On Extemporaneous Preaching, Continued

YoTT will have observed that in my remarks on this topic, I have not directly approached the question touching the comparative excellence of this method. One must have lived in a very narrow glen and drawn few lessons from observation, not to have discovered long ago that there are different ways of accomplishing the same great ends in Providence, and that a beantifiil variety of methods is used in the dispensation of the Spirit. Much that is written on these matters is a covert self-laudation; or, as was harshly said of Reynolds’s Lectures on Painting and Sculpture, “a good apology for bad practice.” But while you allow your brethren to write and even to read their discourses, you nevertheless desire some hints as to your own discipline in the freer method. If long experiment, innumerable blunders, and unfeigned regrets, can qualify any one to counsel you, I am the man; for all my life I have felt the struggle between a high ideal and a most faulty practice. But Vvdiat I offer with an affectionate desire for your profiting is derived rather from the successes of others than from my own failures.

Argumentative discourse, the most methodical, comiected, orderly, close, and finished, may be conveyed without previous writing. The forum and the deliberative assembly afford the demonstration. It is not true that writing insures ratiocinative treatment; it is not true that what is loosely called extemporaneous speech necessitates incoherent declamation. A few of us remember with pleasure that great but singular man, James P. “Wilson, of the First Church, Philadelphia. His spare figure, his sitting posture, his serene, bloodless countenance, his gentle cough, his fan, all rise to make up the picture. There was no elevation of voice, there was no appeal to sensibility. All was analytic exposition, erudite citation, linked argument. Yet, from the beginning to the end of his long ministry, he never brought any manuscript into the pulpit. As this has been questioned, his own words may be cited as testimony valid up to the year 1810; they are otherwise valuable in regard to their exemplary candour. Speaking of himself as a preacher, he says: — “He never committed to memory, nor read a sermon or lecture in public since he began the ministry. This statement is designed as an apology both for the shortness and other defects of these preparations, which were composed chiefly for private use.” The late President Dwight — certainly

* Lectures on some of the Parables. Phil. 1810. Preface.

not from any incapacity to handle the pen — during the latter years of his life, when his eyes were failing, preached ex tempore those great sermons which afterwards, at his dictation, were written down, and so constitute his System of Theology. The excellent Commentary of McGhee on the Ephesians was taken down in short-hand from his extemporaneous lectures. The same is true of Gaussen’s Lectures on the Apocalypse. But why cite recent instances, when we know that all the sermons of Augustine, and a great part of Calvin’s expositions were thus prepared? Let this fully rid your mind of the conceit of Freshmen, that to preach ex tempore is to preach what is empty, loose, or turgescent. Let it further conduct you to what is the jpiipjpis et prora of the whole matter, namely, that every thing in a sermon is secondary to its contents.

Among continental divines the reading of sermons may in general terms be said to be unknown. The normal method is that of pronouncing from memory what has been carefully written. This is so admitted a point, that special rules are laid down, in all homiletical instructions, concerning the time and manner of getting the concept (a most convenient term) by heart. Yet many Italian, French, and German preachers, and among them some of the greatest, easily slide into the way of premeditative discourse.

Where a particular method has had some i)revalence for centuries, it is natm-al to expect useful maxims. Let me, therefore, quote the recommendations of a few judicious writers. Consider then what is projDosed by Ebrard, Consistorial Councillor in Spire; but take it on his great authority, not on mine: — “Committing to memory should be a renewed meditation of the expression. When the sermon has been concocted, let the preacher, on a quarto sheet (no more is needed) draw off a mnemonical slcetch; that is, indicate the thoughts or those clusters of thought, accordingly as his memory is strong or weak, by a single phrase, or mnemonic catchy/ord. Let him set down these in a tabular way, strikingly, so that the lines may fall into shapes to seize the eye. !N“ow let him throw aside his manuscript and try, by the aid of this paper, to reproduce the sermon; that is, to invent afresh equivalent expressions.” I have already advanced reasons against all such cumbering of the mind; but my zeal for unbounded liberty and development of subjective peculiarities, leaves me to offer it to you for what it is worth. The remarks of an equally celebrated man. Professor Ilagcnback of Bale, are less exceptionable: “Whether a sermon shall be written and committed to memory, or shall 1)0 elaborated only in the mind, must be determined by individual peculiarity, and is a question on which 7’”

theory lias not mncli to say. In every case, this process of memory must be regarded as a transient one, from which nothing goes over to the actual delivery. Even where the sermon has been written, it must be conceived by the mind as something spoken, and not as something com^osed.” Schleiermacher, who always extemporized, is reported to have said that this was the proper method for tranquil natures, while those less equable should fix the thought and expression by careful writing. On the other hand, Rosenkranz observes: — “Our early familiarity with books and writing and our small acquaintance with thinking, especially among the learned class, may account for our making so little of extemporaneous discourse.” And the enthusiastic and eloquent Gossner characteristically says: — ‘’ The Holy Ghost at Pentecost distributed fiery tongues, and not pens.” The motto of the great and pious Bengel was, ‘^ Much thinking, little writing;” yet he wrote down his divisions. These gleanings will suffice to disclose to you the German mind on this subject. What you may gather from all these eminent preachers is, that whatever be your particular method, nothing can be accomplished without laborious thought.

There is a caution, derived from personal misadventure, which I would seek to impress upon you, with reference to your early trials. Beware of undue length. Do not undertake to say every thing, which is the secret of tiresomeness. Oh, the grievonsness even of calling to memory the exhanstive and exhausting teachers of patience! Avoid the notion of those who think they must occupy up a certain time, as by hour-glass. Fifteen minutes, well and wisely filled, can insure a better sermon than two hours of platitude and reyetition. Touch and go in these early attempts. Only be on the watch for moments when the thought unexpectedly thaws out and flows, and give the current free course. Beginners, who ayprehend a paucity of matter, and have small power of amplification, will be much relieved by carrying out the scheme or plan of their sermon into more numerous subdivision. On each of these, somethmg can certainly be said, especially if, after the Scotch method, each particular is fortified with a Scripture passage. Neither in these exercises, nor in auy other, act upon the mean policy of reserving your good things till afterwards. Believe, with Sir Walter Scott, that the mind is not like poor milk, which can bear but one creaming. Tliercfore, always do your best. It is unfair in some who lament the decay of extemporaneous preaching to assume that it has gone altogether into desuetude in the Northern States. This is so far from being the case that there is scarcely a settled pastor of my acquaintance who does not froquently, if not every week, address his smaller audiences without what, in Scotland, are called “the papers.” Some of the happiest efforts I have heard, were made by preachers who elaborate their more important discourses by thorough writing. It is in such meetings, then, as these that the young preacher will find his most favourable school of practice. Here he will be sustained by the sympathy of pious and loving fellow-Chrstians, who, with minds remote from every thing like critical inquisition, will seek from the pastor’s lips the word of life. I strongly advise you to seek out and delight in such assemblages. If they interest you, they will interest those who hear you; and the more you forget the scholar and the orator, the more will you attain the qualities of the successful preacher. It was in such free gatherings, where formalism was excluded, and discourse was colloquial, that Yenn, Houseman, Cecil, Simeon, Scott, Martyn, Richmond, Scholefield, Cams, and other blessed servants of God in the English Church, learned to break through the trammels of the age. It was my great privilege to hear Professor Scholefield preach a warm extempore discourse to a crowded assembly in St. Andrew’s Church, Cambridge. The theme was the repentance of Ahab; and as I listened to the plain, evangelical, ardent utterance of this simple-hearted Christian. I could hardly persuade myself that I had “before me the celebrated Greek editor and accomplished successor of Porson. Who can calculate the blessings conferred on Great Britain and the world through the labours of Charles Simeon and his school?

In order to give a turn still more practical to my advices, I will throw them into hortatory form. Single out some service among the most serious of jour neighbours, and where you can be undisturbed in your sincere endeavour to do them good. Aim honestly at having the devotional sentiment uppermost. Block out your matter with much care and exactness, and assure yourself of perfect acquaintance with the entire order. Set about the work with an expectation of being very short. Do not allow yourself to dally long with any single point. Be simple, be natural, be moderate, and use no means to pump up fictitious emotion; above all, use no tricks of voice or gesture to express emotion vrhich you do not experience. On this point I will co])j for you Ebrard’s comic advice, which may suggest something even by its exaggeration and caricature: — ‘^ The preacher .should not seek to make the thing finer than it really is. He should not 2:)rank common-place thoughts with rhetorical ornaments. He should not attempt by verbal artifice a pathos which is foreign to his heart. Let him say what he has to say clearly and naturally. This is what is meant by the rule — ^ISTot a word more than the thing itself carries along with it. If the preacher’s heart is warm and excited, this movement and animation will hnd natural expression in words. Pectus facit disertam. In like manner individual colouring will take care of itself; so that if two preachers treat the same text, and in the same view of it, the proverb shall still hold true of them, ‘If two do the same, it is not the same they do; ‘Duo sifaciunt idem no7i est idem. One will unintentionally speak more warmly and nobly than the other. These two constituents, to wit, warmth and individual colouring, enter of their own accord; the latter we need not seek, the former we ought not. The desire to preach a fine sermon is a sin.” And in regard to the vicious amplification of slender minds he thus writes: — ‘’ Instead of saying in plam terms, ‘Every thing on earth is transitory,’ and clenching it by a verse out of the Psalms, [such a preacher] says: — ‘Let us cast our eyes upon the flowers of the field, the slender lilies in their silver lustre, the glow of the rose, the blossoming decoration of the trees, which gladden us with their fruits — Oh, how refreshing to our eyes are these, sights in the vernal season! But, alas! that which was blooming yesterday, droops withering to the earth to-day! A mortal breath sweeps over the scene, and the frail flower sinks weak and sickly to the ground! ‘How beautiful! — ISTay, more, it is wonderful, among these flowrets of amylification, that not only a simple thought, but sometimes the veriest negation of thought, a mere logical category without contents, may be dressed up in pompous words. ‘Every man has proof already of God’s goodness and providence.’ Here proceed to inflate the ’ every man’ thus: — ‘Go and ask the aged; ask the young; go to the man of hoary hairs, whose silver locks tend towards the earth; go to the children gambolling amid the grass; the sprightly boy; the aspiring youth; abide in the circle of friends, in the faithful home, or speed away in the distance; traverse the foaming flood of the perturbed ocean; fly to the north, the south, the east, or the west; go, I say and ask where thou wilt and whom thou wilt; the sage and the fool; inquire of his experience, and thou shalt find in the history of each and every one traces of divine j)rovidence and proofs of divine benevolence, &c.” * The American variety may difi’er from the German; but you recognize in this a familiar mode of beating the matter out thin, which disgraces such extempore haranguers as attempt “to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise.” The consideration of this will, I am very sure, guard you against striving * Ebrard Prakt. Theologio, p. 341.

after protraction of talk and grandiloquent blowing up of common tlionglits. Therefore content yourself for some time with being true, intelligible and earnest, without any remarkable flights of eloquence; for I wish to see you fairly established on your skates before you essay pirouettes and double-eights ujpon the ice. But mamcm de tctbiila.