Charles Finney (1792-1875)

Lack of care for the lost. Perhaps you have not cared enough for them to attempt to learn their condition; perhaps not even to take a missionary magazine. Look at this, and see how much you really care for the lost, and write down honestly the real amount of your feelings for them, and your desire for their salvation. Measure your desire for their salvation by the self-denial you practice, in giving of your substance to send them the Gospel. Do you deny yourself even the hurtful and unnecessary desires of life, such as tea, coffee, and tobacco? Do you cut back on your style of living, and hesitate not to deny yourself any inconvenience to save them? Do you daily pray for them in private? Are you putting money aside to put into the treasury of the Lord when you go up to pray? If you are not doing these things, and if your soul is not agonized for the poor benighted heathen, why are you such a hypocrite to pretend to be a Christian? Why, saying you are a Christian is an insult to Jesus Christ!

-Finney