the ministry abroad.”

—James W. Alexander (March 13, 1804 – July 31, 1859, American minister and theologian).