Preaching felMewAg e *^ Albert J. Lyman ^=*^ P^S^ s^ * NOV 2H 1902 *: A _^^ ^. BV 4211 .L9 Lyman, Albert Josiah, 1845| Preaching in the new age PREACHING IN THE NEW AGE Preaching in the New Age An Art and an Incarnation A Series of six lectures delivered in the Hartford Theological Seminary upon the " Carew " Foundation. BYy ALBERT J. LYMAN, D.D. New York Chicago Toronto FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 1902 Copyright, 1902 by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY {May) INSCRIPTION To the Students in our Theological Seminaries who, though representing various Christian com- munions, have, by their common and noble spirit, made these addresses possible, this little volume is inscribed. HylRTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMIUARY. March 6, IQOS. In the year iSyj^ Mr. Joseph Carew of South Hadley Falls ^ Mass.^ gave the sum of Jive thousand dollars to the Hartford Theological Seminary^ for the pwpose of establishing a Lectureship which should give the Institution free scope to conduct discussions of theological and related themes. In the year i8gg-iQ00 the Rev. Albert f. Lyman., D. Z)., of Brooklyn., de- livered a course upon " Preaching in the New Age., — • An Art and an Incarnation.^^ This series proved of great significance^ originality and value. The Trus- tees and the Faculty are glad to have these vital subjects and their lofty treatment given to the public in a per- manent forin. CHESTER D. HARTRANFT, President. FOREWORD The following six lectures, delivered in the Hartford Theological Seminary in the spring of 1900, were presented at the time with no thought of subse- quent publication. They are not so much lectures as informal "talks," such as one might venture upon if speaking without elaboration, among personal friends. It is solely in response to the request of the students themselves to whom they were addressed, backed by the generous consent of the gentlemen of the Seminary Faculty, that courage has been gained to offer them in published form. In compliance also with the wish of the students, the direct style of address employed at the outset has been retained upon these pages. The lectures (if one must have the hardihood to call them such) are re- produced with no material change, save in the omission of a few personal allusions and paragraphs of recapitulation. They make, therefore, no pretension to either the dignity or the studied finish of the essay, and are offered simply as a student 's salutation to his fellow-students and to his comrades in the great work of our common ministry. A. J. L. Brooklyn, March 24, igo2. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE, I. Introductory, - ^ - - 13 11. Preaching an Art, _ _ _ ^3 III. Preaching an Incarnation, - - 53 IV. The New Age and its Relation to Preaching, - _ _ _ 7^ V. The Preacher of To-Day Prepar- ing His Sermon, - - - 99 VI. The Preacher of To-Day Before His Congregation, - - --125 LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY Our habit of mind does not welcome prolix intro- duction. But, surely, on the other hand, no whim of waiving formality or of saving time would excuse the omission of one simple word by which I might convey to you, Mr. President and Members of the Faculty in this institution, — to you gentlemen of the classes, and to you Christian ministers and friends, who are present, my thanks for the honor you give to me in the privilege of offering a few observations upon one department of our common work. I am no expert in the field of homiletics. Nothing is further from my thoughts than to enter upon a gen- eral discussion of the theory and office of the Chris- tian ministry. This lectureship was not instituted to invade fields already ably occupied by expert profes- sional instruction in the seminary curriculum. Recent years have been affluent also in the production of monographs upon this subject. On my own library shelves, as on those of any clergyman, without special attempt to assemble them, I count twenty such vol- umes or more, by the greatest masters of the art of preaching in our day, — Liddon of London, and Dale of Birmington, Stalker of Glasgow, and Watson of Liverpool, Christlieb of Bonn, as well as Beecher, Burton, Broadus, Behrends, Greer, Van Dyke Tucker 13 14 Preaching in the New Age of our own country and, noblest among the noble, perhaps, our Bishop Brooks. To echo these masters were needless : to rival them impossible. If you ask, therefore, for good advice about preach- ing, for rules, maxims, illustrative incidents, I simply, with a half-whimsical sense of my present limitations, point you to this row of books on your library shelves. What have I then to offer worth a moment's atten- tion? Simply and solely this — that I may present one man's personal report of his own wrestle with a common task, as though I voiced a comrade's cheer in the rush of the charge to his younger associates who will be fighting when he falls. My one endeavor then shall be to reproduce the point of view of the seminary student. My guiding thought will be to ask what would have been most helpful to me had I heard it twenty-five years ago. Nor can I be solicitous for that careful literary form suited to the oration or the essay. I am seeking to speak as I would in my own home to a younger fel- low-worker, plainly, man to man. I trust that the adoption of this simpler method will not seem as if belittling the subject itself or be aside from the dig- nity of the foundation upon which these addresses are given. It may perhaps be said also that these lectures do not enter the fields of apologetics or Biblical criticism. The irenic thought and faith of modern enlightened Christendom is not challenged. The position taken is that of a liberal but evangelical faith, welcoming indeed the spirit of rational critical inquiry as a part of the product of the Spirit of God working upon Introductory 15 and within the mind of man, but yet accepting also, in common with the Church universal, the substantial integrity of the main New Testament literature, as in- spired by that same Spirit, and especially emphasizing the divine supremacy of Jesus Christ, true Man of men, and yet also Master and Saviour of men and Son of God. But the main introductory word is this : — My espe- cial helps in preparing these conversations have been you yourselves. It is the seminary student himself whom I would summon to be the real lecturer in this course, for, if I mistake not, it is in the mind of the typical student and recent graduate that we shall find reflected, as in a mirror, the true and vital aspects of our vocation. And this leads me to tell how I have been led to choose this path of approach to our theme. Some months ago, I had the pleasure to spend a few days in this institution and enjoy the opportunity which you freely gave to me of meeting personally the men of the classes, and I ventured to ask them at what points the problems of our great vocation were press- ing upon them. I also asked a number of students in this institution, and in other similar institutions of various communions in the land, to write to me, frankly putting questions as to what men now entering the ministry most want to hear about and to know. The answers which came back from the seminary students I have collated and shall use them as a basis for what I have to say. I have done this with a pur- pose Avhich, if I mistake not, is in tune with a vital philosophy of the subject itself. i6 Preaching in the New Age For the Christian student of our day is himself a product of the most finely selected influences of Chris- tian heredity in these ages, and, therefore, in the depths of the modern typical student mind we shall find the true picture of the vocation of the Christian ministry. How indeed should we secure a true state- ment, not of the mere technical outline perhaps, but of the spiritual content of a great art, — painting, for example, or music? Possibly not merely through learned monographs, nor even solely through technical instruction from professional experts. Might we not reach the heart of the thing also by consulting the fresher enthusiasm of the younger students of that art ? So and yet more of preaching. I would subpoena a thousand students from our American theological seminaries, and in their questions about preaching seek to find a true idea of what preaching should be. I am, therefore, venturing to reverse the conventional order of discussion. Instead of coming to the man from the standpoint of the subject, I will come to the subject from the standpoint of the man. It were easy, of course, at this point to echo a cer- tain too common satire levelled against alleged con- trasts to any such elevated idea of the student as is thus indicated. In a superficial way of looking at the matter, seminary life may easily be identified with formalism, with traditional and perfunctory discus- sions, singularly learned and unconvincing, and a clever caricaturist can find his target in supposable in- stances of theological students who, by their im- maturity, their conceit, their scholasticism, or their humdrum and mechanical view of their calling, be- Introductory 17 little the calling itself. We can imagine a professor even without piety and a student without ardor and without humor, God's delicate test of reality and sanity; but to indulge in such persiflage is, I im- agine, an odd waste of time, beside being foolishly untrue, for such allegations as these are, for the most part, to put it straight, a libel and a lie. The philos- ophy of sociological evolution refutes these libels. Their shallowness and falseness appear the moment we admit in any large way the law of heredity in modern Christian civilization, and add to that any vital sense of the meaning of Christ's promise to be always in His church and with His people. I insist upon this. The time has come to do ra- tional honor to that student mind which, however discredited, is in the next generation to direct the course of American Protestantism. The typical student is more than an individual. We cannot dismiss him as a "theologue." To say "tyro " and " neophyte " does not state him or begin to state him. Professional fetters have not yet bound down his spirit ; unfortunate experience no time yet to chill him ; his own special peculiarities no oppor- tunity to precipitate themselves into partial, rigid and unmanageable theories. On the contrary, parental consecration of the very parenthood that again has consecrated its child to the ministry, the struggle, valiant and patient, to pay one's own way, ten years of intellectual drill, " plain living " and at least think- ing of "high thinking," the student's ardor, the scholar's ambition, the young preacher's passionate aspiration and self-despair, the mingled menace and i8 Preaching in the New Age attraction of yonder expectant audience, the authority of the ideal, the hunger to save, the vision of Christ, the sudden, thriUing dawn of a possible conception of our calling, so full of glowing life as to leave one half dizzy, so vital is it and so splendid ; — all these influen- ces working together have rendered our typical theo- logical student not merely an educated gentleman, not merely a consecrated scholar, not merely a herald of the Cross even, but they have made him to carry in his own soul the true mirror and image of the voca- tion itself which he has chosen. You will discount these phrases as savoring of wordy exaggeration. But I give you back *' a Roland for your Oliver" and discount your discount. To state my point truly I must state it strongly. Let us then analyze what the student sees and feels concerning preaching. Out of the perhaps one hundred questions from students to which I have re- ferred, I have selected and, by your permission, will read forty-four. I would gladly read them all, but time is short and those which I omit are largely duplicates of those which I read. Every one of the citations is a literal quotation, without the change of a line, from these words and letters of theological stu- dents now in our seminaries, and I will quote not continuously from the same man or the same letter, but arrange the questions in a certain order of ap- proach to our theme. (i) "What do men expect from a preacher to- day? (2) " What is the message which this age needs? (3) "While the fundamental elements of the gos- Introductory 19 pel message are the same to-day as ever, does not this age demand to have certain of these elements empha- sized more than others ? If so, which ? (4) " How much apologetics is needed in the present preaching ? (5) " May one assume practical intellectual agree- ment with himself in his audience till the contrary is shown ? (6) " To what extent can the modern minister use the tone of authority formerly common ? (7) " How far ought one to recognize the demand sometimes heard that ministers inform the people as to the present status of Biblical criticism, and do the people care for such information ? (8) " How far can we get outside of the questions of higher criticism ? How can we get right down to business ? (9) "How shall we make men realize that the authorship of Isaiah or the exact duration of future punishment are questions which do not determine their own immediate present duty to God and to society ? (10) " Is it important practically that the preacher should make clear his own view of inspiration as be- tween the extreme "dictation " on the one hand and the purely naturalistic view of inspiration on the other ? Can most people upon this and similar issues be trusted to take a via media without special discussion of the points at issue ? (11) " How can one preach a system of doctrine ? Is it best to develop a system in successive sermons from week to week ? 20 Preaching in the New Age (12) " What should be the relation of one's theo- logical system to the sermons ? (13) " How can the effect of the sermons be made cumulative, each sermon playing into the next so that the force of the continued preaching may work towards constant building of Christian character ? (14) "Does modern preaching emphasize the human side of the Person of Christ too much ? (15) " What has become in modern preaching of the personal appeal to the unconverted ? (16) " How can I reach the unrepentant sinner in the congregation ? (17) "How can the preacher reach the hearers who say the sermon is good but who make no effort to comply with it ? (18) " How can the preacher touch the practical, hard-headed business man in middle life who has lost the ideals which he cherished in his youth and yet who is an honest, honorable, public-spirited citizen but not a church member ? (19) " What will rally to the Church a larger per- centage of men ? (20) " How are young men to be led to the Church and its work ? (21) "How can the children in a congregation be held by the same sermon which is for older people ? (22) "To what extent can the force of personal sympathy be made available in the pulpit ? (23) " What should be the relation of the preacher to social problems and political issues ? (24) "To what extent shall the young preacher Introductory 2 1 use his own experience, what he has had, as a source of illustration in the pulpit ? (25) " How shall one get personal experience into sermonic form ? (26) " How can a man find the common ground between himself and the congregation ? (27) '* How shall a man sink out of sight so that men shall feel that they are not spectators of a human performance but listeners to a divine message ? (28) "Can you give us a relief picture of the arena in which we have our task ? (29) "What I want is something objective — a clear analysis of the conditions of society, the actual force of the environment upon which the preacher must make his impression. (30) " I want perspective, not merely to know the factors of preaching, but to know them in due pro- portion and perspective, so as to emphasize the im- portant and let the unimportant go. (31) "How shall I, first, know the environment; and, secondly, know myself in adaptation to it? (32) "In our seminary we would like to hear something definite and strong about the weapons we have to use, — both the certainties of truth which will •be most effective, and also the intellectual resources which are most called into play. (33) " I have a latent, vague feeling of misgiving in my ignorance as to what truth can be made most effective. I want information on definite points: — How long to preach ? ' ' (Which recalls the re- sponse of the Scotch professor when asked that ques- tion : "A half hour, with a leaning to the side of 22 Preaching in the New Age mercy.") "How much illustration to use? How definite shall the application be ? Shall one directly aim at individuals ? (34) ''As I meet my fellow-students in our insti- tutions, I become aware of a common feeling of a certain hopelessness in view of the vastness and variety of the preacher's duty. (35) " How shall I best analyze myself in relation to preaching ? (36) " What are the qualities and powers to rate highest in taking an inventory of one's resources? (37) "I want to know what I ought to want in preaching ? (38) "Knowing the real sociological conditions does not seem to encourage and help me much. I want to know more about the secret of power in my message. (39) "I know my message; I do not know the field. We get in the seminary the analysis of the message, and of ourselves in part. What I want is knowledge of the field from the man who has been tliere. (40) "I want more vital touch with the life side of preaching. (41) " What I want is to know how to translate my own natural way of expressing the truth into such a way of expressing it as shall be telling and winning in effect upon the people I am speaking to. (42) " How shall I put what seems vital truth to me in the way I naturally put it, so it shall seem vital truth to John Smith in the pew yonder, in the way John Smith naturally expresses himself? Introductory 23 (43) " Can a man definitely count upon receiving special aid from on high in addition to the natural powers of his own mind ? (44) " How can I realize three things : — ist. The field in which I have to work, — what people are really thinking and feeling? 2d. What I have in myself ? 3d. How the Holy Spirit might be supposed to in- fluence the mind, and how shall one render due obedience to the impression thus conveyed? " I do not know what may be thought of these ques- tions. To me they seem to be quite the most re- markable series of interrogatories from candidates for a calling, concerning that calling itself, which I have ever seen. You will mark the curiously complete e>i- semble of the questions, so varied in form, yet so completely pervaded by a common inner spirit. Are they merely questionings? They seem to me to be very much more. They denote a certain atti- tude of the modern student's mind, touched at once with the spirit of the modern time and the spirit of Jesus, at once bowed by the majesty and fired by the fascination of a supreme vocation as it presents itself under living, current forms. But more than this. Am I in error in believing that one sees revealed in these questions the true line- aments of our vocation itself? Not so much the homiletic science thereof; not so much the profes- sional technique thereof, but the vital content thereof, the humane and holy genius of our calling. We are then to analyze what we find here in order to obtain our working definition of Christian preaching. 24 Preaching in the New Age And first we set aside for the moment certain ele- ments which are so general as not to appertain spe- cifically to preaching, because equally applicable to other forms of Christian service. A didactic element, for example, is of course pres- ent and ever preeminent in preaching. Preaching is teaching ; but so is Sunday-school instruction teach- ing, or ought to be ; so are seminary lectures teach- ing ; so are tracts teaching, occasionally ; but they are not preaching. Expounding the Scriptures may be preaching, or it may not be. So in the opposite direction. A hortatory element enters into preaching. Preaching is exhortation; but so is a private inter- view with a friend. Segregating then that which applies solely to preach- ing, we find the elements which are paramount in the student's view of his vocation to divide themselves into two main groups of factors. The first of these groups of factors relates to preaching as an art — a practical art. The student looks out upon his calling as involving at its supreme moment a wrestle with an audience. He sees in his mind's eye a thousand men waiting, care- less, callous, dizzy with the week's whirl, dead in sins. In front of them the preacher asks himself — '-'What is preaching? Telling these men what I think? " Why, yes, in a sense. But that alone is like talking to a fish instead of fishing for him. Preaching is not soliloquy. What then is preaching? Stating what the Bible tells? Yes, certainly, for the Biblical thought is the thought of the Infinite disclosed through the divinely selected and inspired human Introductory 25 development of a special race for a thousand years. But even this by itself is not preaching, so runs the student's thought. Preaching is telling all this so that it will reach men, so that it will convince, persuade, win, save some among that thousand men. In other words, preaching is an art^ — the supreme form of that highest art of man, the art of the orator, the art of persuasion, the art of so stating the truth as to make the hearer's attitude towards it identical with that of the speaker ; the art of roused manhood in fit public action, to the end of winning, through speech, his fellow-men. As an illustration of this read, if you please, that wonderfully vivid description of the preaching of Thomas Chalmers, contained in a short essay on Chalmers by Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. But recurring again to our forty-four questions, what more do we find ? Every one must see that this thought of preaching, as an art, even the noblest, is not the sole or even the chief factor in the student's conception. Back of the art lies another group of factors, far grander and more spiritual. How shall we entitle this second group? I venture to indicate the genius of the answer by using reverently that rich, divine Avord — Incarnation. For if I do not misread the intuition of the student mind, it is to the effect that a genuine Christian min- y' istry is in the very heart of it, in some degree a rein- carnation of the Truth and Spirit of Christ. It is more than a report of the truth ; it is a living present- ment of it — an embodiment of it. Preaching is in the man, not in the sermon alone or chiefly. Preaching 26 Preaching in the New Age must have living body and movement. It must in- carnadine the otherwise statuesque and palUd didactic elements. It must, under human limitations, reincar- nate something of the great Incarnation. In this glowing and profound conception of preach- ing as a reproduction of Christ, mere professionalism sinks out of sight ; mere art is forgotten. Didactic utterance seems to be only the outer vestibule for this vivid and vital thing, in which the eternal IVord — \,^ the Son of God — becomes Himself reproduced, in some dim sign and token at least, in the word of man, in the roused, human personality which pours itself into the spoken syllables. In this intuition as to the true spiritual content and method of Christian preaching, the profounder biology and the profounder philology unite. The deeper philosophy of life in its relation to language is in- voked. Intellectual processes, literary structure, vocal utterance, manner, gesture, all become moulds which the nimble and fluent personal spirit at once creates and fills, so that the result suggests at least, if God will, the tone, the cadence, the spirit of the Man of Calvary, the Christ of God. As this idea reveals itself to the reverent young preacher, sentences of Scripture which had been mere mystical phrases, like silent mist-covered geyser pools, start out and up from the page into new and com- manding life. \ ^Matthew lo : 20. — "It is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." 1 The citations are from the " American Revision " of the N. T. Introductory 27 John 16 : 13. — "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth." 14th verse — " He shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you." Acts 6 : 15. — "All that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel." First letter to Corinth, 2: 16. — "We have the mind of Christ." Galatians 2 : 20. — " Christ liveth in me." Second letter to Timothy, i : 14. — "The Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us." 4: 17. — "The Lord stood by me, and strengthened me ; that through me the message might be fully proclaimed." These are not merely first century specialties and refinements of apostolic prerogative ; they are of the midmost life of all genuine Christian preaching in every age. But this is not the end. These two great groups of factors in preaching, that which makes of it an art, and that which makes of it a true spiritual reincarna- tion of the Eternal Word, are not sharply severed and separated, but shade into each other, only with the spiritual factors always in the ascendant. Art, in any lofty philosophy of it, shades up into the spirit of the incarnation itself, through its emphasis upon the element of beauty. A noble art in preach- ing passes up inevitably through the medium of beauty into the apprehension of that " grace, ^' that charm of spiritual loveliness, that beauty of moral movement, which is the peculiar and winning trait of the supreme incarnation in Jesus Christ, and is also the supreme 28 Preaching in the New Age charm of true preaching, as distinguished from other forms of public address. The final impulse of a noble art by which truth seeks to disclose itself in forms of beauty so as to win the mind, rises, without a break, into the holy passion to reproduce the "grace" of Christ, so as to save the soul. Thus is produced a certain special and vital tone in preaching, the tone best suited at once to attract and to win, a rational earnestness, blended with a swift, glad grace, — a tone beautiful and holy, like music on Olivet after the Resurrection. At this point we arrive then at what for the present purpose may serve as our definition of the idea of preaching. Following the analysis of what we dis- cover in the depths of the student mind, we reach that working description of preaching which will con- trol the following five simple addresses in this course. And we venture thus to phrase our idea. Christian preaching in its unique distinction, in- volves the blending of an art and an incarnation — the noblest art and the purest incarnation, yet so as that the separate sense of the art disappears in the superior and sacred urgency of the incarnation. This definition, to call it such, is not, of course, ex- haustive. It is not technically scientific, and would hardly be admissible in a work on homiletics. It simply aims to render back to you in outline the vital consciousness of your own minds upon this subject. But not even here is the analysis quite ended. Recurring again to our forty-four questions, we discover this further apprehension pervading them, that true preaching is an incarnation in this sense Introductory 29 also, that it relates itself to every special age or fresh social environment, in a certain style and form derived from that age and suited to that environment. And this subtle and pervasive quality which makes true preaching ever en rapport with the age, incorpo- rates itself in preaching, considered both as an art and as an incarnation. For the genius of art, while always true to certain immortal ideals, yet ever seeks to render forth those ideals in the finest tone of the current time, while, on the other hand, the genius of the Christian incarnation is this — if I may be per- mitted to quote from a former address which I had the honor to make at your seminary commencement in 1897 — "the principle of embodying a higher spirit in the finest forms of a lower environment, for the sake of lifting the whole of that environment to a higher level." The question therefore rises into an instant and commanding importance : — What, at the heart of it, and in the essence of it, is this new age, this novel, daring, critical present age as differentiated from other ages, or an advance upon them? To what new rhythm is the spirit of man marching to-day ? What is the characteristic, what the mastering note, in the thoughts, in the motives, in the errands of modern life and modern society, and how shall preaching, both as art in speech and as a Christian incarnation, relate itself to these new currents of thought, of motive, and of errand ? For it is possible, and even probable, that this present age, by its peculiar ideas and ideals, by its new tones and forces, is bringing these two aspects 30 Preaching in the New Age of preaching, the artistic and the sacramental, into closer union, as well as finer relief, than has ever been witnessed before. This will come up for discussion latter on, and is a blessed and prophetic thing. Here, then, fairly on and just within the threshold, we leave our theme to-night. The current talk of the waning power of the pulpit is a specious fallacy. What is true is simply the waning power of certain pulpit types that ought to wane. Men chatter of the passing away of eloquence. Nonsense ! It is only the passing away of grandiloquence. True eloquence is manhood in action — the soul on fire and in fit utterance — and that is never out of style. Here, then, fellow students, is our scheme or rather your scheme in the outline of these forthcoming familiar addresses — yours, I say, rather than mine; for I am simply articulating what, coming as near to you as I can, I have seemed to hear as the voice of your own minds. I conclude, therefore, this initial word with the announcement of the five titles for the lectures, if one must call them such, which are arranged to follow. For the second lecture, Preaching an Art. 3d. Preaching an Incarnation. 4th. The New Age and its Relation to Preaching. 5th. The Preacher of To-day Preparing his Sermon. 6th. The Preacher of To-day before his Con- gregation. LECTURE II PREACHING AN ART LECTURE II PREACHING AN ART In the consideration of this special topic we must at the outset put in a good-natured demurrer against easy misconception. All separate discussion of preach- ing as an art is liable to be misunderstood, as though art were the element supposed to be chiefly emphasized in pulpit speech ; whereas, in our view, art holds but the second place. Yet it is really present. Art in preaching not only "conceals" itself, but forgets itself at the moment of utterance, ' ' the best action being involuntary," as Theodore Christlieb finely says. Yet art is indispensable and is the natural path of that professional discipline which leads up to the higher factors in pulpit address. The case against art in the pulpit, briefly stated, is this: — Preaching is practical. It is always supremely a wrestle to save, in the large sense of saving. It echoes the message of the Most High. It is not the dramatic imitation of passion ; it is the passion itself. It seeks not chiefly to please, as mere art may do, but to inform, to convince, to win its hearers. Its chief constituent is spiritual reality. It issues in definite appeal and its main con- cern is to urge that appeal effectively. To suggest art in a business so sacred and instant seems shallow impertinence. So strong is this way of putting the case, and so 33 34 Preaching in the New Age precipitate the recoil from the notion that preaching is an art, however fine, that not in a single one of the courses of lectures recently given upon this subject in our seminaries, do I recall any full recognition of what the art-element really is in preaching. Even so supreme a preacher and expositor of preaching as Bishop Brooks forbids art in the pulpit. In his noble "Lectures on Preaching," he remarks: — "The definite and immediate purpose which a sermon has set before it makes it impossible to consider it as a work of art." Let me quote a little further from the uncompromising sentences of the great preacher of "Trinity" upon this point, for I would do utter justice to the prejudice against art in preaching ; and if the prejudice has the better reason of the case I should wish that it, and not my simple plea on the other side, might be remembered. " It (the sermon) knows no essential and eternal type, but its law for what it ought to be comes from the needs and fickle changes of the men for whom it lives. Now this is thoroughly inartistic. Art contemplates and serves the absolute beauty. The simple work of art is the pure utterance of beautiful thought in beautiful form without further purpose than simply that it should be uttered. . . . Art knows nothing of the tumultuous eagerness of earnest purpose." It might be fairly questioned, perhaps, whether such a wholesale verdict as this is consistent with the truest view of art, or with the history of art in the world. Not only in the fields of music, painting, sculpture, or in the field of literature, or in the fields of the nobler drama, but also in that supreme field of oratory, Preaching an Art 35 which in some sense combines the best of all the other fields, art has a divine right to be ; and surely preach- ing is a form of oratory. And the reason for this is plain, for art is devoted to a principle with which God has seen fit everywhere to accompany His proclama- tion of truth in nature, viz., the principle of beauty. Art, as well as law, ' ' hath her seat in the bosom of God." The prejudice against art in preaching, therefore, seems to me mistaken and to involve logically an im- pugning of the very method of God Himself in dealing with men. We must retreat upon a far profounder philosophy of art and of the aesthetic principle in human effort and in the expression of the human soul. Let us avoid didactics as much as in us lies, but remind ourselves of one or two first principles. We use the word art, I suppose, in two senses : — ist, in the practical sense, as describing the skillful adapta- tion of method to gain a given end. In this sense, oratory is a practical art, because it seeks to persuade the hearer to practical action. 2d. We employ the word art in the more ideal sense, to denote the principle which seeks to express a truth in forms of beauty, with the result of producing in the mind a certain expansion and delight. This is the generic use of the word in literature and in the entire aesthetic realm. Now, the superb glory of the preacher's art consists in the unique fact that these two conceptions of art coalesce in their application to preaching. Preaching is art in the practical sense in that it is the skillful use of the resources of public 36 Preaching in the New Age speech to attain the end of practical action. Preach- ing is art also in the ideal sense in that it seeks to ex- press the highest truth in forms of the purest beauty. But the special point now is that preaching is peculiarly the most noble art in that it unites these two func- tions, so that the very form and method which fulfill the practical errand, also realize the ideal charm. In preaching, the really winning is the nobly beau- tiful, and in no other field of human effort is this identification between the practical and ideal aspects of art so perfect. In our use of the word art, there- fore, in the following brief discussion, these two con- ceptions of art may be merged in one. Let us then advance by a series of three or four simple steps from the outer and coarser to the inner and finer elements of what we may call art in preaching. First. — In the outer vestibule of this art stands, of course, the professional technique of the public speaker, the conventional rules for correct and at- tractive speech, as to the use of the voice, as to man- ner and gesture. Your text-books tell you these things far better than I could, and they need not detain us now. Here also belong the maxims laid down in the manuals upon rhetoric and logic. Yet important as these rules are they are but the furniture of the vestibule in any true philosophy of art as related to preaching. Second. — We advance a step further and remind ourselves again of that fundamental principle by which art has everywhere, especially in the noblest ages and among the finest races, enchanted the hu- Preaching an Art 37 man mind. This is the principle of beauty, regarded not as a mere accident of form, not as a mere robe of truth even, but as a part of truth itself, a permanent principle in the Eternal Mind. May we not surmise even that this mystery of beauty provides the medium between truth on the one hand and joy on the other. All real sanity in- cludes something of gaiety and grace. Virgil's senti- ment, " Gratior ac pulchro veniens in corpore virtus " is fulfilled in the "grace and truth" of the gospels. The law of art reflects the progress of the mind from truth, through beauty, to joy and joyful action. Or, to put the matter in another way, beauty bridges the gulf between thought and life. True art in expression is, therefore, no mannerism, no artifice, but is of the living essence of truth and of man. The preacher then, as an artist, whether he regards his art on the practical side as a method of winning men or, on the more ideal side, as the incorporation of truth in forms of beauty, should from the beginning cultivate his susceptibility to beauty. He will discover such beauty in the ordered play of the material world, in man, who is the blossom of the world, in history and in poetry, and in the rhythm of rational thought in the human mind. One must remind himself, of course, that just here is an easy door into all sorts of foolish fancies. The candid answer given by his friend to the amateur painter who asked him "about how much do you think I ought to get for this picture? " "About six months," is not too caustic to apply to the preacher who substitutes high-flown sentiment concerning " ar- 38 Preaching in the New Age tistic beauty" in the sermon for "the weightier mat- ters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith." But such fancies are the counterfeit of the real thing we are speaking of. The preacher must study truth in beauty, and beauty in truth. And this openness of mind to the beautiful may be cultivated and should be, deliberately and constantly, — first, in the open air, in fellowship with what St. Francis would have called his "brothers," the mead- ows, the rivers and hills, as well as by the open sea and beneath those "wonderful clear nights of stars," to use Stevenson's phrase, which God gives to New Englanders, It is well that a minister should be something of a cragsman. Then, next to this, the young preacher should study the nobler beauty by reading history and poetry, and in this order, I think ; that is, if history be read with something of imagination, and if, on the other hand, poetry be read with a steady searchlight out for reality, and perhaps a mental mackintosh ready for use against gush and bathos, and all that foam of iridescent fancy-bubbles which look like soaring spheres, but are exactly "suds" and nothing more. For because the human mind originates with God, who always expresses His truth beautifully, therefore the preacher of God can train himself to relish and adopt something of the method of beauty in stating God's truth. And if one is eager to split hairs upon the question as to the order and rank of precedence in this realm of the beautiful, he might say this: — that the beauty of form is higher than the beauty of color, and the Preaching an Art 39 beauty of movement is highest of all. Sinewy, swift logic is beautiful even without a single ornament, as the curve of a cannon shot is beautiful ; and without clear progress there is no beauty in a sermon. In- deed, the very highest beauty is the beauty of moral movement, and this is what Ave rightly call " grace," the exquisite loveliness of moral action, the quality so characteristic of the <' Beautiful Galilean." Thus, as we shall see, the very highest art leads us into the doorway of the Incarnation itself. What a preacher should strive for is fine form in fit action, and when I say strive, I mean strive, as an oarsman trains himself for the race. To use our rifle-shot vernacular, without "go" — and a very fine kmd of "go" — there is no sermon. Prolixity, gar- rulity, which are blemishes in any speaker, are for the preacher sins. Correctness itself is of less value than spontaneity. Who can endure a man so correct that he is nothing else ? Third. — The implement of art for the preacher is language. He must train himself, therefore, to honor words. I had almost said to reverence them, because words are more than the mere scenery of thought; they are its "living garment," to employ Goethe's phrase, or, to change the figure, words are precious flasks, brimful of the life of the generations. Philology runs back to biology. "Prose," says Emerson, "is fossil poetry." So it is if we suppose the fossils endued with the cunning art of continuing in life. And we shall further remember that language as such is not only thought in form but thought in beautiful form. The genius of language is the pic* 40 Preaching in the New Age torial genius. A word is a picture, a crystal on fire. In the depths of a single, simple word the primary principles of beauty appear, like pearls at the bottom of a pool. It is hardly too much to say, therefore, that a man who would be a true artist in speech, ap- proximates adoration in his sentiment towards lan- guage. He takes off his hat in front of a word. He respects language too much to use it carelessly, for in the conception of true art words are the incarnation of spirit. This divine quality in language is a part of what our brethren who believe in " verbal inspiration" are so unwilling to let slip ; and it is well that we should all hold to so much of the doctrine of verbal inspira- tion as that. These are, of course, only the commonest frag- mentary hints within the arena of this profound and fascinating field, the underlying philosophy of art in public speech. But our errand is specific, and the path is long and we are in haste to arrive at more practical details, so we must hasten onward. Fourth. — The fourth great principle in the relation of art to preaching appears to be deeper still. It rises into view the moment we remember that the minister is more than an orator. He, as a personality, stands for his message as well as articulates it. The mere lecturer of the lyceum will enchant his auditors by graceful phrases. The orator of the day at civic celebrations will stir the crowd into what the journals call "billows of enthusiasm." But lecturer and orator pass away. The occasion is an occasion and no more. The man behind the speech, the permanent Preaching an Art 4.1 personality of the orator, is the least emphasized, per- haps the least remembered feature in the performance. But the preacher on the other hand addresses the same people all the year round. They come to know him. The man behind the speech is the principal thing. Art with him, therefore, the impulse to render the truth in forms of beauty, so as to win mental assent, must relate to other factors besides elocution or even language, — to factors even more intimately personal. In a word, the law of true art in preaching requires that the preacher shall train Jmnself in beauty of soul and of life, so as to be himself a language, an organ of fine expression. The genius of true art is a genius which incarnates. Christian preaching is incarnating the whole soul in words. The preacher must, there- fore, develop within himself a certain noble grace of instinctive and habitual feeling and action. He must seek for blended truth and charm in manhood, yet without descending to mannerism, and never losing his first-hand clench on reality. This is why in our profession, as perhaps in no other, character and the steady struggle after character, turn themselves so di- rectly into professional and even literary capital. We say, therefore, this thing to each other, that we are to seek our best "style," to call it such, in preaching, not in the emphasis upon some one specific literary turn, but in some combination of qualities, which for each man expresses ////;/, and nobody else, most and best. The best way to acquire a fine style is to develop a fine soul and then pour out the whole of it in one's preaching. Art, in preaching especially, 42 Preaching in the New Age is, first, to unify manhood, and then to express that unity. Cheap, therefore, is the folly of artificial de- vices and tricks of declamation. A man should preach as he walks, naturally. Style is the entirety of natural force in free, roused action. Dr. Thomp- son, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, once thus described a young fop of a tutor — " That all the time he could spare from the adornment of his person he conscientiously devoted to the neglect of his duties." And the satire is not too keen to describe the false method of the young minister who spends his strength in laboriously tying the cravats of rhetoric, studying gesture, now one hand and now the other ; who hunts for glittering phrases in quotation marks ; who polishes inanities ; who in all his utterance suggests the intel- lectual bandbox and boudoir, and forgets the weightier matters of the soul. Art in preaching then is, after all, chiefly and at the bottom of it, the art of living, making manhood beau- tiful and holding it so — holding the whole man, clean body, live brain, consecrated spirit, — all as one piece, one lens set in the white light of truth, letting God take care of the image, if only the crystal itself can be kept consistent and clear. This view of the matter leads directly up, as we shall see in our next lecture, to the consideration of preaching as a genuine and living reincarnation of Christ. Fifth. — But not to lose ourselves in easy generaliza- tion at this point, we can now go on to notice how this principle of true art, the passion for putting truth into beauty for the sake of winning men, pervading Preaching an Art 43 not only the literary style of the preacher, but also pervading his intimate life and personality, appears in practical exemplification in the sermon. According to these principles the sermon is the harmonious synthesis, to speak in pedantic fashion, of three great departments or norms, each of which con- tributes to it an integral and vital factor. I St, the subject; 2d, the speaker ; 3d, the congregation. Learning to preach is learning to time together these three factors, — the message given, the man giving it, the man listening to it, — so that in the course of years a certain spontaneous correlation comes to be estab- lished between the three, which correlation the preacher incessantly establishes almost without know- ing it every time he preaches, and which for him is style. I St, as to the subject. Is it true, vital, strong, drawn naturally, not only from the text but from the context, and from the entire generic undertone of the document and of scripture at large ? Does it carry in it the essential message of the gospel ? Have I, the preacher, analyzed it simply, clearly? Have I made the skeleton of it (to use our impertinently ana- tomical word) symmetrical in articulation, — able to stand on its feet, but with not too many feet ? (Two arms also are better than ten, even for a skeleton.) Is the logic of the sermon sound and straight, with pres- sure cumulative ? Are the illustrations brief, pat, not overdone ? Have I opened sufficiently, but not weari- somely, the varied wealth of side vistas along the line 44 Preaching in the New Age of thought suggested, without fettering or dela3nng the mid-march on the main track, until the argument reaches its climax in urgent and kindly appeal ? In a word, is my sermon true to the truth ? Very well, if it is, — if all these questions are duly answered — then the sermon is just one-third made. 2d. The preacher now enters the second field of self-interrogation and asks : " What did God give to vie, to me myself, in the make-up of my mental faculty ? Is philosophical analysis or imaginative description the faculty that nature put the accent on with me ? Have I put myself, my separate real self, my whole self, into my sermon, in the pattern which I may think God put into the loom for me and meant that I should fill out? Intellect, humor, pathos, passion, in just my own proper proportion of each, the native hue and rhythm of my mind, have I employed all this in making my sermon ? ' ' Well, the answer will be, certainly not. Then re- cast the sermon. Rearrange. Rewrite. Drop out all the mere padding from the sermon as it stood at the end of the first scrutiny. Gain space to put in the personal accent, — ^just as St. Paul did in his letters — the glow of experience, the real individuality of the speaker, so that the sermon, without losing anything that is substantial or vital in the qualities realized under the first norm, is now also clothed with the per- sonal vitality drawn from the second. 3 1 Well and good. Your sermon is now two-thirds