1.E 08. Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers.
Q. Suppose a man does not have the enthusiasm of which you have spoken, what is he to do?
MR. BEECHER. Do the best he can, and stop. I think it would be a very wholesome thing in a man’s parish life, if once in a while, upon finding that he was not making much of a sermon, he should frankly confess it, and say, “ Brethren, we will sing.”
Q. Suppose a man tries to work himself up to a feeling of enthusiasm by action arid increased emphasis, can he be successful V
MR. BEECHER. In regard to that, I will mention a circumstance that occurred to my father. I recollect his coining home in Boston one Sunday, when I was quite a small boy, saying how glad he was to get home, away from the church; and he added, “It seems to me I never made a worse sermon than I did this morning.” “ Why, father,” said I, “ I never heard you preach so loud in all my life.”
“That is the way,” said he; “always holloa when I haven’t anything to say!” But how far a man may assume the language of feeling and he may sometimes, in order to its production is a fair question, though one I do not now wish to discuss. There is some difference in the questions put by gray hairs and those put by young men, I notice. [The questioner was an elderly man.], I am sure of one thing, and that is, where a man is naturally cold he is not as well adapted to the office of preaching as an enthusiastic man. I would say to such a man, “Put yourself in that situation in which sympathy naturally flows; then provide a mould for it, and it will fit the mould first or last.”
It is just like the cultivation of right feeling in any direction. One of my parishioners will say to me, “I have no benevolence, but you preach that I ought to give. What shall I do? “I say to him, “ Give, as a matter of duty, until you feel a pleasure in doing it, and the right feeling will come of itself.”
So, in addressing a congregation, a man may use the language of a feeling for the sake of getting and propagating the feeling. Indeed, when it comes to preaching, I think it would be a great deal better to act as though you had the feeling, even if you had not, for its effect in carrying your audience whither you wish to carry them.
Q. Do you approve of the appointment of professional revivalists?
ME. BEECHER. Yes, if I employ them. If they employ me, I do not like it. The term “professional revivalist” is a fortunate one. I have known a great many of these persons, and a great many that did not do much good. Others I have known who have done a great deal of good. I do not see why, if a man has received from God the gifts of arousing people, and bringing them to see and acknowledge the great moral truths of Christianity, he should not be employed as a revivalist, under judicious administration. He should be employed by others always, so as to work into the hands of the pastors, so as to unite the church, and not to divide it. There are difficulties in the “evangelist system,” but there are benefits in it also; and in many cases, and in many parts of the country, it would seem almost indispensable to the growth of the churches. In churches that maintain a regular organization, and are alive and active, I do not see the need of professional revivalists; but where they are run down and in scattered neighbourhoods, I would certainly advise the use of such instrumentalities.