02.04. Chapter 4

Chapter 4. The More Special Duties of the Pastoral Office Section I.—The Theory and Practice of Preaching IN proceeding now to consider the special duties of the pastoral office, we cannot hesitate to assign the first place to the work of preaching, the preparation and delivery of discourses on the great subjects of God’s revelation to men. This forms more peculiarly the vocation of the Christian pastor; other things, though important in their proper place, are still but subsidiary in comparison of it. As the purpose of God is to save men by the knowledge of the truth in Christ, so by what the apostle calls ‘the foolishness of preaching,’ that is, by the simple, faithful, earnest proclamation of the truth, the great end of the ministry must chiefly be carried out. It is only by their coming to know and believe the truth that men consciously enter into the kingdom of God; and every step they may afterwards take in the discharge of its obligations, or in the personal experience of its blessings, must be in connection with realizing views of the things which belong to the person and the work of Christ. Whatever, therefore, is fitted to aid in bringing men to the possession of such views, is on that account entitled to a minister’s attentive consideration; but he should ever regard the preaching of the gospel as the means more especially appointed by Christ, and in its own nature best adapted for bringing the truth effectually to bear upon the hearts of men, and maintaining its influence in Christian congregations. So that preaching, as justly stated by Vinet, (Past. Theology, p. 73.) ‘is essential to the pastorate, which apart from this cannot reach souls, and cannot present the truth in its most regular and general forms. This,’ he adds, ‘is the glory of our Reformation, that it has restored public preaching to the Church; it may even be said to the Catholic Church. Surely that was a noble movement by which the priesthood passed from a simple celebration of rites (which had become a species of magic) to science, to thought, to speech and aggressive action.’

1. Points of agreement in essential qualities between preaching and public speaking in general.—Preaching, as it is now understood, being only a particular kind of public discourse, necessarily has certain things common to it with oratory in general, but which must rather be presupposed here than formally considered. Not, however, as if they were of little importance; on the contrary, I quite concur in the statement of Mr. Rogers, (Essay on Sacred Eloquence.) that the eloquence of the pulpit ‘has never, I should rather say seldom, been assimilated so far as it might have been to that which has produced the greatest effect elsewhere, and which is shown to be of the right kind, both by the success which has attended it, and by the analysis of the qualities by which it has been distinguished.’ It will be well, therefore, for those who are bent on attaining to such excellence in this respect as they maybe capable of reaching, to make themselves acquainted with the great principles of public speaking as an art, as these have been unfolded by the masters of eloquence themselves, or by those who have made them the subject of special study.

Here the ancients still continue among our best guides, not merely from the admirable specimens of oratory they have left behind them, but also on account of the careful study they gave to the subject, and their clear enunciation of all the more important elements of success. There is scarcely, I believe, anything of moment, nothing certainly entitled to much consideration, which will not be found both lucidly stated and largely illustrated in the rhetorical treatises of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quinctilian. Such works, however, of modern date as Campbell’s Philosophy of Rhetoric, Whately’s Rhetoric, also Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric, may be consulted with advantage. That I may not altogether omit what relates to this more general, though in itself most fundamental branch of the subject, I shall endeavour as briefly as possible to indicate a few leading points.

(1.) First of all it is to be borne in mind, that nature here, as in other things, constitutes the foundation. It does so in two respects, both as to the measure in which success in public speaking may be possible, and as to the particular method or style through which it may be attained. Whatever the labour and cultivation of art may do, it must have certain aptitudes or capacities of a natural kind to build upon. That the first parts belong to nature (primas partes esse natura) is freely allowed by Quinctilian, (Inst. xi.) even when he is urging most strenuously the necessity of laborious application. In personal appearance, in freedom, flexibility and compass of voice, in strength of reason, retentiveness of memory, warmth of feeling, quickness and vivacity of thought, one man naturally excels another; and the greater or less degree in which any individual may possess these respective qualities, cannot fail to bring along with it a corresponding advantage or defect in respect to the higher measures of success. ‘Some,’ says Cicero, (De Oratore, L. i. c. 25.) ‘possess them in so eminent a degree, they are so adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem to have been not so properly born, as fashioned by the hand of God for consummate orators;’ while there are others in the precisely opposite condition, so hesitating in their speech, so harsh and grating in their voice, so lumbering in their mental action or uncouth in their bodily movements, that no amount of application could be conceived adequate to make them tolerable public speakers. But even where there is such combination of properties as may be said to constitute a natural aptness for the work sufficient as a foundation for oratorical culture, that nature must still determine the kind; and to set up before one’s view a model as to method of discourse, or manner of speech and address, which should oblige one to go against the grain, would only be to lose that which might have been attained, to desert nature where it could achieve something for an ideal excellence which lies hopelessly out of reach.

(2.) A second point to be borne in mind is the improveableness of nature in the powers which actually belong to it, if only there is applied to their cultivation persistent and well-directed effort. None speak more strongly on this point than those who have themselves risen to the highest degrees of excellence in the art of speaking, or have given finer examples of it to others. The traditions respecting Demosthenes, (Quinct. L. x. 3.) his partial failures at first only rousing him to more resolute endeavours, his laborious practice of elocution by the sea-shore, his frequent resort to the depths of a solitude where no voice but his own could be heard, and no passing objects could be seen to distract the eye of his mind, or interrupt the intensity of its application,—such things, as well as the character of his surviving speeches, tell of the earnest and long-continued study which bore him to the peerless elevation which he ultimately reached. Cicero, too, after he had gained some distinction as a pleader in the Forum, so far from being satisfied with this early success, or thinking that he had already approached the limits of perfection, put himself under the direction of professed rhetoricians, both at Rome and afterwards when sojourning at Athens and in Asia Minor, giving himself, as Quinctilian expresses it, to be in a manner formed and modelled anew. (L. 12:6.) And his own advices to others are in perfect accordance with the course he had himself pursued, as may be seen, for example, in the 2d Book of his Treatise on Oratory, where explicit directions are given upon the subject, and the result of judicious and persevering application is represented as almost incredible. Preachers must expect no exemption from this law of nature, though few may be able to bestow such pains and application in conforming to it as the persons just referred to. As public speakers they have powers to cultivate, faculties to improve and exercise, and that both in respect to the proper treatment of the subjects they have to handle, and the way and manner of presenting their ideas, so as best to convince the understandings and impress the hearts of their audience. However easy it may be with certain natural advantages on their side to reach a respectable mediocrity in these respects, perfection, or even an approach to perfection, in any one of the properties going to constitute the really effective public speaker, is necessarily reserved for the painstaking and the diligent. (It should be remembered also, that whatever help one may sometimes get from others, self-culture, self-application must chiefly be looked to. So it certainly was with Demosthenes, so with one of the greatest of American orators. ‘I owe my success in life,’ said Clay, ‘to one single fact, namely, that at the age of twenty-seven I commenced and continued for years the practice of daily reading and speaking upon the contents of some historical or scientific book. These offhand efforts were made sometimes in a corn-field, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant barn, with the horse and the ox for my auditors. It is to this early practice of the great art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and have shaped my entire subsequent history.’)

(3.) The dependence of successful public speaking on an appropriate style, is a third point requiring careful thought and application; style, I mean, not simply with regard to the choice of words or the structure of sentences (which may admit of many varieties), but as a fitting expression of the speaker’s own cast of mind, as exercised on the class of subjects of which he discourses, and with a view to the specific end he aims at in handling them. Diligence and care in this respect Cicero calls the most efficient and controlling factor in speaking aright (optimum effectorum ac magistrum dicendi), (De Oratore, i. 33.) though Cicero himself, it must be admitted, carried the matter to excess, and in aspiring after that fine modulation of words and wealth and harmony of diction in which he became so great a master, he often impaired the naturalness and strength of his language by the too artificial, elaborate, and prolix structure of his sentences. The line that is really the most fitting and appropriate for a particular speaker will always be found involved in some difficulty, calling for wise discrimination in the individual, with a certain delicacy of feeling and propriety of sentiment; nor in anything will a false taste more readily discover its mistake, or prove more certainly fatal to success. It is also beset with this peculiar difficulty, that while one’s style must to a large extent be formed on the model of written productions, there are qualities of style which may be perfectly proper, sometimes may add grace or dignity to the printed page, which would inevitably appear stiff or affected if transferred to the oral discourse. One thing requires especially to be kept in view by the public speaker, whatever may be the particular theme or the kind of audience with which for the time he has to do; he must cultivate lucidity and directness of speech; for it is not with him as with an author, whose readers may hang for a considerable time over his pages in order to catch the full drift of his meaning, or obtain an adequate appreciation of the felicitous manner in which it is unfolded. The public speaker must be understood as he goes along; every sentence, every word he utters should find its way to the understandings of his hearers as soon as it passes from his lips; in so far as it does not, it necessarily fails of its aim. But in respect to other qualities, such as regard to emphasis, comparative ease or tension, pathetic tenderness or rugged energy, elegance, terseness, epigrammatic point or careless simplicity, there is room for almost endless diversity; and which of these to adopt, and when, demands not only a discriminating judgment with respect to each particular part and species of discourse, but also a just estimate of one’s own powers in relation to the things required. Hence, all sensible critics recommend here much tentative and experimental action; a. cautious gauging of one’s personal powers and resources; a study of the most approved exemplars of thought and style, in their different kinds; and, above all, the habitual practice of composition, whether for public discourse or merely for private exercise and improvement. Scribendum ergo (says Quinctilian) quam diligentissime, et quam plurimum; (L. x. 3, 7.) and this all the more, as he also urges, if we have much to do in extempore speaking, since without regular habits of study and experience in written composition, it is sure to degenerate into what he calls inanem loquacitatem et verba in labris nascentia, frothy talk and lip oratory.

(4.) Then, fourthly, there is the intimate connection between the things spoken and the action or bearing of the speaker, a point which the commonest hearers as well as the greatest rhetorical authorities are competent to judge of, and alike regard as of highest moment; for the one class instinctively feel what the other intellectually discern. Thousands can judge of the propriety or impropriety, the defects or advantages of a speaker’s voice and motions, which together make up action, for the comparative handful who can intelligently judge of the merits or demerits of the discourse he delivers. People are affected, not simply, often not so much, by the thoughts presented to their minds, as by the manner in which they are presented, the tone, the gesture, the whole aspect and demeanour of him who is seeking to gain a hearing for them. So that, as is perfectly known, a second or even third rate discourse, if set forth by an appropriate and becoming action, will prevail more than the most exquisite composition, which is accompanied in the delivery by an unsuitable or defective manner. The judgment of Demosthenes on this point is well known; and Cicero speaks with scarcely less decision; for he represents action as having a sort of dominant power in speaking (unam in dicendo actionem dominari). (De Orat. i. 28.) And he justly notices that in that respect there is nothing so readily marked, nor so apt to take a firm hold of the memory, as that which occasions offence. It is what every one perceives; it seems to thrust itself on the observation of all, and cleaves to their remembrance whether they will or not. There is therefore a double reason for attending to the matter, since an appropriate and well-regulated action adds immensely to the force of what is spoken, while anything unbecoming, awkward, misplaced, or ineffective inevitably palls upon the taste of the hearers, and hangs like a clog upon one’s efforts to produce effect.

(5.) Yet, with all the attention that should thus be paid to the cultivation of native talent, of style, of action, and the pains that should be taken on every hand to avoid obvious blemishes and defects, there is still another point that may be said to overtop the whole, and the more difficult to be reached in practice, that to be attained in any competent degree it is necessary that all the rest should be cast into comparative forgetfulness; it is the surrender of the heart to the subject in hand, the power of letting oneself out into it. The soul of eloquence may be said to lie here; and without some measure of it, though there may be ever so finely constructed sentences, close and correct reasoning, graceful elocution, there cannot be the quickening impulse and persuasive speech which rivet the attention of the audience, and stir their hearts. For this the speaker must, above all, be possessed by the things which he comes to discourse of, impressed with a sense of their reality and importance. Pectus est enim (L. x. 7.) (to quote again Quinctilian) quod disertos facit, et vis mentis; and hence, he justly adds, even among unlearned persons, if only they are stirred by some powerful affection, words are not wanting. The mind then, instead of turning its eye inward on itself, or fixing on a single point, pours itself forth on many things in succession, as when one glances along a straight path everything is embraced that is in and around it; not the further end merely, but the things also that lie between us and it. So that whatever any one may possess by nature, or may have acquired by learning and art, to fit him for the work of popular discourse, he must, if he has risen to any degree of perfection in it, have acquired the power of losing sight of these when actually engaged in its discharge; the energies of his mind must be wholly concentrated upon his theme. Here, as in other accomplishments, ‘the skill of the artist and the perfection of his art are never proved till both are forgotten. The artist has done nothing till he has concealed himself; the art is imperfect which is invisible; the feelings are but feebly touched, if they permit us to reason on the methods of their excitement. In the reading of a great poem, in the hearing of a noble oration, it is the subject of the writer and not his skill, his passion not his power, on which our minds are fixed. We see as he sees, but we see not him. We become part of him, feel with him, judge, behold with him; but we think of him as little as of ourselves. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched if his own glory is all that it records. The power of the masters is shown by their self-annihilation.’ (Ruskin, Modern Painters, i. p. 22.)

Such are some of the more vital and important considerations which require to be attended to in connection with the art of public speaking generally; which, therefore, can no more be neglected with impunity by the preachers of the gospel, than by any others who seek to influence their fellow-men by their capacity of speech in public. No talent or even genius in the speaker, and no peculiarity in the subject he handles, can compensate for such neglect, or render palpable defects in regard to the qualifications mentioned otherwise than an occasion of comparative failure. It would not be easy, perhaps, to find in a brief compass a description which might seem more thoroughly aimed at exemplifying this than the account transmitted to us, mainly by Isaak Walton and Fuller, of the justly-renowned Richard Hooker. The delineation presents him to our view as a man ‘of mean stature, and stooping, of humble or low voice, his face full of heat pimples, gesture none at all, standing stock-still, his eyes always fixed on one place to prevent his imagination from wandering, insomuch that he seemed to study as he spoke.’ Add to which, what is said by Fuller: ‘his style was long and pithy, driving on a whole flock of several clauses before he came to the close of a sentence; so, when the copiousness of his style met not with proportionable capacity in his auditors, it was unjustly censured for perplexed, tedious, and obscure.’ In short, so defective was he in all the more noticeable qualifications of an orator, that one might almost suppose the trial to have been formally made in Hooker, how the most profound intellect, the most varied learning, the most fertile and lofty imagination, conjoined with a winning simplicity of manners and a spirit of sincere fervent piety might all be possessed, and yet leave the possessor at the remotest distance from the position of an attractive and powerful speaker. It was impossible, indeed, that such a man could fail to produce at times deep impressions in spite of all disadvantages, and be listened to generally by a certain number with respectful and loving affection. Even with the commonest audience, there were passages so finely conceived and expressed, that they could scarcely fail to fall upon the ear like the sound of sacred melody, such as the following: (Sermon on the Certainty and Perpetuity of Faith.) ‘The light would never be so acceptable were it not for the usual intercourse of darkness. Too much honey doth turn to gall, and too much joy even spiritually would turn us to wantons. Happier a great deal is that man’s case, whose soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is through abundance of spiritual delight lifted up and exalted above measure.

Better it is sometimes to go down into the pit with him who, beholding darkness, and bewailing the loss of inward joy and consolation, crieth from the lowest hell, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit, as it were, in Abraham’s bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation but “I thank my God it is not with me as with other men.”’ But whatever effect occasional passages of this kind might have had, they could not tell enough upon the general aggregate to render Hooker, with all his gifts and excellences, I shall not say a popular, but even what may be called an ordinarily attractive and effective preacher.

It is time, however, to quit this more general part of the subject, on which it was not my intention to do more than indicate a few leading principles, or points demanding careful consideration. We must now turn to those things which have a more direct and special reference to that kind of public speaking with which we are here more immediately concerned: the preparation and delivery of discourses on things pertaining to the kingdom of God and the salvation of men.

II. The fitting subjects of discourse for the pulpit, and the solution of appropriate texts.—It has been the all but universal practice in the Christian Church, since she possessed in any measure of completeness the canon of Sacred Scripture, to take some portion of its contents as the ground of the discourses which are addressed to congregations when they meet for purposes of worship. And the practice is in itself highly commendable, and carries with it obvious advantages. It is, first of all, an important as well as a becoming testimony to the supreme authority of Scripture as the revelation of God; and as such, the Church’s sole warrant and guide in regard to all that concerns spiritual and divine things. It virtually proclaims to all whom we address, ‘To the law and to the testimony;’ here is the certain ground and warrant of whatever as Christians we believe, and do, and hope for. Then, this practice of preaching from a text serves in a very natural and fitting manner to bring people acquainted with the matter of Scripture, and to give them both a more intelligent and more comprehensive knowledge of the things which it presents to their faith and obedience. Finally, it tends to impart a distinctive character both of sacredness and unity to what is spoken, whereby the preacher himself is benefited in having a channel, as it were, provided by the hand of God for the orderly presentation of his thoughts on particular themes; and the hearer also has his recollections aided by a passage in the written word which he can keep before him, or fall back upon as he may need. A certain choice, however, is necessary in regard to the subjects of discourse. One is, not to set out with the idea that any passage, or portion of a passage, in Scripture, simply because it is an integral part of what is collectively the word of God, may on that account be fixed upon as the proper foundation of a discourse to an assemblage of Christian people. The whole of Scripture, when rightly interpreted and viewed in connection with its leading purport and design, is certainly profitable for religious instruction and pious uses; but not always profitable to such ends in the way of public discourse. Its aim in some portions may be best accomplished by private meditation, while others require to be looked at complexly as parts of a general whole, and do not so readily admit of being isolated, and made the ground or occasion of a somewhat lengthened discourse. Containing, as the Bible does, historical records of the human family during many successive generations, touching incidentally on an immense variety of circumstances and objects, current events and settled institutions, in its didactic parts referring to numberless productions of nature and works of art, as well as to the things which most deeply concern the present and eternal interests of mankind,—it were quite easy to find in the Bible texts from which discourses could be delivered perfectly textual in their character, and yet in their tenor entirely alien to the great interests of Christianity. The Rationalists of Germany, and the Unitarians of our own country and America, when turning the pulpit, as they have so often done, into an arena of philosophical, or simply moral and political discussion, never needed to be at any loss for texts to start with, and on which to hang their ideas. Volumes of sermons have issued from the press, each with their appropriate text, which as to subject and matter might have suited the taste of an audience in ancient Rome or Alexandria. And it is probable that there was no want of texts, or occasional Scriptural quotations, in those continental discourses mentioned by Dr. Ammon, one series of which treated of subjects connected with rural economy and fallow-grounds; another, of the cultivation of the silkworm; while a third unfolded the duties of Christians on the approach of a contagious disease among cattle. The pastors of evangelical congregations are in little danger of falling into such senseless extravagances; their very position is a safeguard against it. But they may still be liable to go to some extent astray, unless they are careful to keep steadily in view the great end of preaching, which, like that of the Bible itself, is the glory of God in the salvation of men. Where this is rightly understood and appreciated, the preacher will feel that he has something else to do than to search for texts and subjects which are out of accord with the spirit of the gospel. At the same time, a certain latitude should undoubtedly be allowed in this respect to the Christian pastor. He may not be always preaching directly on the great theme, and in his range of subjects may imitate in a measure the variety and fulness by which Scripture itself is distinguished. Nothing may be altogether excluded from the pulpit which has an influential bearing on the Christian life, or admits of being handled in a Christian spirit. But much of which this can be said may still be unsuited to form the leading topic of a sermon. The pulpit has not been erected, as justly remarked by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 51.) ‘in order that everything may be there treated in a Christian manner; it has a special object, which is to introduce the Christian idea into life. I should say, then,’ he adds, ‘that everything which does not conduce directly to edification; everything which an ordinary hearer cannot of himself convert into the bread of life, or at least which the preacher does not acknowledge to be such, should not be made a subject of his preaching.’ Or, if a licence may at times be taken to go somewhat beyond this precise line, it should be distinctly announced as a kind of exceptional effort, called forth by the circumstances of the moment, and of such a nature as to carry, in a manner, its own justification along with it.

It is quite possible for a minister when going to preach on a subject in itself appropriate to connect it with an unsuitable text; and here, perhaps, it is that preachers in evangelical communities are most in danger of being betrayed into an impropriety in the choice of their pulpit themes. There are several ways in which this may be done. It sometimes, perhaps, takes the form of choosing a text which, as the ground of a discourse on matters of grave moment, has an indelicate, but more commonly an odd and fantastic appearance, creating a sort of ludicrous bond of association in the minds of the hearers between the preacher’s theme and the formal warrant or occasion found for it in Scripture. And anything of such a nature is as much out of place in connection with the text as with the discourse preached from it. ‘Of all preaching,’ says Baxter in his own emphatic style,—‘of all preaching in the world that speaks not stark lies, I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with ticklish levity, and affect them as stage-players used to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.’ What else could be the effect on a general audience when hearing texts like the following announced as the subject of discourse: ‘The old shoes, and clouted upon their feet;’ ‘The nine and twenty knives;’ ‘The unturned cake;’ or ‘The axe, alas! Master, it was borrowed’? Such texts, or fragments of texts, have not unfrequently been preached from; some of them are associated with the name of the eccentric Rowland Hill; along with several others of a like kind, they are found in a series of sermons which appeared in this country not many years ago, with the designation, ‘Sermons on unusual texts.’ It is to be hoped such texts will ever remain unusual, and that if our ministers are going to address their congregations on the subject of violence and war, they will be able to connect it with a more suitable form of words than Ezra’s nine and twenty knives, and will light upon something more becoming than the old and clouted shoes of the Gibeonites, from which to expose the various workings of hypocrisy and deceit, and man’s vain attempts to mend himself. The object of choosing such texts is too palpable to escape the notice of even the humblest audience. They will readily perceive the tendency it exhibits to attract notoriety, and acquire a name for what is smart and peculiar. But precisely as this object is gained, the grand aim of preaching is lost, and the preacher himself sinks to the level of the man who indulges in a perverted ingenuity and a vicious taste.

Another and less offensive, though still decidedly objectionable form of the same inappropriateness consists in selecting texts, which only in a figurative, obscure, perhaps even fanciful manner, can be made to express the ideas which are to be deduced from them. Supposing the subject of discourse were to be the important theme of Christ’s righteousness, as imputed or savingly applied to believers, it would scarcely be wise to connect its illustration and enforcement with such a text as Isaiah 45:8, ‘Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness,’ a text, if I mistake not, chosen for that purpose by the excellent Mr. Romaine, yet not fitly chosen, since it is at best too general a declaration for so specific a doctrine; while a plentiful variety of passages might be found in the later Scriptures which unfold it in a much more distinct and categorical form. In like manner, if the subject were to be the connection between faith and works, it would surely be travelling out of the proper way for a fitting text to repair, as has sometimes been done, to Exodus 39:26, ‘A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate;’ the bell, as the symbol of an articulate call, being taken to represent the preaching of the gospel which demands faith from those who hear, and the pomegranate following in close connection, pointing, as is conceived, to the fruit of holiness, which ever springs from the belief of the truth. How many hearers would be disposed to accredit the doctrine, were this a fair sample of the texts that establish it? How many, after every possible explanation has been made of this particular text, would feel quite satisfied that the doctrine is really expressed there? And if so, how unwise is it to bring into the very foundations of the subject an element of uncertainty, and start as it were with a note of interrogation, an involuntary doubt in the minds of our audience! If a text were chosen which exhibits the doctrine under a typical or figurative aspect, it should still be one that admits of a clear and easily perceived application to the subject of discourse. For whatever the subject itself may be, and whatever the specific character of the text on which it is grounded, the latter should always possess two properties in relation to the former; it should be such as to present a solid, in contradistinction from a fanciful or questionable, basis of discourse, and it should be in its own nature ample enough to bear all that in doctrine or duty is raised on it. In the Evangelical Church (so called) of Prussia, I may notice there exists a temptation which is almost unknown elsewhere, to hang sermons on texts with which they have a very slender connection. The temptation arises from the practice of having prescribed by public authority for every Sabbath and religious festival of the year a series of Bible lessons, from which the preacher is required to select the subject of discourse. Hence there must either be a considerable sameness in the pulpit ministrations, or some ingenuity must be exerted to deduce a variety of themes from a limited number of texts; preachers must turn over the passages submitted to them in every conceivable way, and extract from them not only what they more directly teach, but also what they incidentally suggest, or by some influential process can be made to imply. The sermons of Rheinhard are striking specimens of this sort of ingenuity. The miracle of Christ, for example, in feeding the four thousand with a few loaves and fishes (Mark 8:1-9) furnishes a text for discoursing on the duty of relying on oneself more than on others. The narrative of the paralytic borne on a couch, and let down in faith to the chamber where our Lord was teaching (Matthew 9:1-8), is made the occasion for exhibiting the kind of behaviour which ought to be maintained by Christians, on account of the confidence that is ready to be reposed in them by those around them. The word of our Lord to Peter in Luke 5:10, ‘From henceforth thou shalt catch men,’ gives rise to a lengthened exposition of the principle, that the faithful discharge of the duties connected with each one’s particular calling forms a natural and fitting qualification for the exercise of higher functions.

One cannot but feel that, in connecting such topics with the texts mentioned, there is what carries an artificial and forced appearance, the endeavour by a tortuous line of thought to get at what should have been found accessible by a direct approach. In a course of regular exposition through a book of Scripture, it might be proper to introduce a few brief remarks on the points thus incidentally raised in them; but it is another thing when the incidental in the text becomes the one and all in the discourse. This cannot but be felt to be unnatural; it wants simplicity and directness. At the same time, it may be perfectly legitimate and proper to single out from a text some particular idea, which forms a subordinate rather than the principal part of its meaning; and on this, occasionally at least, to raise a discourse which may be designed to serve some special purpose, or to meet some peculiar phase of thought prevalent at the time. Rheinhard also furnishes a very suitable example of this description in a sermon on Matthew 9:24, where, when Jesus affirmed of the daughter of Jairus that she was not dead but asleep, it is observed of the people present that they laughed Him to scorn; and of Himself that, notwithstanding, He proceeded to raise her up again. On this Rheinhard takes occasion to discourse, not of the miracle, or of the attributes of character it manifested on the part of Christ, but of the truth that Christians will often find themselves called to do what shall appear foolish or ridiculous to the multitude; that their principles may be, and often cannot but be, regarded as absurd, their faith in God illusory, their zeal for the divine glory extravagant, their magnanimity indiscreet. And so he urges on them the duty of looking above the superficial multitude, of even suspecting their own piety if it does not prove the occasion of a certain measure of opposition or wonder among worldly men, and of being cautious lest they should be led to join in casting ridicule or reproach on those who are only going farther than their neighbours in doing God service. A discourse of Dr. Chalmers on Acts 19:27 maybe pointed to as another and not less happy example of the same description. From the outcry of Demetrius and his workmen, that their craft was in danger by the spread of the gospel in Ephesus, he undertakes to show how perfectly compatible the growth and prevalence of Christianity is with the commercial prosperity of a people; since, while it may operate to the discouragement or suppression of some forms of handicraft and modes of gain, it is sure to open the way to others, and these of a more healthful and satisfactory kind than those it has supplanted. Special applications of passages of Scripture after this fashion, if confined to particular occasions, or employed only at distant intervals, may not only be free from any just exception, but productive of important benefits, serving as they do to exhibit the pregnancy of God’s word and the manifold wisdom of the revelation it contains, in its adaptation even to the affairs of this life and the ever-varying evolutions of the world’s history. But the practice should not be very often resorted to; and as a general rule, the principle should be maintained, that the prominent ideas of the text should also form the chief burden of the discourse that is professedly based on it. A still further form of misapplied taste or judgment in the choice of texts has sometimes been exhibited, by turning them into a cover for the display of wit, or for conveying sarcastically, perhaps also sincerely, a rebuke to certain persons in the congregation. In the hands of some, this impropriety assumes the form only of an unbecoming levity, or ludicrous employment of Scripture, which has already been adverted to, and which, even when most cleverly done, is still to be condemned, because unsuited to the dignity and sacredness of the pulpit. It is still more objectionable when, under the phraseology or connection of the text, a hit is made at individuals; for the levity in such a case is aggravated by the indulgence of a personal pique, the gratification of a testy humour, in a manner that must always carry an ungenerous aspect, taking advantage of one’s position to shoot an arrow at those who have no power to defend themselves. Such liberties are scarcely known in this northern part of the land; but the greater tendency to the humorous which is characteristic of England, a tendency which sometimes appears even on the tombstones disporting itself with the dead, has also been wont to give rather strange exhibitions of itself, after the fashion adverted to, from the pulpit. I remember being told, when residing in an English parish, that the minister had some time before been presented at an episcopal visitation of the district as negligent of some parts of parochial duty by a respectable solicitor, and that on the following Sabbath he had chosen for his text, ‘And a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him.’ In a story very commonly reported of Dr. Paley (in the little volume, for example, by Mr. Christmas, on Preachers and Preaching), there is certainly what must be regarded as a much better specimen of humour in this line. On the occasion of Pitt, when still a comparatively young man, but already in the proud position of Premier, revisiting Cambridge, where he had studied, and receiving marked attention there from many old associates, who were known to be eagerly looking to him for preferments, Paley, it is said, gave forth for his text the passage in St. John’s Gospel, ‘There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?’ (The story is not quite correct. Paley did not actually preach before Pitt. He was not even at Cambridge when Pitt visited it; but he remarked to some one, that if he had been the preacher on the occasion, such would have been his text. See Life by Wayland, Paley’s Works.) But the best in such a case is bad; the preacher of Christ’s salvation necessarily stoops from his proper elevation, when in the very discharge of his office he makes himself known as a humorist. And to display this character in the selection of his text, is virtually to release his audience from concern about higher things, and let the thought of amusement prevail over a regard to edification. In the choice of a text, however, something more is needed than to consider how far it may itself be fitted to serve as the foundation of a public discourse; its suitableness also to the preacher’s powers and present or prevailing tone of mind requires to be taken into account. That a striking or impressive sermon has been preached by one person from a particular text, is no reason why another, though perhaps of not inferior abilities as a man or character as a Christian, should expect to do the same. The theme, or the form in which the theme has been presented, while suited to the one, may somehow prove unsuitable to the other; it may call for the exercise of sensibilities and gifts, a reach of thought or a kind of experience, which are far from being equally shared by both. This is a point which each individual must ascertain for himself. But let it be kept distinctly in mind, that there is a certain measure of adaptation needed in the text to the preacher, as well as in the text to the theme and the audience. Some can succeed well enough with a general or comprehensive text, having power to give it, by means of suggestive thought and varied illustration, the requisite individuality. But more commonly the preacher will require a text which has itself some kind of individuality, presenting specific points in the history of God’s manifestations, or in the experience and character of His people, for consideration. Preachers of considerable mark have confessed that they could never find themselves properly at home, excepting with texts of this description. And when respect is had to the very great diversity which exists in men’s natural as well as acquired characteristics, the greater preponderance of intellect in one, of feeling in another; here the logical, there the imaginative, and there again the emotional powers in greatest vigour; in some only the simpler phases known of Christian experience, in others the sounding of all its depths and heights;—it is manifest that there must be subjects and passages in the word of God which, in order to a properly successful and effective treatment, will require minds of a particular kind of calibre and religious susceptibility. A well-educated and experienced teacher of divine truth may have a general fitness for all topics, and yet only for some a special and peculiar adaptation.

Whatever the particular subject may be on which the pastor is going to discourse on the approaching Sabbath, and whatever the text to be chosen for the purpose, there is one rule which he should, as far as possible, regularly observe; he should have it sought out and fixed on in good time, not left over to the latter part of the week. The advantage of such a method is, that the mind is not only relieved from the flutter of uncertainty and doubt when the moment of actual preparation arrives; but has already so far become prepared that it has had leisure to examine the text itself, so as to get thoroughly conversant with its import and connection, and have the subject embraced in it turned over in various aspects and directions. The truth has thus had time to steep, as it were, in the mind, and enter in succum et sanguinem; so that when one comes to apply formally to the consideration of the subject, instead of hastily snatching at the first thoughts that present themselves, there is already obtained a general acquaintance with the main theme, and more or less of the specific matter suitable for its illustration called up. With the view also of facilitating this preliminary sort of preparation, the practice is not unworthy of notice, which has been followed with advantage by some, of noting in a memorandum-book such texts as have, in the course of one’s reading or meditation, suggested themselves for themes of future discourse, indicating at the same time the lines of thought which it seemed advisable to pursue in connection with them. Topics and ideas occurring in this incidental way are often helpful in striking the proper key-note for more careful and prolonged consideration. The suggestions now offered concerning the choice of subjects of discourse, it will be understood, have respect merely to the ordinary course of pastoral ministrations. There are peculiar and exceptional cases, sometimes perhaps furnished by the pastor himself, when he feels prompted to deliver his views publicly on subjects important in themselves, yet somewhat away from the beaten track of pastoral duty, as Dr. Chalmers in respect to his astronomical discourses; sometimes, again, by the state of the congregation, when, to save it from prevailing error, or recover it from deep spiritual lethargy, a mode of preaching to some extent peculiar may be required, as in Mr. Cecil’s congregation at St. John’s, or Mr. Robert Hall’s at Cambridge. Mr. Dale of Birmingham also, in a volume of Week-Day Discourses, has given a very good example of the treatment of a class of subjects far from unimportant, but which call for illustrations and details that might seem somewhat out of place in the regular ministrations of the pulpit. But for cases of such a nature no general instructions can be given; each must be carefully weighed and considered by itself.

III. The matter in pulpit discourses, with reference especially to fulness and variety.—In discourses intended for stated congregations, it is undoubtedly of importance that there should be not only appropriate matter, but that also in considerable fulness and variety. Usually this ought to be the case, though not by any means uniformly; for there may be occasions and subjects, in respect to which it is the part of wisdom to concentrate one’s thoughts on merely one or two ideas, for the purpose of giving them a greater prominence or a deeper impression. This may sometimes be proper in addressing audiences which we have reason to believe are in a very ignorant or lethargic state of mind, when the one object, in a manner, is to rouse to spiritual thought and obtain a lodgment in men’s minds for some grand principle of truth or duty. It may also be proper, in dealing with congregations which are partial and one-sided in their views on some point of Christian belief or morals, when again the great object of the preacher naturally is to drive them from their false position, and have the light of conviction let in upon them where precisely it is needed. It cannot be disputed that some of Dr. Chalmers’ most powerful and effective discourses were of this description. They embody nothing more than one leading idea; but this is usually so diversified in the manner of statement, so varied in the illustration, presented in so many fresh and vivid colours, that the attention of the audience was never allowed to flag, and the impression produced in behalf of the engrossing theme was like that of successive and ever-deepening strokes of some mighty weapon. Such a style of preaching, however, requires intense energy and concentration in the preacher to be practised with success. Very rarely, indeed, would it be safe for persons possessed of only average powers to attempt it when preaching to congregations which are composed of different classes and conditions of people. Even when done with success as regards the quality of the discourse, few congregations would feel quite satisfied with it as a rule, because wanting in the variety which is requisite for the health and nourishment of their spiritual life. Preachers should bear in mind that, as congregations generally consist of persons differing not a little in their intellectual and spiritual states, as well as in their external circumstances and relations, there is needed somewhat of a corresponding variety in the thoughts and considerations which are presented to them at their regular meetings for worship. Nor should it be forgotten that, with the larger portion of those addressed, the discourses they hear on the Lord’s Day constitute by much the greater part of the spiritual instruction they are to receive, in all probability the only instruction they are to get from a living voice during the entire week. So that they will almost certainly feel like persons stinted in their proper nourishment, unless matter for reflection, at once solid in kind and considerably diversified in its manner of administration, be imparted to them on the Sabbath. The work of preaching is often considered with reference to a specific standard of eloquence, according to which it is either appreciated or condemned; and when so considered, the stirring of the emotions and the influencing of the moral judgments and feelings, with the view of raising them to the right spiritual tone, readily come to be contemplated as well-nigh the one object to be aimed at. But this is never more than a part of the proper aim and function of preaching. It has to do as much with instruction as with persuasion; and the enlightenment of the understanding holds even a more prominent, as it does also a prior, place in its formal design, than the excitation of the feelings or the immediate exercise of the will. But, rightly viewed, the one aspect of the matter might as well be included as the other; for the didactic or instructive element is not less essential than the suasive in the notion of true eloquence. The noblest specimens of eloquence that have come down to us from ancient times, or that have appeared in modern, are equally remarkable for the measure of light they were fitted to impart in a brief compass to the audiences addressed, as by their adaptation to rouse and interest their feelings. If you take of the former class the oration of Demosthenes for the crown, or of the latter Hall’s sermon on modern infidelity, or his discourse on the death of the Princess Charlotte, you will not readily find productions treating of like subjects which in the same compass contain a larger amount of solid thought, and presented in a form better fitted to give the minds of the hearers a just and intelligent apprehension of the leading points proper to the occasion. Still, when in ordinary language one speaks of eloquence or oratory, one naturally thinks of what is chiefly addressed to the feelings, what aims at rousing an apathetic indifference or overcoming a reluctant will by fervid argumentation or powerful appeals. In the popular understanding it has come to be associated with a certain degree of impassioned pleading, with the view of impressing and moving the heart. This, undoubtedly, has its place in the pulpit. Yet there is much also that belongs to a somewhat different category. For amid the general knowledge which may be said to prevail in connection with divine things, there is still always room for plain instruction, such as is fitted to lay open the meaning of Scripture, to explain and illustrate the all-important matters contained in it, and to exhibit the nature and extent of men’s obligations in regard to them. Hence the reason for a good deal of variety in pulpit ministrations, since they have so much ground to travel over, so many phases both of truth and duty to make familiar to men’s minds. Especially is it important for preachers in Scotland to aim at such variety; for they have audiences to address which are constitutionally of a thoughtful and intelligent character, and which never can remain long satisfied with any kind of preaching which does not furnish considerable supplies of food for their intellectual and moral natures. Something of a less solid, though possibly of a more showy and sentimental kind, may be relished for a season; but, like a surface stream, it is sure to discover its own shallowness, and will soon be forsaken for what is really fitted to enlighten and edify. Even in connection with the same ministry there are probably not many congregations in Scotland that will not be able to distinguish between discourses which are deficient, as compared with those which are replete, in the respect under consideration, or that will fail to appreciate what has been maturely considered, if only delivered in a manner suited to their capacities and fitted to engage their attention.

There is here also, however, a certain middle course which is the best; for it is possible to err by excess as well as by defect. And if, in preparing to address a congregation on any passage of Scripture, one should set out with the intention of saying everything of any moment that could be advanced on the subject, the discourse might no doubt contain a rich collection of material, but it would almost certainly fail of its proper effect with a general audience; they would feel fatigued and oppressed by it. Some of our older sermon writers fell into this mistake; Barrow may be named as a notable example. On some of the subjects discussed in his sermons it is scarcely possible to suggest any relevant consideration which had not already presented itself to his own fertile mind. But then a sort of repletion is created. The mind feels dissatisfied that nothing is left for itself to supply; and a sense of weariness is experienced even in reading so much upon the one theme, which would be greatly increased if listening to it as a spoken discourse. Barrow’s age, however, was one of patience and leisure, and fondness for detail; ours, on the contrary, is one of business and despatch; and people might at least bear with and even admire then what they would not tolerate now. It is indispensable for the great ends in view that there be selection; and in the discrimination necessary to select what is most fitting and appropriate, lies a main part of the skill of an interesting and effective preacher. He has to leave as much unsaid as what he actually says; and by the judicious choice and excellent arrangement of his matter, still more than by its quantity, he has to make his impression. The ancient apothegm ascribed to Hesiod has here a quite legitimate application, ‘The half is more than the whole,’ more, that is, with reference to the proper aim and purpose of the speaker. By what he chooses out of the whole materials before him he will be able to convey, in the time allotted him, a far clearer idea of the leading features of his subject, and impress it more vividly upon the minds of his audience, than if he attempted to fill up the picture by crowding into it every point of inferior moment that might suggest itself to his mind.

There is, however, a possibility of another kind, a danger of allowing the variety and fulness of which we have been speaking to overshadow in a measure what should ever be the grand theme of pulpit ministrations, a danger which the very intelligence and generally diffused Christianity of the age tends to increase. The fundamental truths of the gospel are familiar to the bulk of his audience, as well as to the preacher himself; and the cardinal doctrines of the Bible having a recognised place in their creed, it seems no longer needful to enter into any elaborate explanations concerning them, or even to give them, perhaps, a very frequent and prominent place in his subjects of discourse. The consequence comes to be, that the greater is to some extent sacrificed to the less; not formally displaced, indeed, yet practically allowed to lose the position of peerless value and importance to which it is entitled. The preacher endeavours to meet the desire of his hearers for instruction of a diversified kind; he strives to give interest to his pulpit ministrations by introducing a multiplicity of topics, which by their number, if not by their freshness or importance, may serve to keep alive attention. And thus the pulpit is apt to be turned into an instrument of general religious culture and moral improvement, instead of being employed as the chosen means for awakening souls to a concern for salvation, and bringing them under the powers of the world to come.

Mr. Isaac Taylor, in one of his most thoughtful productions, Saturday Evening, a considerable time ago adverted to the tendency of things in the direction now indicated. He stated that, in the case of many an evangelical minister, ‘the prime truth of the Scriptures scarcely occupies more than the proportion of one to ten in the gross amount of his public labours. The glory of Christ as the Saviour of men, which should be always as the sun in the heavens, shines only with an astral lustre; or as one light among others. It is a natural, though not very obvious consequence of the intellectual progress which the religious community has made.’ In regard also to what is called intellectual preaching, he says that it can hardly be made to consist with a bold, simple, and cordial proclamation of the message of mercy. Its fruit, he thinks, will commonly be an obtuse indifference in regard to the most affecting objects of the Christian faith. And he adds, ‘The tendency at the present moment of the better informed portions of the religious body towards intelligent frigidity is a grave matter, and one especially which should lead to a reconsideration of our several systems of clerical initiation. The cause of so fatal a practical error should be made known, if the fact be so, that numbers of those who come forth upon the Church as candidates of the Christian ministry are fraught with all qualifications and all acquirements, rather than fervour and simplicity of spirit in proclaiming the glad tidings of life.’ The state of things here described, it will readily be understood, had respect to England rather than to Scotland, and to England mainly as represented by the Established Church. It has prevailed to a considerable extent there for many generations, and is largely owing to that almost exclusive regard which in the more highly educated classes, and especially in those who pass through the universities to the Church, is paid to the cultivation of science and classical learning, or to the general refinement of the taste and manners, while special preparation and fitness for official duty are comparatively neglected. It cannot, however, be doubted that, since the remarks just quoted were penned, the tendencies complained of have undergone abatement. In most things, not an insipid frigidity, but life, warmth, activity, have become the order of the day. Even as regards ministerial agency, it has seldom, perhaps, exhibited more of lively and energetic working in England than at the present time; however much room there may still be in many quarters for improvement, and particularly in regard to the free and earnest proclamation of the gospel. In our corner of the land the change, so far as change can be marked, has manifestly been in the right direction; in the revival of a more earnest Christianity, and a demand for that kind of preaching which gives its proper prominence to the person and the work of Christ. Still, there are causes in operation which constitute an element of danger. The desire already noticed, the necessity, in a sense, of diversifying the ministrations of the pulpit, is perhaps the chief one; but this again is increased by the growing literary character of the age, and the tendency thence arising to assimilate preparations for the pulpit too closely in form and style to those of the press; so that what they gain in elaboration, in correctness, in vigour of thought or variety of illustration, they are apt, in the same proportion, to lose in Scriptural simplicity and spiritual power. The grand safeguard here, as in so many other things connected with the ministry of the gospel, lies in the personal faith and devotedness of the pastor. If matters are but right there, they cannot be far wrong in what may be called the very heart and blood of his ministerial life. And as in the gospel itself everything is found linked on one side or another to the mediation of Christ, so in his public ministrations he will never want opportunities, whatever may be the particular theme or passage handled, to point the attention of his audience to the central object, and press on their regard what is uppermost in his own, namely, the surpassing love and beauty and preciousness of the Crucified One, and the alone sufficiency of His great salvation. The occasions, indeed, will be very few, if they occur at all; they will be exceptions to the general tenor of his ministerial labours, in which the people are allowed to depart from the house of God without having had presented to them the essentials of saving doctrine. The Apostle to the Gentiles, in this respect pre-eminently the model of a Christian teacher, amid manifold diversities of subject and object, things present and things to come, never lost sight of his calling to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and made the crucified Redeemer the Alpha and the Omega of his testimony to men.

IV. The principles to be observed in pulpit discourses as to order and arrangement.—Next to the substance of pulpit discourses, or the matter contained in them, comes the consideration of its order and arrangement. No absolute and unvarying rule can, of course, be laid down here; for different subjects necessarily call for different modes of treatment as to form or method; and sometimes what might be best adapted to the mental capacities or acquired habitudes of one person, would prove quite unsuitable to another. At the same time, as there must be an order, so one may say in general, it should be natural and, as far as possible, textual, which will be found to contribute very materially to the securing of freshness and variety. For it is one of the characteristics of Scripture, that it exhibits great diversity, not merely in respect to the topics contained in it, but also to the very form and manner in which they are presented. And if the text is made the foundation, as well for the particular aspect and relations of the subjects handled as for the leading ideas involved in them, it will be comparatively easy to avoid falling into the same track; diversities of many kinds will, as a matter of course, come into play. It will be quite otherwise if texts are taken merely as mottoes to head a discourse on some topic connected with Christian faith or practice; for as often as the same subject returns for consideration, being dissociated from any individual traits or special circumstances, it will naturally present itself in much the same aspect that it did before, and be discoursed of much after the same manner. Nor does the result come to be materially different when texts are split, as it were, into fragments, and each part taken as the ground of a separate discourse. For, though this seems in one sense to be making much of the text, in reality it is making little; since the text, by such a process, necessarily loses its proper individuality, and the several clauses or words of which it is composed are turned into so many mottoes or hints, whereon to raise a discussion on some point of Christian doctrine, or if of a practical nature, on some particular course of duty. The Puritan divines were fond of this method. A single text very commonly became in their hands the introduction to a whole body of divinity, or gave occasion to an entire series of discourses on some branch of Christian life or experience. Baxter’s Saint’s Rest is a specimen, certainly one of the best specimens, of this kind of sermon writing; and so also are the more important of Howe’s works, his Blessedness of the Righteous, Delighting in God, Living Temple, etc. They all started from an appropriate text, and by successive discourses from this they grew into considerable treatises. Howe was possessed of a singularly rich and elevated cast of mind; so that he could infuse a measure of freshness and variety into a system that was essentially monotonous, and throw out new thoughts and illustrations even when travelling anew the same paths which had been trodden before. Yet with such a system even he could not avoid frequently repeating himself, as any one may see who will be at the trouble of comparing some of the treatises with each other. He will find not the same subjects merely recurring, but the same line of thought pursued regarding them, sometimes also the same figures and images used in illustration of them. To a congregation, also, it must have been wearisome to hear always the same text announced for consideration, not on one or two consecutive Sabbaths merely, but for months. The simplicity and freshness of gospel preaching was to a considerable extent lost by such a method; there was too much seen in it of the hand of man, systematizing and arranging the materials of Scriptural truth and duty. (It may be added that the preachers in question endeavoured to compensate for the defect mentioned by often introducing texts incidentally, and dwelling on them. Traill was particularly good at that.) In the present day there is comparatively little danger of a return to the Puritan method. But the same method in a sort of reduced form was much followed in Scotland at a greatly later period, and is not yet, perhaps, altogether disused. I have myself known persons, much beloved as men, and highly esteemed as preachers, who followed it, though never without a manifest disadvantage, arising from the comparatively little scope it afforded for the introduction of the expository element, and the difficulty it presented of avoiding an ever-recurring sameness. According to this plan of discourse, a text is taken embracing two or three principal words or ideas; and, instead of these being viewed in their mutual connection, and discussed with reference to the leading object in the eye of the sacred penman at the time, they are taken apart, and made each the subject of a separate discourse. For example, such a text as Ephesians 2:8, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith,’ would not be treated in its obvious unity as a declaration of the fact that the salvation of the gospel has its origin in the free grace of God, and in consequence must be received by men in faith as a gift from above. It would be divided into three distinct parts: the first comprising what is meant by the term salvation, the second what is to be understood by the word grace, and the third the relation between faith and salvation that is by grace. No doubt, by such a piecemeal treatment everything that is in the verse might be fully brought out; but a great deal also that is not even incidentally found in it would almost certainly be brought into consideration; and a vein of thought would inevitably be pursued, which as a matter of course would be resumed when other texts were chosen in which the same terms occurred. Thus, if Hebrews 2:3, ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?’ were selected, and treated after the like fashion, we should necessarily again have the import of salvation discussed; this would form, as before, the subject of one discourse, and the thoughts presented in connection with it could not deviate much from the previous track. Of this style of preaching Dr. Campbell, with some justice, though not without a measure of exaggeration, said that those who followed it, a good many undoubtedly in his day, had in a manner but one sermon. ‘The form, the mould, into which it was cast was different according to the different texts, but the matter was altogether the same. You had invariably the preacher’s whole system—original sin, the incarnation, the satisfaction, election, imputed righteousness, justification, and so forth.’ He adds, that the preachers after this plan very slightly touched upon the duties which the Christian religion requires; evidently intending by the remark to convey a censure on the evangelical preaching of his day, as improperly negligent of the practical bearing of Christianity; for there can be no doubt that it was the more evangelical portion of the ministers in Scotland who in Campbell’s time preached in the manner indicated by him. But it never was true of that party as a class that they were remiss in enforcing the moral obligations of the gospel, and it was true beyond contradiction that the parishes in which they ministered contained much more both of religion and morality than those where a different sort of preaching prevailed. With so cumbrous and formal a style of discourse, however, it may readily be supposed that the space for practical instruction would often be unduly limited; and they would also probably be influenced to a considerable extent by the conviction, that the truth itself had only to be received aright to bring forth the fruits of righteousness. But to revert to the subject itself, with the view of ensuring a natural and interesting variety in the exhibition of gospel truth, and also of connecting that exhibition in the minds of the people with the very terms of its announcement in Scripture, it is of importance that the text be really taken as the guide, in some way, to the order and method of treatment, as well as to the subject itself which it suggests for consideration. In order to this, it will, of course, be necessary to view the matter contained in it, not so much in its general and absolute character, as in its relative bearing and connection of parts; and to regard some as primary, and others as subordinate, not with respect to what they may be in themselves, but in respect to the statement made concerning them in the particular text, and with an eye to its more definite scope. Thus in the text just referred to, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith,’ it is not salvation generally, or in its entire compass, that we are called to consider, nor faith in all its acts and operations. The more special object of the declaration is the gratuitous character of salvation, as being of grace on the part of God, in contradistinction to all that can be called works or merit on the part of man; and as the necessary counterpart of this, its connection with the recipiency of faith in them who actually experience it. A discourse founded on such a text, after some preliminary statements, including perhaps, in order to prevent all ambiguity, a brief explanation of the terms grace and salvation, should manifestly have for its leading theme the gratuitous nature of salvation; which might be exhibited, first, in regard to the provision of salvation through the mission and work of Christ, the objective aspect of it; then, secondly, in regard to its appropriation by the soul through the effectual agency of the Holy Spirit, the subjective aspect; and from this may be shown, thirdly, the correspondence between a salvation so provided and so administered on the part of God, and the exercise of faith on ours, so as to bring out clearly the principle, if by grace, then of necessity by faith. And so in general, respect should commonly be had to the particular aspect in which the facts or ideas are presented in the text, and to the relation of greater or less prominence in which they stand one to another.

It is to be understood that these are only general directions, not by any means to be converted into rules of stringent uniformity. The Christian minister is under no imperative obligation to take the precise aspect and order of the subject presented in the text as his own. He may chalk out in this respect a path for himself, if some particular mode of treatment has commended itself to his mind. Especially he may do so when he is dealing with matters of a somewhat general nature, and on which the testimony of a specific text is less peculiarly needed; in such a case, if a particular line of reflection has suggested itself to him as the best for his purpose, it were undoubtedly wise to follow it. Yet I would rather that this formed the exception than the rule; that for the most part discourses were thrown into a textual form, the more so, as such a method tends to preserve a habitual and reverent regard to Scripture, as the fountain of all spiritual truth and instruction, while it cherishes the feeling that the preacher is not so properly declaring his own mind, as expounding and setting forth the mind of God. He will thus be able to work into men’s thoughts, not the truth of God merely, but the very word in which that truth is embalmed. And it is this word of the living God which in all the more anxious and stirring movements of the soul is the great thing, the true germinating seed; as was well noticed by the acute and pious Halyburton in one of his later sayings, ‘It is remarkable,’ said he, ‘that though God may make use of the words of man in letting into the meaning of Scripture, yet it is the very word of Scripture whereby He ordinarily conveys the comfort, or advantage of whatever sort; it is the tool of God’s own framing that works the effect.’ The history of genuine revivals, and indeed the private records of every ministry which has been much blessed for good, afford constant illustrations of this. And as it is the peculiar advantage of preaching above all other kinds of public speaking, and the main secret of its strength, that as it has the word of God to handle and apply, ‘so it should be the aim of every preacher—the very method he employs should show it to be his aim—to do honour to this word, and secure for its utterances an enduring place in the minds of his auditors. The whole, however, is by no means settled as to the order and arrangement of discourses when it is admitted, that as far as possible there should be an adherence to the course of thought indicated in the text itself. For, with this general understanding, different persons might still pursue very different paths; by one the ideas proper to the subject might be exhibited in a clear, exact, and logical method; while, in the hands of another, the same ideas might be so exhibited as to embarrass rather than assist the memory, and disturb the natural sequence and connection of thought. There are preachers who seem always to be speaking to the text, and yet make no satisfactory progress in its elucidation; often, it may be, uttering suitable or even profound thoughts, but in so loose or discursive a manner, that it is scarcely possible to retain any very distinct recollection of what has been said. And there are others who have a method, and a method, too, based upon the text, who yet fail to present their thoughts in that natural progression, that dependence of part upon part, which is necessary to sustain attention, and leave a definite impression of the course of inquiry or reflection on the memory. It was, no doubt, the differences observable in this respect, and the great importance of having the train of thought rightly adjusted, that led Herder to say, ‘I easily pardon all defects except those of arrangement.’ He meant, that defects of this kind were more fatal, because they were like an organic disorder in the system; they struck the whole discourse with feebleness, or involved it in confusion; while others belonging to the execution would affect it only in particular parts, and might admit to some extent of compensation.

It is very justly said also by Vinet (Homiletics, p. 234.) upon this point, that a proper arrangement ‘not only throws aside that which wanders from the unity of the subject, but assists also in finding everything which is included in the subject. Many things which we had not previously seen are then discovered; many lines of thought are finished, many intervals are filled up. It is the same with order in the arrangement of a subject as with economy in that of a fortune; it enriches. Besides, arrangement gives or restores to each of the elements of which the subject is composed its real importance. Sometimes in separating ideas which were at first view confounded together; sometimes in grouping what appeared separate, in managing contrasts, relations, subjects, or comparison, and luminous reflections of one idea upon another, we give to each of these ideas a new and unforeseen value.’ But when we have said this, we have said nearly all that can be done in a general way. Subjects of discourse differ so much, and so many diversities also exist in men’s individual tendencies and habits of thought, that minute and stereotyped prescriptions would be entirely out of place. It is wiser to follow the discretion and judgment of Quinctilian, who, at the commencement of his Book vii, when he comes to speak of the arrangement that ought to be adopted in forensic discourses, abstains from laying down specific directions for every orator and every subject. He merely states that there ought always to be a divisio, a breaking up of the whole matter into distinct portions; a partitio, that is, a fitting and orderly collocation of those portions, so as to connect properly together those that precede and those that follow; and a dispositio, or a right distribution of topics and ideas to their several heads. But he immediately adds, that it may be expedient often to take different modes in carrying one’s plan into execution, and points in proof to the two great speeches of AEschines and Demosthenes, in which, while both treating of one subject, and both admirable in their respective kinds, a precisely reverse order was followed. The accuser, AEschines, began with the question of right or law, where his strength lay; the defender, Demosthenes, on the other hand, skilfully introduced all other things which seemed to favour his position first, and left the question of law to the last, when he had already won the favourable opinion of his judges. In reference to discourses for the pulpit, I would say first, that there should always be some clear and definite arrangement of the subject in the mind of the preacher, such as to admit of its being handled in so many distinct and regularly distributed portions. No matter whether it be an arrangement which has been adopted or might suggest itself to others or not, let it only be one that commends itself to the preacher’s own mind as fit and proper. Secondly, it ought to be of such a nature that he can present it to the view of his hearers in a way they can readily apprehend; therefore an order that does not turn upon minute and shadowy distinctions, and is neither very meagre on the one side nor very prolix and complicated on the other. And, finally, it should be an order which exhibits some principle, not merely of connection, but also of progression; so that there may be room for the preacher’s own mind growing, as it proceeds, in some quality of thought or feeling, and room also for the minds of the audience enjoying the interest of a conscious advancement. The interest will inevitably flag on the part both of speaker and of hearer if there is no sensible progress in some definite line; or if, in a later division of the subject, there is a coming back again upon ground which has been already traversed in an earlier. Whatever the precise line thus marked out may be, whether it proceed from the more general to the more particular, or from the particular to the general; from cause to effect, or from effect to cause; from doctrine to duty, or from duty to doctrine; whatever it be, there should, if possible, be some easily recognised progression, such as may enable speaker and hearer alike to feel that they are not standing still or moving in a circle, but proceeding from one stage to another, in a course of spiritual contemplation or rational inquiry.

These plain directions may suffice for ordinary cases. But it should be ever borne in mind that nothing here can be done, as it should be done, exactly to order; that no rules or prescriptions as to method can save the preacher who would succeed in the proper treatment of his subjects from thinking out his own plan, and adjusting the materials of discourse for himself. He may fitly enough take hints; occasionally, may even adopt an order which he knows to have been struck out by another; but even then he must by personal effort make it his own. And if to save himself from such labour he should make a practice of resorting to skeletons and outlines, he may rest assured that his discourses will also retain not a little of the skeleton character; they will not have much about them of the warmth of flesh and blood. (I have mentioned only one objection to the general use of such helps; hut undoubtedly it is also objectionable, as Dr. Shedd urges, on the score of morality; not quite to the same extent that abstracting whole sermons is, yet in a measure. ‘A preacher ought to be an honest man throughout. Sincerity, godly sincerity, should characterize him intellectually as well as morally. His plans ought to be the genuine work of his own brain. Not that he may not, at times, present a plan and train of thought similar to those of other minds; but he ought not to know of it at the time. Such coincidences ought to be undesigned, the result of two minds working upon a similar or the same subject, each in an independent way, and with no intercommunication. Then the product belongs to both alike; and the coincidence results from the common nature of truth and the common structure of the human mind, and not from a servile copying of one mind by another.’— Homiletics, p. 105.)

I only add further, that while an order and a division also should commonly be adopted, it does not follow that this should always be formally announced. Usually, I think, it should be so, as people naturally desire to know, when going to be addressed at some length, what is the series of topics likely to be brought under consideration. But a tame, mechanical uniformity is to be avoided. Sometimes the interest may be best sustained, and the sense of novelty gratified, by simply announcing as they arise the successive heads of discourse; while the memory of the hearers may be assisted by a brief recapitulation of the particulars near the close. (Sensible and good directions, though somewhat brief, and, as far as they go, coinciding with what has been said above on the structure and method of discourses, may be seen in the Directory for Public Worship. For example, ‘In analyzing and dividing his text, he is to regard more the order of matter than of words; and neither to burden the memory of the hearers in the beginning with too many members of division, nor to trouble their minds with obscure terms of art. In raising doctrines from the text, his care ought to be, first, that the matter be the truth of God; secondly, that it be a truth contained in or grounded on that text, that the hearers may discern how God teacheth it from thence; thirdly, that he chiefly insist on those doctrines which are principally intended, and make most for the edification of his hearers. The doctrine is to be expressed in plain terms; or if anything in it need explanation, it is to be opened, and the consequence also from the text cleared. The parallel places of Scripture confirming the doctrine are rather to be plain and pertinent than many, and, if need be, somewhat insisted upon and applied to the purpose in hand. The arguments or reasons are to be solid, and, as much as may be, convincing. The illustrations of what kind soever ought to be full of light, and such as may convey the truth into the hearer’s heart with spiritual delight. If any doubt, obvious from Scripture, reason, or prejudice of the hearers seem to arise, it is very requisite to remove it, by reconciling the seeming differences, answering the reasons, and discovering and taking away the causes of prejudice and mistake. Otherwise, it is not fit to detain the hearers with propounding or answering vain or wicked cavils, which, as they are endless, so the propounding and answering of them doth more hinder than promote edification.’)

V. The scope that may justly be allowed in preaching to the individual traits and characteristics of the preacher.—It is a question of some moment, especially as regards the structure and composition of discourses, what scope should be allowed to the preacher in the indulgence of any tastes, tendencies, or habitudes of thought that may more peculiarly distinguish him? Should he, as a preacher of the gospel, endeavour to suppress these? Or, should he here also give them free scope, and let them impart their full impress to the form in which he presents the great theme of salvation to his fellow-men? It is much more easy to put such questions than to answer them. But, in the general, I would say, that within certain limits, in the exercise of what may be called a decent and regulated freedom, it is perfectly allowable to give play to individual powers and susceptibilities, to the qualities which distinguish one man’s mind from another; and that it may even be for the advantage of the work in hand, may tend to the more effective ministration of the word, if that measure of freedom is exercised by the preacher.

There is a general principle here which is of wide application to the relations and interests of the gospel; and it may not be out of place to make a few remarks on its more extended bearing, before considering how it applies to the specific subject of pulpit ministrations. We may the rather do so, as it is the natural tendency of the prelections and training of an academical course to aim at the production of attainments which lie within the reach of all who are possessed of respectable parts, rather than at the cultivation of peculiar powers, and the exhibition of distinctive excellences. A common education in theology, as well as other branches of learning and study, necessarily makes account of powers and attainments which the subjects of it have, or may have, in common with each other, not of those in which they mutually differ; it aims at establishing, as far as possible, a sort of community of acquirement and fitness for work. This is manifestly unavoidable; no theological training could succeed in its objects without looking thus at the general agreements more than at the specific and divergent tendencies of the minds subjected to its influence. And, indeed, it is requisite for the safe and profitable development, in due time, of what is special and peculiar to each. For it is a great principle, pervading all the departments of nature, and needful to be borne in mind by those who would attain to eminence in anything for which they may have even a particular aptitude, that as there is nothing general which does not also possess something individual, so there is nothing individual but what springs from, or has its points of contact with, the general. Whatever may distinguish one mind from another in its powers and tendencies, its veins of thought or emotional actings,—if it be simply an exercise or development of what nature has given, not a diseased and morbid affection, it will always find a measure of correspondence in other minds, something, however inferior in strength, to sympathize with it and respond to it.

It is well that this should be fully known and considered by those who are called by their position and aims in life not only to acquire a certain distinction for literary gifts and attainments, but also to possess the power of influencing the judgments and moving the hearts of others. As such, they must stand above, and yet be on a footing with, those they have to deal with; they must have certain things peculiarly their own, and yet through these find access to the common understandings and bosoms of their fellow-men; and this they can only do by abstaining from all vicious excess, or by so cultivating the particular and distinctive elements in their mental constitution, as to prevent them from running into discordance with what is general. ‘One touch of nature,’ one great poet has said, ‘makes the whole world kin;’ it does so even though the touch be in itself of a peculiar kind, though it carry a very distinctive impress from the hand that gives it; yet, being a touch of nature, conveying a genuine throb of feeling from one human bosom to another, it cannot but awaken a hearty response. On this ground a great German authority, the greatest, indeed, in matters of this description (Goethe), said to a youthful disciple (Eckermann), ‘You need not fear lest what is peculiar should want sympathy. Each character, however peculiar it maybe, and each object which you represent, from the stone up to man, has generality; for there is repetition everywhere, and there is nothing to be found once in the world.’ Nothing, we must understand him to mean, in its fundamental elements; these are not found once merely anywhere, but are repeated in all objects of the same kind, while still in every particular object they have their specific combination and their characteristic development. So that if there should be in any writer or public speaker some preponderating talent or bias which is allowed to grow into a marked characteristic, it may be done, not only without the risk of his thereby losing hold of the sympathies of his fellow-men, but even with the effect of securing for him a firmer and deeper hold of them than might otherwise have been possible. For such is the constitution of the human mind, that so long as the individual characteristics of thought and feeling root themselves in the general, their very individuality gives them a freshness and power, it wins for them a sway over our hearts which an undistinguished flatness and generality never can command. We are touched by the greater strength and prominence of that of which we are ourselves not altogether unconscious; touched the more, as we see it working with a buoyant force and energy, far beyond anything of which we know ourselves to be capable. The most eminent example of this in the religious sphere is Christ, viewed simply as the great teacher of the world; since, appearing as He did in an age and generation remarkable for their commonplace, one might almost say their effete character, there yet is in His manner of teaching, alike in respect to meaning and form, the expression of an individuality so marked, that nothing similar to it has ever again appeared among men. Yet nowhere can we find words that are in such general accord with the heart of humanity, words that reach so far and pierce so deep; the power of which is felt equally among high and low, by the man of profound culture as by the unlettered peasant. What a depth was there in His look into nature! In His revelations, what a disclosure of the mind and purposes of Heaven! Yet, withal, what a transparent simplicity in the one! And in the other, what profound agreement with the better cravings and convictions of the enlightened reason! Among the leading apostles, also, you see a measure of the same striking but genuine idiosyncrasies; each giving indication, in his own particular way, of characteristic peculiarities of thought and feeling; but along with these combining so much of simplicity and naturalness, that all who read their productions in a right spirit feel in unison with them, as if there were the answering of heart to heart; and this even in regard to the more peculiar parts of their writings. I should never, perhaps, myself have thought, if discoursing of the propriety of that retired demeanour which becomes the modesty of women, of connecting it with their lengthened tresses and overshadowing veils; and these again with their original formation out of man, and the place they were from the first destined to hold in society. I might have wanted the spiritual insight and delicacy of perception to see in such things nature’s signs and witnesses to the fit position and proper bearing of woman. But when presented as they are by the Apostle Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, I am quite ready to enter into their spirit, and recognise their suitableness. I am sensible that they have a foundation in nature; and he who acts for me as nature’s interpreter in the matter, applies in doing so a touch that makes me kin to him. When speaking thus of nature, I am not to be understood as meaning that all here is simply of nature, as in the case of the poet, the artist, or the orator. In the sacred writers primarily, and then also in those who at any period have to discourse of divine things, a higher element comes into play; one by which nature is raised above itself, and sanctified to do service to God. Yet nature, let it be remembered, is not dissolved by this higher element; and no more dissolved in its separate individuality than in its general powers and properties. Every distinctive bent or original impulse of nature may still have its free and genial exercise, only elevated in its aim, hallowed in its forms of manifestation, by the baptism it has received into the spirit of truth and holiness. When so baptized, it is not lost, but renovated, and made capable of loftier aspirations and more energetic movements.

One has only to reflect how it is with the common run of believers. Of those who become, through the reception of the truth, sincere and earnest followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, a very large proportion are, no doubt, persons of quite ordinary minds, without any remarkable natural characteristic, either as to capacity for thought, sensibility of heart, or strength of will; bearing, indeed, no very marked individuality in any respect. But from the moment they come under the power of divine truth, and are made partakers of the gift of God, this itself stamps them with an individuality; it quickens into action powers and motions which were latent before; in one prominent direction their mind acquires a determined bent; and instead of the original lameness and insipidity which was wont to appear in their general tone of thought and feeling, there is now an intelligence, a discernment, an application of the right and good, sometimes even an elevation of spirit and strength of devotedness, which throw around their state and character a well-defined and estimable personality. Still more will such an effect of vital Christianity be perceptible in any one if he should be distinguished by any of the larger gifts of nature, whatever may be its precise character; whether it may hold more directly of the reason, the imagination, the emotions, or the will, the more thoroughly it becomes imbued with the spirit of the gospel, and is directed into the channels of Christian worth and usefulness, the more will it acquire, so to speak, its proper set, and work to the production of important results.

Now it is the same thing, only in a higher degree and more conspicuously displayed, which often discovers itself with the more eminent preachers of the gospel, in their more impressive and memorable utterances. In listening to these, nothing perhaps strikes us more than the seeming naturalness of what is spoken, and its fitness and force for the occasion, although it may be such as would probably never have occurred to ourselves, or if in substance it had occurred, would not have been thrown into the touching or impressive form that it has assumed in the speaker’s hands. Take the following, for example, from F. Robertson, as illustrative of the unexpectedness coupled with the certainty of the Second Advent: (First Series of Ser. p. 177.) ‘Every judgment coming of Christ is as the springing of a mine. There is a moment of deep suspense after the match has been applied to the fuse which is to fire the train. Men stand at a distance and hold their breath. There is nothing seen but a thin, small column of white smoke, rising fainter and fainter, till it seems to die away. Then men breathe again . . . [but presently] the low, deep thunder sends up the column of earth majestically to heaven, and all that was on it comes crashing down again in its far circle, shattered and blackened with the blast. It is so with this world. By God’s word the world is doomed. The moment the suspense is past. . . . We have fallen upon days of scepticism. There are no signs of ruin yet. We tread upon it like a solid thing fortified by its adamantine hills for ever. There is nothing against that but a few words in a printed book. But the world is ruined; and the spark has fallen; and just at the moment when serenity is at its height, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the feet of the Avenger shall stand on the earth.”’

Or, to take an example which carries with it a still more marked individuality, what a service does imagination render to the moral energy and fervid reasoning of Dr. Chalmers, not only in his astronomical discourses, but also when handling a much commoner theme, the utility of missions! He is combating the objections raised against them by the worldly-minded and unbelieving, and in doing so appeals to the effects which had been accomplished by means of them on the moral and religious aspect of the Highlands of Scotland. ‘What would they have been at this moment,’ he asks, ‘had schools, and Bibles, and ministers been kept back from them, and had the man of a century ago been deterred by the flippancies of the present age from the work of planting chapels and seminaries in that neglected land? The ferocity of their ancestors would have come down, unsoftened and unsubdued, to the existing generation. The darkening spirit of hostility would still have lowered upon us from the north, and these plains, now so peaceful and so happy, would have lain open to the fury of merciless invaders. O ye soft and sentimental travellers, who wander so securely over this romantic land, you are right to choose the season when the angry elements of nature are asleep. But what is it that has charmed to their long repose the more dreadful elements of human passion and of human injustice? What is it that has quelled the boisterous spirit of her natives? And while her torrents roar as fiercely, and her mountain brows look as grimly as ever, what is it that has thrown so softening an influence over the minds and manners of her living population?’ Here a vivid imagination lends a most effectual aid to the reason, and, as by a sudden blaze let in from a higher region, flashes such conviction on the mind as might well shame to silence all further opposition. But a still higher service was exacted of this faculty when Robert Hall, at the close of his wonderful sermon on ‘The sentiments proper to the present crisis,’ the crisis, namely, of 1803, when the country was preparing to plunge into a most formidable war with Bonaparte, after having wound up his hearers to the loftiest pitch of excitement in respect to the necessity and justice of the impending struggle, referred to the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, as bending from their elevated seats to witness the contest, as if they were incapable of enjoying their repose till they saw the matter brought to a favourable issue. And then, apostrophizing those departed worthies as actually present, he exclaimed, ‘Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, influenced with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood.’ A personification and appeal like this reached the very borders of that licence which must be allowed to imagination in the pulpit, and could only have been conceived and executed with the least prospect of success by one in whom the imagining faculty itself was strong, and by him only if he had wrought up his audience by previous descriptions and appeals to somewhat of the same rapt fervour with himself. He certainly had done so; they were at the moment like persons carried out of themselves, borne along by an impetuous torrent to think as the preacher thought, and feel as he felt. Such, too, is reported to have been the case in a closely similar example of Whitfield’s preaching, one characterized by the boldest flight of imagination he is known to have attempted, when toward the conclusion of a fervid discourse, throughout which his soul had been, as it were, on fire with zeal and love for the conversion of sinners, he demanded of his audience what account attending angels should carry to heaven of the tidings and invitations he had been addressing to them; and as if afraid that the account should be prematurely closed, nay, as if actually seeing the heavenly messenger already on the wing, suddenly broke out with an imploring cry to Gabriel to stop, that a few more sinners might have time to send on high the news of their blessed return to God, and then with increased fervour briefly reiterated his appeals to the hearts and consciences of his auditors. By all accounts the effort in this case also was successful; the impression upon the audience was in the highest degree powerful and solemn; but it could only have been so by preacher and audience alike having risen, through what went before, to a kind of enchanted ground, so as to have lost sight, in a manner, of the distinction between the visible and the invisible, the angelic and the human. Such things defy all imitation; and those who would attempt to reproduce them (as in respect to this flight of Whitfield I have known a very common-place preacher do in a village congregation), only succeed in making themselves ridiculous. Peculiarities of any kind, and peculiarities of a far less marked description than those just referred to in connection with the imagination, can only appear natural, and strike a sympathetic chord in the breasts of others when they spring forth as from their native soil, and seem to blossom in the proper time and place. They must proceed from the cultivation of a real talent, not from the artificial search after what is unusual, or the vain attempt to wield on an occasion a giant’s weapons. This can produce nothing great or good, and is sure to run out into grotesque forms, or explode in fanciful conceits. Here, above all, simplicity, genuine and unaffected, is requisite, showing itself in a determination to use only what is properly one’s own, to appear to have just what is actually possessed, and to feel what is really felt. In so far as this is done, even though the talent exercised may not be of the highest kind, yet being a reality, and not an affectation, having its foundation in nature, not assumed for a purpose, its manifestation will always meet with some response, and will succeed greatly better than any pretension could do in a higher line of things. For not only does nothing grow by mere imitation (nihil crescit sola imitatione—Quinct.), but the mind that makes the attempt to grow after that fashion is perpetually in danger of shooting into wrong directions, forcing itself into forbidden paths, and betaking to appliances which only create a recoil.

It is therefore very justly said by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 25.) ‘that while art in a sense is one, it is not so in all senses; it multiplies itself with individuals; it individualizes itself in each. The question which will one day place itself before you will not be, What ought one to do? but, What ought I to do? In this preparatory period oratorical discourse may appear to you as the object; in the active labours of the ministry, it will only be one means of attaining an actual object on occasions which will actually resemble no other. The professor you hear, the rhetorician you read or listen to, cannot make that rhetoric individual to you. Every one must do so for himself. It is not meant by this that each must have all, as it were, within himself; that he must be indebted for nothing to others, copying after nothing wherein others have excelled, lest he should be chargeable with a vicious or feeble imitation. No; he should indeed beware of imitating in others what could not come naturally to himself, and should not even be partially influenced by the thought or manner of another without being at pains to assimilate it to himself. For if the things which proceed from his lips are to become a power in the hearts of others, they must first have struck their roots into his own spiritual being; they must teem and germinate within him, and mingle with the essence of his spirit; and must shape themselves into a new original growth.’ But with this caution, on the one side, against a too close approximation to others, especially in regard to what is somewhat peculiar to themselves, there is undoubtedly a legitimate benefit, on the other, to be derived from the study of the best models in those particular gifts and attainments wherein each most notably excels. Those, for example, who have comparatively little imagination, may have that little stimulated and improved by familiarity with the productions of those who have been distinguished for the large possession and happy use of the faculty. The man of discursive tendencies, apt to ramble in his cogitations and string his ideas somewhat loosely together, may have his reasoning powers strengthened, and his capacity for discoursing profitably on divine things increased by making a special study of such works as are remarkable for the lucid order and the argumentative skill they exhibit in the treatment of their respective subjects. And, in like manner, the man of dry intellect, or plain solid sense, may catch some inspiration of a livelier kind by sitting at the feet of those who are masters in the popular modes of address by means of touching allusions to Bible story, appropriate illustrations from the field of nature, or the incidents of every-day life. Though not destined to excel in such arts, yet he may acquire a certain facility in the use of them. In regard to the persons themselves who are possessed naturally of some marked mental characteristic, the chief caution to be exercised is to beware of running to excess, indulging the special and peculiar, till, from forming an attractive distinction, and being an element of power, it becomes a sort of excrescence, which by its undue preponderance hinders the proper action of other faculties of the mind, or by its eccentricities serves rather to tickle people’s fancies than promote their edification. A tendency to pathos, for example, may be developed to the hurtful neglect of the manly exercise of reason, and the nursing of a comparatively weak, mawkish, sentimental piety. The simply intellectual and logical powers, on the other hand, may be allowed to carry it so completely over the sympathetic and emotional, that the discourse shall become little more than a fine speculation or a well-reasoned argument, with something, possibly, to instruct or convince, but nothing to quicken or arouse, nothing to satisfy the spiritual appetite with the food it naturally desires and longs for. But more than either of these, or indeed than any other prominent characteristic, is the danger, in the present day, of letting loose the imagination, where this faculty exists in peculiar strength, by a profusion of images, or multiplying unduly pictorial representations. A power of this kind is undoubtedly a great advantage to a preacher. It enables him to bring to his hand a ready supply of the imagery which charms by its beauty, or interests and instructs by its fresh combinations and striking analogies. But on this very account it is extremely apt to assume an undue prominence in the structure of the discourse, and even to lose, in a measure, its proper character, to pass from a means to an end. Whenever the preacher glides into this excess, he may be said to have drifted from his mooring, he is but dallying with his theme. ‘For every one must recollect,’ as is well said by Mr. H. Rogers, (Essay on Sacred Eloquence.) ‘that if a speaker is in earnest he never employs his imagination, as the poet does, merely to delight us; nor, indeed, to delight us at all, except as appropriate imagery, though used for another object, necessarily imparts pleasure. For this reason illustrations are selected always with a reference to their force rather than their beauty, and are very generally marked more by their homely propriety than by their grace and elegance. For the same reason, wherever it is possible, they are thrown into the brief form of metaphor; and here Aristotle, with his usual sagacity, observes, that the metaphor is the only trope in which the orator may freely indulge. Everything marks the man intent on serious business, whose sole anxiety is to convey his meaning with as much precision and energy as possible to the minds of his auditors.’ Mr. Rogers therefore wisely cautions preachers, and especially young preachers of imaginative powers, against throwing in epithets and employing images merely because he thinks them beautiful. ‘As regards real impression, there is no style which has so little practical effect, even when there is real genius in it. The admiration which it so commonly awakens, but shows that the minds of the auditors are fixed rather upon the man than upon the subject; less upon the truths inculcated than upon the genius which has embellished them. The speaker has but succeeded in attracting the eye upon himself and his power of discourse, but it is a success won at the expense of what is his avowed, and ever ought to be his real object.’

Here, again, the only effectual safeguard lies in the personal state of the preacher. If he has the true spirit of his office, the singleness of eye and deep practical aim which are proper to one whose soul is alive to the great realities of salvation, and who feels his very life bound up with the success of his mission as an ambassador of grace, he will subordinate his use of imagery, like everything else, to his one grand aim. He cannot allow himself to play freaks with his imagination, in order to garnish his speech with sweet flowers, or get up a succession of graphic pictures merely for the sake of gratifying the taste or gaining the applause of his hearers. He has higher objects in view, although in aiming at their accomplishment one person may, the bent of nature so inclining him, infuse more of the graphic and pictorial into his representations than can be done by others. He may do so even more freely in the present age than he could well have done in the last; for there is now, through all departments of literature, a strong current running in this direction; and the eloquence of the pulpit, like popular speech generally, must to some extent bear ‘the form and pressure of the time.’ Desiring to speak to men’s bosoms, it must adapt itself to existing habits of thought, and take advantage of prevailing tendencies. But still only within definite limits, never so as to do violence to the fundamental laws of human discourse; therefore, as regards the point now more immediately before us, never forgetting that for purposes of persuasion the imaginative faculty has but a subordinate part to perform, should be used only as an occasional handmaid, not obeyed as an imperious mistress; and that where the success of the speaker is greatest, the materials it furnishes are never more than sparingly introduced.

Indeed, one may say, in regard to the highest species of pulpit eloquence,—that in which the theme of discourse is so thoroughly transfused into the minds of the audience that the speaker himself is forgotten, speaker and hearer being alike absorbed in thought concerning the interests of an eternal world,—it never almost is the preponderance of any one faculty that has to do with the effect, but rather the happy combination of various faculties, only these quickened and ennobled, intensified to the highest degree of spiritual action by the powerful working of God’s Spirit and the felt apprehension of divine things. The discourses which have produced the most profound impressions at the time, and which have been found afterwards to have yielded the richest harvest of spiritual good, have been of this character. Such, for example, appears to have been the discourse of Livingstone at the Kirk of Shotts, which scattered the seeds of a living faith through hundreds of bosoms in the Vale of Clyde. Such, also, was the extraordinary discourse on missions by Dr. Mason of New York, which made even experienced ministers of the gospel feel as if they scarcely knew till then what preaching should be, and gave a fresh impulse to their minds. Such was the character of one of Mr. Toller’s sermons, a sermon every way impressive in itself, but rendered still more so by the pale, emaciated appearance of the preacher, as we learn from the striking account given of it by Mr. Hall. ‘All other emotions,’ he says, ‘were absorbed in devotional feeling; it seemed to us as though we were permitted for a short space to look into eternity, and every sublunary object vanished before the powers of the world to come. Yet there was no considerable exertion, no vehemence, no splendid imagery, no magnificent description; it was the simple declaration of truth; of truth, indeed, of infinite moment, borne in upon the heart by a mind intensely alive to its reality and grandeur.

Criticism was disarmed; the hearer felt himself elevated to a region which it could not penetrate; all was powerless submission to the master-spirit of the scene.’ Such, undoubtedly, when viewed with reference to the great end of the ministry, is the highest style of preaching; and it is reserved, not for the man distinguished merely for powerful intellect or lofty imagination, but for the man whose conversation is in heaven, and whose soul lives and breathes amid the realities of salvation. (It is quite possible to find what have the appearance at least, perhaps also the reality, of exceptions to some of the statements made in this section. The maxim of Pope here also has its application—‘Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,And rise to faults true critics dare not mend.’ Men of genius, or of power so varied and attractive as to have nearly all the charm of genius, may in their vocation as preachers attain to great and deserved eminence, even though in some respects violating the rules which have approved themselves to the most matured critical judgment. By means of their peculiar resources they are able to bear, and even to wield with effect, armour which in the hands of other men would only lead to misdirected effort or palpable failure, as in the employment, for example, of extended pictorial representations, which the late Dr. Guthrie certainly used sometimes with wonderful skill and success, but which many others have tried with no result but that of entertaining the fancy of the hearer, or begetting admiration of the artistic power of the preacher. Men should be well assured of their special aptitudes and gifts before they venture upon marked deviations from established principles.) This ought to be the more thought of and the more earnestly coveted, that it springs so much from those spiritual qualities which must ever constitute the more essential elements of the Church’s power for good in all her departments of action and duty. It is that the Church is a society, holding not of earth, but of heaven; connected by a living bond with the realities of an eternal world; connected by such a bond with Christ, the glorified Redeemer, so that the higher life that is in Him may be continually manifesting itself in the spirit and behaviour of her members. It is this which most of all enables the Church to act with reforming and blissful energy upon the world. And the ministers of the Church, those who are her more peculiar agents and representatives, both for keeping the flame alive in her own bosom and bringing it to act with quickening and attractive force upon the masses lying near and around her, while they may justly prize, and should diligently cultivate, such gifts of nature or resources of learning as they may have at command, still should feel that the main secret of their strength lies in the measure in which they themselves possess that higher endowment, that spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and by word and deed can transfuse it into their ministerial agency. God grant that there may be this feeling in all of us, and a fixed desire, through divine grace, to have it brought forth into practical manifestation!

VI. The style proper to the pulpit, and the degree of attention that should be paid to it.—Some of the remarks made under the last division had nearly as much respect to the style as to the matter of discourses; for in certain of its aspects the one readily runs into the other. But the subject of style demands a separate consideration, since not a little depends on it for the efficient ministration of the gospel. At the same time negatively, and with respect to its proper place, I would say, that it should not be much taken apart, as a thing to be considered or cultivated by itself. Some men of note, seeing how much practically turns on style, viewed as the right setting of the thought, have expressed themselves somewhat incautiously on the subject. They have spoken so as to convey the impression that style, in a manner, is everything, and that the chief pains must be bestowed upon this by those who would attain to a high place as preachers of the gospel. To speak after such a fashion gives, I believe, an exaggerated idea of the matter for effective oratory of all descriptions, and in particular of that description of it which should be aimed at by preachers of the gospel. Style is but the mirror of the thought, and the one may be said to be perfect if it is in due correspondence with, or gives a just reflection of, the other; but if the cast of thought be feeble or confused, so naturally will be the style; and then it is not so much the mirror as the thing mirrored which calls for rectification. It is justly, therefore, remarked by Vinet, (Homiletics, p. 320.) that ‘the ambition merely to speak well, in proportion as it obtains an ascendancy over the minister, degrades the ministry. ... A good style is necessary, but a good style does not come by itself. The style is not superadded to all the rest; it is a labour of the mind and of the soul which has only to be carried out.’ Precisely here, indeed, lies the distinction between the true orator and the mere rhetorician, who may charm by his language, and delight the ear as by the music of sweet sounds, but leaves no abiding impression, accomplishes no practical result. His mind, in short, is greatly too much occupied with the adjustment of words and sentences, while the real orator has his soul stirred with important ideas, and has no further concern about the form of expression given to them than that it should fitly represent the thoughts and feelings of which he seeks to be delivered.

Hence the saying of Montaigne, ‘When I see these excellent ways of speaking, I do not say that they are well written, but that they are well thought.’ The meaning is, that in the happier efforts of mind there is such a connection between thoughts rightly conceived in the mind and the proper mode of expressing them, that the one by a kind of moral necessity draws the other along with it; or, as he again expresses it, ‘Whoever has in his mind a vivid and clear idea will express it well enough in one way or other.’ Hence, also, the happy distinction drawn by Augustine, in the case of the Apostle Paul, between following the rules of eloquence and eloquence following the excellent thought embodied in the discourse: ‘Sicut apostolum praecepta eloquentiae secutum fuisse non dicimus, ita quod ejus sapientiam secuta sit eloquentia, non negamus.’ (Verbaque praevisam rem non invita sequentur.—Hor.)

It were therefore a piece of folly in any public speaker, but pre-eminently in a preacher of the gospel, to address himself to the task of elaborating fine periods, and constructing sentences according to rule. By such a course he could, at the most, only draw attention upon himself, and win the petty distinction of being a man of superficial polish or rhetorical skill; a distinction not to be coveted as a prize, but rather to be shunned as a misfortune, by any one who aspires to the possession of a real power in carrying the convictions and swaying the judgments of his fellow-men. All this, however, is merely negative; it touches only on what is not to be sought after or done. But what, on the other side, are some of the leading qualities which ought to appear in the style of those who can so think and so express themselves, as to exercise a salutary and powerful influence on a popular audience?

(1.) Simplicity, perhaps, ought to have the first place; for this is but another name, in most cases, for clearness and perspicuity; and without the latter, as formerly noticed, success is impossible. Whatever else may be requisite in spoken or written productions which are adapted to the popular mind, simplicity must not be wanting. This has been well noted by Hume in his essay on Simplicity and Refinement in Writing. He says: ‘A greater degree of simplicity is required in all compositions where men and actions and passions are painted, than in such as consist of reflections and observations. And as the former species of writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely, upon this account, give the preference to the extreme of simplicity above that of refinement.’ Yet, of this last he justly states, that it is ‘the extreme which men are most apt to fall into, after learning has made some progress, and after writers have appeared in every species of composition. The endeavour to please by novelty leads men wide of simplicity and nature, and fills their writings with affectation and conceit.’ I need not say, that everything which savours of this is peculiarly unsuited to a preacher of the gospel. If generally ‘the language which is dedicated to truth should be plain and unaffected,’ (Quae veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex.—Seneca, Ep. 40.) most especially should it be so when applied in connection with that kind of truth which it is the business of the preacher to set forth,—truth which lies so near to the glory of God and the highest interests of mankind. But there are other reasons for it. In the great majority of cases any other kind must be unsuited to the audience addressed, as well as to the nature of the theme. Christian congregations, with comparatively few exceptions, are not only mixed assemblages, but assemblages containing a preponderance of but moderately educated or even unlettered persons, very few of whom, therefore, can be qualified intelligently to follow, far less to relish, a discourse which deals in unusual terms and artificial sentences—the ordinary marks of polish and refinement. And if some of the greater masters of English composition have of set purpose endeavoured to avoid such things; have even, to be sure of their ground in this respect, at times tried the effect of their productions on men of common understanding, before committing them to the press, how anxious should the ministers of the gospel be to use great plainness of speech, that the simple in heart may understand, and nothing which it is important for sinners to know may lie hidden from their view under the folds of a learned phraseology.

Augustine, in the last book of his treatise, De Doctrina Christiana, presses very strongly this view of the matter, and commends this quality of plainness or simplicity of speech to all ministers of the word, as deserving of their greatest attention: (L. iv. 26.) ‘He, therefore, who teaches will shun all words that do not teach; and if in place of them he can employ others which are pure, and which are better understood, he will rather choose these; but if he cannot do so, either because there are none such, or because he cannot for the moment get hold of them, he will then resort to others which are less pure, provided only they serve to make the thing itself distinctly understood.’ And returning to the subject again, he asks, ‘What signifies a golden key, if we cannot open with it what we wish? But if a wooden one will serve the purpose, what matters its inferior quality?’ And referring to Cicero’s threefold distinction, docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere victoriae, he urges on preachers of the gospel that, while they should not, indeed, neglect the two latter, while they should endeavour so to speak as to please and to persuade, they should yet regard the teaching element as the prime and essential one, and for that end should make choice of such words as are fitted to convey clear notions of the truth. This is, undoubtedly, what should be aimed at; but even when honestly aimed at, it is not always quite easily accomplished. A long course of academical training, whatever advantages it brings in other respects, is apt here to throw a certain hindrance in the way. For it familiarizes those who are subjected to it to a style of thought and speech philosophical or literary rather than popular; and modes of representation, forms of expression even, which have become perfectly natural to them, will be strange to the ears, and but imperfectly grasped by the understandings of a common audience. The progress of education, and the more general diffusion of intelligence through the community, have, no doubt, been tending to lessen the distance in this respect between the more and the less learned classes, but it is very far from having removed it. There may be little danger in the present day of introducing into the pulpit the kind of academical style of discourse which was by no means unusual with a certain class of ministers in the last century, when, as Dr. Campbell tells us, preachers were often found ‘haranguing the people on the moral sense and universal benevolence, speaking of the symmetry of the universe, and the moral harmony and dissonance of the affections.’ Such a style of pulpit ministrations may now be regarded as gone into deserved oblivion; but there may still, and, unless special care is taken to prevent it, there will remain a tendency with those who have been trained to habits of study, and are more conversant with books than with men, to fall into methods of discussion and modes of speech which are not level to the capacities of the people, at least do not properly reach their bosoms. And if there is any considerable tincture of fancy in the preacher’s constitution, or prompting of literary ambition, there will be the additional danger of his overshooting the mark by using similitudes too remote from common life, and displaying a fondness for what will only be regarded as playful sallies or pretty conceits. This false tendency, more especially in the latter form of it, is so admirably exposed by South in his sermon on Luke 21:15, and the proper style for an earnest preacher to employ is so strikingly set forth, that I cannot forbear quoting the passage, although the tone of sarcasm so natural to the author is not wanting in it, and in the present case is venting itself against no less a victim than his celebrated contemporary Jeremy Taylor: ‘I speak the words of soberness, said St. Paul, and I preach the gospel not with enticing words of man’s wisdom. This was the way,’ says South, ‘of the apostle’s discoursing of things sacred. Nothing here of “the fringes of the northern star;” nothing of “nature’s becoming unnatural;” nothing of the “down of angels’ wings,” or “the beautiful locks of cherubims;” no starched similitudes introduced with a “thus have I seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion,” and the like. No, these were sublimities above the rise of the apostolic spirit. For the apostles, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps, and to tell the world in plain terms that he who believed should be saved, and that he who believed not should be damned. And this was the dialect which pierced the conscience, and made the hearers cry out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” It tickled not the ear, but sank into the heart; and when men came from such sermons, they never commended the preacher for his taking voice or gesture, for the fineness of such a simile, or the quaintness of such a sentence; but they spake like men conquered by the overpowering force and evidence of the most concerning truths; much in the words of the two disciples going to Emmaus: Did not our hearts burn within us while He opened to us the Scriptures? In a word, the apostles’ preaching was therefore mighty and successful, because plain, natural, and familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their hearers; nothing being more preposterous than for those who were professedly aiming at men’s hearts, to miss the mark by shooting over their heads.’

If somewhat peculiarly, this is not too forcibly put; and in order to avoid the errors pointed at, there is undoubtedly, first of all, needed on the part of the preacher a sincere spirit of self-denial, a determination to shun whatever might look like a needless display of learning, or a laying of traps for popular applause. Like a humble but earnest workman, he must seek the instruments, the plain and intelligible words, which seem best fitted to forward his Master’s business. In order to this he must, as was said in another connection, by familiar intercourse with the people get well acquainted with the manner of thought and speech which is best adapted to their taste or capacities, especially must accustom himself to the use of the more common, chiefly Saxon, elements in our language, as contradistinguished from those which are of Latin origin. And in so far as recourse may be had to figures or similitudes to aid the imperfection of direct language, and give a more vivid representation of the truth, let them not be of a ‘recondite nature, or far-fetched, but such as will really illustrate the subject, and make it better understood by the common understanding. Finer examples could scarcely be anywhere found of what is here indicated than in the sermons of Augustus Hare, the brother of the Archdeacon. They are the productions of a man of high intellect, fine taste, and varied accomplishments, yet subordinated all to the blessed work of endeavouring to bring down the great truths and obligations of the gospel to the level of a plain, rural congregation; a work which, when perfectly done, and with respect to things which are not trite, but of grave importance or difficulty, is, as Whately has remarked, ‘one of the most admirable feats of genius.’ (Rhetoric, p. 256.) I refer, in illustration, to his sermon on the superiority of principles to rules; and hence the far greater importance of having the mind indoctrinated with the one, than the conduct drilled into conformity with the other; (On Col. 2:28.) a subject certainly far from being trite, or even such as can quite easily be made patent to a common audience; yet see how distinct it becomes through Mr. Hare’s lucid exposition and homely speaking! ‘A rule which has been drawn up for any particular purpose, may be likened to a loaf of bread; a principle, on the other hand, is like a handful of wheat. Every rule that is worth anything must be taken from a principle, just as a loaf of bread is made of wheat. For the wants and uses of the moment a rule is more serviceable than a principle, just as, when a man is hungry, bread is more welcome than wheat. For bread is wheat ready prepared for the sake of satisfying hunger. We have only to take it and eat it. Hence, for a hungry man a crust of bread is better and handier than so much unground wheat. Yet will anybody say on this account that bread is a better thing than wheat? Suppose a man were going to some far country where no corn grows, which would he take with him, bread or wheat?’ He illustrates this a little, and then proceeds: ‘This is the great advantage which wheat has over bread. Bread may feed us for the moment; but when once eaten it is gone for ever. Wheat, on the contrary, will bear seed; it will increase and multiply; after one crop has had its day, and been reaped, and stored in the barn, and consumed, another crop, provided seed be preserved, will spring up; and so long as the earth itself lasts, so long will corn last also. Thus, too, is it with rules and principles. A rule is like a loaf of bread; it is a ready handy application of a principle, a principle made up for immediate use. By rules we govern and rule our children. We say to them, “Do this,” or “Don’t do that,” because it is easy for them to understand a plain order; but it is not always easy to make them understand the principle or reason of it. When the child, however, comes to be a man, he puts away childish things. He wants a new set of rules adapted to his new state, for the rules of childhood he has outgrown, so that they no longer fit him. The rules which belong to one stage of life are many of them ill-suited to other stages of life.’ And so with different classes of men, and different nations of the world. ‘Therefore God, when He was graciously pleased to give us a law, which was to serve not for one country and one people, but for the whole world, did not give us an endless string of rules to be followed according to the letter in each particular case; but gave us the principles which are the ground and sources of all rules, and from which the rules are to be drawn,’ etc. He applies it to circumcision and other Jewish ordinances, which in form are dropt, in principle retained. ‘Christ skimmed off the cream, as it were, of the law of Moses;’ ‘in the room of burdensome rites and formal rules He gave us the law of faith and love, and thereby made His doctrine a doctrine of principles, living, active, pure, universal and eternal.’ (Compare another fine specimen of Hare’s method, in Ser. on John 7:17—greatly superior to Archer Butler’s on the same text.)

It is quite true that a style like this, so remarkable for its simplicity both in the choice of words and the structure of sentences, is adapted for instruction rather than impression. True also, that it has been seldom attained in anything like the same perfection by excellent preachers of the gospel; and some even of those who reached the highest distinction have rather been noted for the elaboration than for the plainness and simplicity of their style. Such, certainly, are the printed sermons of Dr. Chalmers; they bear throughout the marks of elaborate preparation, in respect not merely to the thought embodied in them, but also to the structure of the sentences and the mode of expression, which were in a great measure peculiar to the man himself; nor was there ever probably an orator who, with no sinister object in view, with the simple desire of communicating his thoughts distinctly and forcibly to the minds of others, has formed for himself a diction so broadly marked by the impress of his own individuality. Yet, with all that is peculiar in his language and remote from the speech of common life, there is in it also a singular breadth and power, a living freshness and palpability, which, however unintelligible in particular phrases to unlettered hearers, could not fail to arrest their attention and find its way to their understandings and hearts. It was still, however, far from being a model style for the pulpit, especially in its relation to the general mass of congregations; and now that it is unaccompanied by the striking aspect and attractive presence of the man, it rests as a heavy drawback on the remains of his pulpit ministrations; it is the element which more than anything besides has impaired their permanent value, and rendered them comparatively strange in the homes of our Christian people.

Indeed, Chalmers may here be appealed to as an authority against himself. In a review of the sermons of Dr. Charters of Wilton, he dwells upon the appropriateness of a direct and homely style for the pulpit, in so far as regards the audiences which have most commonly to be addressed from it. ‘In the language of Paul,’ says he, ‘it is right that we should be all things to all men, that we may gain some; and if a simple proselyte can be gained to the cause of righteousness by the embellishments of elegant literature, let every attraction be given to the subject which taste and elegance can throw round it. But let it be remembered that these attractions have no influence over the vast majority of the species, and that the only impression of which they are susceptible is that wholesome and direct impression which a clear and simple exposition of duty makes upon the audience. Let it further be remembered, that even among the cultivated orders of society, the appetite for mere gracefulness of expression is sure, in time, to give way to the more substantial accomplishment of good sense and judicious observation; and that in every rightly-constituted mind the importance of what is true must carry it over what is pretty, and elegant, and fashionable.’ The case of Robert Hall admits of a similar explanation. In his grander efforts he was a preacher for a select class rather than for the body of the people. His more famous sermons (at least as printed), though perfectly clear and perspicuous for cultivated readers, could only have been imperfectly understood and appreciated by common audiences, and are, indeed, in point of composition, among the most classical productions in the English language. They are not, however, exactly specimens of his ordinary and especially of his more effective preaching. Speaking of this in his sketch of Hall’s character as a preacher, Foster says, ‘His language in preaching, as in conversation, was in one considerable point better than in his well-known and elaborately-composed sermons, in being more natural and flexible. When he set in reluctantly upon that operose employment, his style was apt to assume a certain processional stateliness of march, a rhetorical rounding of periods, a too frequent inversion of the natural order of the sentence, with a morbid dread of degrading it to end in a particle, or rather small-looking word; a structure in which I doubt whether the augmented appearance of strength and dignity be a compensation for the sacrifice of a natural, living, and variable freedom of composition.’ He adds: ‘a remarkable difference will be perceived between the highly-wrought sermons long since published, and the short ones now printed, which were prepared without a thought of the press; a difference to the advantage of the latter in the grace of simplicity.’ Hall himself was perfectly aware of this difference, and notes it very strikingly in a letter to Mr. Philips (16th April 1812), as connected with his greater success in the proper end of preaching: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my strain of preaching is considerably altered; much less elegant, but more intended for conviction, for awakening the conscience, and carrying divine truth with power into the heart! ‘It is worthy of notice, too, that even in the earlier period of his ministerial life, his judgment pronounced in favour of a style for the pulpit different from his own at the time in his review, for example, of Foster’s Essays, also of Gisborne’s Sermons. He admired the simple force and expressiveness of the Saxon element in our language, as far superior to the Latin for emphasis and impression, and sometimes expressed in a very marked manner his dissatisfaction with the employment of the one class of words when the others might, as he thought, have been with advantage preferred. Thus, in a conversation with Dr. O. Gregory, having observed that the latter had more than once spoken of felicity, Mr. Hall sharply inquired, ‘Why do you say felicity, sir? Happiness is a better word, more musical, and better English, coming from the Saxon.’ Hall, therefore, as well as Foster and Chalmers, may be cited as a witness to this style, as what may be termed the normal or usually appropriate one for the pulpit; and if the bent of native genius, or a regard to the peculiar circumstances of their own position, rendered their example somewhat at variance with their precept, this should rather tend to enhance the value of their deliberate judgment. On the whole, it is of importance to bear in mind that, amid all the diversities in this respect which are inevitable and even proper, the press and the pulpit have their distinctive requirements; and that what may be comparatively perfect as regards the one, may be obviously defective or misplaced as regards the other. In particular, the pulpit demands plainness and simplicity beyond the written page, while the latter is greatly less tolerant of careless and slovenly forms of expression.

‘There are preachers who, being deficient in the intellectual and moral attributes which are essential to those higher forms of popular eloquence which fascinate and impress all classes of the community, are resolved to grasp by illegitimate means at the same visible success. Unenriched with that bearing and intellectual vigour which enable a man to become the master of difficult and unfamiliar provinces of truth; unendowed with the rare genius which can create a heaven and earth of its own, and lift the thoughts of common men into a world whose paths they have never travelled, and whose atmosphere they have never breathed before; destitute of fancy, destitute of imagination, impatient of the labour and painstaking by which alone the power can be acquired of clothing our conceptions in the nervous and beautiful language which the great writers and orators of our country have been accustomed to employ, they utter paradoxes as though they were wonderful revelations of hitherto unknown truth; they distort and disguise thoughts which have been familiar to all mankind for centuries, and try to pass them off as brilliant originalities; they mistake spasmodic vehemence for strength, gaudy decoration for beauty, words of uncouth shape and sound, sentences of grotesque and unnatural structure, for freshness and force of style. Foolish men wonder, wise men are disgusted; but neither the foolish nor the wise will love God better, resist sin more resolutely, understand the Bible more profoundly, serve Christ more zealously, if they listen to preaching of this kind for half a century’ (Dale’s Discourses, p. 333).

(2.) Another characteristic that should more or less distinguish the style of pulpit discourses is strength or energy. It is, indeed, a quality which every preacher may be said almost necessarily to aim at, if he has success in his work really at heart; for in seeking that he seeks to persuade; and this again implies the forthputting of such a power in the things spoken as may serve to beget the expectation of prevailing over the indifference or opposition of those who are addressed. The capacity, of course, to effect this will always depend to a large extent on the relative vigour of the preacher’s mind, or what it is as to concentration of thought and depth of feeling; and where these qualities are greatly deficient, it is not possible by mere outward expression to compensate for the want. A striving after what may be called an artificial energy, energy of style or action out of proportion to the elements of strength existing within, is sure to manifest itself in something forced, extravagant, or coarse; and consequently must tend rather to defeat than further the object of the speaker. It is in this respect with mental action as with bodily; the swoop of the arm must be in proportion to the vital force that moves it; and, in like manner, the energy that a preacher can throw into his diction will be determined by the fire which glows within. This is not, however, to be understood as disparaging the necessity for proper care and application; for here, as in other things, even where the native talent exists, it may miss its aim by misdirected efforts, while, by being rightly improved and guided, it may gain immensely both in force and precision. No cultivation can enable a feeble or commonplace mind to clothe its thoughts in a nervous and stirring diction; but where some degree of mental vigour exists, it may serve to give additional point to its expression, and recall the speaker from trying to reach his aim by a less, to a more effective mode of gaining it. A few leading points is all we can at present indicate on the subject. As regards the choice of words, there can be no doubt that much depends on the skill to select the more specific and individualizing, instead of the more general and abstract terms. For it is the invariable tendency of a vivid realization or powerful emotion, to give a concrete form to its objects; to clothe them, as it were, with flesh and blood, and consequently to deal in the language of impersonation and metaphor. ‘The more general the terms are,’ as Dr. Campbell remarks, ‘the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, the brighter. The same sentiment may be expressed with equal justness, and even equal perspicuity, in the former way as in the latter; but as the colouring will in that case be more languid, it cannot give equal pleasure to the fancy, and by consequence will not contribute so much either to fix the attention or to impress the memory.’ A better example could scarcely be given of this than one selected by Dr. Campbell from the Sermon on the Mount, comparing the specific form which it assumed in our Lord’s hand, with what it would become if the specific were changed into the general. ‘Consider the lilies, how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If, then, God so clothe the grass, which to-day is in the field and to-morrow is cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you?’ ‘Let us here,’ says Campbell, ‘adopt a little of the tasteless manner of modern paraphrasts, by the substitution of more general terms, one of their many expedients of infrigidating, and let us observe the effect produced by this change. “Consider the flowers, how they gradually increase in their size; they do no manner of work, and yet I declare to you that no king whatever, in his most splendid habit, is dressed up like them. If, then, God in His providence doth so adorn the vegetable productions, which continue but a little time on the land, and are afterwards put into the fire, how much more will He provide clothing for you?” How spiritless,’ Dr. C. justly adds, ‘is the same sentiment rendered by these small variations! The very particularizing of to-day and to-morrow is infinitely more expressive of transitoriness than any description wherein the terms are general, that can be substituted in its room.’ The Scriptures are full of passages to which the same mode of criticism might be applied, passages which derive much of their graphic and touching power from the use made in them of what is specific and individual, and which would in a great measure be lost by a more indefinite form of expression. Thus St. Paul’s commission as an apostle to ‘turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,’ is much more vivid and expressive than if we had been told of his being sent to instruct the ignorant, and bring them from the love and practice of sin to the ways of righteousness! (Yet the individualizing may fail, if it goes to things too low or minute for the occasion, as in Parr’s Spittal Sermon: ‘Within a few days mute was the tongue that uttered these celestial words, and the hand which signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in the dark and dreamy chambers of death.’ In such an effort at the solemn and pathetic it looks too small to speak of signing an indenture for boys.) A telling effect is often produced by turning, when it can be done without violence to the idiom of the language, a noun into a verb, expressing an action by what properly indicates a personality; as when, with reference to the bloody spectacles of the Roman amphitheatres, the poet speaks through one of his characters of the unhappy creatures who were ‘butchered to make a Roman holiday;’ or when St. Paul speaks of ‘crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts;’ or we may say of the world, when unduly cared for, that it dwarfs the life of religion in the soul. But it is quite possible in such things to go to excess, and in the search for greater strength so to overdo it as to beget a sense of the strained or the ludicrous. The boundary line here between the true and the false, the allowable and the forbidden, is often a delicate one, and writers that may justly be pronounced classical in other respects will sometimes miss it. As for example, Archdeacon Hare, who usually exhibits a fine taste in the use of language, but whose mind was more remarkable for acuteness, sensibility, and polish than for strength, when, in his discourses on the Mission of the Comforter, he speaks of the soul which has yielded itself to earthly influences as ‘having its feelings tarred and feathered with the dust and dirt of the earth,’ and of Christ’s righteousness as being perfectly pure, ‘not covered with scratches and rents like a sheet of old blotting paper.’ The images involved in such expressions are evidently too low for the subjects discoursed of, and the language rather jars on one’s sense of propriety than adds to the vividness of one’s perceptions. It is therefore to be remembered that all individualizing in descriptions does not confer strength, nor all energizings in the choice of words. The nature of the subject, the idioms of language, the very place and occasion, must each be taken into account. Especially must it be so in pulpit discourses, in which a becoming sense of solemnity should be apparent; and modes of speech, which might without impropriety be employed elsewhere, would then readily be felt to be out of place. Thus there is room for the exercise of taste, discretion, and sanctified feeling. The same substantially may be said in regard to the other means requiring to be attended to, in order to the attainment of a nervous diction, such, for example, as the number and arrangement of words in sentences. It is a matter on which preachers should bestow some pains, yet without being finical or elaborate. Any one at all conversant with what constitutes power of expression, knows that a needless multiplication of words always enfeebles the sense, as does also a looseness of structure between one part of a sentence and another; and that the more tersely and pointedly a sentiment can be expressed, the more forcible will it be. Sometimes the effect will be found to depend as much upon the relative adjustment of the words, so as to give the prominent place to those on which the main stress should be laid, as on the kind and number of the words themselves. I should express quite an appropriate and wholesome sentiment, if I should say, ‘It may now and then be our duty to others to suppress the truth, but duty to ourselves always requires us not to utter a falsehood.’ Change the arrangement, however, and see how much more emphatically it becomes as given by Hare: (Guesses at Truth, ii. p. 319.) ‘To suppress the truth may now and then be our duty to others; not to utter a falsehood must always be our duty to ourselves.’ Whately gives the following from Burke as a good example of the same description: (Rhetoric, p. 209.) ‘Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.’ And we may add this from Archer Butler: (i. p. 131.) ‘There is no bond but his own love (namely, in the promises of God), yet that bond is stronger than iron; and He, whom the universe cannot compel, commands Himself.’ In such sentences everything appears in the place it should occupy, to bring out distinctly the idea meant to be expressed. But here also there is a measure to be observed in any kind of public discourse, but especially in preaching. For if brevity and arrangement were constantly pursued, it would make too great a strain on people’s attention; they would come to feel like persons breathing in too dense an atmosphere; or, as Whately puts it, (P. 260.) like animal natures that are confined to food too simply nutritious, requiring more bulk and distension to render it altogether wholesome. Constructions formed with a view to emphasis, if too frequently indulged in, defeat their own object; what is always emphasized becomes monotonous, or loses effect by too palpable a straining after it. In such things, therefore, it is necessary to time oneself; and, indeed, to be little concerned about either special brevity or emphasis, except when particularly anxious to make impression.

(3.) Another characteristic, the only other I shall particularly mention, of the style proper to the pulpit, is that of a Scriptural tincture or impress. One can quite easily suppose that a discourse might be nearly all it should be for the pulpit as to simplicity, clearness, pith, and yet sensibly want something which one naturally expects in the discussion of a scriptural theme. There might be, whether from policy or from a regard to the supposed demands of taste, a studied avoidance of the more peculiar phraseology of Scripture, an employment of terms or a structure of sentences that bespoke no sympathy of tone or community of speech with the sacred writers. Mr. Foster, in one of his well-known essays, went so far as to recommend this as a wise accommodation to persons of cultivated taste, that is, to audiences composed chiefly of such, with the view principally of meeting the aversion such persons cherish to the subjects embraced in evangelical Christianity. In his judgment, a nearer approach to the simply literary style would have the advantage of presenting the ideas of the gospel, without in any way offending, but rather gratifying, their literary predilections. But it would be impossible to adopt such a style of discourse without not only refraining from the use of expressions which are the best our language supplies for the ideas they are intended to convey, but also losing that hallowed air which it is important to have thrown around religious topics for refined as well as ordinary hearers of the gospel. Mr. Hall therefore wisely took exception to the view of Foster in his review of the first edition of the Essays. In doing so he stated, that from the very nature of Christianity, which contains an exhibition of doctrine and requires the exercise of graces peculiar to itself, it necessarily originated a phraseology of its own, for the purpose of conveying correct impressions of its great truths and principles; and that this phraseology having been formed under the immediate impulse and guidance of the Holy Spirit, it could not be safely supplanted by another. While he could not applaud the extent to which the use of Scripture language was carried by some pious writers, he could still less throw it so much into abeyance as it would be on the system advocated by Foster. ‘To say nothing,’ he remarks, ‘of the inimitable beauties of the Bible, considered in a literary point of view, which are universally acknowledged, it is the book which every devout man is accustomed to consult as the oracle of God; it is the companion of his best moments, and the vehicle of his strongest consolations. Intimately associated in his mind with everything dear and valuable, its diction more powerfully excites devotional feelings than any other; and when temperately and soberly used, it imparts an unction to a religious discourse which nothing else can supply.’ He properly adds, that the avoidance of Scripture phraseology in religious discourses might not improbably lead to a neglect of the Scriptures themselves, and the substitution of a flashy and superficial declamation in the room of the saving truths of the gospel. Such an apprehension, he also thought, was too much verified ‘by the most celebrated sermons of the French, and still more by some modern compositions in our own language, which usurp that title.’ And he therefore held that ‘for devotional impression a very considerable tincture of the language of Scripture, or at least such a colouring as shall discover an intimate acquaintance with those inimitable models, will generally succeed best.’

Such, undoubtedly, is the right view of the matter; and there is the more reason for adhering to it, as in the Authorized Version, whatever partial errors and minor imperfections belong to it, there is so fine an example of general fidelity to the spirit and meaning of the original, embodied in a style which, for its object, may be said to approach very nearly to perfection. It puts a vocabulary and an idiom into our hand every way adapted to the purpose of its great mission as the revelation of God’s mind and will to men, embalmed also in the pious recollections, endeared by the earliest and most rooted associations of those to whom we speak. We are not, however, to imagine, that in order to preserve this Scriptural tincture it is enough to crowd our discourses with quotations from the different books of Scripture. This may be done, often actually is done, with no other effect than to beget an impression of the preacher’s want of independent thought, or such a sense of satiety as arises from listening to a continuous stream of commonplaces. Such, to a large extent, must be the effect of a kind of preaching which is sometimes practised, running out into a considerable variety of heads of discourse, and under each introducing so many passages of Scripture, that little space is left for more than a few connecting notes or illustrations. Preaching of this description can never tell with much quickening power, or produce lasting impressions. It is never to be forgotten, as one of the unalterable laws of mental agency, that if one is to beget thought and feeling in the bosom of others, there must first be the conscious possession and exercise thereof in one’s own. Here, also, there must be a cause bearing some proportion to the effect; and even passages of Scripture, if they are to be employed as means of moral suasion, must first be identified in the experience of the preacher with his own spiritual life, and used, not to save thought and application, but because they form the most appropriate vehicle of the ideas he has conceived, the convictions, desires, and hopes which he wishes those whom he addresses to share with himself. When so used, it will usually be found that a comparatively small number of direct quotations will be sufficient; their appropriateness rather than their multiplicity will be the more noticeable thing about them; but the Scriptural impress will pervade the discourse and appear in the general tone and character it presents as well as in specific portions of its contents.

Very closely allied to this Scriptural tone of thought and expression, though not absolutely identical with it, is the quality in the higher style of ministrations called unction, a quality more easily felt than described. It is, undoubtedly, when existing in any proper degree, not as an assumed pietism, but as a real quality, a soft penetrating influence mingling with the tone and manner of the preacher, and shedding a kind of sweet and heavenly savour over the sentiments he utters. When existing thus, it must, indeed, root itself deeply in the spiritual characteristics of the man, and be in a peculiar manner the reflection of his own inner life. It implies, prior to any manifestation of it in discourse, a certain sensibility of soul, an emotional nature acting under a sense of divine realities, and elevated by close communion with God, and so naturally appearing when coming forth to act upon others with a mingled solemnity and tenderness of spirit, with a freshness of holy life and yearning solicitude of love, which seems allied to heaven rather than to earth, and is felt upon men’s hearts as a sanctifying and subduing power. It will belong to any one very much in proportion as he has not simply acquired the language, but drunk into the spirit of the Bible, and has become penetrated with a sense of its all-important revelations. But it is not to be identified with a soft or mawkish sentimentality; for it has not rarely found its strongest development in men in whom the intellectual or imaginative faculties have held as prominent a place as the emotional, such as Howe, Edwards, Brainerd, Leighton, Thomas à Kempis, Pascal. But with whatever characteristics of mind more peculiarly combined, never can there be either a proper foundation for the quality or a healthful development of its power, except in connection with the intimate knowledge and habitual meditation of the word of God.

Enough, perhaps, has been said on the subject of style in pulpit discourses, as it is only the more essential points that can be noticed here. Impression, if not always the immediate, is assuredly the ultimate object to be aimed at, and everything should be considered and done with a special regard to this. The preacher should prepare for his work, and go through his work with the feeling, that if the truths he unfolds are not made to sink into the hearts of his auditors, let the effect otherwise be what it may, he has substantially laboured in vain. So that if he only can combine with the clear enunciation of gospel truth such nervous strength and spiritual unction as shall tend to win an attentive regard to what he says, and make it live in the remembrance of those who hear, the great object is gained to which his efforts should be directed. Such things, however, cannot be expected to come of themselves. They must be sought and striven for if they are to be found. The men who deem themselves superior to this, or who grudge the labour it exacts of them, must be content to remain deficient in the better and more effective qualities of discourse. But it does not follow that they should always work under the felt trammels of the preceding directions, and carefully elaborate every sentence in their discourses with a specific view to the attainment of the different kinds of excellence which have been mentioned. Composing or speaking well undoubtedly goes before composing or speaking quickly, as was justly said long ago by Quinctilian, ‘Bene scribendo fit, ut cito scribatur, non cito scribendo ut bene;’ but when practice has enabled us to get some freedom and skill in the work, the most correct and powerful in form may also be the portions which have actually passed with the greatest promptitude from our hands. But this can only be if the mind has been well seasoned and prepared by previous application for the effort. ‘Shakespeare,’ says Carlyle, (Review of Sir W. Scott’s Works.) ‘we may fancy wrote with rapidity, but not till he had thought with intensity. It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals, being ready for it. And herein truly lies the secret of the matter; such swiftness of mere writing after due energy of preparation is doubtless the right method; the hot furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure gold flow out at one gush.’ Yes, but comparatively few can either write or speak under the glow of such a well-formed and regulating impulse, and for the most part there will need to be a certain degree of conscious effort or toil in the actual bodying forth of one’s thoughts, as well as in the earlier attempts made toward a distinct conception and disposition of them. But on this particular point something more will be said in another connection.

VII. Elocution, or the delivery of discourses.—This is the last point of a general kind, common alike to all discourses, to which it is necessary to direct attention. And in some respects it is the most difficult of all; the most difficult to be discussed to any good purpose, and not unfrequently also the most difficult for the preacher to study, so as to reach in it some degree of perfection. The difficulty in both cases chiefly arises from the almost infinite diversity of the qualities to which an effective delivery may be ascribed, or which, at least, are capable of entering into it: the same qualities to which we feel disposed to ascribe it in some being precisely those in which others are markedly deficient, who yet attain to the power of an impressive or pleasing delivery. Fine expressive features, a majestic or heavenly aspect, such as partly from nature partly from grace belongs to some men, whose very appearance is a kind of sermon, an appropriate or graceful action, a voice of much compass and energy, capable of expressing by turns the most tender and melting, and the most lively or powerful tones; these are what may be called the leading elements of a constitutional kind in a good delivery; and when they meet in any individual, they seem quite adequate to account for his success, so far as that can be associated with exterior qualifications.

They do, undoubtedly, constitute great natural advantages, for which those who possess them may well be thankful; for such a natural dowry is to the public speaker like what being born to a considerable fortune is for the man of business. Yet how many of those who have risen as speakers to the highest eminence, whether in the civil or the sacred arena, have been more remarkable for the want than for the possession of some of those qualities! Demosthenes, whose name has come down to us as the most consummate orator of antiquity, with respect to the delivery as well as to the composition of his speeches, of whom, when observing the burst of admiration which came from a company of persons who simply heard his oration for the Crown read, his rival AEschines is reported to have said, ‘What would you have felt if you had heard him speak it?’—this same Demosthenes is known to have had a rather feeble constitution, and was so defective naturally in the organ of speech, that the nickname βάταλος (stammerer) was applied to him in his youth. It is worthy of notice, too, that the modern British orator, who is commonly regarded as approaching nearest to Demosthenes in some of the higher qualities of excellence, had very marked natural deficiencies of a somewhat similar kind. ‘In most of the external qualities of oratory,’ says Lord Brougham of Mr. Fox, ‘he was certainly deficient, being of an unwieldy person, without any grace of action, with a voice of little compass, and which, when pressed in the vehemence of his speech, became shrill almost to a cry or a squeak; yet all this was absolutely forgotten in the moment when the torrent began to pour.’

Pitt, it is well known, had most of the qualities in this respect which Fox wanted; he had, at least, a dignified bearing and manner, such as commanded the deference and regard of others, though it sometimes wounded their pride; and his voice is said to have been in a high degree sonorous, and capable of giving full effect to all the varieties of style in which he excelled; clearness of statement, close argumentation, cutting sarcasm, and vehement invective. And another person, a contemporary of these great rivals, himself also a man of rare excellence in some departments of oratory, stood much superior even to Pitt in the exterior qualities of an orator; he had them in a sort of ideal perfection. I refer to Erskine, who was possessed of such a noble figure as struck every one with admiration: an expressive countenance, a brilliant and piercing eye, a most graceful and appropriate manner; altogether such, that juries felt it impossible to withdraw their looks from him when once he had secured their attention; and the whole coupled with a voice peculiarly sweet, clear, flexible, adapted alike to earnest pleading, playful humour, and strains of melting pathos. What an accumulation of advantages! Yet great as they were, and great also as was his success in public speaking, neither he nor Pitt come up to that kind of action which was exemplified in Fox, and which, with all his disadvantages of form and gesture and voice, sufficed to render him the most effective speaker of his time in Parliament. In turning from the senate to the pulpit we meet with precisely similar anomalies. The qualities which seem to have commanded for some great distinction, scarcely, if at all, appear in others, who yet have been able to throw into their manner the most powerful attraction. By all accounts, Whitfield, who perhaps more nearly realized than any other in this country the true ideal of a preacher of the gospel, had most of the natural elements that contribute to a good delivery: a prepossessing appearance, a quick, glancing eye, an elastic and powerful voice, and an action full of grace and propriety. The young Spencer of Liverpool, who for the short period of his career made a singular impression, and to whose wonderful power as a preacher Hall has given in one of his notes a very emphatic testimony, appears to have been equally favoured by nature; as he is represented to have been of a most engaging countenance and form; to have had a fine eye and voice, a natural and impressive elocution, which, combined with much devotional fervour and simple earnestness of spirit, threw a quite unusual charm over his preaching; the more remarkable as his sermons, when published after his decease, proved to be rather tame compositions. But when we turn to others, even to some of the most eminent of recent preachers, we find a very scanty distribution of these exterior qualities. Hall had, no doubt, an expressive countenance and a commanding appearance, but he had a weak voice, and next to no action in the pulpit. Contrasting himself with Robinson of Cambridge, whom he succeeded, and at first unfortunately fell into imitating, he said, ‘Mr. Robinson had a musical voice, and was master of all its intonations; he had wonderful self-possession, and could say what he pleased, when he pleased, and how he pleased; while my voice and manner were naturally bad; and far from having self-command, I never entered the pulpit without omitting to say something that I wished to say, and saying something that I wished unsaid.’ Yet, while the natural qualities which tend to secure a pleasing and effective delivery were so imperfectly possessed by Hall, as compared with his predecessor, there can be no doubt that the delivery which was actually the most perfect, the one which most completely riveted the attention of the hearers, and served to impress the sentiments of the speaker most deeply upon their minds, belonged to Hall in a far higher degree than it ever did to Robinson. In like manner, Chalmers, whose manner for earnestness and force was probably never surpassed in the pulpit, owed wondrously little to the merely external gifts of nature. He had a voice firm indeed, and moderately strong, but utterly devoid of music, flexibility, or softness, singularly hard and uniform in its intonations; an eye that expressed nothing but the utter absorption of the speaker in his own theme; and a manner without grace or polish, rarely serving more than to embody the one idea of tremendous energy and vital force. Yet the effect, not merely with the general public, but with the most severe and keen-eyed critics, was of the most impressive kind. One of the latter class, John Lockhart, (In Peter’s Letters.) after pointing to what was defective, and mentioning that ‘his voice was neither strong nor melodious, his gestures neither easy nor graceful, his pronunciation not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he uttered into some barbarous novelty,’ proceeds to say: ‘But, in truth, these are things which no listener can attend to while this great preacher stands before him armed with all the weapons of the most commanding eloquence, and swaying all around him with its imperial rule. . . . I have heard many men,’ he adds, ‘deliver sermons far better arranged in regard to argument, and have heard very many deliver sermons far more uniform in elegance both of conception and style; but most unquestionably I have never heard, either in England or Scotland, or in any other country, any preacher whose eloquence is capable of producing an effect so strong and irresistible as his.’ Were we to multiply examples, it would only be to produce fresh diversities in respect to the degrees in which things naturally conducive to a good delivery have been found in preachers of eminence; and even that which might seem the most indispensable of all qualities for the purpose of impression, the power of a sustained pitch of voice, has sometimes failed so much in preachers of great excellence and power, that their most impassioned and solemn passages have had to be delivered in a kind of undertone, little more ‘than an audible breathing. The conclusion, I think, to be drawn from the existence of such diversities is, that an effective delivery depends upon a considerable variety of things; upon qualities partly corporal, partly mental; and that though all or nearly all of them may be united in a single individual, yet in reality they very seldom are so; nor is it at all necessary that they should be so united in order to the attainment of the highest success as to power and impressiveness of action. It would even seem, from the facts connected with the subject, that there is here also a law of compensation which very commonly comes into play; and that it is rarely indeed those who are most fully endowed with the exterior gifts of nature, but those rather who have some marked defects in this respect to encounter and overcome, for whom the highest place is reserved: the very effort in overcoming the difficulty, or triumphing in the face of an obvious disqualification, being thereby made to turn to the account of the speaker, and imparting to his utterances a charm they could not otherwise have possessed.

All this must, of course, be understood with certain limitations. A measure even of the more superficial endowments of nature must be held indispensable to even a moderate degree of success. There are voices not only naturally defective, but so inherently bad, so grating, so harsh, or so impotent, that it is not conceivable they could by any application of art or labour be rendered subservient to a good delivery. There are also constitutional temperaments so nervously shy or timid, and features so uncouth in their appearance or grotesque in their movements, that they present difficulties too great to be surmounted by any ordinary amount of industry, although, it may be admitted, such cases are not of very frequent occurrence. They form but a fragmentary portion of the number who pass through the preparatory education and training which in every well-regulated church precede admission into the rank of preachers of the gospel. So that one can hardly say it is from absolute deficiency in the simply natural and physical qualities, if more than a very small proportion of them should fail in the attributes essential to a becoming manner for the pulpit. Yet comparative failures, there can be no doubt, are far from being uncommon. In numberless instances the remark is extorted from Christian congregations, that the discourse they had listened to was Scriptural, well-digested, in substance excellent, and only wanted to be otherwise delivered; but the defect there spoiled all. I have known not a few men of superior talents and learning, apparently of a right spirit, and perfectly capable of thinking out their ideas clearly and giving them adequate expression, lost in a great measure from mere defects of manner. They seemed to have almost everything necessary to make them able ministers of the New Testament, but the somewhat superficial accomplishment of a proper address. This defect will, no doubt, be found in a number of cases to have its root in the mental constitution of the individual—in an imperfect possession of the qualities which form points of sympathy and contact with the popular mind; so that while there may be a considerable dowry of natural and acquired gifts, these somehow, in their mode of application, acquire a set, which wants adaptation to the popular mind, and one which it may become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to rectify. Indeed, the cases generally of a defective or vicious delivery are of a kind that, when once acquired, are not likely to be much improved by such directions and precepts as can be delivered in a class-room or set forth on the printed page. They are so various in themselves, and stand connected with such diversified tendencies or imperfections, that, to be dealt with effectually, they would require to be dealt with individually. Somewhat possibly may be done in the way of prevention, or in guiding beforehand into the right track; and it is mainly with that view that I am going to offer a few suggestions on the subject.

Before doing so, however, I would have it to be distinctly understood, that the things to be noticed should not be deemed as in themselves of more than secondary rank. The primary and more essential attributes belong to the state and temper of the soul. They consist in its enlightened views of divine truth, its firm grasp of the principles of a living piety, and its earnest desire to promote the great ends of the Christian ministry. Nothing can possibly compensate for the want of these, as the possession of them is the great spur to excellence. The very spring and heart of all effective preaching may be said to stand in this, feeling with all the soul, and then speaking with all the soul.

1. With this precaution as to the relative importance of things, and omitting all that is of a subordinate and merely circumstantial kind, (There are things of this sort, however, which are well deserving the attention of preachers, such as their mode of entering the pulpit, their bearing in it, their treatment of the congregation: all should be serious, without levity or undue familiarity.) I notice, in the first place, that great care should be taken to acquire a distinct and proper enunciation. If there is any obvious defect here, every effort should be made by a resolute and continued application to get rid of it. For, whatever may be the peculiar style of the preacher, whether it may naturally assume a calm and dignified or a lively and impassioned form, it will always be a great advantage to possess, and a corresponding disadvantage to want, a clear and articulate enunciation. Should the words be uttered in too rapid or mumbling a fashion to be distinctly caught by the audience, should there be any broad or obvious provincialism in the mode of expression, or should the tone of voice have got anything of a monotonous or sing-song manner, there is necessarily so far a grave impediment in the way of success; and if not earnestly grappled with and overcome, it will be almost sure to grow into a confirmed habit. But one of the main difficulties, when such a defect really exists, lies in the unconsciousness of the individual: it is a chance if he ever becomes duly sensible of it. Every one readily gets accustomed to his own manner of speech and action; and nothing is more common than for those who have some marked peculiarities of utterance or gesture to fall into a sort of unconsciousness about them. It is here that the lessons of an elocution teacher may lend important service, not so much by imparting any positive element of success, as by awakening a full consciousness of the evil that exists, showing it to its owner as it appears when transferred to the person of another. In this way a too quick utterance, a bad intonation, a misplacing or neglect of emphasis, a tendency to strike upon some disagreeable key, or to use certain kinds of provincial mannerisms, may be detected before they have settled down into permanent habits, and brought under correction. Even with some pains and help of this description before the work of preaching has been actually commenced, it will rarely happen that nothing more in the way of correction needs to be effected; and young preachers, if they are wise, will keep their ears open to any hints or suggestions that may be tendered them on the subject. It is a point of some delicacy how far settled pastors should encourage animadversions upon their manner in the pulpit, any more than upon the substance of their discourses, though even they should beware of drawing too tight a cordon around themselves; but preachers, who are only, as it were, feeling their way to the right manner of speech and action, should be less scrupulous about being spoken to. And, I repeat, if they are wise, they will for a time keep their ears open. It requires a good deal of wisdom to do so; wisdom grounded in deep humility of spirit, godly simplicity of purpose, unfeigned desire to know the real truth of the case in order to turn it to profitable account; for it is apt to come like a chilling blast upon one’s spirits, after having plied every effort to deliver the divine message according to the best of one’s ability, to be told of some unhappy blemish or imperfection that considerably interferes with the impression. Yet remember, if there be such a hindrance to your proper success, it exists whether you are told of it or not; and in such a case ignorance is emphatically not bliss; nay, ‘open rebuke is better than secret love.’ It is much better to be made acquainted with the evil, when it may still be remedied, though the discovery may haply come as a stroke on the cheek, than that it should be allowed without a struggle to root itself in your being. Preachers should hold it for certain, that for the first four or five years, at least, they are in the position of learners, with not a few things about them that require to be improved and rectified; and that they can attain to the relative perfection of which they may be capable no otherwise than by becoming alive to the evil as well as the good in their characteristics, and striving with manly resolution to make the best of it. Perfection here, as in other things, comes not so much from being originally destitute of faults, as from knowing well what faults exist, and then aiming at their rectification. (See Miller’s Clerical Manners, p. 99. There are also some good remarks on the subject in Beecher’s Lectures on Preaching, Lect. vi.)

2. A second point to be attended to, is to endeavour to obtain naturalness in voice and manner. Nothing in this respect can be quite good which is not natural, or which attempts to put nature to an undue strain, doing some sort of violence to it. In all departments nature must be the foundation of art, in a great degree also the measure of art; and not what, abstractedly considered, may be the best, but what is best relatively to the powers and situation of each individual, that is for him the point especially to be aimed at. Very commonly it is some time before this can be quite surely ascertained. The man must be regarded as unusually skilful and fortunate who gets all at once into the kind of voice and manner which it is most becoming in him to cultivate as a public speaker. In the majority of cases there will probably be found an ideal excellence set up in the mind’s eye, derived more or less from the known characteristics of some particular individual. And from that imitative principle in our nature which has so many important functions to fulfil, we are extremely apt to fancy that what seems natural to others must be the same with ourselves. Hence it so often happens that artificial mannerisms, strained and unnatural modes of speech, which are utterly unknown in youth, spring up in after life, and become all the more inveterate that they are acquired. And if in higher things the way to the right has many times to be sought by returning whence one has set out; if, as has been said, ‘Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover’ (Ruskin); so with the earnest student, in regard to what is for him the proper style of manner and speech, his chief endeavour will often need to be directed to the getting rid of the false set he has acquired, and resuming the simple tones, the natural cadences, and unforced gesticulations of childhood. Let every one try to bear in mind, that so far as in these respects he departs from the simplicity of nature, his manner inevitably loses in power and attractiveness; while, by taking nature for his basis, he may make almost incredible advances. On this point the question was asked by one who was himself a distinguished and most useful preacher, (James, in Earnest Ministry, p. 118.) ‘When will preachers learn that preaching is but talking in a louder tone, and with a little more emphasis of manner? Why affect a preaching or a praying tone, a manner of speaking peculiar to the pulpit? The conversational manner, occasionally elevated, animated, and energetic as impassioned passages and feelings may require, is what we want. There are some men who are good talkers out of the pulpit, yet bad speakers in it. How much more acceptable would they be, if they would carry their easy, natural manner of conversation with them into the sacred desk!’ Yet it is possible to go to excess also in this direction; and there is truth in what Adolph Monod says, (Discourse on Delivery of Sermons.) that ‘too great familiarity is almost as great a fault as declamation. It is the tone of good conversation, but this tone ennobled and exalted, which seems to me to be the ideal of oratorical delivery.’ Very much to the same effect is said by Whately: (Rhetoric, p. 364.) ‘It would not be by any means natural to an educated and sober-minded man to speak like an illiterate enthusiast, or to discourse on the most important matters in the tone of familiar conversation respecting the trifling occurrences of the day. Any one who does but notice the style in which a man of ability, and of good choice of words and utterance, delivers his sentiments in private, when he is, for instance, earnestly and seriously admonishing a friend, defending the truths of religion, or speaking on any other grave subject on which he is intent, may easily observe how different his tone is from that of light and familiar conversation, how far from deficient in the dignified seriousness which befits the case! Even a stranger to the language might guess that he was not engaged on any frivolous topic. And yet, when an opportunity occurs of observing how he delivers a written discourse of his own composition, or perhaps the very same on a similar subject, will it not often be perceived how comparatively stiff, languid, and unimpressive is the effect?’ In short, there are two extremes here to be guarded against. On the one side a stiff, formal mouthing, or monotonous manner; on the other, the quite free and easy, or simply conversational tone. The latter is so far better than the former, that it is natural, though wanting the proper force and elevation of tone. And he who can hit the happy medium between the two is the person who here lights upon the proper track.

3. Another thing of great importance, and materially conducive to the end just considered, is getting the mind well prepared on the subject of discourse, at home in it, and alive to it. Every one is sensible of the difference of manner in the person who, whatever be the matter in hand, shows himself to be well acquainted with the topics he discusses, and the same person, perhaps, when conversing about what he neither very well knows nor cares much about. In the former case there is sure to be a precision, a freedom, and a warmth in what is said, of which little or no trace is found in the other. There is no conceivable reason why it should be otherwise in the pulpit. The difference in the two cases may rather be expected to be more marked there, as the speaker is less at his ease, and he can less readily conceal any deficiency in knowledge or interest under which he may labour. If a preacher goes to the pulpit with his ideas imperfectly arranged or dimly apprehended; or if, having all in that respect much as it should be, he has still not got his heart about the subject, so that the matter he has to bring forth may rather be said to lie before him than to be incorporated with his inner man, it is in the nature of things impossible that the mode of delivery can be engaging or impressive. It may well enough be distinct, correct, or possibly animated and vehement, but it can have nothing of true kindling warmth and stimulating power. Undue familiarity with the subject of a discourse may produce substantially the same effect as comparative strangeness to it; everything by frequent repetition has lost its freshness to the preacher’s mind, and become in a manner stale. Indeed, whatever has the effect of keeping the speaker himself at some distance from his theme, of rendering it either faint to his apprehension or dull to the feelings of his heart, cannot but in a like proportion affect the manner in which he discourses of it to others. And no one who has any experience in preaching can have failed to perceive how differently in point of naturalness, life, and energy he has spoken what was perhaps to a nearness the same discourse at one time, compared with the tone and spirit which characterized his delivery of it at another. It is necessary, therefore, to remember that no general propriety of manner, nor even this coupled with a clear and accurate knowledge of the whole matter of discourse, will be sufficient to ensure, regularly and unexceptionably, a mode of delivery that will meet either the expectations of the hearers or the desires of the preacher himself. Much will still depend upon his state of mind at the time; and only when, by previous meditation and prayer, this has been brought into suitable accordance with the message he has to deliver, will the words he speaks pass from him with due emphasis and power. No art in the mere modulation of speech, .no straining or energy of action, can ever make up for the want of a heartfelt appreciation of the things discoursed of, or a rightly attempered frame of mind.

4. A further point which calls for some consideration and adjustment, is the adaptation of the mode of delivery to the precise character of the discourse, or particular portions of the discourse, delivered. Varieties in the one naturally call for corresponding varieties in the other. If the discourse were altogether of an explanatory or expository nature, it would not do to be spoken with the same tone and tension of manner, which might be quite suitable and appropriate if one were endeavouring to illustrate and enforce a principle, or exhort to the performance of some arduous duty. But a pulpit discourse will, in general, only in part belong to any specific kind; in some portions it will aim more immediately at the enlightenment of the understanding; in others, at the excitation of the feelings, or the guidance and direction of the will. It should therefore differ materially in its structure from an essay, which, calling into play the intellect or taste merely, may preserve throughout an almost unchanging equability of tone. The other requires a certain measure of variety; variety, first, in the method and style of discourse, and then somewhat of a like variety in the manner, which is associated with the delivery of its several parts. If the whole should be gone through in one strain, the attention of the audience will inevitably flag; a sense of satiety or weariness will be produced, and the preacher may not improbably come to be viewed much in the light of a performer who has a certain taskwork of duty to overtake, rather than of one who has to play skilfully on an instrument, so as, if possible, to touch the various sensibilities, and work into proper harmony of thought and feeling with himself the minds of those he addresses. There should therefore be an effort to vary the manner according to the nature of the discourse; and to time oneself as to strength and energy, by interposing quieter and calmer passages between those requiring somewhat of sustained and vigorous action. Sometimes even brief pauses are advisable, if the discourse is of such a nature as to demand continuous thought and sustained application; it being no small part of practical wisdom to take one’s breath at the right time, and thereby give seasonable relief both to speaker and hearer.

5. The remarks hitherto made have had reference to delivery in general, whether the discourse may be simply in the pastor’s mind or lying in a written page before him. Nothing further has been implied than that the matter he is going to address to his congregation has been made the subject of previous thought and consideration, so as to qualify him for speaking intelligently and feelingly about it; without which, directions as to manner will be of little moment. But it would be improper to quit this branch of the subject without paying some attention to the question as to the relative merits of preaching from or without manuscript; or as it is very commonly put, preaching, or simply reading sermons.

If one were to be guided by authorities on the art of public speaking, the question would be easily decided; for while I know of many writers on this art who have spoken very decidedly against reading discourses, I know of none worth mentioning who gives the preference to the opposite practice. Campbell says: (Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence, p. 159.) ‘That a discourse well spoken has a stronger effect than one well read, will hardly bear a question. From this manifest truth I very early concluded, and was long of opinion, that the way of reading sermons should be absolutely banished from the pulpit. But from further experience I am now disposed to suspect that this conclusion was rather hasty.’ He goes on to state that he found so very few attained to excellence in speaking their discourses, while a considerable number read tolerably, that he deemed it, upon the whole, preferable to have the plan, which in itself was inferior, and admitted only of a respectable mediocrity, generally adopted; not, therefore, because he thought it better, but because a certain degree of success in it was easier. Blair, with all his coldness and moderation, gives his decision in a tone still more decided. He says: (Lectures, ii. p. 297.) ‘The practice of reading sermons is one of the greatest obstacles to the eloquence of the pulpit in Great Britain, where alone this practice prevails ‘(alone in Blair’s time, though far from being so now). ‘No discourse which is designed to be persuasive can have the same force when read as when spoken. The common people all feel this, and their prejudice against this practice is not without foundation in nature. What is gained hereby in point of correctness is not equal, I apprehend, to what is lost in point of persuasion and force.’

 In a former generation, Bishop Burnet spoke of the practice as one ‘peculiar to the English nation, and endured by no other.’ So distasteful was it on its first general introduction there, that Charles II issued a proclamation forbidding it as ‘a supine and superficial way of preaching,’ as it was characterized, which had lately sprung up, and ought to be laid aside. Whately, in more recent times, refrains from pronouncing a judgment on the comparative advantages of the two methods with reference to the pulpit; for he will hardly allow himself to regard it as an open question, whether sermons should be read or not. He takes it for granted that they will be read, and contents himself with giving some directions which might help preachers to attain to a style of reading that would approximate preaching as to apparent naturalness and real power. But his very speech betrays how he felt as to the relative tendencies of the two modes, and which of them he thought best calculated in itself to produce effect. ‘It has been already remarked,’ he says, ‘how easy it is for the hearers to keep up their attention when they are addressed by one who is really speaking to them in a natural and earnest manner, though the discourse, perhaps, may be encumbered with a good deal of repetition, awkwardness of expression, and other faults incident to extemporaneous language; and though it be prolonged for an hour or two, and yet contain no more matter than a good writer could have clearly expressed in a discourse of half an hour, which last, if read to them, would not, without some effort on their part, have so fully detained their attention.’ Of course, therefore, other things being equal, the speaker has a great advantage over the reader for sustaining the interest of his auditors, and gaining the practical ends he aims at. Hare, who was more free, and less trammelled in his judgment on such matters by conventional arrangements, leaves no room to doubt how he thought upon the subject: (Guesses at Truth, vol. ii. p. 214.) ‘What do our clergy lose,’ says he, ‘by reading their sermons? They lose preaching; the preaching of the voice in many cases, the preaching of the eye almost always.’ And to name but another, the late, excellent Mr. James very earnestly dissuades from the practice of reading: (Earnest Ministry, p. 124.) ‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘can be conceived of more likely to repress earnestness and to hinder our usefulness than this method becoming general. True it is, that some preachers may rise up, who, like a few living examples, may in despite of this practice attain to eminence, to honour, and to usefulness, such as rarely falls to the lot of ministers in any denomination; but this will not be the case with the greater number, who, having no commanding talent to lift them above the disadvantage of this habit, will find few churches willing to accept their dulness for the sake of the accuracy with which it is expressed. And who can tell how much greater our greatest men would be if they delivered their sermons without their notes?’ (It is worthy of note also that the introduction of the practice among the English Nonconformists was not of very happy omen. ‘In the course of the second period (that is, near the close of last century), it became the fashion among the Dissenting ministers to read their sermons. Brief outlines of the sermon had been made use of by some of the Nonconformists to assist the memory; a few had the whole placed before them, which they looked at occasionally; but the greater part made themselves masters of the subject, and preached without notes. By degrees reading slipt into general use with those who wrote their discourses at full length, not only among the Presbyterians, but the Independents too; and there were few of the London ministers in either of these denominations who did not pore very much over their notes. Towards the close of the period the practice was at its height. Not to use notes was at that time accounted methodistical; and in the metropolis, reading was the evidence of Dissenting regularity’ (Bogue and Bennett’s Hist, of Dissenters, vol. ii. p. 263).)

Certainly, as regards the general feeling in congregations, at least in Scotland, there is a strong advantage on the side of the non-reading preacher. He takes the course which appears to them both natural and proper, so that the way is in a manner open for him to make such impression on their minds as the matter with which he is charged is calculated to produce. With the person, however, who reads his discourses there is, first of all, a repugnance to be overcome; he has to fight his way, in a manner, to a favourable hearing, to confront and triumph over an acknowledged prejudice. All must admit this to be so far a disadvantage were the feeling in question nothing but a prejudice without any valid grounds to rest on; for there are prejudices which wise and prudent men will never fail to respect, which apostles even were obliged to humour in order that they might not preach in vain, or labour in vain. But I doubt if, in the present case, the feeling should be treated simply and in all cases as a prejudice. Even Blair says: ‘It has its foundation in nature,’ as, indeed, the general practice of mankind in regard to public speaking clearly evinces. It springs from a prevailing and deep-rooted conviction, that when men thoroughly in earnest undertake to speak to their fellow-men on a subject of importance, they should be able to give expression to their views and feelings without the formal apparatus of a book, and with the freedom and elasticity of a spoken address. It undoubtedly has also, in this country at least, the general testimony of results on its side; for the preaching which has usually been most appreciated by the better portion of the community, and which has yielded by much the largest harvest of spiritual good, is undoubtedly preaching in the stricter sense, preaching as contradistinguished from reading; the latter also, in many parts of the country, being associated with sad memories of cold and lifeless ministrations. And there is, I suspect, in the better class of our Scottish population, a deeper and more sacred feeling still at the bottom of their dislike to read sermons. They have elevated views of the ministry of the gospel when it appears to be prosecuted in an earnest and believing spirit. He who comes forth in such a spirit to discharge its duties, especially in the preaching of the gospel, is regarded by them as the bearer of a message from the Lord; not as if he had any new tidings to divulge, or truths never heard before to communicate, but because he has on his spirit portions of the word of God to unfold in its proper meaning and various application, so that, relatively to their state and sense of obligation, it comes to them as a fresh exhibition of divine truth, a new opening to them of the counsel of Heaven. Impressed with such a conviction, and justly impressed with it, they cannot understand how that should possess anything like the character of a message to them from the upper sanctuary which they see the minister reading calmly from a paper before him. This presents to their view the aspect of an essay composed, or a line of argumentation pursued, by the reasoning faculties of the man; a thing for the family or the closet rather than for the house of God, where the special presence of the Spirit is expected, and where living communications should be ever passing between heaven and earth. They judge, of course, from appearances. You cannot get them to throw themselves back upon the pastor’s study, and consider whether there may not, for a well-spoken discourse, have been as much previous preparation going on there as for a read one, and whether the one kind of preparation may not have been as much made under the guidance of the Spirit as the other. They judge, as I have said, in great measure from the appearance; the one mode of delivering the testimony of God has much more than the other the aspect of a real message, a direct dealing with their souls about divine things; nor can they easily persuade themselves that the pastor has the interests of salvation properly at heart if he cannot discourse to them with some freeness on the subject. And I fear, if the practice of reading should become altogether or nearly universal, it would go far to undermine the salutary feeling of which I speak. Sermons read from the pulpit will come to be regarded much in the light of a kind of book literature, and the idea cease to be entertained of its being one of the appointed channels through which the Spirit maintains living intercourse with the souls of men.

Taking all these things into account, considering also the difficulty, with all possible care and application, of acquiring a manner in reading which shall approximate speaking in naturalness and life, considering further the almost inevitable loss it involves of what Hare calls the preaching voice, and especially the preaching eye, I have no hesitation in giving my decided and earnest recommendation in favour of preaching without manuscript, as in itself, and apart from any peculiar circumstances of place or otherwise, the method that ought to be preferred. So clearly does this appear to me to be the right course, that there should always, I think, be strong and somewhat special reasons to warrant a departure from it. I am by no means disposed to say such reasons may not exist, and would deprecate any stringent regulation on the subject, absolutely proscribing the use of papers in the pulpit. Sometimes the character of the congregation may furnish an adequate reason, namely, when it is almost wholly composed of persons of much culture and polish, naturally disposing it to prize—to prize, perhaps, unduly— the correct or the beautiful in thought and expression above the emotional and impulsive; in such a case it may be usually the wisest course to adopt the practice of reading. The great majority of preachers, even of such as are distinguished by their powers of speech, might find this the mode best adapted to render their ministrations most acceptable and useful to the class of minds they have to deal with. Sometimes, again, the occasion may furnish an adequate reason, as when the discourse to be delivered is on some topic on which it is desirable to bring forward a considerable amount of specific information, or to treat it with much precision of thought and language; in that case few congregations would be so unreasonable as to object to the free use of written preparations, for it is rather the solidity of the matter, and the well-weighed, carefully-balanced expression that is given to one’s views respecting it, by which the discourse is to succeed in its aim, than its power to interest and move the feelings. Still, again, there may be reasons in the mental constitution of the preacher himself rendering it every way probable, if not absolutely certain, that his manner of delivery, on the whole, would be rather injured than improved by the disuse of his notes. The case of Dr. Chalmers may be referred to as one of the most noticeable examples in this class. His cast of thought so deeply impressed itself on his style, and that style was so much more adapted for written composition than for extemporaneous address, that his discourses, in anything approaching their actual form, could scarcely have been delivered otherwise than by reading from the manuscript. Yet their vehement and persuasive oratory was so intimately connected with the very form in which they were produced, that one could hardly have advised the alteration of the form in order simply to get rid of the manuscript; the more especially as in his case, more perhaps than that of any other great exemplar of eloquence, there was such an absorption of the man in the subject, that it seemed much a matter of indifference whether he read or not. The rapt enthusiasm of the speaker made everything external be forgotten; and as it was clear that the eye moved too much in a region of its own to keep up the play of any direct interchange of feeling with the audience, the effect was not sensibly marred by its resting so much on the written page. His case, however, was altogether peculiar; it must be excepted from the common category; for as few could read like him in the pulpit as write like him at the desk.

Most commonly, when reasons are drawn from the personal idiosyncrasy of the preacher, they turn upon the felt difficulty, the practical impossibility, of getting the subject of discourse in the mind without writing the discourse in full, and then committing it to memory, so that it must be much the same thoughts and expressions which in either case are presented to the minds of the congregation; and as to the preacher’s own consciousness, there is little difference between the discourse as spoken or as read. As, moreover, the preparation necessary to speak it costs much time and irksome labour, and the actual speaking is attended with manifold anxieties, not to say risks of failure, which are avoided by the smoother course of reading, he deems himself justified in resorting to this latter method, and thinks it reasonable that the grounds of his decision should prevail also with his audience. I have no doubt that there are persons of good natural abilities, and in many respects so qualified for the work of the ministry, that it were to be regretted if the Church should lose their services, who yet, from defect of memory or from nervous temperament, find the work of preaching without manuscript so beset with difficulties, that the other practice appears to them the only one properly within their reach. It is also possible, by due pains and well-directed effort, to get into a mode of reading so easy and graceful and impressive, that it resembles much a spoken address; for in this respect great diversities undoubtedly exist. It is possible, yet one cannot say frequent; and there are two considerations which should have much weight in disposing candidates for the ministry to be cautious in giving way to such a style of thinking. One is, that the practice of reading discourses ministers so readily to the love of ease, that it is almost sure to call forth by degrees less application, to grow less like speaking rather than the reverse; the manuscript, when once fairly trusted to, will be increasingly depended on, and at last, perhaps, slavishly adhered to. The other consideration is, that unless one sits resolutely to the work of studying his subject with the view of being prepared to preach without notes, he scarcely knows what he can do in the matter, or what, in the long run, would be the actual cost to him in time and labour. The greatest difficulties lie here at the threshold; they call for vigorous and persevering application at the outset; but if this is given they gradually diminish, till an amount of work is done, and done with comparative ease, which at one time would have appeared incredible to the person himself who succeeds in accomplishing it.

Take as an example the case of Thomas Scott the commentator. In a letter to a country clergyman, Mr. Coffin, published along with many others so late as 1845, Mr. Newton sought to stimulate and encourage his correspondent by the experience of Scott. ‘Mr. Scott,’ he says, ‘is perhaps the most ready and fluent extempore preacher amongst us; yet when he agreed with me upon other points, he still insisted that he should never be able to preach without a book. For some time he read his prayer in his chamber with his wife, and had not confidence to let even her hear him without a form. . . . One day he was so taken up that he could not possibly write his homily. He was forced to speak; and was not a little surprised when some of the people told him they hoped he would read no more, for they had never heard him so well before. From that time he laid his notes aside.’ Indeed, he went to the opposite extreme, of not only laying aside notes, but ceasing to write them; he simply premeditated his subject, and used what words and illustrations came to his hand at the moment of delivery, an extreme I by no means recommend. But in Mr. Scott’s case its injurious tendencies would probably be in good measure counteracted by the vigour of his understanding, his uncommon acquaintance with Scripture, and the constant exercise of his pen in other departments of labour. I point to his example mainly in proof of the success which often attends the resolute endeavour to overcome the difficulties that seem to render progress in the line I recommend all but impracticable. For those, however, who resolve to make the attempt of preaching without manuscript, various methods may be adopted, according to their own peculiar gifts and predilections. In every case, where absolute necessity does not prevent, there should be careful preparation. But this, with some, may take the form of fully thinking out the subject in their mind, with ‘comparatively little in the way of writing, which, by practice, may be carried to the extent of arranging almost every line of thought and illustration, many a paragraph also of the discourse, while still leaving the mind at some liberty to follow the impulse of the moment, and to speak as the Spirit may give them utterance. This is the plan that has been followed by some of the most eminent preachers, as well in former as in present times. Of Mr. Hall, for example, we are told by Dr. Leifchild in his memoirs: ‘I learnt from him that most of his great sermons were first worked out in thought, and inwardly elaborated in the very words in which they were delivered. He ridiculed the delusion of those who supposed that the perorations of his sermons were delivered impromptu, observing that they were the most carefully studied parts of the whole discourse.’ Or the method may be adopted of writing the introduction in full, one or more of the heads of discourse, with select portions of other parts; and, for the rest, merely placing the thoughts in order, adjusting the materials, but leaving the language to the moment of delivery. This method has the advantage of obliging the mind to have its course of thought and illustration very distinctly marked out beforehand, and also of providing it with a certain amount of suitable matter for the occasion, while at ever-recurring intervals it gives scope to the free expression of thoughts and feelings as they arise. Only, as in the former case, it will certainly require, to be managed with success, a considerable degree of self-possession, with clearness of vision and readiness of utterance; otherwise there is sure to appear at particular parts a hesitancy, a confusion of thought, or perhaps a tendency to fall into repetitions. With the requisite amount of talent and adequate preparation such things may be prevented, but they will need to be well guarded against. Still another method has been adopted by some, that of writing the discourse throughout, then reading it carefully over once and again so as to get the entire train of thought on the memory, and many of the particular expressions also in which it is unfolded; yet without attempting to have it committed verbatim, which, from experience, they find to be irksome and embarrassing. When such a plan can be followed without material inconvenience, that is, when it suits the preacher’s mental habits, it may be followed with advantage, combining, as it does, careful preparations with a rational freedom in the use of them. But the instances are not, perhaps, very numerous in which it will be found practically available. For, generally speaking, when one has been at the pains of writing all beforehand, the mind will not be satisfied with itself if it does not also present its thoughts in the same form to others; and a conscious departure from that form in the delivery will usually have the effect of disconcerting the preacher, and of rendering his manner hesitating and embarrassed. It will only succeed where there is such a want of faithfulness and precision in the memory as convinces the individual of his utter inability to adhere closely to what he has written, and at the same time a conscious need of the support it provides.

But, undoubtedly, the more common method, and the one that will probably be found in the great majority of cases to be most practicable, is to write, if not absolutely all the discourse, yet all that is of much moment, and so far to commit it to memory as to be able to deliver it with substantial correctness from the pulpit, with nothing more, perhaps, than a brief outline of the train of thought. At first, no doubt, this will usually be accompanied with a sense of irksomeness in the effort to get such a mass of preconceived matter upon the mind, and a feeling of restraint in uttering it. But by exercise these gradually give way; the manner of composition adapts itself more and more closely to the manner of delivery, and the memory both acquires more easily, and with more fidelity retains, what has been written, so that the preacher comes to write much as he would speak, and to speak much as if he was not adhering to any pre-arranged form of words. People who have not fairly tried this method can have no adequate idea of the extent to which it can be realized, and of the indefinite nearness to which the utterance of the speaker can be made to approach in style and spirit the habits of the writer. The degree of preparation, however, which has now been recommended, is sometimes thought too much, has even been stigmatized by persons of some standing and experience as at variance with the apostolic idea of preaching, and incompatible with the true power of the pulpit. It is done particularly in the spirited treatise of Dr. Arthur, The Tongue of Fire. The treatise contains not a little that is excellent and deserving of serious consideration, but is somewhat one-sided, looking at the subject from what may be called more especially the Methodist point of view, as if the end of preaching were almost exclusively conversion, and the minister had only to aim at the bringing of souls to Christ. And this, as formerly stated, is so very fundamental and primary an object in the ministerial calling, that I regret having to say anything that may even seem to take off the mind from it, or to lessen its relative importance. It is immensely the greatest, but still it is not the whole; and to contemplate it as the exclusive object of a minister’s anxiety and labour, is not, I am convinced, the best way of securing even that, as it naturally leads to the undue elevation of some elements of power, and the comparative or total neglect of others. Contemplating the matter chiefly from the point of view now mentioned, the writer in question states it to be the right feeling for every one who goes to preach the gospel, after having been at some pains to think over and digest the truth: ‘I am here to say just what God may enable me to say; to be enlarged or to be straitened, according as He may be pleased to give utterance or not.’ (P. 322.) And with this feeling, he says, ‘all appearances ought to correspond. It ought to be manifest that, while he has done what in him lies to be thoroughly furnished, he is trusting for utterance to help from above, and not ensuring it by natural means, either a manuscript or memory. We put these together, because we do not see that any distinction really exists between them. The plea that the manuscript is more honest than memoriter preaching has some force, but certainly not much, for he that reads from his memory is to the feeling and instinct of his hearers as much reading as he who reads from his manuscript. In neither case are the thoughts and feelings gushing straight from the mind, and clothing themselves as they come. The mind is taking up words from paper or from memory, and doing its best to animate them with feeling. Even intellectually the operation is essentially different from speaking, and the differenceis felt by all. For literary purposes, for intellectual gratification, both have a decided advantage over speaking; but for the purposes of pleading, entreating, winning, and creating a sense of fellowship, for impelling and arousing, for doing good, speaking is the natural, is the Creator’s instrument.’ He admits that other modes may be, and have been, blessed for good; but still he says of reading, either from the manuscript or from memory, that it is not Scriptural preaching. ‘It is not ministering after the mode of Pentecostal Christianity; it is a departure from Scriptural precedent, an adoption of a lower order of public ministrations, and a solemn declaration that security of utterance gained by natural supports is preferred over a liability to be humiliated by trusting to the help of the Lord.’ With much esteem for the author of these sentiments, I yet feel constrained to say, that the passage appears to me to contain quite false assumptions, false alike in the psychology and in the Scriptural idea of the subject, and is much fitted, if reduced to practice, to lead to disappointed hopes and unsatisfying results. First of all, it is ridiculous to say that to speak from memory what has been committed to it beforehand is all one with reading, as in both cases alike the mind can only take up the words which lie before it, and do its best to animate them with feeling. Can a sentiment not be impregnated with the feelings of the heart which is presented to it even in the most definite form through the memory? What, in that case, would become of the great Pentecostal address itself, one half of which and more consists of Scripture quotations, and which, doubtless, came into Peter’s lips through his memory? Shall we say of that portion of his address, that he was only reading from memory, and doing what he could to animate it with feeling, while the other portions alone were what he uttered from the Spirit? But why may not the memory, as well as any other part of the mental constitution, the reason, for example, or the feelings, be used by the Spirit to bring thoughts and words seasonably to the preacher’s mind? If I study and digest my subject carefully beforehand, as Dr. Arthur advises, I necessarily exercise my reasoning powers and my memory too; and in doing so I necessarily employ natural means to ensure, so far as such means can ensure, a suitable and appropriate command of thought and expression when I actually preach. But, on Dr. Arthur’s principle, this is to distrust the Spirit; it is to resort to natural means for what He alone is competent to give, so that to refrain from all special preparation beforehand would be the legitimate result of such a mode of contemplation; the whole should be left to the voluntary impulse of the moment. This, however, is simply fanaticism; it is to confound the Spirit’s ordinary influence with a supernatural afflatus, given independently, and apart from the exercise of the mind’s own faculties. Even inspiration, the highest form of spiritual influence, was not so arbitrary and independent in its action. It, too, gave free scope to the memory and the reason, as well as the emotional faculties of the soul; and on various occasions we find both prophets and apostles, when speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, reiterating, not the thoughts merely, but the precise words of entire sentences and paragraphs of former messengers of God. If they could thus serve themselves of other men’s words and ideas—serve themselves, of course, through memory—while not the less speaking under the power of the Spirit, surely I, speaking under an inferior action of the same power, may still more make a similar use of my own. But again, even if it were the case, which it is not, St. Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost proceeded, apart from the natural use and exercise of the memory, in recalling previous trains of thought and forms of expression, we should not have been warranted to conclude that the employment of memory, or of any other natural faculties, was thereby disparaged in the future preaching of the gospel. It is an essential and general characteristic of the Spirit’s work, that He adapts Himself to the laws of mental action in those through whom He works, and to the circumstances in which for the time they happen to be placed. Beyond all question, the circumstances of the day of Pentecost were to a large extent peculiar, both as regards speakers and hearers. What mainly was needed on that memorable occasion was conviction, and for this, only the exhibition of a few simple facts respecting the person of Jesus, His death and resurrection, brought to bear with power on the hearts and consciences of men: this was all. And accordingly the speech of Peter on the occasion consisted mainly of a brief rehearsal of the great facts of the case, with the application of a few ancient prophecies referring to them, followed by a personal appeal to the individuals addressed. For a speech of that description, not only no previous writing, but not even any special forethought and meditation of the subject, could be required. But look to other apostolic speeches, to St. Paul’s speech, for example, before the Areopagus, where not so much the feelings as the reason of the audience had to be won, do we not feel in reading it as if we had to do with a compactly arranged and most carefully thought out discourse? Or look to the two accounts he gives of his own conversion, though traversing substantially the same ground, yet each of them admirably adapted to the different audiences he addressed, and the more immediate objects he had in view: all showing what varieties the Spirit can employ in the style and mode of address, and consequently in the faculties called into play for its conception and utterance. Dr. Arthur himself, in another part of his treatise, admits this, and apparently forgets at one place what he has written at another. (P. 255.) ‘This fire,’ he says, ‘maybe combined with any form of talent, and with any style of composition. Who has not seen a tranquil man, whose tones seldom rose to passion, and never went beyond the severest taste; whose thought, demeanour, phrases, all breathed a gentle and quiet spirit; and yet, with the placid flow of instruction or exposition, a heavenly influence stole silently along; stole into the veins of the heart, diffusing a sacred glow, a desire to be holier, a sense of nearness to God, a refreshing of all the good principles within you, a check and a restraint on all the evil? Again, you have seen a man, who begins with some calm argument, passes to another point, closely reasoned, which again leads him to another well-pointed stroke at some error or prejudice; no by-play of imagination, no home-thrust to your heart, but one steady grapple with your intellect, a discourse which would be pronounced dry were it not for a mysterious power which accompanies it,’ and so on with several other varieties of mental action and well-constructed discourse. But I wonder how many such discourses one might reasonably expect to hear on the author’s view of the Spirit’s influence and the preacher’s duty. Depend on it they will seldom be met with, except in connection with the sedulous employment of natural means, as well as humble trust in spiritual agencies; and memory will have its full share in the matter, calling up the various forms of thought and modes of expression, which had previously been cogitated as best fitted to promote the end in view. The more, too, that the world advances in knowledge and refinement, the higher that any particular congregation stands in intellectual culture, the greater always is the variety of talents that must be called into play, and the more may the Spirit be expected to make use of the treasures of memory, as well as other resources, to act upon the soul. For the classes that evangelistic agents or itinerant preachers have chiefly to deal with, a comparatively small range of topics may be sufficient; and the power to be put forth has only to rouse insensibility and impress the heart. Very commonly in such cases, the bluff, off-hand, earnest, but coarse and rambling speaker is the instrument best adapted to the purpose. But the same speaker might produce only disgust elsewhere; and hence it is that the most eminently useful of that class of preachers, within a limited circle, very rarely succeed as pastors of regular congregations.

Still further, the view against which we argue is not borne out, but, on the contrary, opposed to established facts. No doubt there are facts in abundance to support the view in question so far. If the case had been put conditionally, if it were said that preaching memoriter may be, and often is, only a sort of reading, the mind being chiefly taken up with its effort to remember what was written, and able to do nothing more than utter with formal correctness its prepared sentences, one could not have questioned the fact, and as little commended the practice in that form of it as a proper specimen of apostolic preaching. But if properly cultivated, it both may and will exist in a very different form, and also be productive of far other results. When the method is followed as it ought to be, that is, when the discourse has been prepared with a suitable adaptation to the preacher’s own manner, as well as to the audience he has to address, and has been thoroughly got upon the mind and heart of the preacher, there will usually be a marked difference in his mode of delivering it from what would have been the case if it had been simply read from his notes; a difference such that the auditors cannot with any certainty infer how much is due to previous preparation, how much to the feeling and impulse of the moment. Did not He who spake as never man spake Himself repeat over again on several occasions the very words He had uttered before? But if so, wherein did this differ from preaching memoriter? It is notorious, also, that some of the most gifted preachers, not excepting those who were not in the habit of writing out their discourses, Whitfield for example, have been known usually to preach with most effect when for the second or third time they spoke from the same text. The reason is that they had then come to obtain a more thorough command of the subject, so that the thoughts and words came more promptly to the call of memory. Were I to refer to my own observation and experience, I should have no hesitation in saying, that the discourses which I have listened to with most profit, which have raised the deepest spiritual feeling, and which manifestly bore with them the largest unction from the Holy One, were discourses which came from the preacher, indeed, with the greatest apparent freedom, but which I knew to have been carefully prepared beforehand; yet surely, operating as they did, they were in the strictest sense the Creator’s instrument of working. I have seen whole audiences moved by such discourses as I have never seen them moved by any others. And in the course of my own ministry, I have noted that the occasions on which the most distinct benefit was reaped, have with few exceptions been those in which my own preparations had been most careful and complete. But in saying this, is anything indicated at variance with the idea, that only when the Spirit accompanies the efforts of the preacher does the word go forth with power? Would I, or any one who has experience in the work of God, ever dream of making human preparations independent of the Spirit? No, assuredly; it is still that Spirit alone which quickeneth, quickeneth the soul of the preacher to utter aright the things of God, as well as the souls of the people to hear them aright. Without the Spirit breathing as a divine power through his heart, and giving life to his words, let those words be ever so correct in themselves, and ever so fitly remembered and spoken, they will be found at most as a pleasant sound to the ear, or a gratification to the intellect; but with no saving or permanent results. Yes, the Spirit is the one effective agent; and only in so far as we are in communion with His fulness of life and blessing can our pulpit ministrations proceed either with comfort to ourselves or with spiritual profit to those who wait on them. My earnest counsel and advice, therefore, to those who are entering on the work of the ministry, is, Let no one dissuade you from the painstaking and careful preparation of your discourses. Your manner of delivery need not suffer by it, will not suffer, if you go rightly about the work; and your matter will assuredly gain. The cases are few, indeed, of those who can adequately minister to stated congregations without such preparatory work, compared with those who indispensably require it. But beware of trusting unduly to it; as if, when you have written well, and delivered accurately what you have written, nothing more were needed.

Believe, rather, that nothing can be done to purpose unless the Spirit of God mingle with your spirit, and give effect to the words you speak. And even as regards the method, do not tie yourselves up to a specific line. In practical appeals especially, and the improvement of particular points, give yourself up occasionally to the impulse of the moment. And at what may be called extra services, and in district prayer meetings, cultivate a freer manner of speech, learn to speak from premeditation merely, not from written preparations. And thus, in this respect also, becoming all things to all men, disusing at one time what you feel you must use at another, you may the better hope to succeed in the great object of your calling.

See some good remarks and advices in Bautain’s Art of Extempore Speaking, as to the details of manner, the management of bodily feelings, voice, etc. And on the matter of careful preparation, the following statements of Lord Brougham are deserving of consideration; the more so, as he was himself regarded as one of the readiest as well as most effective speakers of his time in Parliament. It may be added, that Robert Hall, on hearing the sentiments read from the ‘Inaugural Address,’ said, ‘Brougham is quite right, sir. Preparation is everything. If I were asked what is the chief requisite for eloquence, I should reply, preparation; and what the second, preparation; and what the third, preparation.’ Then, with a sigh, ‘If I had prepared more for the pulpit, I should have been a much better preacher.’ (Greene’s Reminiscences of Robert Hall, p. 138.)

After stating that generally the ancients showed even ‘excessive care in the preparation of their speeches;’ that Cicero kept a ‘book of passages, to be used on occasions;’ that Demosthenes probably had the same: ‘At all events,’ he says, ‘one thing is certain, that he, Demosthenes, was very averse to extempore speaking, and most reluctantly, as he expressed it, “trusted to his success in fortune;” and his orations abound in passages, and even in parts of passages, again and again used by him with such improvements as their reception or delivery, or his own subsequent reflection, suggested. I have examined this subject very fully on different occasions, and I find the views taken are approved by Attic scholars both in England and France. But I dwell upon the subject at present in order to illustrate the necessity of full preparation and of written composition to those who would attain real excellence in the rhetorical art.’ He admits that ‘a certain proficiency in public speaking may be acquired by any one who chooses often to try it, and can harden himself against the pain of frequent failures.’ But he denies that any one can ever in this way become truly eloquent: ‘The loose, slovenly, and poor diction, the want of art in combining and disposing of his ideas, the inability to bring out many of his thoughts, and the incompetency to present any of them in the best and most efficient form, will reduce the speaker to the level of an ordinary talker. His diction is sure to be clumsy, incorrect, unlimited in quantity, and of no value. It is the greatest of all mistakes,’ he adds, ‘to fancy that even a carefully prepared passage cannot be delivered before a modern assembly. I once contended on this point with an accomplished classical scholar, and no inconsiderable speaker himself, Lord Melbourne, who immediately undertook to point out the passages which I had prepared, and those which were given off-hand, and on the inspiration of the moment. He was wrong in almost every guess he made. Lord Denman, on a more remarkable occasion, at the bar of the House of Lords, in the Queen’s case, made the same mistake upon the passage delivered before the adjournment in the middle of the first day of the defence. The objection made,’ he continues, ‘that prepared passages are artificial, and disclose the preparation, is groundless. In the first place, nothing can be more artificial than a speech must in almost all cases necessarily be, which is anything beyond mere conversation. Next, it is the diction, not the substance, which is prepared; and, finally, if the art used is shown, and not concealed, the artist alone is in fault.’ (Installation Address at Edinburgh, 18th May 1860.)

Indeed, the same things substantially were said, though with a little less of personal allusion, in his Inaugural Address at Glasgow in 1825. ‘I should lay it down as a rule,’ he then said, ‘admitting of no exception, that a man will speak well in proportion as he has written much; and that with equal talents he will be the finest extempore speaker, when no time for preparing is allowed, who has prepared himself the most sedulously when he had an opportunity of delivering a premeditated speech. All the exceptions which I have ever heard cited to this principle are apparent ones only, proving nothing more than that some few men, of rare genius, have become great speakers without preparation; in nowise showing, that with much preparation they would not have reached a much higher pitch of excellence.’ He then refers to Cicero and Demosthenes as one of the best proofs of what he has said; and afterwards remarks, ‘We may rest assured, that the highest reaches of the art, and without any necessary sacrifice of natural effect, can only be attained by him who well considers, and maturely prepares, and oftentimes sedulously corrects and refines his oration. Such preparation is quite consistent with the introduction of passages prompted by the occasion; nor will the transition from the one to the other be perceptible in the execution of a practised master.’