The Preacher with His Themes

Irst, accumulate material before
composition is undertaken. No
builder would think of quarrying

the stones during the process of building, putting one stone into shape in the edifice and then going away to cut another in the quarry. He gets the stone ready at hand on the building site before he begins to build, or he is at least certain to make provision that it shall be on hand in ample time for its erection into the structure. The larger your accumulation and more perfect your classification of material before you begin to write, the more rapid will be your composition when you start.

Secondly, have your material in an available form. There is much unused material that you accumulate in the course of a life of thought. It may have its use afterward. Do not discard it because it has no present utility; store it by, as bees store honey for future needs. Boxes, labeled with the letters of the alphabet, an ordinary index rcrion, or some other form of receptacle, in which the matter that is at present waiting for service may be so classified and arranged as to be at hand, when wanted, is a desideratum of every preacher.

Thirdly, avoid too complicated a system. The best method becomes impracticable when it is too large and cumbersome for us to work. It may be so complete and so minute as absolutely to be useless. Especially should your sermon memoranda, upon which you are to draw frequently, be in a form readily resorted to and convenient to control.

Fourthly, there is a principle of “unconscious” cerebration, as Carpenter has shown; a process which corresponds to the incubation of an egg, the gradual and unconscious formation of an idea in the mind. You have a thought to-day; you make a record of it; you draw it out somewhat in a memorandum and lay it aside. A month hence you take up your memoranda, and you find that the thought has unconsciously matured. You have been incubating your own conception, and it is growing toward completeness though you have been unconscious of any mental process concerning it.

Fifthly, it is well to write out fully for the sake of style, even though you may not use what you write in the pulpit. It will help even extemporaneous address, to habituate yourselves to the careful use of the pen in the formation of sentences, in the accurate choice of words, in the study of the position and relation of particles, in the training of your mind and pen in accurate and graceful forms of speech. All these things tell on the speaker, even though he may make no direct pen preparation for the particular address that he delivers.

Sixthly, it is well to write for the press and to publish at times; but it is never well to hurry into print. Write for all the future time, and write what you are willing to have abide for all the future time. Give the best products of your mind and of your pen to the printing press, and give nothing else.

Seventhly, as has been hinted already, every form of neatness and accuracy in the work done, even in penmanship, will help to a similarly neat and accurate method of thinking. These two go together; slovenliness of the hand is the companion of slovenliness of the brain.

Eightly, continuous writing when you write, and continuous thinking when you think, are favorable to that particular ardor and fervor, that mental excitement and inspiration that we call by the name of glow. You cannot bring the brain to the white heat except, as you bring the iron to the white heat, by the continuous action of the fire and the blast through the furnace. Avoid, therefore, unnecessary interruptions in the midst of your work, and seek continuousness of thought and utterance.

Ninthly, Ave are not to despise any intellectual faculty or power which God has given us. It constitutes one of the tools in our chest of tools which we should sharpen diligently, and prepare ourselves to use effectively. Solomon says in Eccl. x. lO: “If the iron be blunt and one do not whet the edge then must he put to the more strength.” And the old proverb reads, that “a whet is no let.” The time is not lost that the mower spends in sharpening his scythe or the reaper his sickle. A man with less natural faculty — that is, with less strength of arm — may accomplish more, with his faculties

THE PREACHER WITH HIS THEMES, i?

sharpened and acumenated, than a man of larger natural gifts or strength, with duller weapons. Therefore let us make the most of the powers that God has given us.

Just here we may make a few suggestions with regard to the aid which may be secured from the memory.