The Preacher's Interest in His Immediate Subject

Where every thing on the part of the preacher is made subservient to the duties of the pulpit, he will be very apt to feel an interest in the work which is more immediately before him. An able advocate at the bar, not only feels an interest in the law, as a profession, and makes every thing subordinate to his professional advancement; he feels a special interest in his client and in his cause. A good physician not only feels an interest in the science of medicine; he feels a deep and absorbing interest in his patient, and in the .specific disease which is beinc: under his treatment. So, to give the pulpit its appropriate power, it is necessary, that the preacher possess a deep interest in the subject of every particular discourse. I do not mean by this, a general interest in the great object of preaching the Gospel; of this I have already spoken; but a special interest in the subject itself which forms the theme of the discourse which he is actually uttering.

The subjects which form the themes of discourse from the Christian pulpit, are in themselves capable of producing and sustaining a very high degree of interest in the mind of the preacher. We have before referred to them; nor are there to be found topics of thought within the wide range over which the human mind expatiates, to be compared with these. The highest intensity of feeling ever brought to the truth of God, falls below the great and exciting theme. Whatever is lucid in statement; vivid or great in conception; powerful in argument; accurate in discrimination; in a word, all that is concentrated or discursive, which the preacher himself is able to command, may be employed and exhausted on the great and varied subjects with which his mind is officially familiar. There is no vigor of thought, and no tenderness of heart and feeling, however elevated, subdued or subduing, but here finds an appropriate place. Every passion of the human mind may here be expressed, from the more tranquil to the more agitated; from the tears of compassion and grief, to the thrilling emotions of joy and triumph; from hallowed indignation to transporting complacency. It is not possible to feel too deeply, — too intensely on such themes. Moses, when he came down from the mount, with his face radiant, and shining from the power of sacred tliou2:ht and sentiment; and Paul in the third heavens, were but exemplifications of that state of mind which the truth of God is capable of producing, even in creatures whose “foundation is in the dust, and who dwell in clay.” It is one of the great peculiarities of God’s truth, that the most vigorous and sensitive minds never become weary in contemplating it, except from their own infirmity. The more and the longer they pursue these mighty thoughts, and the more labor they devote to the pursuit, the greater the interest, the freshness, with which the pursuit is conducted. Angels stoop down to look into these things; their mighty minds cannot fully grasp them; they are amazed and confounded before them, and in the contemplation of them, cover their faces with their wings.

It is not so with error: error, in the course of a few years, becomes tame and spiritless. Enterprising minds become weary of it; and after a few bold and strong efforts, are very apt to abandon the appropriate duties of the pulpit, if not the pulpit itself, for other employments that are more congenial to their high intellectual impulses. The reason why the enterprising mind of such a man as Dr. Priestley, employed itself so extensively on subjects foreign to Christianity, no doubt was, that he did not find enough in the meagre and bald

Christianity of which lie was the advocate, to interest his own masculine thoughts and emotions. If the true secret were known, this would probably be found to be the reason why not a few of the most accomplished men of the Unitarian School, in our own land, have sickened of their work, and directed their thoughts to more exciting scenes and labors.

The preacher’s subject is never a bad one, so long as it is taken from the Bible. All that is necessary to give the more, or the most trivial, sufficient interest, is to make it the matter of sufficiently thorough inquiry. Be the theme what it may, that is selected from this inexhaustible treasure-house of thought, there is not one among them all but is capable of imparting deep interest to the mind of the preacher; while the more important impart to it an interest, a solicitude, w Inch are sometimes actually too great for flesh and blood to bear.

I have heard preachers, — poetical, beautiful preachers, — whose tongue was smoother than oil, and whose pencil was cold and faint as “the star-beams that dance on the icy sea.” I have also heard those whose heart was so absorbed by their theme, that they hurried along the mind of their hearers till they kindled a congenial enthusiasm. Griffin did this, and so did Larned. Brainerd and Payson were victifus to the deep and unrelieved interest which tlicy felt in the subjects which they presented with so much success to their peopk It actually crushed them to a premature grave. No man could long survive this intensity of solicitude, were it felt to the full extent which the subjects themselves are capable of imparting. I may not affirm that such intensity of feeling as this is the duty of ministers; yet were it a great privilege to be more deeply imbued with this divine life. It will not be felt in all its power until this mortal puts on immortality; but we may well long to feel it more. It were, indeed, high blessedness to feel it more deeply. Breathe, blessed Spirit! O breathe, not only upon the dry bones of the valley, but on us who prophesy to them in thy name, that we may live!

We are not in much danger, in this age of declension, of that interest which shall diminish our usefulness by curtailing our period of labor. Our minds and our hearts are sufficiently sluggish; inertness of spiritual thought and feeling is our besetting sin: we have no fear that the machinery will be overworked by a too powerful stimulus. On the other hand, there are so many difficulties in maintaining that interest in the services of the sanctuary which their importance requires, that the danger lies in dying rather from the opposite cause, or lingering under a slow paralysis of all right and vivid emotion.

The youthful ministry have not, indeed, so much to struggle with, in this respect, as those who are in the heyday of human life, and those whose sun is going down. The first vivid impressions of truth are still fresh upon their minds; there is no such decay of that natural ardor which, when brought into the service of Christ, is so beautifully impressive and enchanting; the novelty of their work is not gone; and even deficiencies in grace are ostensibly supplied by the redundancies of nature. Yet are we all deficient here; we are guilty, both young and old, for this strange insensibility to the claims of God’s truth upon our best and warmest affections and most ardent zeal.

It is no unimportant inquiry. How shall a deep interest in his subject be produced in the preacher’s own mind? The answer to this question one would think the simplest thing in the world. So far as human means and efforts are concerned, it is by just such a process as that by which the mind of Edmund Burke was interested in his most impressive speeches before the British House of Commons; it is just by those means by which the mind of Guizot was interested in the debates of the French Chamber of Deputies; and just as the minds of Macnulay and Sir Sidney Smith were interested in some of those rich and enthusiastic discussions in the Foreign Reviews, which emanated from their pens. It is by looking at this matter as one worthy of consideration, and by taking pai?is to feel that interest. Does it cost thought, it must have thought; does it cost reading, it must have reading; does it cost great self-denial, self-denial it must have; does it cost conversation with men, or intercourse with God; these must not he denied. Sometimes it may come over the preacher’s mind, like an unexpected cloud in a clear sky, and he may feel its refreshing influence; but for the most part, it does not visit him unsought. He strives for it, because he deeply feels the need of it; he seeks it, because it is given; and he more usually seeks it most earnestly and most successfully in the seasons of his greatest depression.

We cannot but have observed the various degrees of interest which different minds take in the same subject; and which the same minds feel at different times. And it is most encouraging and gratifying to observe the high degree of interest which humble prayer and patient thought often impart. When the mind is earnestly directed toward any important subject; when it is turned over and over again in the thoughts, and viewed on every side; and when investig-ation, ingenuity, and prayer, and unwearied application are devoted to it, that it may be seen in its clearest and strongest lights, and felt in its true power; it is ordinarily thus seen and felt. To consent to feel this interest; to labor for it, and to practise the self-denial w liich is necessary in order to cherish it, is never a useless effort. To carry the subject in our thoughts through the week, or even the weeks of preparation; to associate it with our toil and our relaxation; to allow it to go out with us when we walk, to haunt our pillow, and creep unseen within the folds of thought when we sleep; — to wake wdth us when we wake, and to be, for the time, the master impulse; this is it which gives to the preacher’s mind a deep interest in his subject, W’hen he goes to the sacred desk.

These are not unhallowed views; nor are they designed to make any appeal to the preacher’s vanity. We do not speak of interest in his subject for the preacher’s sake, but for his subject’s sake. Nor do we mean by taking pains to feel this interest, a desperate and agonizing effort to prepare and preach a great sermon; but so to preach what God has enabled him to prepare, that the precious truths of the Gospel may not be denuded of their power through the preacher’s listlessness.

It is recorded of the late Henry Mowes, the celebrated Prussian preacher, that a sermon, with him, “was not the work of a day. It was not a mere outward act; it was an expression of himself. It occupied the whole week. He had it almost daily in his mind. Often would he be found with his first sketch before him, with his eyes filled with tears.” Here is the secret of good preaching. A listless week and a Sabbath of interest are just those things which God has not joined together. Spirituality in the pulpit and the want of it in the study of the preacher never dwell together in the same bosom. Ministers may not look for miracles. The kingdom of grace does not set itself against the kingdom of providence; nor does the Spirit of God in any of his operations, ordinarily counteract the laws of man’s intellectual economy. The sovereignty of divine influences is wont to put honor upon all the institutions of God’s appointment, both in the natural and spiritual world.

The men of the w orld are absorbed in their object; the rich in their pursuit of gain; the ambitious in their pursuit of power; the literary in their pursuit of fame. They are immersed in their object, almost to madness; and their burning zeal attracts every thing around it to feed its flame. Their fiivorite schemes and projects are scarcely ever absent from their tliouglits. Now, it is something like this engag-ediiess, this animation and earnestness, which the pulpit needs, in order to give it power. The preacher must be in earnest; he must lose himself in his subject. He must have a longing, heart-breaking desire to impress the truth he is uttering upon the minds of his hearers.

Nor is it enough for him to feel the importance of his subject; he must feel its peculiarity. I knew a preacher once, more than twenty years ago, who employed one entire week in writing a discourse on the words, “And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment,” The fearful subject was not absent from his thoughts an hour, till he laid his head upon his pillow, on the evening which preceded the Lord’s Day. No, nor even then. It was a solemn week to his own soul; a solemn night; but it was a bright and glorious Sabbath which followed it. There are those among the living who remember that day. It will be remembered in eternity. Let the preacher thus feel his subject; let him feel it to the last hour of preparation, and the last prayer he offers before he enters the sanctuary; and he will go to his work under a high-born and heavenly impulse. When such a preacher goes into the pulpit, he stands there as the dignified, earnest, faithful, affectionate messen-

252 Till’- rO’.VF.R OK TUK PULI’IT.

ger of God, and pours forth the fuhiess of his thouiilits, (he strength and ardor of his emotions in some sort worthy of the cause he advocates. He is full of his theme; days and nights he has been thinking of it, and poring and praying over it. He is imbued with it; what his subject is, that he is; he is baptized with it; he has the unction of it, and it is an unction of the Holy One. Such preachers are, in the true sense of the phrase, great preachei’s. They are great preachers, because it is not they who preach, but their subject; it is not they who speak, so much as Christ speaking in them, and by them. The men are little things; their subject every thing. They are nothing, Christ is all.

Every minister loves to preach to an attentive auditory. There must be two great constituent elements in the preacher himself, without which the attention of his audience cannot be secured; they are the subject-matter of his preaching, and the interest which he himself takes in what he utters. The late Dr. Emmons was once asked, by one of his brethren. What was the best remedy for an inattentive audience? His characteristic reply was, Give them something to attend to! But this is not all. He must feel his subject. It is as marvellous as it is mournful, that the weighty and thrilling truths of God’s word lose so much of their force from the little interest the preacher himself feels in his theme. George Whitfield was probably the most remarkable man, in this respect, whom the world has seen.* Rich as his discourses were, they do not compare w itli the discourses of some other preachers in richness of thought. But in intensity of feeling, he had no equal. He enchained his auditory by his intense interest in his subject. A ship-carpenter once remarked, that “he could usually build a ship from stem to stern, during the sermon; but under Mr. Whitfield he could not lay a single plank.” It is of themselves ministers should frequently complain, rather than of their hearers; it is they who are cold and inanimate. A drowsy pulpit makes an inattentive and drowsy congregation. Let a strange preacher enter any pulpit in the land, and from the attentive, or inattentive habits of the people, he will not fail to form

* This remarkable man was ordained by Bishop Benson. In an interview between the bishop and the Countess of Huntingdon, after some earnest expostulations on the part of her ladyship, the bishop rose up in great haste to depart, bitterly lamenting that he had ever laid hands upon George Whitfield. “My lord,” said the Countess, “mark my words: when you are on your dying bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon with complacence.” The bishop indeed verified her prediction; for when near his death, he sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitfield as a token of regard and veneration, and begged to be remembered by him in his prayers. The poet laureate, Southey, in his Life of Wesley has, little to his credit, related the former, but suppressed the latter part of this anecdote.

some just conceptions of its settled ministry. A prejicluM’ who feels jin interest in his subject will ;ihvays be listened to. His hearers may not ])clieve his doctrine; they may be captious, critical, fastidious; but they will hear. He cannot have an inattentive auditory; the thingis impossible. Few eyes will wander, — few minds will be listless, — few hearts will be indilVcrent. Those to whom he preaches may complain; they may hear and hate; but they will hear. No preacher can sustain the attention of a people unless he feels his subject; nor can he long sustain it, unless he feels it deeply. If he would make others solemn, he must himself be solemn; he must have fellowship with the truths he utters; he must preach as though he were under the eye of God, and as though his ow n soul were bound up in the souls of those w ho hear him. He must preach as though he were in sight of the cross, and heard the groans of the Mighty Sufferer of Calvary; — as though the judgment w ere set, and the books opened; — as though the sentence were just about to be passed wdiich decides the destinies of men; — as though he had been looking into the pit of despair, as well as drawing aside the veil, and taking a view of the unutterable glory.*

* “The bishops,” said George III., “are very jealous of such men.” When a distinguished prelate complained to him of the zeal

More than this. He must preach as though eternal realities were susiiended on the passing hour. This is a thought which ought to be deeply inwoven with the preacher’s views and emotions. I have often asked myself, why it is that a congregation assembled for the worship of God are, for the most part, less interested in a discourse from the pulpit, than a jury are interested in an argument from the bar! It is not because the bar is always more eloquent than the pulpit, though it often is so; nor is it altogether because the pulpit speaks of unearthly things, and the bar of things earthly. It is mainly because the speaker and the hearers in the courts of law speak and hear with the view of coming to a present decision on the subject submitted to their consideration. This responsibility rests upon them, and they may not be listless. Let but the thought be present to the mind of the preacher and the hearers, that in the progress and at the close of his discourse decisions are to be made that will affect the destiny of men, for

of the ministers under the patronage of Lady Huntingdon, he replied, “Make bishops of them; make bishops of them!” “That might be done,” replied the prelate, “but we cannot make a bishop of Lady Huntingdon.” “Well, well,” said the king, “see if you cannot imitate the zeal of these men; as for her ladyship, you cannot make a bishop of her, it is true: it would be a lucky circumstance if you could, for she puts you all to shame. I wish there were a Lady Huntingdon in every diocese in the kingdom.”

“weal, or for woe, through interminable ages; and this listless hearing, and this insensate preaching, will exist no longer. I say, this insensate preaching, because, so far as I have been able to observe, the people are in advance of their preachers in the all important duty of wakeful and interested attention. It is a very remarkable fact, that God is giving men the hearing ear. They are doing just what they ought to do, — expecting much from their ministers; and well it may cause grief of heart that it is an expectation which, with all their increased opportunities, the minstry of the word does not more frequently gratify. There is sin in the pulpit in this matter: would to God that the writer had not so much cause to lay his hand upon his mouth!

One of the effects of a due interest in the subject-matter of the pulpit would be, the happy influence it would exert upon the elocution and manner of the preacher. He would not utter his discourse carelessly, nor with the rapidity with which a school-boy recites his lesson. He would not become an imitator, but utter God’s truth in his own way. There is no air of pretence about him; no craving after effect, — no swelling accomplishments. There is earnestness, but there is simplicity and truth. The artificial, the studied, the theatrical, has little sympathy with that chastened feeling- which flaws from deep interest in his subject. He may be all action, and will be if it is his nature to be so;* but it is possible he may have very little action, and yet be a powerful preacher. He would come down upon his hearers, sometimes like the wind; sometimes like the earthquake; sometimes like the fire; and sometimes like the still, small voice. The elder Edwards had no action at all; yet such was his interest in his subject that crowded auditories burst into one universal weeping under his discourses. Such a preacher may not be accomplished, but he will be forcible; there may be classic embellishment, Vviiere the heart is cold as marble. He may even be awkward, but if his subject first live in his own heart, he will be effective.

* The late Dr. Stonehouse is said to have been one of the most correct and elegant preachers in the kingdom of Great Britain. When he entered into holy orders, he took occasion to profit by his acquaintance with Garrick, to procure from him some valuable instructions in elocution. Being once engaged to read prayers and preach in a church in the city, he prevailed upon Garrick to go with him. After the service, the British Roscius asked the doctor what particular business he had to do, when the duty was over? “None,” said the other. “I thought you had,” said Garrick,” on seeing you enter the reading desk in such a hurry.” Nothing can be more indecent than to see a clergyman “set about his sacred business as if he were a tradesman, and go into the church as if he wanted to get out of it as soon as possible.” He next asked the doctor, “What books he had in the desk before him?” “Only the Bible and Prayer-book.” “Only the Bible and Prayer-book,” replied the player; “why you tossed them backwards and forwards, and turned the leaves as carelessly as if they were those of a day-book and lodger.”

He “will not be vain, nor ambitious of distinction of any sort, save to win souls. He will not go out of his path in search of adornment and flowers; though he may pick them up when they lie in his way. He goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed; they are the sheaves that he is looking after, and he brings them home with rtjoicing. If his sickle is not tipped with gold, it is of well-attempered steel; it is like a two-edged sword, and he uses it manfully, and as though he was wielding the “sword of the Spirit.”

The biographer of Archbishop Leighton remarks, that “he was too intent upon his subject to be choice of words and phrases; and his works discover a noble carelessness of diction, w hich in some respects enhances their beauty. His language is better than mere correctness would make it; more forcible and touching; attracting little notice to itself, but leaving the reader to the full impulse of the ideas of which it is the vehicle. It is great by the magnificence of thought; by the spontaneous emanation of a mind replete wdth sacred knowledge, and bursting with seraphic affections; by that pauseless gush of intellectual splendor, in which the outward shell, the intermediate letter is eclipsed and a most annihilated, that full scope may be given to the mighty elfulgence of the informing spirit.“‘Such a preacher throws the ornate and scholastic preacher into the shade. He may not be a splendid and pompous declaimer; but he is an earnest preacher of the truth as it is in Jesus, and an able minister of the New Testament. He may not tnj to be eloquent, but he will e eloquent; his eloquence will be thrilling and impassioned, and tell on the conscience and heart. Pascal speaks of” the eloquence that despises eloquence;” and is not this the only true eloquence? “Eloquence,” says he, “is a pictural representation of thought; and hence those who, after having painted it, make additions to it, give us a fancy picture, but not a portrait.” Let the preacher utter that which comes in contact with the minds of his hearers, and let him so utter it as to establish the correspondence between what he utters and what they perceive and feel; and so far as human instrumentality can do it, he will not fail to carry the hearts of his auditory. This is his object; it is his sole object. Like an able and effective advocate at the bar, who is more intent on gaining the cause of his client, than on making a pretty speech, or a splendid argument, he delivers himself to the purpose. His obligations as a minister of the Gospel are present to his thoughts; he feels for men who are so soon to become the tenants of an unutterable eternity; and, like Paul, he is” pressed in spirit to testify to them that

Jesus is the Christ.” He does not ajfcct an interest in his subject he does not feel; he has that deep experience of God’s truth which teaches Iiini how to feel and how to speak. He “speaks that which he knows, and testifies that which he has seen.” There is honesty in his spirit, and nature in his manner; and therefore is there impressiveness and urgency. And there is great variety, too. Sometimes he is plain and argumentative; sometimes authoritative; in his rebukes sometimes tender, and sometimes terrible; but more often a weeping suppliant, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. This is the highest style of the pulpit; especially if the preacher have gifts as well as graces, and possesses a vigorous and comprehensive mind. Men even of ordinary endowments, with such a spirit, are eflective preachers. We have known many such; may the Lord of the harvest multiply them! He himself is with such ministers; and when his presence goes with them, the pulpit has power. It does execution; it saves; and where it saves not, it most fearfully damns the soul. It is this that makes the light of the pulpit shine, and its ministers a flame of lire.