1.H 15. Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers.
Q, Will yon say a word as to the number of hours a man should spend in his study? How many hours a day, at the maximum?
MR. BEECHEH. There is no absolute rule that can be given in all cases. I should think, however, that, at the maximum, a man can do as much in four hours work during the day as he needs to do. But it must be work. You can sometimes collect materials for your work, although you do not feel like working. You can ascertain the negative, if you cannot create the positive. Sometimes a man will study a whole day to find out that he cannot do a thing that he was counting on. But I do not think that any man can originate matter, and pursue a course of severe fruitful study, for more than four hours a day.
I do not believe that he can average that. I think that ministers often attempt to study too much. If they would concentrate their power, and use it regularly, they would get out much more than by spreading it over so much ground.
Q. Should one do much in the way of preparing a sermon on Monday?
MR, BEECHER. No; unless he is going to preach on Monday night. Saturday and Monday ought to be inclined planes, the former a very inclined plane up to Sunday, and the latter an inclined plane away from it. There are a great many things that a man can do on Monday, which are necessary to be done, but he should not gorge his brain on that day.
Q. Ought a man to prepare his sermons on Sunday morning, and make a practice of it?
MR. BEECHER. If the Lord showed him that that was the best way of doing it, he should. I do not know whether you mean to be personal or not, but that is my habit. When I went to Lawrenceburg, I went thinking that I would do the best I could. I had the vague general instructions that are given, to " lay deep foundations, to study thoroughly, and to bring," as old Dr. Humphrey used to say, " nothing but the beaten oil into the sanctuary. I felt that this was connected with regular and incessant study during all the week. I tried to study so. I succeeded in studying, but I could not succeed in using what I had. On Sunday I could not do anything with what I had so laboriously dug out during the week. Of course, I increased my general stock of knowledge.
Sometimes 1 would find that after working a subject up all the week, something else would take possession of me on Saturday, and I would have to preach it on Sunday to get rid of it. I felt ashamed and mortified, and began to fear I was on the way to superficiality. I made many promises, that, if God would help me, F would make my sermons a long time beforehand. I kept on making promises and breaking them, and the older I grew the worse I grew; and finally, in spite of prayers and resolutions, I had to give it up and prepare my sermons mostly on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. But then you must recollect that this was accompanied by another habit, that of regular study and continual observation. I do not believe that I ever met a man on the street that I did not get from him some element for a sermon. I never see anything in nature which does not work toward that for which I give the strength of my life. The material for my sermons is all the time following me and swarming up around me. I am tracing out analogies, which I afterward take pains to verify, to see whether my views of certain truths were correct. I follow them out in my study, and see how such things are taught by others.
These things I do not always at the time formulate for use, but it is a process of accumulation. Now, by the peculiar temperament given to me, I am able, out of this material, when Sunday comes and I know what I want to do with my congregation, to bring up some instrument to do it with, some view of truth that will include in it a great many of the results reached long before by the practice I have been describing, and which are crystallized ready for use. In that way I make my sermons. Another man begins his on Tuesday, and he would be untrue to himself if he followed any other plan. Every man must find out the way he is to work. I would advise no young man to follow my method. It hap pens to be my way, but it is very likely not to be yours. You can find out, by trying, which is the best way for you to work.