BV 4211 .C5 
 
 Clausen, Bernard Chancel lo| 
 
 1892- 
 "Preach it again" 
 
"PREACH IT AGAIN" 
 
^^ PREACH IT AGAIN'' 
 
 THE SERMON TEST 
 
 By 
 BERNARD C. CLAUSEN, D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE JUDSON PRESS 
 
 BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS LOS ANGELES 
 
 KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO 
 
\^ 
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 
 
 Published August, 1922 
 
 Printed ix U. S. A. 
 
TO 
 
 THE KINDEST, WISEST TEACHERS 
 I EVER HAD 
 
 MY CONGREGATION 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER J. tit, ttjOi PAGE 
 
 I. Who Knows Most About Preaching? 3 
 II. Consulting the Ultimate Critics. . . 9 
 
 III. What the Critics Said 16 
 
 IV. The Critics Classified 31 
 
 V. Titles and So Forth 38 
 
 PART II 
 
 The Sermons 
 
 I. On Distance in Religion 49 
 
 II. The We-ness of Us 60 
 
 III. Says I, to Myself 64 
 
 IV. Take Your Choice 71 
 
 V. The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of 
 
 Voice 76 
 
 VI. How to Make a Pearl 86 
 
 VII. Why I Am a Christian 93 
 
 VIII. A Preacher Unashamed 100 
 
 IX. Religion at Twenty-one ; . . 106 
 
 X. How to Make the Sun Stand Still. .115 
 Appendix 121 
 
PART I 
 
 THE TEST 
 
WHO KNOWS MOST ABOUT 
 PREACHING? 
 
 Obviously, the professor of homiletics. Dis- 
 guised by a title which is not widely understood, 
 hidden behind a word which has failed to gain entry 
 into the speech of the layman, the professor of 
 homiletics need only be unveiled as a teacher of 
 the art of preaching, and at once he is acclaimed. 
 This age of specialists is sincerely convinced that 
 he who is a specialist, by that very fact knows 
 more about his specialty than those who have com- 
 peting interests in other directions. So ministers 
 and laymen, true to the convictions of their age, 
 are united in their answer to the question, " Who 
 knows most about preaching? " 
 
 Obviously, the professor of homiletics. Years 
 of opportunity for careful study in the restricted 
 field have naturally led him to an eminence as a 
 critic of preaching. He has had unusual occasions 
 for observing various methods and men. He has 
 a library of volumes in which his predecessors and 
 contemporaries, specialists in his own field, have 
 left the vast accumulation of their wisdom. He 
 has read widely in the imposing areas of sermonic 
 literature. He knows the traditions of great 
 preaching. He knows the masterpieces of the 
 
 3 
 
PREACH IT AGAIN" 
 
 great preachers. Perhaps he has the reassuring 
 memories of days when he did great preaching 
 himself. Out of these elements he has the right 
 to construct a theory of preaching which has 
 extraordinary authority. He can write a book of 
 his own on ''How to Preach." He can accept a 
 submitted sermon as good, or reject it as poor. He 
 can suggest changes which he knows will make it 
 better. He knows a good sermon when he hears it 
 because he knows good sermons as such. He has 
 the technical apparatus of criticism. 
 
 This commitment to the authority of the spe- 
 cialist in his own field is somewhat less whole- 
 hearted in the minds of preachers who have studied 
 homiletics under men who could not preach. It 
 must be somewhat discouraging to build up ser- 
 monic ideals at the direction of professors whose 
 study of homiletics has failed to produce success- 
 ful sermons. But to one who has lived in a land 
 of homiletical instruction bounded on four sides 
 by such master-preachers as Harry Emerson Fos- 
 dick, G. Johnston Ross, Hugh Black, and William 
 Mangam Lawrence, specialists have an authority 
 unquestioned. And so firm is our generation in its 
 avowal of specialists, that it is willing to say, with- 
 out sense of compromise, when faced by a teacher 
 of preaching who cannot preach, " At least, he 
 knows how, even if he cannot ! " Obviously, the 
 professor of homile-tics is the authority in the realm 
 of preaching. 
 
 Next in order to the royal house of professors 
 is the representative of the nobility of the realm — 
 
WHO KNOWS MOST ABOUT PREACHING? 5 
 
 the preacher himself. Indeed, there are traces 
 of the blue blood of the specialist in his veins. 
 Courses in Hebrew and Greek, Philosophy and His- 
 tory, have not prevented him from devoting con- 
 siderable attention to the art of preaching. And 
 he has the advantage of a constant check on his 
 theory from the experience of his unfolding Sun- 
 days. He has learned at the feet of his chosen ex- 
 perts. He has taken the varying criteria of the dif- 
 fering critical schools, and has made a criterion of 
 his own. True it is that he has little chance to exer- 
 cise his critical apparatus on the preaching of other 
 men, for most preachers are forced to live through 
 the long years of ardent ministry with less than 
 twenty occasions when they hear another man 
 preach to them. But he can submit his own pro- 
 ductions to the standards of his own ideals, and 
 he can judge his work as impartially as human na- 
 ture will allow one to view the children of one's 
 spirit and brain. Best of all, he can reenforce or 
 contradict that judgment by means of that inner 
 sense which tells him whether a sermon has been a 
 success or not. Did it go well ? Did it kindle? Did 
 it leave the preacher feeling like an achiever for 
 the Lord Christ ? These questions, which can never 
 be a part of a mere professor's judgment, are con- 
 stantly entering into a preacher's criticism of his 
 own work, and that to his great advantage. 
 
 Does any one else know anything about preach- 
 ing? Of course, there is the congregation. But 
 all they ever know is what they like, and you are 
 not called into the ministry for the purpose of 
 
PREACH IT AGAIN 
 
 tickling ears with sweet sounds. Occasionally a 
 frank, helpful criticism comes to the preacher from 
 a hearer, but for the most part the direct verbal 
 reaction is a gush of silly approval from unthink- 
 ing souls who greet your prophetic tirades against 
 sin with a light-hearted " What a lovely sermon! " 
 or exhibit the defensive armor of their souls by a 
 coy " I did enjoy that so ! " after you have poured 
 a machine-gun shower of cold steel into their par- 
 ticular pew. The real criticisms of thoughtful 
 people are not spoken to the preacher; they are 
 reserved for the family circle gathered about the 
 festive board for Sunday dinner. After all, why 
 should one be particularly eager for the careless 
 judgment of untrained people on a matter of tech- 
 nique ? You know a good sermon when you preach 
 one. You may echo the now famous bulletin report 
 of a prominent surgeon, " The operation was a com- 
 plete success," adding, as if mentioning a matter 
 of incidental interest, " The patient died at 2:12 
 p. m." 
 
 The obvious retort, however, to a surgeon in that 
 highly professional and specialistic mood of tech- 
 nical aloofness, is that no operation can be a com- 
 plete success if the patient dies. And the obvious 
 reply to a preacher who knows a good sermon when 
 he preaches one, is that it is not a good sermon, 
 whatever he thinks about it, unless his congregation 
 knows it is good when he preaches it. If rhetoric 
 can presume to be the adaptation of subject-matter 
 to the demands and capabilities of the reader or 
 hearer, surely preaching dare propose no meaner 
 
WHO KNOWS MOST ABOUT PREACHING? 7 
 
 aim than the adaptation of the message of Jesus 
 to the demands and capabilities of the congregations 
 addressed. And one of the disillusionments which 
 every young minister must face is the startling 
 discovery that congregations are not made up of 
 such skilled professional critics as homiletical pro- 
 fessors and preachers. He must preach to people 
 who have no critical standards except the disdained 
 likes and dislikes of their untrained minds. He 
 must be effective toward them. And the people 
 are the ultimate critics, the court of first and last 
 appeal. 
 
 They are not to be allowed to diagnose and pre- 
 scribe. They are to have no voice in the antiseptic 
 preparation. They are not to choose the instru- 
 ments, nor to interfere with the. quick skill of the 
 trained hands. Their advice is not to be taken when 
 it flatly contradicts the text-books of surgeons and 
 the best traditions of technique. But they are to 
 be watched for every reaction; their condition is 
 to be carefully noted at frequent intervals; their 
 symptoms are to be recorded and studied. And 
 the results are to be judged as successful or unsuc- 
 cessful in the terms of the condition of the patient. 
 
 The difficulty is that congregations under the 
 knife are so hard to observe with scientific accu- 
 racy. The immediate verbal responses are utterly 
 useless as symptoms. You may plant people in 
 various sections of your congregation to listen 
 as people pass out of your doors, and have your 
 spies report their observations. But this is as un- 
 gentlemanly as it is ineffective. You may watch the 
 
8 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 ebb and flow of your audiences from Sunday to 
 Sunday and keep a therrnomeier record of the num- 
 bers in attendance. But the crowd which comes to 
 hear you this week is no credit to this week's ser- 
 mon. Rather is it a reflection upon some success- 
 ful preaching somewhere in the more or less dis- 
 tant past, which has finally fruited in unusual 
 attention. And a catchy title, or an adventitious turn 
 in weather or publicity, may deceive the eager at- 
 tendance-watcher into wholly erroneous conclu- 
 sions. Yet the patient must he watched. 
 
 This is the story of an attempt to learn what a 
 congregation thought about a year of preaching. 
 That it resulted in an almost complete reversal of 
 expectation is not its least-interesting feature. For 
 the attempt made plain that when a church is con- 
 sulted frankly and without threat of embarrassment 
 the judgment they render passes w^ithout particular 
 favor over sermons w^hich warmed the cockles of 
 the preacher's heart, and selects for honor sermons 
 which failed to please him greatly. Congregations 
 dare to differ with the preacher! And their judg- 
 ment favors the homiletically incorrect sermon over 
 the homiletically correct. Congregations dare to 
 disagree with professors ! 
 
 What congregations think about preaching is 
 the ultimate standard. For the sermon may be a 
 very pretty operation. But what happened to the 
 patient ? 
 
II 
 
 CONSULTING THE ULTIMATE 
 CRITICS 
 
 First, you must make sure that your critic will 
 be frank. And this is not a simple matter in a con- 
 gregation. All year long you have striven to build 
 yourself into the lives of your people. You wel- 
 come every new indication of friendship. You 
 make yourself a brother in the family of church 
 affection. Can you, on a given day, at the end of 
 that year, assume a detached air and ask coldly, 
 " What do you think of the preaching up to date? '* 
 Can you trust the accuracy of the response? Not if 
 you have observed how difficult it is for any kind 
 friend to become a just critic under any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 But you do have the right to take your people 
 at their word when they say, on various occasions, 
 " Oh, preach that again ! " You do have the right 
 to select a day when you turn on- them in friendly 
 mood and say, " Tell me which sermons you want 
 me to repeat, and I shall be happy to preach five 
 of them again." And you do have the right to take 
 their selections as fairly accurate critical judgments 
 on the preaching of the year. Of course, they will 
 have had no opportunity to compare your work 
 with that of other preachers; they cannot express 
 B 9 
 
10 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 themselves as to the distance between your sermons 
 at their best and the ideals which they have for 
 preaching; but their votes will be helpful in telling 
 you quite plainly which of your sermons came clos- 
 est to their mark of effectiveness, and which failed 
 most miserably, with various gradations of effec- 
 tiveness between the extremes. This is about all 
 a preacher has a right to expect from his first short 
 lesson in the classroom of his new homiletics in- 
 structors. Especially when he understands that his 
 critics wnll be careful in their ballots because they 
 will realize that they must endure the repetition of 
 the sermons chosen. Their votes will have more 
 than academic interest to them. They will be con- 
 demning themselves to listen to the sermons which 
 win. The sense of this fate will sober them. They 
 dare not be careless. 
 
 The scene was the First Baptist Church of Syra- 
 cuse, New York. Printed folders had been pre- 
 pared entitled v' The Sermons of the First Year." 
 A paragraph of explanation outlined the plan : 
 
 Ballots will be distributed at both services on 
 Sunday, and the five sermons selected by the 
 congregations of that day will be repreached 
 on five subsequent Sunday nights. 
 
 The inside pages of the folder contained a com- 
 plete list of the sermons preached during the year, 
 arranged in chronological order, with each title num- 
 bered for convenience. After each title a sentence 
 of quotation was given, plucked from the sermon 
 
CONSULTING THE ULTIMATE CRITICS 11 
 
 to stimulate a more accurate recollection of the sub- 
 ject-matter. 
 
 This is the list. And here is a private experi- 
 ment for your own satisfaction. Read through the 
 sermon topics and tKeir appended sentences, select 
 from the titles the five in which you are most inter- 
 ested, then compare your choices with the five ser- 
 mons which a normal congregation selected by their 
 frank, untrammeled votes. 
 
 THE SERMONS OF THE FIRST YEAR 
 
 1. The Strategy of Foch. 
 
 " Remember the Mariie and Ferdinand Foch." 
 
 2. The Miracle of Me. 
 
 " Consider the human machine, 682 miracles in one." 
 
 3. A Reply to the Ouija. 
 
 "The Ouija tells me that this is a heart-broken, groping, 
 pitiful world." 
 
 4. What the World Owes Me. 
 
 " I am tired of these so-called self-made men who think 
 the world owes them a regal living." 
 
 5. A Labor Day Prescription. 
 
 "What we need this day is more labor, and less prescrip- 
 tion." 
 
 6. Belgium and You. 
 
 " Belgium is not a pink spot on a map; Belgium is an ideal 
 in a people's heart." 
 
 7. A Preacher Unashamed. 
 
 " Before a world of eager claims, I shall never apologize 
 for my profession ; nor for that which I profess." 
 
 8. Victory. 
 
 " The war won for us no new rights ; save the right to more 
 and truer world service." 
 
12 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 9. If I Were A Freshman. 
 
 " I should begin this first year by building here an altar 
 to the God of my life." 
 
 10. On Distance in Religion. 
 
 " Three Negro songs can teach us the secret of nearness to 
 God." 
 
 11. How TO Listen to A Sermon. 
 
 " Come prepared to do something about it 1 " 
 
 12. The We-ness of Us. 
 
 " ' He's not heavy, sir. He's my brother ! ' " 
 
 13. How TO Make A Pearl. 
 
 " A pearl is the garment of patience wrapped around an 
 annoyance." 
 
 14. Take Your Choice. 
 
 " ' I have to live with myself, and so I want to be fit for 
 myself to know.' " 
 
 15. How TO Make the Sun Stand Still. 
 
 " Life can no more be measured by years than milk can 
 be measured by yards; life has length and breadth and depth 
 and height." 
 
 16. The Challenge of the Modern Church. 
 
 '* The church is the surest, quickest way into the greatest 
 battle of the universe." 
 
 17. Ambassadors Extraordinary. 
 
 " The imperial affairs of the Kingdom are entrusted to you 
 without reserve." 
 
 18. My Counsel to Conquerors. 
 " Forget it ; push on ! " 
 
 19. The Story of The Elijah. 
 
 " The gaunt drama of the prophet's life is revealed and vivi- 
 fied in the glorious music." 
 
 ?0. Are We Disappointing Jesus? In The Lord's Prayer. 
 " I shall never risk the shattering of fellowship by insisting 
 on saying * debts ' when my brother near me says **tres- 
 passes.' " 
 
CONSULTING THE ULTIMATE CRITICS 13 
 
 21. Religion at 21. 
 
 *' Twenty-one will not be glad in a faith that flaunts pro- 
 hibitions and negations." 
 
 22. A Bible Promise Which You Do Not Believe. 
 
 "* Are you really confident that God protects from all evil ? " 
 27i. Some Heroes and Traitors I Have Known. 
 
 " I have had a chance to see both types in action ; here are 
 their portraits." 
 
 24. Studies From the Stadium. 
 
 " Let us put more true football into life." 
 
 25. Can A Thoughtful Man Be Thankful Now? 
 
 " Come with me through the streets of Syracuse, while 1 
 search for the thankful hearts." 
 
 26. Today's Pilgrims and Today's Bible. 
 
 "There is only one way to. join the true Mayflower Society; 
 that is to commit yourself to Mayflower principles." 
 
 27. Are We Disappointing Jesus? In Our Baptism. 
 
 " If I keep to the proper form, yet libel Christ's spirit in 
 my insistence on that form, then am I no disciple of his." 
 
 28. The Holy Sabbath and the To-ne of Voice. 
 
 " When I observe people deserting this church to attend the 
 movies, I shall not try to close the movies ; I shall find out 
 what is wrong with the church." 
 
 29. Alpha Kai Omega. 
 
 " Behind all appearances, and before all true 'hopes, is 
 God." 
 
 30. How TO be a Real Devil. 
 
 " The directions are simple and require no change of cos- 
 tume. Pitchforks are unnecessary." 
 
 31. Two Ways to the Manger. 
 
 " Wise men and shepherds, culture and ruggedness, take 
 differing roads, but they are together at the manger of Jesus." 
 
 32. A Background for the Messiah. 
 
 " Music, no less than words, makes the Christ seem more 
 near." 
 
14 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 33. The Hidden Tragedy of Christmas. 
 
 " Not that Jesus the king was unrecognized ; but that Jesus 
 the child was neglected." 
 
 34. The Year of Jubilee, 
 
 '* All wrongs forgiven ; all slights forgotten ; all selfish aims 
 abandoned ; God must be served these days." 
 
 35. Kings and Priests. 
 
 " O, to be a king of my life like Albert ; to be a priest for 
 my soul like Mercier 1 " 
 
 36. How It Feels to be a Bankrupt. 
 
 " Your assets, if you were sold to the highest bidder, would 
 net 98c in these days of high prices." 
 
 37. Life's Honor System. 
 
 " No man has a memory good enough to give him confidence 
 as a liar." 
 
 38. Poor Richard's Almanac for 1921. 
 "Steer your Hfe; let not it steer you." 
 
 39. Why I Am a Christian, 
 
 "Jesus is the fairest, bravest, gentlest, truest figure on the 
 wide horizons of recorded history." 
 
 40. What's Wrong With Sin? 
 
 " God hates sin because it deceives and hurts men." 
 
 41. Why I Am A Baptist. 
 
 " I have found a regiment with glorious traditions, fine 
 principles, and sturdy ideals." 
 
 42. Says I, to Myself. 
 
 " Nine-tenths of a man's life is hidden under the surface ; 
 what kind of a man are you when you talk to yourself? " 
 
 43. Why I Am A Minister. 
 
 "There is a fundamental gift which qualifies a man for the 
 ministry of the v/ord." 
 
 44. Are We Disappointing Jesus? In Our Communion. 
 
 " Love and I had the wit to win ; we drew a circle and 
 shut him in." 
 
CONSULTING THE ULTIMATE CRITICS 15 
 
 45. Christ's Challenge to the College. 
 
 "Do you love the things we fight for? And hate the things 
 we fight against? Then join us." 
 
 46. The Glory of A Hundred Years. 
 
 " This church is the accumulation of the brave words and 
 selfless deeds of the century." 
 
Ill 
 
 WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 
 
 Every person entering the church that day was 
 provided with a copy of the list and a printed bal- 
 lot for the indication of choice. There was a blank 
 space for the number of each sermon selected, 
 dotted lines for the name and address of the voter, 
 and a space for remarks. The plan had been an- 
 nounced in advance on several Sundays, so the con- 
 gregations were prepared to express their will. The 
 number of choices recorded was 3,062; the total 
 attendance at the two services that day was 3,280. 
 And on the next Sunday night the preacher began 
 his series of five repreached sermons. Meanwhile 
 he had retired to a quiet place, there to classify and 
 reclassify and study the significance of the critical 
 judgments expressed. 
 
 What first attracted attention was the fact that 
 no sermon was without votes. Every title on the 
 list had involved sufficient interest so that some 
 one wanted to have it repeated. Such widely scat- 
 tered returns might seem to indicate that the voting 
 was thoughtless and was striking out in all direc- 
 tions. But an analysis of the votes which appeared 
 in the smaller groups of ballots will readily demon- 
 strate quite the contrary. Care and discrimina- 
 tion were characteristic. 
 16 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 17 
 
 The sermons which were lowest in the ballot- 
 ing were those preached for special occasions. " A 
 Labor Day Prescription" received only ten votes; 
 " A Background for the Messiah " and '' The Story 
 of the Elijah " were brief introductory remarks at 
 the opening of choral oratorio programs; " Today's 
 Pilgrims and Today's Bible " was a sermon for 
 Bible Day; and '' The Glory of a Hundred Years " 
 was a church centennial address. These sermons 
 lacked favor for an obvious reason: it was gen- 
 erally and properly realized that they were depen- 
 dent for their effectiveness upon the mood of a 
 special occasion, and the occasion could not be 
 summoned up for the purposes of repetition. But 
 why did anybody vote for such sermons? An ex- 
 amination of the ballots shows how closely the 
 choices followed class interests, and gives us con- 
 fidence for the attempt in the next chapter to ana- 
 lyze all the ballots in class groupings. The votes 
 for '' A Labor Day Prescription " came almost en- 
 tirely from employers of labor, and a glance at 
 the sentence of quotation will explain the fact. The 
 comments based on oratorios were chosen by mem- 
 bers of the choir, who had caught with unusual 
 vividness the thought of the gospel when phrased 
 in the musical vocabulary with which they were 
 familiar. The sermon on the '' Pilgrims " had made 
 a special appeal to people who were of New England 
 families and traditions, and the votes showed a 
 definite New England drift. While the centennial 
 sermon proved to be the choice of the old mem- 
 bers of the church, in whose minds the old names 
 
18 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 and the old years stirred up vivid recollections. 
 Here was a whole group of occasional sermons 
 which should have been utterly ineligible for repe- 
 tition. Yet the interests of certain special groups 
 were sufficient to overbalance the natural handicaps. 
 In other words, this group of least-favored sermons 
 indicates that without embarrassment or careless- 
 ness, people were voting along the lines of their 
 real preferences, which inevitably formed into 
 groups of tastes and interests along class lines. 
 The more subtle differences in group tastes for 
 sermons will be explored later. 
 
 When the discourses for special occasions have 
 been eliminated from consideration, it becomes ap- 
 parent that the least-favored sermons are the war 
 sermons. " Belgium and You," " Victory," " Am- 
 bassadors Extraordinary," " Some Heroes and 
 Traitors I Have Known," and " Kings and Priests " 
 were all carefully prepared and well-knit efforts, 
 with the advantage of that vividness of vocabulary 
 and story which could come from a recent and stir- 
 ring adventure of two years which the preacher 
 spent with the American forces. Indeed two of 
 the war sermons were included in the preacher's 
 list of his own favorites when he made out his bal- 
 lot. These sermons appeared at intervals through- 
 out the year. Yet wherever the titles appeared on 
 the complete list they were passed by and cut by 
 the voters. Their record in the balloting looks pa- 
 thetically like the fate of the Democrats in a 
 rock-ribbed Republican township, or vice versa. 
 Some mental enmity overwhelmed them. They 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 19 
 
 were singled out for the unconscious scorn of 
 neglect. When they did receive support it came 
 from the young business and college men who knew 
 the vocabulary of war and could respond to it with 
 readiness. Whether because an over-supply of war 
 appeals without a background of war experience 
 wore our people into inattention, or because they 
 never have sensed the meaning of war words viv- 
 idly, the balloting shows that you cannot expect to 
 preach the gospel in the terms of the Great War 
 and succeed with your message. Young men are 
 still eager for an appeal based on war-times, but 
 your congregation, as a whole, will pray to be 
 delivered. The only sermon which had a touch of 
 armies in it and which was not snowed under in 
 the voting was '' The Strategy of Foch," and that 
 must attribute its comparative popularity to the fact 
 that it was a study of the soul of the generalissimo 
 and his inspiration for the battle of life. War, as 
 such, is taboo. 
 
 But the most astounding feature of all was the 
 way the votes neglected the preacher's favorites and 
 the homiletically correct productions and indepen- 
 dently selected sermons on other standards of excel- 
 lence. These were the five elected sermons, with 
 the number of their supporters : 
 
 1. "On Distance in Religion," (No. 10), 231 votes. 
 
 2. '"The We-ness of Us," (No. 12), 191 votes. 
 
 3. " Says I, to Myself," (No. 42), 160 votes. 
 
 4. "Take Your Choice," (No. 14), 129 votes. 
 
 5. "The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of Voice," (No. 28), 
 116 votes. 
 
20 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 These followed in close succession : 
 
 6. "How to- Make a Pearl," (No. 13), 108 votes. 
 
 7. "Why I am a Christian," (No. 39), 92 votes. 
 
 8. "A Preacher Unashamed," (No. 7), 91 votes. 
 
 9. " Religion at 21," (No. 21), 89 votes. 
 
 10. " How to Make the Sim Stand Still," (No. 15), 79 votes. 
 
 Observe the characteristics of the first five candi- 
 dates on the list. They vary widely, but they are 
 at one in a contradiction of the accepted canons of 
 sermon-building. '' On Distance in Religion " was 
 not only overwhelmingly first in the general voting, 
 but when the votes were classified it developed 
 that no group had placed this sermon lower than 
 third, and the four largest groups had given it first 
 place without question. It is a simple talk on inti- 
 macy in religious faith, with its text in the words 
 of three Negro slave songs, which were sung by 
 the preacher as he began his discussion. It utilizes 
 the accompanying Scripture lesson only as an inci- 
 dental and enlightening example. *' The We-ness 
 of Us " is a ten-minute Communion Sunday medi- 
 tation on the oneness of spirit and the brotherliness 
 of love which should characterize the Christian 
 church. " Says I, to Myself " is an application 
 of the results of the new psychoanalysis to the 
 experience of Paul and to the experiences of mod- 
 ern men, and it begins with an outline of the action 
 of two recent plays. " Take Your Choice " is a 
 church school talk prepared for a Rally Day pro- 
 gram which took the place of the regular morning 
 service. The title was included in the list for 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 21 
 
 chronological completeness rather than as an op- 
 portunity for selection, and one of the great sur- 
 prises in the final results was the persistency with 
 which intelligent people insisted on this childish 
 talk as one worthy of repetition. It was only eleven 
 minutes long, and it did not nearly fulfil the sched- 
 ule requirements of the evening service when it 
 was repeated. But its popularity is a real rebuke. 
 The fifth selection, " The Holy Sabbath and the 
 Tone of Voice " is a defense of the free spirit in 
 religious observances, opening with a simple story 
 of a letter which gained vividness and memorability 
 by the presence of an actual letter which was torn 
 open and read by the preacher, after the manner 
 of the drama. 
 
 These sermons were not selected because they con- 
 tained better thought-material. This broad state- 
 ment may be made quite confidently. They were 
 surrounded in the list of titles by sermons which 
 represented philosophy quite as sound, logic quite 
 as careful, reading quite as wide, and thought-prep- 
 aration quite as disciplinary. They were chosen 
 because they were conspicuous for individual traits 
 of style. And the first somber reflection which this 
 experiment provides is this, that a modern congre- 
 gation places a high premium upon the style of 
 presentation. 
 
 It will be noticed that no one of these five ser- 
 mons starts with a text and proceeds to an exposi- 
 tion nor does one of them start with a topic 
 and proceed to an exploration, after the manner 
 of the old prescriptions in homiletics. Yet they 
 
22 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 were surrounded on the list by sermons which tried 
 whole-heartedly to be expositional or topical accord- 
 ing to the old categories. For the year's preaching 
 was not an attempt to select a certain type of pulpit 
 work and use it consistently; it was rather an at- 
 tempt to experiment open-mindedly with various 
 kinds of preaching, and draw what conclusions 
 seemed fair from the facts. The facts are the 
 votes, and the votes seem to prove that whatever 
 homiletical categories and preachers' traditions say, 
 a congregation deliberately prefers sermons which 
 are not strictly expositional and not strictly topical. 
 Yet it would be unsafe to assume from this that 
 there is a lack of interest in the Bible as the heart 
 of the preacher's message, or in great traditional 
 doctrinal themes for fundamental thinking. It 
 would be much nearer the truth to conclude that 
 people have no aversion to topical and expositional 
 sermons as such ; they are surfeited to numbness by 
 an unmitigated and unrelieved succession of ser- 
 mons in the classic molds of traditional homiletics. 
 They simply cannot approach with attentive in- 
 terest, nor retain with pleasant vividness, a sermon 
 which is homiletically correct. Most of their ser- 
 monic lives are spent in listening to just such 
 sermons Sunday after Sunday. What they must 
 have for renewed enthusiasm is a dash of the new. 
 That this demand leads to foolish sermon-tasting 
 and unworthy sensation-mongering cannot be de- 
 nied. But this is to the discredit of those modest 
 workmen of the Lord who, lifting skirts in horror 
 at the mention of sensationalism, rush across the 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 23 
 
 broad avenue of courageous originality into the cool 
 and quiet shade of dulness and mediocre tradition- 
 alism. For most Christians, and for most people 
 who seek to know more about Christ, there is only 
 the alternative between the acrobatic idiosyncrasies 
 of Billy Sunday and his hundred imitators on the 
 one hand and the supercilious correctness of " Text, 
 Introduction, Discussion i, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Conclu- 
 sion," or the steady monotony of " Topic, Plati- 
 tudes, Concluding Stanza of Old Hymn repeated 
 in Vox Humana " on the other hand. People actu- 
 ally do not hear that to which they do not pay atten- 
 tion. And attention must be taken prisoner by the 
 violence of novelty. When a congregation senses 
 a thing which has never been done before they are 
 in the mood to vote that that same thing be done 
 again. If this be a paradox make the most of it. 
 
 The audience does not stop to question the gen- 
 eral validity of homiletic rules. It simply indicates 
 that too much is enough, even of the good and the 
 correct. And it substitutes certain requirements of 
 its own, which it urges as valid, and upon which it 
 insists, if it is to respond. These are the specifica- 
 tions of advice which a congregation frankly sug- 
 gests by 3,000 careful votes : 
 
 I. A sermnn^nmst^hediif event! Perhaps this 
 point has already been stressed~overmuch. But it is 
 emphatic in the favorable votes which swarmed to 
 " Distance in Religion." If a reading of the sermon 
 fails to reveal why it should have any special ap- 
 peal, you have penetrated far into the secret of its 
 success. It is remembered, and quoted, and re- 
 
24 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 quested, and pondered, and lived, not because it is 
 an epoch-making sermon, but because its songs were 
 sung. The voice of the preacher was not an artistic 
 voice ; the songs themselves were plaintive common- 
 places of plantation life : but against a long back- 
 ground of spoken sermons, here looms a sermon in 
 which a voice is lifted in song, simply, without apol- 
 ogy or announcement. The air becomes electric 
 with anticipation ; minds are stimulated into intense 
 application; memories explode into long trains of 
 tenacious association, and the sermon becomes the 
 climax of a year of preaching. 
 
 There are absurd extremes into which an unwise 
 seeker after novelty may be lured, and the risk of 
 transmitting such advice about preaching is im- 
 mense. But the dictum comes direct from the ulti- 
 mate critics of the art. To refuse to consider it 
 would be unfair to them. When a congregation has 
 a right to speak, it says, so vehemently as to be 
 almost violently, " A sermon must be different! " 
 
 2. A sermon must be brief! The kindly inten- 
 tioned comments" of friendly hearers may woo you 
 into believing that they could have listened to you 
 for hours without tiring, and that they never hear 
 you preach half long enough. But when they tell 
 the secrets of their own hearts, behind the curtain 
 of an Impersonal vote, their verdict is vociferous 
 In favor of brevity. A recent letter to " The Out- 
 look," unsigned when published, states that the 
 writer has never, in all his years of experience, 
 heard a sermon that was too short. There is an 
 underlying rumble of implication that he has lis- 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 25 
 
 tened to many which were too long. And the ele- 
 vation of the two briefest sermons of the year into 
 the ranks of the first five surely has its significance 
 as a criticism of preaching. Preachers must come 
 to a realization of the disappointing fact that the 
 saturation-point of an average congregation is 
 reached very soon after the sermon begins. 
 
 It is not that a group of hearers deliberately re- 
 solves to insult a preacher by refusing to listen to 
 him after a certain number of minutes. It is not 
 because their minds are thronged with multitudinous 
 cares which jostle and crowd into the sacred place 
 of the sermon. It is merely that a mass of minds 
 representing various interests and backgrounds 
 reaches a point of utter saturation at a given time 
 in any given event, and after that point has been 
 reached the saturated individuals are wearied into 
 dull perceptions and drowsy inattentiveness. The 
 exact point of saturation cannot be accurately pre- 
 determined. One cannot say that twenty minutes is 
 the limit of a successful sermon. The limit is 
 affected by varying factors such as theme, congre- 
 gation, mental alertness of preacher, atmosphere 
 spiritual, and atmosphere physical. But three thou- 
 sand votes, which select for places of honor two 
 ten-minute sermons, indicate to the wise preacher 
 that sermons are in general too long. Here is a con- 
 gregation which lifts into eminence " The We-ness 
 of Us." It is trying desperately to say that a theme 
 briefly treated has an immense advantage in imme- 
 diate impression and in vivid recollection. A 
 sermon must be brief! 
 c 
 
26 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 3. A sermon must use the news! " Says I, to 
 Myself " begins with two anecdotes, gleaned not 
 from '' Cut Gems " and similar collections of apt 
 illustrations, but from recent dramatic productions 
 which received wide notice. There is a subtle but 
 appreciated difference between a congregation hear- 
 ing a sermon-anecdote which it has heard in sermons 
 before and that same congregation hearing sermonic 
 reference to a story or play which it recognizes 
 from the news items of the day. This same distinc- 
 tion is acted upon in the scientific material upon 
 which the sermon is built. The mystery of the 
 subconscious mind has taken its place as one of 
 the few central and almost universal subjects for 
 discussion and thought in modern life. Here is 
 a frank attempt to clothe the old fundamentals of 
 human experience with sin in the phrases of a new 
 and appealing science. It touched off a whole dis- 
 play of memory fireworks, lit by the single fuse of 
 a discussed subject, and it overcame the disadvan- 
 tage of having been preached only a few days before 
 the voting by the immediate vividness of its appeal. 
 A sermon must use the news! 
 
 4. A sermon must he simple! Nothing but the 
 validity of this principle can account for the favor 
 granted to the talk called " Take Your Choice." 
 This was nothing more pretentious than an attempt 
 to '' talk down " to children at a Bible School Rally 
 Day. Surrounded by the regular exercises of 
 a rather long program, which included recitations 
 and departmental songs, and which spread out until 
 perilously near noon, " Take Your Choice," de- 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 27 
 
 prived of the ordinary preparation of a worshipful 
 service, was forced to batter its way to a hearing 
 through the din of tired children and the confusion 
 of a hurried combination of events. There was no 
 surprise in the whole process of consulting the critics 
 quite so great as the extraordinary willingness of a 
 congregation to hear this effusion again. It suc- 
 ceeded, despite its surroundings, because it was de- 
 liberately geared, in simplicity, to the mechanism of 
 the child mind. And its election tells thoughtful 
 preachers that they are wrong in expecting the 
 involved complexities of a month's careful and quiet 
 theological meditation to be transferred to a host 
 of more or less ready minds in the course of a few 
 minutes of verbal expression. Most sermons are too 
 involved in their thought. Most sermons strive to 
 do too much in one discourse. A sermon must be 
 simple ! 
 
 There are men who preach regularly two sermons 
 on Sunday morning, one called a children's sermon, 
 the other known as the regular sermon. With 
 rather naive wonder they observe that their congre- 
 gations are tense in attention during the children's 
 sermon. The preachers proudly refer to such com- 
 ments as this from an elderly deacon, " I enjoyed the 
 children's sermon more than any child in the 
 crowd ! " These signs are taken to mean that the 
 inclusion of the children's sermon is a great suc- 
 cess. The implied criticism on the regular sermon is 
 rarely taken to heart. When an elderly deacon 
 gets more good out of a children's sermon than a 
 child does, he means that he gets more good out of 
 
28 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 that sermon than he does out of the regular sermon. 
 It is evident that the sermon which is aimed at the 
 child hits the target of the adult mind in spite of 
 our intentions, and the latter effort, called the regu- 
 lar sermon and aimed at the adult, finds no mark 
 at all. When, of two sermons, the former is re- 
 membered and lived, it is evident that by that token 
 the former is the more successful. And when three 
 thousand ballots select for honor a children's ser- 
 mon containing little or no " adult strong-meat," 
 while the children's votes pass it over with little fa- 
 vor, the result indicates that we have been wTongly 
 composing our menus. A sermon must be simple! 
 
 5. A sermon must he dramatic. There is no rea- 
 son for the survival of the preacher in a world of 
 phonographs, wireless transmission, and skilfully 
 written editorial pronouncements, except the drama 
 which the sermon makes possible. Every item in a 
 church service can be reproduced at immensely re- 
 duced cost and greatly increased efficiency by the 
 appliances of modern science, except the drama of 
 the sermon. Why not take the few really great 
 preachers of the world and have them preach to all 
 of us on the printed page of widely circulated peri- 
 odicals, or in that marvelous extension of personality 
 possible through sound-reproducing devices? Such 
 preaching would lack only one thing, the drama of 
 the sermon. Preaching will survive or perish largely 
 on its ability or inability to learn this fifth homilet- 
 ical principle which its frankest critics prescribe — a 
 sermon must be dramatic. 
 
 The personality of the preacher must project 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID 29 
 
 itself until the issue which the sermon presents lives 
 in the minds of the hearers. The scenes must be 
 visualized and experienced dramatically by the 
 preacher before they can be fully significant to the 
 audience. The dramatis personce must be assumed 
 by the preacher in turn, as they successively appear, 
 impersonated by him in the realization of their mean- 
 ing and message. And if the contending forces be 
 as illusive as the " innumerable hosts of light bat- 
 tling against the hosts of darkness " yet the issue 
 must somehow be enacted through the dramatic de- 
 velopment of the theme. 
 
 This is the lesson of the fifth sermou, " The Holy 
 Sabbath and the Tone of Voice." It started on its 
 course determined to dramatize the old, old dis- 
 cussion of Sabbath observance into a new and mov- 
 ing presentation. Its opening paragraph is a story. 
 The story is not told. A phonograph can tell a 
 story. This story is acted, lived, dramatized. There 
 is a letter in the story. So the preacher prepared in 
 advance, as stage properties are prepared, an en- 
 velope containing a letter. And when the time came 
 for the story, he opened the letter as if he were re- 
 ceiving it from a son away at college. The symbol- 
 ism of the anecdote was preserved through the 
 whole course of the dramatic plot which was called 
 the sermon, and an eager congregation remembered 
 it and asked that it be preached again. A sermon 
 must be dramatic. It must utilize dramatic values. 
 It must develop dramatically. It must act out its 
 scenes. It must have its stage properties. It must 
 use vocal capabilities. No preacher would dare so 
 
30 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 to counsel his fellows. The extremes toward which 
 this advice points are too terrifyingly absurd. But 
 this is the frank advice of a thoughtful, normal 
 congregation, which is giving its advice unawares. 
 And what they say deserves a hearing. 
 
 The whole process of consulting these critics was 
 almost uncanny in its revelations. They were say- 
 ing things in their ballots which they would not 
 dare say verbally. Indeed the lines on the ballots 
 left for remarks were very rarely used. People do 
 not care to put into words their frank reactions to 
 sermons. But they do put those reactions into votes 
 as frankly and informally and informingly as if you 
 were permitted to peer within and observe what was 
 happening in their minds. And they do put those 
 reactions into deeds, and their busy, judging brains 
 direct them to drift away when you do not interest 
 them. This was an attempt to discover their reac- 
 tions before they had a chance to drift away. What 
 they conclude is the ultimate criticism of preaching. 
 
IV 
 THE CRITICS CLASSIFIED 
 
 This was a normal slice of life. These hun- 
 dreds of sermon-connoisseurs were not segregated 
 examples of a single peculiar type. They are 
 proud of their claim to distinction as ordinary peo- 
 ple. And en masse they give a correct indication of 
 general conclusions. 
 
 The church stands in the heart of a city of nearly 
 two hundred thousand. There are 2,261 members 
 on the church list ; a virile church school organiza- 
 tion is successfully working on religious education 
 problems; a university two miles away sends in 
 streams of college life, student and faculty; laboring 
 men and cultured savants, business girls and col- 
 lege aristocrats mingle in the pews. 
 
 Moreover, the church had just been through a 
 period of two years without a stated pastor. Dis- 
 tinguished and successful preachers had been sought 
 in every direction for the pulpit work of the interval. 
 So a wide variety of preaching from many types of 
 preachers formed the background of the test. The 
 congregation was not reacting from a previous 
 experience of consistent preaching in a single vein. 
 It had been extraordinarily exposed. It had passed 
 through a broad course in modern preaching exam- 
 ples such as is seldom afforded as a preparation for 
 
 31 
 
32 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 the exalted and responsible position as critic ex- 
 traordinary in the art of preaching. 
 
 Yet the normality of the whole heterogeneous 
 congregation is only one advantage. There was the 
 added fact that this great block of three thousand 
 frank judgments could be broken up and classified. 
 For these votes possessed the ability to tell not only 
 what three thousand plain people prefer in their ser- 
 mons, but also what sermons make particular appeals 
 to 498 business men, 202 professional men, 907 
 home women, 436 business women, 136 children, 
 and 883 college and business-school students, 380 
 of whom were young men. 
 
 The examination of these classified verdicts gives 
 us two general conclusions : First, When a sermon 
 is prepared with a specific group in mind it succeeds 
 in attracting the favorable attention of that group, 
 whether the group is named and placed in the lime- 
 light of attention or not. It is the custom of this 
 church to make the first Sunday night of each month 
 " Students' Night," with an advertising campaign 
 of posters and blotter-calendars, announcing the spe- 
 cial theme, and extending a special invitation to the 
 students. It was no surprise to find that the sermons 
 on these special nights were the favorite selections 
 in the list of students' votes. "Religion at 21," 
 for instance, owes its place in the roll of honor en- 
 tirely to student ballots, with a slight show of favor 
 on the part of business women who were not much 
 beyond twenty-one. This sermon was preached to 
 students on Students' Night, and it did attract stu- 
 dent attention. " If I Were a Freshman," " Studies 
 
THE CRITICS CLASSIFIED 3 ; 
 
 from the Stadium," '' Life's Honor System," and 
 " Christ's Challenge to the College," all had the bene- 
 fit of a similar specific appeal. '* Poor Richard's 
 Almanac " and '' How it Feels to be a Bankrupt " 
 were both frankly announced as business men's ser- 
 mons, and both succeeded in challenging the favor- 
 able attention of the business men to whom they 
 were specifically addressed. There was no surprise 
 in this. 
 
 But it was somewhat enlightening to find that stu- 
 dents were unerring in their ability to locate and 
 favor student sermons which were not so announced. 
 And other groups were equally canny. Apparently 
 when a preacher plans to adapt his message to the 
 attention of a group, he succeeds in gaining that 
 attention, even if the group has not been informed 
 in advance of his intention. '* The Miracle of Me," 
 for instance, was an attempt to explore scientifically 
 the wonders of the human body, in preparation for 
 an insistence on the text, " Ye are the body of 
 Christ." Medical men caught its significance viv- 
 idly. *'What the World Owes Me" exalted the 
 selflessness of true professional ethics as compared 
 with the sordidness of ordinary business methods. 
 If professional men alone had favored this, we 
 might be justified in the cynical conclusion that 
 people enjoy the sermon which pats them caressingly 
 on their backs. But business men, whose standards 
 were being subjected to criticism, ranked this high 
 on their lists as well, indicating that specific appli- 
 cation, in a familiar and specific vocabulary, tends to 
 make the most effective impression, even if the ser- 
 
34 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 mon does hurt. " How to Make the Sun Stand 
 Still " appears among the first ten on the lists of 
 business men and professional men, and business 
 vvomen. They were not so informed by the preacher, 
 but that sermon had been prepared with their pecu- 
 liar problems specifically in mind. And *' The 
 Strategy of Foch," which was one of the preacher's 
 own favorites, was honored by the attention of one 
 group alone, the young men of the college, who gave 
 it second place in their list, though it appears in no 
 other list among the first ten. By the clairvoyance 
 of their judgment the University men had discov- 
 ered what the preacher had not told them, that this 
 sermon was first delivered to the student-body of 
 a men's college, and that it was prepared especially 
 for that group. And the preacher was happy to 
 know that his taste in sermons, as well as his inclina- 
 tion, made him kin to the aspiring, open mind of the 
 modern college man. The moral of these facts is a 
 simple one : If you aim your sermon at a group you 
 will hit that group, though they be scattered through- 
 out your auditorium, and though you strive to con- 
 ceal the anxious direction of your weapon. 
 
 But this conclusion follows, as a startling obverse. 
 You will miss your congregation as a whole. No 
 one of the class-aimed and class-favored sermons 
 appears among the first five in the general verdict. 
 Only two appear among the first ten. These two are 
 ranked ninth and tenth. And they are carried 
 through to prominence not because they made a 
 general appeal as well as their specific one, but be- 
 cause the voting strength of their particular con- 
 
THE CRITICS CLASSIFIED 35 
 
 stitiiencies was strong enough to lift them. When 
 you preach in the phrases of medicine you may suc- 
 ceed with your medical men, but the rest of your con- 
 gregation will be comparatively unmoved. When 
 you preach a student sermon you may gain the atten- 
 tion of students, but you run the risk of wearying 
 your business men. The warning is obvious. Suc- 
 cessful preaching must avoid specific group appeals 
 except in extraordinary circumstances. If you can 
 separate your groups on occasions, for specific 
 preaching, you may address them in their own jar- 
 gons. But the task of the preacher must be to avoid 
 the lures of narrow interests, and to give himself 
 each week to the supplying of the hunger of all. 
 He will never altogether succeed. If, on occasion, 
 he touches many people by his message, he will still 
 be sure that he could have touched some more deeply 
 had he been content to leave others untouched. And 
 he will be led afresh to the conviction that the most 
 effective presentation of the gospel occurs when one 
 man gives all his energy and preparation to the task 
 of speaking of Christ in winning terms to one other 
 man. For the narrower the focus the hotter the rays 
 of the sun's light. 
 
 But there is a more and a less to successful preach- 
 ing. And the more successful preaching is that 
 which leaves the fewest untouched, uninterested, dis- 
 contented, restless, untempted for another sermon. 
 This adventure with the ultimate critics indicates 
 with certainty which cannot be questioned that the 
 broad human hungers of the whole seeking race are 
 the hungers for the preacher's consideration. And 
 
36 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 perhaps great preachers are rare because so few men 
 know the race well enough and the art well enough 
 to make the connection. At least, we who preach as 
 well as we can, dare not beg to be excused from the 
 clear implications of this suggestive evidence. 
 
 These are the lists of the first ten sermons se- 
 lected by the various groups, the titles being placed 
 in order of rank in the voting : 
 
 Business Men (498 votes) : On Distance in Religion; The 
 We-ness of Us ; Says I, to Myself ; A Preacher Unashamed ; 
 Take Your Choice ; What the World Owes Me ; Why I am 
 a Minister ; How to Make a Pearl ; Why I am a Christian ; 
 How to Make the Sun Stand Still. 
 
 Professional Men (202 votes): On Distance in Religion; 
 The We-ness of Us ; The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of 
 Voice; What the World Owes Me; How to Listen to a Ser- 
 mon ; Take Your Choice ; Kings and Priests ; Says I, to My- 
 self ; The Miracle of Me; How to Make the Sun Stand Still. 
 
 Women (Home) (907 votes): On Distance in Religion; 
 The We-ness of Us ; Says I, to Myself ; A Preacher Un- 
 ashamed ; How to Make a Pearl ; Take Your Choice ; The 
 Holy Sabbath and the Tone of Voice ; Why I am a Christian ; 
 What the World Owes Me; The Miracle of Me. 
 
 Women (Business) (436 votes) : On Distance in Religion; 
 The We-ness of Us; Take Your Choice; Says I, to Myself; 
 How to Make a Pearl ; The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of 
 Voice; Religion at 21 ; Why I am a Christian; How to Make 
 the Sun Stand Still ; A Preacher Unashamed. 
 
 Children (136 votes): On Distance in Religion: The We- 
 ness of Us; Are We Disappointing Jesus in Our Baptism?; 
 Take Your Choice ; A Preacher Unashamed ; Belgium and 
 You; Kings and Priests; Why I am a Christian; How to 
 Listen to a Sermon ; Why I am a Baptist. 
 
 Students (Men) (380 votes) : Religion at 21 ; The Strategy 
 of Foch ; On Distance in Religion; Says I, to Myself; The 
 We-ness of Us ; The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of Voice ; 
 Studies from the Stadium ; Life's Honor System ; Why I am 
 a Minister; The Miracle of Me. 
 
THE CRITICS CLASSIFIED 37 
 
 Students {Women) (503 votes) : The We-ncss of Us; Says 
 I, to Myself ; On Distance in Religion ; Religion at 21 ; Take 
 Your Choice; How to Make a Pearl; Studies from the 
 Stadium ; Life's Honor System ; The Holy Sabbath and the 
 Tone of Voice ; Why I am a Christian. 
 
 The Preacher (1 vote) : The Miracle of Me; Belgium and 
 You ; The Strategy of Foch ; Why I am a Minister ; The Holy 
 Sabbath and the Tone of Voice ; How to Make the Sun Stand 
 Still ; Religion at 21 ; How to Listen to a Sermon ; On Distance 
 in Religion. 
 
 And this is their lesson : Men's sermons for men. 
 Fishing vocabulary for fishermen. Philosophy for 
 Athens. Theology for Nicodemus. Well-water con- 
 versation for the sinning, thirsting woman with the 
 jar. But for congregations, modern, diversified, 
 searching congregations — the great themes, in the 
 common words of our shared vocabulary, simply 
 and briefly spoken, illumined by a bit of daring new- 
 ness in manner and flaring enthusiasm in spirit. 
 
 Thus speak the ultimate critics. And they know. 
 
V 
 TITLES AND SO FORTH 
 
 There is an art in title-composition. But it can 
 lead an ardent devotee into deep despair and utter 
 confounding. 
 
 Many a sermon has suffered because it was 
 announced and remembered (or rather forgotten) 
 by an inept title. Preachers often libel their own 
 productions by the outworn unattractive labels 
 attached. No man can be a truly successful 
 preacher in these days of headlines and headline- 
 appetite, unless he studies the technique which gives 
 his sermon a fair chance in this hurrying world 
 by endowing it with a befitting name. 
 
 But many a sermon, good in itself, has gone down 
 under waves of resentment and scorn because it 
 carried too clever a title. The man who spends 
 more time on his heading than he spends on his 
 head-work is guilty of the same foolish sin which 
 has condemned so many manufacturers to dingy 
 failure. The wrapper must not overestimate the 
 goods. There is no fury quite like that of the 
 man who comes lured by a sermon-title and goes 
 away convinced that the preacher is a shrewd 
 " window-trimmer," careless of the chances of a 
 second visit so long as he can lure his customer 
 inside his place of business just once. A title 
 38 
 
TITLES AND SO FORTH 39 
 
 must be no more and no less than fair. So the 
 ultimate critics say. And a title cannot make a 
 sermon better by being more enticing than the 
 sermon itself. When this phenomenon occurs the 
 sermon effect is ruined, not enhanced. 
 
 The leading sermon of the year was one which 
 succeeded in spite of a clumsy title. " On Distance 
 in Religion " is without a sparkle, and its sole vir- 
 tue is that it does seem somewhat descriptive of 
 the subject-matter. Yet the sermon was chosen 
 overwhelmingly for repetition. There follow nine 
 sermons which had fairly fit and effective titles, 
 and which found no handicaps in their labels. But 
 on the list of unmentioned sermons are many which 
 would be recognized by one who had followed the 
 whole course of the preaching as falling into two 
 classes. One of these classes includes the sermons 
 which suffered from poor titles, such as " Belgium 
 and You " (too indefinite), " The Challenge of the 
 Modern Church " (too bromidic), " Victory '* (too 
 laconic), or "Kings and Priests" (too unat- 
 tractive). The other class is made up of sermons 
 which suffered from good titles, titles which raised 
 expectations which the sermons failed to satisfy. 
 Specifications on this point might prove odious. 
 The principle is clear. And the ballots show that 
 tempting display without a corresponding quality 
 of goods is the most dangerous preaching policy in 
 the world. " Alpha kai Omega " was a case of 
 innocent deception which reveals the principle. 
 The sermon was an exposition of " God — the be- 
 ginning and the ending," and the Greek letters of 
 
40 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 the title were quoted from the context of that refer- 
 ence. But in this city of Greek letter college frater- 
 nities, the announced title aroused some expecta- 
 tion that the preacher would deal with the college 
 fraternity problem. With this expectation aroused 
 and confronting him, the preacher might wax ever 
 so eloquently effective over '* God — the beginning 
 and the ending," all to no avail. The sermon was 
 ruined before it was preached. It could not have 
 its legitimate effect. If this be true when the decep- 
 tion is wholly without guile, the fact mxarks a path- 
 way of destruction for the man who deliberately 
 plans to tempt people inside his doors by flamboy- 
 ant promise in his titles, and then gives them the 
 best he can hurriedly prepare for the anticipating 
 minds. For the congregation unerringly detects 
 and selects for despising scorn the sermons which 
 promised more than they performed. 
 
 If the sermons on the accompanying list had been 
 made to bear their dates and occasions it would be 
 easy to notice a fact which, without dates, might 
 escape mention. The effective preaching of the 
 year seems to come in well-marked and restricted 
 periods of time. A mere glance at the results will 
 show that first and second in the balloting were ser- 
 mons preached on successive Sunday mornings; 
 that on the following Sunday morning the fourth 
 choice was given, and that sixth and tenth in the 
 voting were delivered on the second and third Sun- 
 day nights of this distinguished series. Five of the 
 best sermons of the year were preached within the 
 boundaries of two weeks, and the eighth choice 
 
TITLES AND SO FORTH 41 
 
 was preached just two weeks before. Then follows 
 a long stretch of comparative mediocrity, broken 
 only by the popularity of " Religion at 21 " and 
 " The Holy Sabbath and the Tone of Voice," which 
 were fifth and ninth in the final results, and which 
 came at long intervals. But the third and seventh 
 choices mark another period of effective preaching. 
 For " Why I am a Christian " and " Says I, to 
 Myself " were preached on consecutive Sundays, 
 and they are surrounded by " Why I am a Baptist," 
 '' Why I am a Minister," and " Life's Honor Sys- 
 tem," w^hich occupied eleventh, twelfth, and thir- 
 teenth places in the final ranking. The chart on 
 which the votes w^ere recorded in the tabulation 
 makes this fact graphically impressive: Good 
 preaching tends to occur in well-defined waves of 
 effectiveness, not sporadic and individual successes 
 separated by periods of commonplaces. 
 
 It is probable that this may be explained in part 
 by the physical vigor and mental alertness of the 
 preacher, which reached top heights in periods, and 
 which showed themselves in his pulpit work. Cer- 
 tain it is that a chart of this particular preacher's 
 excess vitality would very closely correspond to 
 the chart of his best sermons. Thus do our new- 
 found critics stress a point which our teachers 
 have never overemphasized : // you would preach 
 well, keep well. The difference between a fagged 
 preacher who is trying hard to rally his forces to 
 the demands of a Sunday duty, and a vibrant, 
 exuberant, rested, trained, ready preacher who has 
 deliberately brought himself to top form for the 
 
 D 
 
42 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 most important task of his life, is the difference 
 between failure and success. You cannot fool your 
 people by many gestures and the too eager vocal 
 gymnastics of stimulated nerves. They know when 
 you are ready and poised, and they pray to be 
 delivered from a repetition of your exhausted over- 
 painted failures. 
 
 But any such explanation leaves out of account 
 that phenomenon which every thoughtful preacher 
 has observed in his own program. There is a 
 momentum in preaching. A failure on one Sunday 
 sets its curse over a number of Sundays to come. 
 And a glorious success on one Sunday spreads its 
 radiance over the preparation and preaching of 
 many succeeding weeks. If there is good advice 
 to be gained from a glance at this obvious fact it 
 is this: Make every sermon an event. Be content 
 with no feeble effort. Save nothing for a better 
 chance. Chances become progressively less good as 
 you postpone the delivery of your best. If you have 
 commonplace sermons which might be used on ordi- 
 nary Sundays, postpone them until you have made 
 them something more than commonplace sermons, 
 or else destroy them and forget them. There are 
 no ordinary Sundays. Every sermon must make an 
 attempt to be your best sermon. There is no ges- 
 ture so effective in banishing the apathy of blue 
 Monday like the solemn and holy prayer that on 
 the next Sunday it may be our right to show forth 
 Christ more fittingly than ever in our lives before. 
 Preach every sermon as if it were your last sermon. 
 
 The plan of the ballots had one unforeseen and 
 
TITLES AND SO FORTH 43 
 
 favorable result. It stimulated, beyond all expec- 
 tation, recollections of the material which entered 
 into the year's preaching. The lists became a focal 
 point for parish conversation. Sermons which had 
 become dim in m.emory were called up by the effort 
 of the will, and examined for strength or weak- 
 ness. The whole volume of the pulpit proclama- 
 tion was renewed in memory. And by that much, 
 what was good in it became new in its effective- 
 ness. No preacher can live through a year without 
 some trace of lament at the fleeting transitoriness 
 of the spoken word. Most of his phrases evapo- 
 rate almost as quickly as they are spoken. What 
 will he say, then, of a device which teaches him new 
 things about preaching, and at the same time re- 
 news the hundreds of preaching impressions which 
 have cost him his life-blood? 
 
 Best of all, there is apparent in the congrega- 
 tion an altogether new interest in the sermons 
 now being preached. For it is understood that 
 the selection of five sermons for repetition will be 
 an annual affair, and every sermon which is enjoyed 
 now becomes a candidate for next year's election. 
 People come thronging to the preacher to say, " We 
 have that sermon down for repreaching next year." 
 Rather an adventitious interest, of course, and one 
 not to be rated too highly. But not without its 
 value. For most of us have learned Scripture 
 verses in a game, only to have them recur help- 
 fully in times of need. And there is no doubt about 
 the preacher's choice between having a sermon re- 
 membered as a candidate for a forthcoming election 
 
44 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 and having a sermon remembered not at all. The 
 method is justified in the result. 
 
 If it be feared that people do not care to hear 
 sermons repeated, the experience of this adventure 
 contradicts that fear. It may be safely assumed 
 that people resent an old sermon when they have 
 been led to expect a new one, especially if the old 
 sermon is masquerading under a new title. But 
 when the old one is frankly announced, and espe- 
 cially when they have had a share in the selection 
 of the old one, a surprising interest attaches to 
 the repetition. Russell Conwell, with his six thou- 
 sandth delivery of " Acres of Diamonds," is an ex- 
 ample of the rule. His audiences are made up 
 partly of people who want to know what kind of 
 lecture can survive six thousand presentations; 
 and partly of people who have heard him once or 
 many times before, and who have brought others 
 along to be initiated in the experience. Just 
 so when it is announced that sermons are to be 
 repeated by popular request. A number of peo- 
 ple are stirred to interest in a sermon which can 
 be preached twice in the same church. And the 
 people who voted for that sermon immediately as- 
 sume a certain proprietary interest in it as " their 
 sermon," and may be depended upon to scatter 
 invitations far and wide welcoming their friends 
 to listen. Indeed, it became necessary to announce 
 at the beginning of this series of repetitions that 
 while no one would be barred from the church 
 while there was room, it was requested that only 
 those who had voted for the sermon which was to 
 
TITLES AND SO FORTH 45 
 
 be repreached should feel free to invite others. 
 And the auditorium was crowded to the doors. 
 
 For the preacher may well learn the lesson which 
 is being forced upon industry. The worker does 
 not want to own and profit, over and above his 
 just deserts. He does want a sense of sharing in 
 the policies and programs of his enterprise. He 
 wants to function as a chooser. So say sociolo- 
 gists. The man in the congregation, likewise, does 
 not want to preach. But he does relish a chance 
 now and then to choose his preaching. He likes to 
 have an opportunity to speak his mind without 
 embarrassment on the subject of the preaching to 
 which he has been exposed. And when his votes 
 have been counted, whether his candidate has won 
 or not, he brings to the church with him the com- 
 forting assurance that he has had a part in the 
 decision. These are his sermons. This is his 
 church. This is his kind of a preacher. He, the 
 ultimate critic, has had a chance to speak. 
 
PART II 
 
 THE SERMONS 
 
ON DISTANCE IN RELIGION 
 
 Text : Jesus said unto her, " Thou hast well said, 
 * I have no husband/ For thou hast had five hus- 
 bands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy hus- 
 band. In that saidst thou truly." 
 
 The woman saith unto him, ** Sir, I perceive that 
 thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this 
 mountain ; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place 
 v/here men ought to worship." — John 4 : 17-20. 
 
 A wise man once said, " If you will let me write 
 the songs of a nation, I care not who writes its 
 laws." It is a significant sentence. But neither 
 laws nor songs are written thus by choice, so the 
 statement, while a wise one, is a harmless matter 
 of theory. A slight change in the epigram, how- 
 ever, transforms it into a practical program of 
 investigation. ''If you want to know the character 
 of a nation, listen to its songs, and you need not 
 study its laws." 
 
 Grant this dictum to be true. Then study 
 America. What a riotous phantasmagoria of life 
 we sense when we approach America by way of 
 her songs, running the whole gamut from the quiet 
 loveliness of '' Silver Threads among the Gold " to 
 the senseless jazz jumble of " Ja-Da," from the in- 
 spiring martial spirit of " America, the Beautiful," 
 
 49 
 
50 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 to the crude rot of " Chili Bean." O, my country, 
 study yourself in your songs! And take courage 
 to repent! 
 
 Turn from America. Glance for a moment at the 
 Negro race. Listen to the message of their songs. 
 Here are melodies which were not wrought out in 
 the longhand of correct musical notation over the 
 glistening keyboard of a Steinway grand. No cul- 
 tured mentality supplied intricate harmonies for the 
 plantation songs of the happy wistful South. The 
 simple hymns came welling up, words and music 
 wedded in an ecstacy of faith, perhaps during the 
 lonely hours of a long and solitary night, perhaps 
 in the fevered excitement of a glorious camp- 
 meeting. And having sung themselves into life, 
 they passed into the currency of traditional folk 
 treasure, and became a vivid revelation of the Negro 
 soul. 
 
 Here is a quick, syncopated, shuffling tune which 
 makes us see gleaming eyes, white teeth shining 
 against a background of dark skin, and the exag- 
 gerated gestures of a mimic people : 
 
 Fo' He sees what you do, 
 An' He hears what you say, 
 My Lawd am writin' all de time ! 
 
 Here is a slower plaintive musical phrase, with 
 a tear and a smile in it : 
 
 Ho, Dinah, stop yo' pining, 
 Pharaoh's army got drownded ! 
 
 And here is a minor tragic strain with the quiet 
 sadness of broken hearts resolved into faith by the 
 
ON DISTANCE IN RELIGION 51 
 
 beauty of the final measure. See how well it trans- 
 mits the atmosphere of that gray morning when the 
 weeping woman sought the body of the slain Christ 
 in the erarden of tombs : 
 
 to' 
 
 Is dere anybuddy here like weepin' Mary? 
 Call upon yo' Jesus, 
 An' He'll draw near. 
 
 They are as different in their message as they 
 are in their mood and their melody. But through 
 them I would have you catch a glimpse of the 
 faith of the Negro. For this is a day in which men 
 are being deluded into a conception of the universe 
 which places the things of religion afar off. And 
 the Negro race has a message for us. For the 
 Negro succeeded in conquering distance in religion. 
 
 Take the first of our three songs. Here is a 
 picture of a God with eyes mysteriously watching 
 everywhere, and ears mysteriously listening for each 
 faint whisper — a God who observes the slightest 
 gesture and catches the smallest syllable — a God who 
 has near him a great record-book like a plantation 
 ledger, in which he writes with his own hand the 
 story of the failures and successes of his vagrant 
 creatures. 
 
 You may tell me that we have passed beyond such 
 crudities of conception. You may insist that our 
 minds cannot accept such glaring anthropomor- 
 phism. The inconceivable star spaces and the infini- 
 tesimal revelations of the microscope have spoiled 
 all that. You may point to the philosophical gains 
 which these recent years have registered. You may 
 
52 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 sneer at a race which could sum up moral responsi- 
 bility in the terms of a great balance-book and in- 
 delible God-made marks. But the blundering minds 
 which you scorn were sure of one thing, the near- 
 ness of God as an inescapable judge. And here the 
 Negro is clearly and triumphantly right ! 
 
 Every word and deed of your careless sophisti- 
 cated soul is recorded for the light or the darkness 
 in the eternal balance-books of the vast ages of 
 choice. You can make no decision, however trivial, 
 which does not echo through the halls of unborn 
 generations. Nothing escapes the reckoning. Sci- 
 ence asserts it as eloquently as ever did supersti- 
 tion. And if your God has become a far-away 
 abstraction, with no ears for the whispered words 
 of your lonely courage, and no eyes for the tiny 
 defections of your cowardice, you are terribly 
 deluded. 
 
 Glance at the figure of the woman at the well. 
 Listen to a few sentences of her conversation with 
 Jesus. He has been speaking with all the impressive- 
 ness of his frankness, and she, listening in interest 
 and wonder, has come at last to the conclusion that 
 he must be a prophet. '' Sir, I perceive that thou 
 art a prophet." Note now how naively she steers 
 the conversation from her sins — in which a prophet 
 could surely have no interest — to theological discus- 
 sion, which was exactly the correct field for the 
 prophet in her opinion. " Tell me," says she, 
 "Who is right? He who says we must worship 
 in Jerusalem, or he who says God may be found 
 on this mountain." 
 
ON DISTANCE IN RELIGION 53 
 
 Alas! too many moderns follow her. Religion, 
 they say, is to deal with dogma and doctrine and 
 ritual. Prophets are to confine themselves to the 
 abstractions of theology. Preachers have no busi- 
 ness meddling with fine points of business and po- 
 litical and private behavior. Let them stick to their 
 lasts. And their lasts are theologies. 
 
 The Negro knew better. Faith's language is not 
 fine words, but courage and truth every day. God 
 is not a definition. God is a judge. And religion is 
 that whole fabric of moral issues made up of the 
 trivial conduct of today. *' He does see what you 
 do, he does hear what you say," and the motives 
 of our days are tirelessly and accurately recorded 
 for eternity. 
 
 Ho, Dinah, stop yo' pining, 
 Pharaoh's army got drownded! 
 
 Strange mixture of comforting advice and 
 ancient miracle narrative, you say. Obviously a 
 song has a right to urge a weary woman to take 
 heart again. But why drag in Pharaoh? What 
 possible connection can there be between Dinah and 
 the raging Egyptian king? And what an absurd 
 old story it is, even if the connection be assumed? 
 A fleeing rabble of slaves find a dry high- 
 way through a great sea ; the pursuing army comes 
 clanging down into the pathway between the mysteri- 
 ously walled waters, only to be engulfed when the 
 walls give way and the sea rolls over them. This 
 whole scene might be very real to the untutored 
 
54 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 Negro mind : Dinah may be able to hear quite plainly 
 the shouts of Pharaoh's horsemen, the thud of 
 hastening hoofs, the clamor of wheeling chariots, 
 and the soft swish of merciless waters when the 
 fate of a relentless God settled down over his ene- 
 mies. Dinah may be able to sense the inexpressible 
 jubilation of the " chillun ob Israel," when looking 
 back they saw the wreckage of the menacing army. 
 But that is all part of a past day, you say. 
 
 You have come to know that this is a universe 
 of law. Chemical and biological laboratories, 
 mathematics and geolog>^ and astronomy have given 
 you confidence in the processes of events. You can- 
 not think of a God who dips his hand into the 
 waters of the Red Sea, and cups the waves back 
 until his people go free. The colors on the picture 
 have grown dim in the years, and the echoes of 
 those ancient sounds are lost. 
 
 I shall not argue the point with you, for I know 
 of no means by which I could restore to you the 
 naive expectation of the Negro soul in an unordered 
 universe. And I would not if I could. But when 
 the Negro linked his ancient story with a present 
 discouraged Dinah, he was magnificently right. 
 And it is this power to conquer distance in religion 
 that I covet for you. If God was with Moses, then 
 Dinah in a Southern cotton-field has a right to the 
 privilege of that same strengthening, heartening 
 presence. Your conception of an ordered physical 
 universe may send you to other stories for your 
 most meaningful evidences of triumphing faith. 
 But wherever you find God helping some one, link 
 
0>' DISTANCE L\ RELIGION 55 
 
 Him and his help with your own life's needs. If 
 God made Peter steadj-, John loving. Paul gentle, 
 Luther unafraid, then stop your pining, and daim 
 his hdp. Xo mean armies went crashing down to 
 death under those myslerioos waves of a moral God 
 — varillalii^ fickleness, thundering temper-diariots, 
 wild excesses, and pitiable cowardice — while the lov- 
 ers of Jesus went gaily on into the promised land 
 of achievement. 
 
 I would not have you surrender the ^endid con- 
 fidence in your universe of law. But if your uni- 
 verse jrfaces a he'- '- - God far bade in the ignorant 
 ages, if :r r H f Lincc^ and Wesley and 
 
 Moody is rketed form of energy or 
 
 a rdic of worn sup t :f there is no place in 
 
 the intimacy of yc r for that friendly power 
 
 wfaicfa worketh cor ' r good, and in whom 
 
 all good finds help. --^ly the Xegro has a 
 
 message for yoa in u^ ■ .z :: _Ji of his Hmidering 
 faith- 
 
 s giri, bom wniaont sigiit. and 
 :d the care of a sturdy y 
 : z^rre. and the yom^ mz" 
 '■- wfaidi the little 
 - poor pc??e55for 
 idy to nkt r.tz :: : ^ ^ : 
 
 ith a ' wind biowii^. The twc 
 
 " the hall of their own h 
 :..-- ~--- -jit into the 
 
 ' ' Tvn and 1: 
 Jaer handr 
 
56 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 he says through his sobs : " It's a bad day, dear. 
 You carry this. And I'll carry you ! " 
 
 It was this nearness which the Negro achieved. 
 Whatever his burdens, he could always hear a 
 friendly voice saying, " You carry this, and I'll 
 carry you." God was near, was present, in helpful- 
 ness, for those who tried to serve and trust him. 
 You may pity his ignorance, you may quarrel with 
 his tiny, variable universe, but you must respect 
 the ultimate assurance of his faith. And that faith 
 may be yours. So, Dinah, stop your pining; you 
 have seen armies get ' drownded ! ' 
 
 But if this generation needs the rebuke of the 
 
 Negro's assurance, as he sings of a God who is near 
 
 as a judge and present in every time of need with 
 
 help, we need still more the rebuke of the third 
 
 plaintive spiritual, a haunting melancholy strain 
 
 which recreates the misty discouragement of Jesus' 
 
 tomb. 
 
 Is dere anybuddy here like weepin' Mary? 
 Call upon yo' Jesus, 
 An' he'll draw near. 
 
 For I would have you notice that the eloquently 
 emphasized word in the bare arrangement of the 
 sentence, and even more conspicuously in the unmis- 
 takable phrasing of the music, is the adverb 
 '' here." The Negro has triumphed again over dis- 
 tance in religion. When he urges the comforting 
 help of his Lord he is not exhorting far-off mission 
 fields and almond-eyed heathen. " Is dere any- 
 
ON DISTANCE IN RELIGION 57 
 
 buddy HERE? " Right here, in this row of plan- 
 tation huts. Right here in this camp-meeting. 
 Right here where the song is heard. 
 
 You may protest that this particular camp-meet- 
 ing and this particular plantation made up all the 
 world the Negro knew. He had no realization of 
 millions of people bound together in a social unit 
 of communication and privilege and responsibility 
 by the magic of modern invention. A universal 
 postal system, telegraphy and wireless, an interna- 
 tional standard of money- exchange, ease and safety 
 of world travel, the Christian duty toward a non- 
 Christian nation — these items had never occurred to 
 him. Of course, he said " Here," for '* Here " was 
 all the world he knew, the only adverb he had the 
 right to use. 
 
 And we have gained immeasurably in our concep- 
 tion of the w^orld as a neighborhood, waiting for 
 the touch of Jesus to transform it into a brother- 
 hood. The miracle of modern missions is a matter 
 of wonder and joy to us. Yet I do deplore the 
 fact that in our extended horizons we have lost 
 something of the sense of duty toward those who 
 are right here. Wq preach by paying our preach- 
 ers to do our preaching for us. We are vicarious 
 evangelists by the liquid magic of money contrib- 
 uted to missionary boards. Great organizations do 
 our testifying for us, when they transmit our im- 
 pulses to the far corners of a waiting world. Yet — 
 have we ever personally spoken a word of sincere 
 conviction about Jesus to any one person right 
 here? 
 
58 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 I yield to no one in my love of preaching. And 
 I am enthusiastic in my praise for the spirit of mod- 
 ern missionary endeavor. But the superb joy of a 
 sermon preached under the blessing of the Lord is 
 a poor thing compared with the satisfaction which 
 comes when one tells another one about Jesus. If 
 the burdens of this church and the complications of 
 its program ever become so pressing that I cannot 
 go into a quiet place with one young man, and there 
 fight out with him through the watches of the 
 night the battle of aspiring faith, I shall resign 
 without delay, and find some quiet country parish, 
 where the breath of Christian life is not denied me. 
 Meanwhile I shall grapple with any one at any 
 time, man to man, on the things of faith. And I 
 shall urge upon you, who have found the mechanism 
 of a fine organization so convenient for the accom- 
 plishment of your preaching, the unbelievable hap- 
 piness, as well as the insistent duty, of saying your 
 frank word for Jesus right here. 
 
 People seem to think that it must be easy to 
 preach Christ in Pekin, even if it is hard to talk 
 about him in Syracuse. But notTiing happens when 
 you step out upon a foreign shore, save an immedi- 
 ate multiplication of difficulties. Thousands of mis- 
 sionary dollars have been cursed with the insincer- 
 ity of givers who bought conscience-comfort by 
 their contributions and were silent when Jesus was 
 being mocked in their own presence. 
 
 So I cannot leave these three Negro songs — songs 
 which have told us of a conquering of distance, a 
 nearness in the judgment and the mercy and the 
 
ON DISTANCE IN RELIGION 59 
 
 mission of God — without asking you who have lis- 
 tened, the question which echoes in our minds. 
 
 '' Is dere anybuddy here," right here in this silent 
 congregation, seeking like Mary for a Saviour 
 whose triumph you do not know ? Is there any- 
 body here? Call upon your Jesus! Let us seek 
 him together. He'll draw near! 
 

 II 
 
 THE WE-NESS OF US 
 
 Text: And whether one member suffer, all the 
 members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, 
 all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the 
 body of Christ. — 1 Corinthians 12 : 26, 27. 
 
 Pershing was seeking for a key-man. He needed 
 some one to organize and construct the A. E. F. 
 Railway System in France. They sent him Atter- 
 bury, who had placed the impress of his life on 
 the Pennsylvania System in the States. And Atter- 
 bury made good on the greatest railway task of the 
 generation. 
 
 What sort of man was Atterbury? What can he 
 teach the church? 
 
 Those who know him best tell us that he is the 
 man who placed the original emphasis on the first 
 person plural pronoun " we." The Pennsylvania 
 was never known as his road. It was not the direct- 
 ors' road, nor the stockholders' road, nor the work- 
 ers' road. It was OUR road. A good month was 
 our good fortune. WE were congratulated when 
 accidents were few. 
 
 They tell a true story of him. An old engineer, 
 after years of clear record, had run into a tragically 
 terrible disaster. The mystery of the accident 
 60 
 
THE WE-NESS OF US 61 
 
 seemed impenetrable. The old man himself was a 
 pitiable wreck who jabbered meaninglessly. And 
 only he knew what had happened. The trained 
 investigators could get no sensible word out of him. 
 They gave up the problem. They were utterly 
 baffled. Then Atterbury himself sent for him. A 
 doctor and a nurse brought him to the executive 
 offices. The doctor had a whispered conversation 
 with the railroad head before the engineer was ad- 
 mitted, and he warned Atterbury that an unwise 
 approach to the brooding secret of the man's be- 
 wildered mind might turn him into a raving maniac 
 in an instant. 
 
 The door into the private office swung open. The 
 old man staggered in and blinked his eyes in dull 
 slowness of recognition. Atterbury walked over to 
 him, placed a hand on his trembling shoulder, looked 
 him straight in the eye, and without affectation said 
 simply, " Well, old man, we've had a run of bad 
 luck, haven't we? " No undue emphasis on the first 
 person plural pronouns. No stressing for dramatic 
 effect. But the poignant sincerity of the sharing 
 was so real that the cloud over the old man's mind 
 was banished, and his eyes gleamed with tears of 
 brotherly confidence as he said, " Yes, Mr. Atter- 
 bury, we have ! " 
 
 Then the whole story came rushing forth, as if 
 those two men had known each other all their lives. 
 
 O church of Jesus, I would have you learn the 
 power of we-ness! Nothing was more character- 
 istic of the conquering apostolic church. " Behold, 
 how they love one another," said the pagan scoffers. 
 
62 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 and were less sure of their scorn when they observed 
 that enviable love. Common treasures, common 
 duties and debts, common burdens, common joys. 
 Does one member suffer? All the members suffer 
 with it. Is one member honored? All the mem- 
 bers rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ. 
 
 O church of Jesus, I would have you pray for 
 we-ness. Those last praying moments of Jesus 
 were full of his earnest petitions that we who were 
 to enter into his gospel might know the victory of 
 oneness, which is the victory of we-ness. The let- 
 ters of the New Testament have their har- 
 mony worked around one central theme: Love 
 one another, love one another. It is the melody of 
 the Christian life. Yet those who name His name 
 are often more critical of each other than are those 
 who have no fellowship with us. The harshest criti- 
 cism which a preacher encounters comes from mem- 
 bers of his church family, not from the armies of 
 darkness who assault the walls. More necessary 
 than that your candidate be elected, more necessary 
 than that your plan of church business be adopted, 
 more necessary than that your doctrinal position be 
 affirmed, is the "we-ness of us." Pray for it, live 
 for it, yield to it. 
 
 O church of Jesus, I would have you boast the 
 wonder of we-ness. We prate about our influential 
 men, our social atmosphere, our preacher, our music, 
 our well-equipped building, and our ambitious pro- 
 gram. We have only one gift which we can fairly 
 boast, and that boast we dare not make unless we 
 are constantly striving toward the perfection of the 
 
THE WE-NESS OF US 63 
 
 gift in us. We have a right to glad pride in the 
 '' we-ness of us." 
 
 A Scotch preacher was hurrying over the brow 
 of a hill when he spied down the road a red-faced 
 Scotch lassie toiling up the slope with a bonny baby 
 boy in her arms. 
 
 '' Girlie, that's a big load for you ! He must be 
 pretty heavy ! " 
 
 '' Ah, no, sir. He's not heavy. He's my brother ! " 
 
 Nothing is heavy, if we are brothers. No loads 
 that we cannot bear. No joys that we cannot share. 
 If — if — we are brothers ! 
 
Ill 
 
 SAYS I, TO MYSELF 
 
 Text: Who can understand his errors? Cleanse 
 thou me from secret faults. — Psalm 19 ; 12. 
 
 Two modern one-act plays which have been pro- 
 duced in our city recently, have focused our atten- 
 tion on what would otherwise be an impertinent 
 question. '' What do you say when you talk to 
 yourself? " 
 
 The first of these miniature dramas was entitled 
 " The Bank Account " and was part of the reper- 
 toire of the Harvard Dramatic Club. Written by 
 a student, produced and acted by students, it suc- 
 ceeded in preserving the flavor of authentic life 
 largely because it captured the poignant tragedy of 
 deception. 
 
 Scene, the living-room of the Bensons' flat. Ben- 
 son's wife is a rather withered but stylish woman evi- 
 dently intent on keeping up appearances. She is 
 preparing to start out on an afternoon of bridge- 
 playing with a woman friend. They are discussing 
 the bother of bill-collectors, and are interrupted 
 occasionally by the demands of one or more of that 
 tribe who seem intent upon getting something on 
 account out of Mrs. Benson. In the conversation 
 it develops that Mrs. Benson has been systematically 
 64 
 
SAYS I, TO MYSELF 65 
 
 spending and gambling away the tiny dole of three 
 dollars a week which Benson has been entrusting 
 to her for a savings-deposit. But she keeps the 
 sympathy of her friend who comments caustically 
 on the inability of men to understand. " A woman 
 must have some things! " While the friend is off 
 on an errand for Mrs. Benson, enter Frank Benson 
 himself. Shriveled face and hands, bent back, worn 
 clothes with shiny sleeves, betray the clerk who has 
 been in the treadmill of business. But there is a 
 gleam in his eye which is not characteristic of the 
 type. He has come home, he says, for a celebration. 
 Today is their anniversary. No, not a birthday, 
 nor a wedding date, but the best anniversary in their 
 lives. Twelve years ago today they started their 
 savings-account together, and today it must amount 
 to exactly $3,000, which was the goal of their hopes. 
 He has come home to write a letter to his boss. All 
 through the years he has possessed his soul in 
 patience while *' Beefy " Anson, the head of his con- 
 cern, bullied him. He has come home angry beyond 
 endurance night after night, and has worked off his 
 steam by writing letters which he filed next morning 
 back of an old picture-frame. But these letters were 
 only practise for the one he is planning to write 
 now. Tomorrow he and the Mrs. would start out to 
 find the little chicken-farm of which he had 
 dreamed, and he would be free at last. And this 
 afternoon they are to celebrate together. 
 
 She falters that she has an appointment with her 
 friend, but he brushes this aside with a happy laugh, 
 and makes ready to proceed on the lark. Suddenly 
 
66 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 she flings herself at his feet and sobs out the terrible 
 news that there isn't enough in the bank, she has 
 spent some of it, there isn't any of it left, not a cent, 
 she has squandered it all. We watch him writhe 
 with the anguish of the unbelievable ; then he gains 
 control of himself; the fingers which had been 
 spread out straight and far in the ecstacy of his 
 freedom begin to cramp themselves into fit talons 
 for the inevitable pen ; the back bends again as if he 
 is standing over a desk; he moves his right hand 
 in the agony of penmanship; and makes ready to 
 start back with his lunch-pail to the desk and the 
 taunts of " Beefy " Anson. 
 
 His retreating steps sound in the hall, and their 
 dull thud sends you off into speculation. What was 
 that foolish woman thinking of through the days of 
 her despicable deception? What was she saying 
 when she talked to herself? 
 
 *' Overtones " is the title of the second play. 
 Somewhat more skilful and professional in its use 
 of dramatic devices and values, it proceeds at once 
 to the very center of our problem. There are four 
 characters in the piece, Harriet and Margaret, two 
 cultured women engaged in a social call, and Hetty 
 and Maggie, the " primitive selves " of these two. 
 Harriet has married a rich husband, and is living 
 in wealth, after having refused the love of an artist. 
 Margaret has married the artist and is living in the 
 penury of his poverty. She has come to Harriet 
 intent on gaining an order for the painting of a 
 portrait which will mean temporary relief from 
 their financial distress. Harriet is discontented at 
 
SAYS I, TO MYSELF 67 
 
 the sordidness of her own life and constantly remi- 
 niscent of the possibilities of the artist. Both are 
 forced to bluff their way through the conventionali- 
 ties of an ordinary conversation, but back-stage, 
 their primitive selves, Hetty and Maggie, carry on 
 the brutally frank intercourse of unveneered mo- 
 tives. It is a startling revelation of the contrast 
 between our ordinary street-wear conversation, and 
 that silent drama which is presented when I talk 
 to myself. 
 
 I shudder when I remember the two plots and 
 their obvious significance. I pass for a fairly decent 
 fellow. But I blush with shame when I confront 
 the malignant devilishness of my Overtone, my 
 primitive self, my phantom-double, who lurks in 
 the dark shadows of my unexpressed life. 
 
 And you who sit so quietly in these orderly pews, 
 I see nothing suspicious in you. Excellent clothes 
 in good repair, careful manners, places made for 
 strangers with elaborate courtesy, voices raised in, 
 the melodies of these magnificent hymns, quiet rev- 
 erence at prayertime. 
 
 But when you are alone, when you talk to your- 
 self, what kind of soul do you expose? In the 
 silent play which goes on behind the curtain of 
 your brows, are you hero or coward ? 
 
 What deceptions haunt you? Have you spoken 
 harshly of some one to another for the sake of 
 the gain accruing to yourself? And are you afraid 
 that those harsh words will some day be checked 
 by the sweet syrup of flattery which you have ladled 
 out to him and his friends ? Have you chapters in 
 
68 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 your life which must not be placed side by side lest 
 you lose your prestige? Are you keeping back 
 what belongs to another, and covering your sin 
 with the empty gestures of feigned faithfulness? 
 Are you living in the web of bluff, which threatens 
 to strangle you in its coils? O, what a tangled 
 w^b we weave, when first we practise to deceive! 
 Does your face grow hot and your heart start in 
 spurts as you see yourself tonight? 
 
 What ambitions taunt you ? You seem to be fairly 
 contented with your life. You are not sour of 
 countenance, nor growling in voice. You say that 
 you might be able to use a little more of what you 
 now have, but on the whole you are satisfied to plod 
 along. But what do you say when you talk to your- 
 self about your ambitions? Whose feet would you 
 trip up, if the tripping would place you in his posi- 
 tion? W^hosje honor would you besmirch if you 
 could achieve his honor? What would you wring 
 from the world if you had the world in your power? 
 What kind of Caesar would you make? Your boy- 
 hood and girlhood hopes of fame and glory as a 
 push-cart pedler or an opera prima donna have 
 faded into absurdity, but w^hat are your dreams, 
 when freed from the bonds of fact, you dare to 
 dream to yourself? 
 
 What lusts betray you? You talk the language 
 of gentility, and move in the best circles of society. 
 Nobody ever caught you in crime. You have 
 avoided all penalty. You live surrounded by evi- 
 dences of trust. But what are your thoughts when 
 you think by yourself ? What are the specters which 
 
SAYS I, TO MYSELF 69 
 
 dog your thoughts in the darkness of the night? 
 What are you planning when you dehberately enter 
 a shadowy theater which has led you by lurid an- 
 nouncements into its gilded gates? To what are 
 you catering when you turn the pages of garish 
 stories, and examine the unworthy hearts of sex- 
 beset heroes and heroines? What kind of brute 
 are you when you are alone, and talk to yourself? 
 
 I have not purposely designed this evening of hor- 
 rors for your own discomfort. But I would strip 
 from you some of that brazen self-confidence which 
 prevents you from sensing your peril until it is too 
 late. Freed from the major outbreaks of crude 
 souls, have you ever prayed to be delivered from 
 your secret sins ? Have you been content to harbor 
 unspoken words and unexpressed desires, holding 
 them in the leash of your discipline, feeding them 
 upon the encouragement of quiet, but in reality only 
 making them the more ravenous for the day of 
 destruction ? 
 
 I have seen men who apparently succeeded in 
 avoiding jail and preserving a good reputation with- 
 out the power of Jesus. But I have yet to meet a 
 man whose mind w^as quiet when he talked to him- 
 self, who was confident of power over the hidden 
 beasts of his inner self, except by the might of Jesus. 
 It is because all this is so infrequently said that we 
 grow so bold in our poise. But a tiny cross-section 
 of that mute conversation which takes place when 
 you talk to yourself, will send the proudest of you 
 humbly to the feet of that Christ, who can deliver 
 you from that body of death, who conquers all of 
 
70 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 life when it is yielded to him. And those of you J 
 who have loved him and known him through the " 
 long years may love him more truly when you know 
 what beasts he fought and vanquished in your sal- 
 vation. 
 
 I kneel not now to pray that thou 
 
 Make white one single sin, — 
 I only kneel to thank thee, Lord, 
 
 For what I might have been. 
 
 For deeds which sprouted in my heart 
 
 But ne'er to bloom were brought, 
 For monstrous vices which I slew 
 
 In the shambles of my thought. 
 
 Dark seeds the world has never guessed 
 
 By hell and passion bred. 
 Which never grew beyond the bud 
 
 That cankered in my head. 
 
 Some said I was a righteous man ! 
 
 Poor fools, the gallows-tree 
 (If thou hadst let one foot to sHp) 
 
 Had grown a limb for me. 
 
 So for the man I might have been 
 
 My heart must cease to mourn ; 
 'Twere best to praise the living Lord 
 
 For monsters never born ; 
 
 To bend the spiritual knee 
 
 (Knowing myself within), 
 And thank the kind, benignant God 
 
 For what I have not been. 
 
i/ 
 
 IV 
 
 TAKE YOUR CHOICE 
 
 Text: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are 
 true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
 things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
 good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be 
 any praise, think on these things. — Philippians 4 : 8. 
 
 I watched a man in a store window the other 
 day. He seemed to be making a man. He took 
 a wax head from one shelf, put it on a pair of 
 cloth-covered shoulders, fixed these shoulders on 
 the top of a wire-framed body, carefully dressed 
 the form in a well-pressed new suit, buttoned a 
 clean white collar around the neck, tied a neat four- 
 in-hand at the proper place and smoothed it down, 
 placed a becoming hat at a fetching angle on the 
 waiting head, put two new shoes under the trouser- 
 legs just where the feet should be; and there stood 
 his man, as complete and natural as if he had just 
 walked into that store-window a few moments be- 
 fore. He did not look at all as if he had been made 
 out of a combination of unattractive elements gath- 
 ered from the corners of the store. Indeed, he 
 looked a lot better than the men who like me were 
 watching while he was built. His shoes were so 
 
 71 
 
72 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 shiny, his clothes so well pressed, his hands so clean, 
 and his face was so intelligent and friendly. 
 
 I watched and said to myself, '' What fun it 
 would be to make a friend for myself as easily as 
 that!" Think of taking just what things you 
 liked best from everybody you ever knew, and com- 
 bining them in just the kind of a friend you would 
 most like to have. 
 
 What would you select, if you were making a 
 friend for yourself here this morning? Faithful- 
 ness, surely. A willingness to be true, whatever 
 happened. No yellow streak of cowardice or weak 
 spirit. But instead true courage and strength of 
 will. 
 
 Honesty, surely. For you would not want a 
 friend who would say one thing in your presence, 
 and the opposite thing when you were away. Fair- 
 ness. Good sportsmanship. The willingness to 
 play the game according to the rules without taking 
 an unfair advantage. The pluck to play harder 
 when things were going wrong with the team. The 
 fine spirit of team-work. You would not want a 
 friend who whined and would not play just because 
 he could not have everything his own way. 
 
 A clean mind, surely. No rambling tongue which 
 prided itself on shameful words and dirty stories. 
 No uncontrollable temper which flashed up in 
 storms of destruction. No foolish boasting or brag- 
 ging. No selfishness which keeps every good thing 
 and refuses to share. 
 
 Kindliness and considerateness to older people, 
 surely. No flippant freshness. Courtesy and help- 
 
TAKE YOUR CHOICE 73 
 
 fulness to all in trouble. He must be the kind of a 
 friend who would help an old lady across a crowded 
 street without showing the least embarrassment. 
 And especially must he know how to treat his 
 father and his mother, so that they will feel he 
 truly loves and honors them. 
 
 Why, it seems to me that I can almost see your 
 friend, as you have been making him before my eyes 
 this morning. I like him, too. I like his frank 
 smile, and his clear steady eyes. I like his mannerly 
 quiet voice and his careful speech. 
 
 But it all sounds like a fairy tale. Can we really 
 make a friend in that easy and simple way? Yes, 
 you surely can. In fact, all this has been practise 
 for a real piece of friend-making that I want you to 
 do for me before we leave this room. 
 
 I am ready to ask you to close your eyes, and 
 keep them closed for just a moment, until I clap 
 my hands three times. Now, at the third clap, I 
 want you to begin to make, out of the things which 
 you have selected as material fitted to the purpose, 
 your own best friend. 
 
 Oh, yes, you can do it. Indeed, you must do it, 
 whether you want to or not. For your best friend 
 is nobody else but yourself. You must live with 
 yourself all your life long. Never a day but this 
 friend is with you. Never a night without him. 
 And you have a chance today to begin to make 
 this closest friend of yours exactly the kind of a 
 friend you want him to be. Y^ou may begin right 
 now to make him to order. 
 
 This is what Paul meant when he wrote the 
 
74 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 words which we read a few moments ago as our 
 text. It seemed like a long, long sentence. But 
 what he meant can be told very simply. If you 
 see anything in anybody's life that you would wish 
 could be in the life of your best friend, just take 
 it for yourself and make it over into a part of you. 
 If you see a boy who plays the game fairly, and 
 you admire that kind of a friend, make that good 
 sportsmanship a part of your own best friend, your- 
 self. If you like dependable honesty when you see 
 it in some one else, you must realize that you must 
 train yourself to be true to yourself. For the most 
 disappointing thing in all the world is to wake 
 up some day and find that you cannot trust your- 
 self, that you cannot believe what you yourself are 
 saying. When your closest friend goes back on 
 you, you may well be discouraged. And your clos- 
 est friend is yourself. 
 
 So take your choice of things you would like in 
 your friend. Then build those things patiently, 
 one by one, into your life. Some day, you will 
 find that you have succeeded in making a friend of 
 whom you can be proud, for whom you need never 
 apologize, on whom you can depend with all your 
 confidence — yourself. 'And not the least part of 
 your pride will come from the fact that you have 
 made this friend of yours, for yourself. 
 
 I have to live with myself and so 
 I want to be fit for myself to know. 
 I want to be able as days go by 
 Always to look myself straight in the eye. 
 I don't want to stand with the setting sun 
 And hate myself for the things I have done. 
 
TAKE YOUR CHOICE 75 
 
 I don't want to keep on a closet shelf 
 
 A lot of secrets about myself, 
 
 And fool myself as I come and go 
 
 Into thinking that nobody else will know 
 
 The kind of a man I really am. 
 
 I don't want to dress myself up in sham. 
 
 I never can hide myself from me; 
 I see what others can never see. 
 I know what others can never know. 
 I have to live with myself and so 
 Whatever happens, I want to be 
 Self-respecting and conscience f ree. ^ 
 
 1 " Myself," by Edgar A. Guest. 
 
V 
 
 THE HOLY SABBATH AND THE TONE 
 OF VOICE 
 
 Text : And he said unto them, " The Sabbath was 
 made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." — 
 Mark 2 : 27. 
 
 The dining-room of a well-furnished home. A 
 stout, neatly dressed business man is seated at the 
 table, sorting and reading his morning mail. A 
 show of unusual interest. A knife-blade quickly 
 slits the envelope. 
 
 " H'm, something from the boy, eh ? " He reads, 
 brows knit. Then goes back to the beginning of the 
 page and reads aloud, gruffly, with eloquently an- 
 tagonistic emphasis: 
 
 Dear folks : 
 
 I find I must have some more money before Saturday if I 
 am to pay up and start the new term clear. I had hoped to 
 get along without asking you for more, and I have tried 
 as hard as I could to stretch what I had, but it did not work. 
 Please send me $25 by return mail. 
 
 Your loving son, 
 
 Jack. 
 
 Every word read with a whip-snap of scorn, but the 
 climax of emphasis on the final helpless words. You 
 can tell bv the father's manner that this has been 
 76 
 
THE HOLY SABBATH 77 
 
 one of the well-known last straws. He is as sym- 
 pathetic as he would be to a highwayman. 
 
 Enter the mother, a gentle, sweet-faced lady. 
 Seats herself with a pleasant word of greeting, be- 
 gins her breakfast, then notices the letter and picks 
 it up. Takes the precious epistle tenderly from its 
 envelope and begins to read, first silently, with a 
 glad smile on her lips and in her eyes. Then aloud, 
 every word beautiful with the lovely garment of 
 mother-love : 
 
 Dear folks : 
 
 I find I must have some more money before Saturday if I 
 am to pay up and start the new term clear. I had hoped to 
 get along without asking you for more, and I have tried as 
 hard as I could to stretch what I had, but it did not work. 
 Please send me $25 by return mail. 
 
 Your loving son. 
 
 Jack. 
 
 Every word read with the tenderness of sympathy, 
 but the finest tones of adoring motherhood saved 
 for the last words. " Poor, dear boy," she sighs. 
 
 Father glances up from his paper, wipes a threat- 
 ened tear from his eye, and says humbly, "Let's 
 see, how much was it he wanted? " 
 
 So much, you see, depends upon the tone of voice. 
 
 I think the Holy Sabbath has suffered from a 
 tone of voice. Since the dawn of recorded religious 
 history, there have been two schools of thought 
 about the sacred day. The first is represented best 
 by that stern word "laws." For the laws had an 
 obvious duty toward a sacred day. If one day in 
 seven is to be considered holy, it becomes necessary 
 
78 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 j for the laws to state plainly the list of things 
 Vwhich must not be done on the Sabbath. There 
 are unrighteous deeds which would mar the day, 
 there are boisterous exercises which would interfere 
 with those who had the right to all the holiness 
 which they could get out of the Sabbath. So the 
 laws must present a code of correct and incorrect 
 behavior for all who live under the shadow of the 
 Sabbath. Men must be taught that the preservation 
 of sacredness depends upon a certain will to con- 
 formity. They cannot be allowed to do their own 
 sweet will, lest that will should menace the Sab- 
 bath. And these laws must be kept strictly up to 
 date, for each new generation will be tempted to 
 engage in the unholy sport of discovering its own 
 new way to circumvent the existing conventions of 
 behavior. So unless holy men who respect the tra- 
 ditions will consecrate themselves to the task of 
 guarding the integrity of the laws, the Sabbath will 
 be despoiled. Men must be appointed to keep pace 
 with each new device of deviltry and check it by a 
 new prohibition. The ingenuity of the evaders must 
 be matched by an ingenuity of law, which will keep 
 careless ones in a sacred mood on a sacred day 
 whether they want to be or not. 
 
 Hence the Scribes and Pharisees, with their care- 
 ful codes and their merciless traditions. Hence the 
 care-free boasting cleverness of Sabbath violations 
 which came within the letter of the law. Hence a 
 new law which should prohibit the newly discovered 
 type of violation. Hence the interlined, and cor- 
 rected and recorrected, but never embarrassed, laws 
 
THE HOLY SABBATH 79 
 
 of the Sabbath. And hence the spirit of the Bhie 
 Laws, which continue to assert in the tradition of 
 the Torah that if a day is sacred there are certain 
 things no man can do, and there are certain pen- 
 ahies definitely affixed if he does them. 
 
 I have heard people tell of modern homes which 
 represent the law side of the Sabbath. The seventh 
 day is a sort of front parlor, shadowy and un- 
 comfortable, entered only when you are in your best 
 clothes and absolutely subdued in mood. No play- 
 ing on that day. No reading interesting stories 
 on that day. No friends in on that day. But 
 church, and Sunday school, and after that some 
 pages in the Bible if your young hearts shall so de- 
 sire, until bedtime ends the dreariness. 
 
 In other words the law has made the Holy Day 
 a day of negation. It has become a time of limita- 
 tion and of extreme care lest those limitations be 
 overstepped. Sunday has become a day of " less " 
 rather than " more " ; of restriction rather than 
 liberty; of self -discipline rather than self-expres- 
 sion. And down through the ages this tradition has 
 persisted. 
 
 On the other hand, and down through those same 
 ages, there has survived a Sabbath of privilege and 
 joy. The prophets are for the most part in this 
 tradition. It is only a matter of tone of voice, for 
 the duties they observed were exactly the duties 
 which bound the highest legalists, but they called 
 them opportunities instead of duties. You may 
 catch an echo of the division in some of the songs 
 of the church. For this second point of view is 
 
80 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 characteristic of the singers. *' Welcome, delight- 
 ful morn," 
 
 Hail ! sacred day of earthly rest, 
 
 From toil and trouble free ; 
 Hail ! day of light that bringest light, 
 
 And joy to me, 
 
 " O day of rest and gladness," and 
 
 The dawn of God's dear Sabbath breaks o'er the earth again. 
 As some sweet summer morning after a night of pain, 
 
 all represent a mood which the laws could not cre- 
 ate in a man whose free spirit had been restricted. 
 These hymn-writers were lovers of the day. They 
 were not oppressed by the sense of ceremonial obli- 
 gation. The Sabbath was not an occasion of nega- 
 tion and hindrance. It was a precious park of privi- 
 lege and joy, protected from interrupting intrusions 
 / by the kind wisdom of a providing God. 
 
 The two strains of influence are apparent. But 
 it is somewhat surprising to find where Jesus stands 
 in these traditions. In his name the Sabbath laws 
 are promulgated. Yet he took his place uncom- 
 promisingly with the singing prophets of privilege 
 and opportunity. His first serious conflict with 
 the pious souls of his day was concerned with 
 the observation of the Sabbath. And Christ was the 
 accused, the religious leaders were the accusers, the 
 charge was Sabbath-breaking. Out of such a situ- 
 ation he uttered the oft-quoted but still startling 
 words of our text, " The Sabbath was made for 
 man, not man for the Sabbath." 
 
 I look back upon my own home and recognize 
 
THE HOLY SABBATH 81 
 
 it as a place where Sunday was as attractive as it 
 could be. The program began with a note of pecu- 
 liar privilege. Ordinarily, we four boys were not 
 invited to share in the family coffee, but every Sun- 
 day morning at the breakfast-table, it was under- 
 stood without argument that we were to have our 
 own steaming cups of that luring beverage. Across 
 the years, I recall those doses of coffee as compara- 
 tively innocuous brews of very pale cambric tea, 
 colored just a tinge by a drop or two^ from the 
 urn, and sweetened to the point of delight. But 
 the unusual liberty of the performance set the key- 
 note for Sunday. On ordinary days, each boy had 
 one piece of candy after breakfast, from a box 
 which my father kept in his desk drawer. But on 
 Sunday mornings, there were two pieces for each 
 boy, and the box was a new one freshly opened for 
 this momentous and hilarious rite. My father was 
 a busy physician, and the superintendent of our 
 Sunday school. He kept his Sundays clear of all 
 but the most pressing of his professional obligations, 
 and very seldom made a call during the day. He 
 was not the victim of a dour Puritan conscience, nor 
 the oppressed slave under a tyrannous system of 
 cruel laws. He was not obliged to refuse calls on 
 Sunday. But he COULD. And he did. The first 
 day of the week was a long expanse of quiet and 
 rest for him, and I think he was a better physician 
 because Sunday was God's gift of rest to him. 
 Certain I am that the business he lost through the 
 impatience of silly neurotics did not figure as an 
 issue with him. After dinner and Sunday school. 
 
82 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 he would gather his four boys on the various peaks 
 and table-lands of a big Morris chair, and would 
 read to them from huge and entrancing picture 
 books — which London publishers once issued annu- 
 ally, designed for just such uses on " Sundays at 
 Home." There is a halo of happiness about my 
 long-lost Sundays which can never be dispelled. 
 r Hence I can feel only pity for those deluded indi- 
 ■ viduals who spend time wrangling over the ques- 
 tions of Sabbath observance. Is it right or wrong 
 for me to read the Sunday paper? That question 
 never occurs to me. Sunday is the one day when 
 I do not have to read the paper, and no one can 
 force me into it against my wishes. On other days, 
 a man may be ashamed of himself if he sallies forth 
 into the world unequipped with the news of the 
 preceding hours. I must read the papers on six 
 days of the week. But I can be free of their 
 clamor on Sunday. And if I fear to miss on Sun- 
 day some vital turn of the news, I may, and do, take 
 a Sunday paper which is mailed to me and which 
 arrives on Monday morning, bearing the best pos- 
 sible introduction to another week of news. 
 
 Students involve themselves in heated quibbles as 
 to whether or not they sin when they study on Sun- 
 day. Most of them do the studying first and then 
 quibble over whether or not it was a sin. The obvi- 
 ous solution to the problem is the simple statement 
 of the unvarnished truth to the effect that Sunday 
 is the one day in the week on which no one can 
 force you to study. I care not who is the profes- 
 sor nor what the difficulties of the course, if you do 
 
THE HOLY SABBATH 83 
 
 good honest work through six days in the week, 
 there will be no disposition to insist upon study on /^ 
 the seventh day. It is the one day protected by bar- 
 riers which you did not need to erect, and no intrud- 
 ing study can invade the day unless you open the 
 gates and let it in. 
 
 The person who takes the clear territory of a won- 
 derful Sunday and deliberately cumbers it with 
 the sooty baggage of every day, is selling a splen- 
 did birthright for a mess of pottage. I am not now 
 arguing with those luckless individuals who are 
 caught in the meshes of our industrial order and are 
 forced to work on seven days in a week to earn 
 their bread. I pity them and shall do everything in 
 my power to loose them from their shackles. But I 
 have no pity for the people who are protected from 
 intrusions by the laws of God and the laws of the 
 state, as well as by the social customs of the civili- 
 zation in which- they live, and who deliberately de- 
 spoil the peculiar. beauty of Sunday by an insistence 
 that they have the right to do on Sunday anything 
 which they want to do on any other day and nobody 
 has the right to p-revent them. They remind me of 
 the professor who is granted a sabbatical year with 
 full pay for the purposes of recreation and study 
 abroad, and who hangs around the campus all year 
 long, teaching his accustomed classes, performing 
 his regular duties, and loudly asserting that his per- 
 sonal liberty gives him the right to work if he wants 
 to and that no one can prevent him. Or that 
 preacher who goes away in the summertime to 
 escape the pressure of a constant outflow, and has 
 
84 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 his date-book all filled out with supply-preaching 
 engagements. Of course, no one has the power to 
 prevent him, and nothing can prevent him, save his 
 own common sense. Sunday is a gift, made for 
 man. Man is a fool if he transforms it into a chore, 
 or hurls it from himself in shallow disgust. 
 
 The same principle applies to every moral deci- 
 sion made under the influence of Jesus. Here is a 
 boy who is lured by the bright lights of a city's life. 
 He may erect a net of prohibitions about his life 
 at the forceful insistence of a mastering parent. He 
 may be compelled to stay at home by rigidity of 
 discipline. But today I met a man who had spent 
 three hundred dollars on a wireless set, and his boy 
 could not be driven away when the messages began 
 to come in from the broad-casting stations. Home 
 is no barren place of limitations for that boy. 
 Home is a glorious adventure. 
 
 The church finds its halls empty while its people 
 go thronging to the near-by moving-picture houses. 
 Immediately there is a hue and cry for passing a 
 law which will shut those places up on Sunday. 
 Why not exhaust some of our energies in learning 
 the lessons which thronged movie palaces can teach 
 the church? The church must make itself literally 
 more attractive than the world, the flesh, and the 
 devil, or it will deserve its gloomy emptiness. 
 -^ There is only one recourse left to the man who 
 loves the Sabbath. He cannot force others to share 
 his love by passing laws insisting that there should 
 be no opportunity to enjoy anything except his kind 
 of joy. He must live his joy so really and so viv- 
 
THE HOLY SABBATH 85 
 
 idly, that the tinseled glamors of other happiness 
 may be ashamed before his perfect glee, and men 
 who are seeking for soul satisfaction will come hun- 
 gering to him who has found it. Meanwhile he 
 will not libel the shrine of his delight by the strident 
 confidence of prohibitory whining, and the long- 
 faced holiness of the guardianship of the law. 
 
 Fulness of life, said Jesus. The Sabbath was 
 made for man. 
 
VI 
 
 HOW TO MAKE A PEARL 
 
 Text: And lest I should be exalted above mea- 
 sure through the abundance of the revelations, there 
 was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger 
 of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above 
 measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, 
 that it might depart from me. And he said unto 
 me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength 
 is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore 
 will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power 
 of Christ may rest upon me. — 2 Corinthians 12 : 7-9. 
 
 Here are two chapters of an interesting and sig- 
 nificant biography. 
 
 The blue waters of a summer sea are ruffled by 
 a gentle breeze. Sunshine paints the scene with 
 liquid, dancing gold. Far underneath the glitter- 
 ing wavelets, an oyster is basking in the glorious 
 warmth. On the silent current which envelops him, 
 a tiny grain of gleaming sand is borne along, and 
 is caught in the open shell. It settles into a smooth 
 recess, and the current which has borne it passes 
 on. The day goes, and the night comes. In the still- 
 ness of his habitation, a sensation of discomfort 
 penetrates the dull perceptions of our bivalve. 
 Something has entered his life which annoys. There 
 86 
 
HOW TO MAKE A PEARL 87 
 
 are sharp edges which make the intruding sand a 
 point of pain. Whatever muscular contractions and 
 expansions are possible, ens-ue at the behest of this 
 limited organism whose life has been made miser- 
 able. If the sand goes floating out and away, there 
 is no more worry. But what if all the efforts to 
 better his surroundings are in vain? What if the 
 legitimate desire for improvement finds no satis- 
 factory outlet in action? What if the sand persists 
 in staying where it is? The oyster, wise far be- 
 yond his generation, wastes no time in hot gestures 
 of mad hate against his Creator, does not cherish his 
 enforced limitation as a perfect God-given excuse 
 for an unsuccessful life, does not settle down into 
 complaining irritation and futility. The oyster pro- 
 ceeds to manufacture an exudation of gummy sub- 
 stance, which it spins out around the annoying 
 neighbor. And the sharp points of the intruder, 
 are foiled by the protective covering which the 
 oyster himself provides. 
 
 The inviting vistas of a jewelry store are busy 
 with patrons. A couple of young people, happy in 
 the ecstacy of new love, are bending over a show- 
 case. She is slipping a circlet of gold over her 
 finger and is watching the translucent beauty of a 
 pearl. He is laughing and listening. " Pearls," she 
 is saying, " are the loveliest things in the world ! " 
 She is right. Does she know, I wonder, what makes 
 the beauty of the pearl? Has she sensed the first 
 chapter of this biography? The pearl liad its birth 
 in the agony of those summer seas. A pearl is a 
 garment of patience which encloses an annoyance. 
 
88 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 Christians, take a lesson from the oyster. There 
 are two ways of dealing with an annoyance. You 
 may fret and worry about it. You may allow the 
 pain of it to penetrate your soul and sour you. 
 You may struggle in frantic and exhausting efforts 
 to remove it, and find your failure translated into 
 self-pity and resentment. You may suffer your life 
 to be limited by its coming, and then point to the 
 annoyance as the reason for your poor failure. 
 
 Or you may make a pearl. 
 
 Oysters might fairly resent outside advice which 
 urged them deliberately to invite stray grains of 
 sand for the discipline of the annoyance. Oysters 
 deserve every encouragement as they struggle to 
 exclude by all possible gestures of despair the annoy- 
 ance when it comes. But once its presence has 
 become an established fact, once the grain of sand 
 has taken up its fixed residence beyond the power 
 of the oyster to escape, then there is only one philo- 
 sophical attitude which any reasonable oyster can 
 take. He must give over the luxury of complaining. 
 He must bend his every effort toward the comple- 
 tion of a pearl. 
 
 And thus it is with Christians. The centuries 
 have witnessed too many futile attempts to disci- 
 pline life by artificially gathering penances and 
 pains. And there have been other hundreds of weak 
 souls, who when confronted with the annoying pos- 
 sibilities of an unwelcome intruder, have solemnly 
 surrendered themselves without a struggle to their 
 bitter fate. But we are now dealing with a problem 
 which assumes the proper responses during these 
 
HOW TO MAKE A PEARL 89 
 
 preliminary stages of reaction. We are assuming 
 that the trouble was given every inducement to 
 pass us by. We are assuming that when it showed 
 a disposition to enter, we used every legitimate de- 
 vice to show that it would receive no mercy from 
 us. We have fought it off as skilfully as we could. 
 We have besought the Lord at least thrice that it 
 be taken from us. And it is still here. Now what 
 shall we do with it ? 
 
 Make a pearl, Christians! 
 
 This course of action would justify itself if only 
 on the ground that it was the only way to gain any- 
 thing like comfort. If it does not become a pearl, 
 this grating annoyance must remain an annoyance, 
 and the years bring no comforting callousness. 
 Merely as a matter of individual self -protection, a 
 pearl of patience is the only thing. 
 
 But on this point we touch ever so lightly, leav- 
 ing it at once for the more profound truth which 
 Paul makes so real to us in our text. Apparently 
 it never occurred to Paul that pearl-making was the 
 only possible alternative to his own rankling dis- 
 comfort. He saw what we are so ready to over- 
 look — that pearl-making becomes a testimony to the 
 power of Jesus. For the voice which Paul heard 
 denying him his fervent prayer for relief was a 
 voice which ended by saying, ^' My strength is made 
 perfect in weakness." An unannoyed Christian can- 
 not perfectly show forth the might of Christ. The 
 white light of Jesus becomes visible to human eyes 
 only as it is diffused by the spectrum of encum- 
 bered lives. Your religion is tested and commended 
 
 G 
 
90 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 in the eyes of men only when they observe it tri- 
 umphing over difficulties. Most gladly therefore 
 will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of 
 Christ may rest on me. The only eloquent lives, in 
 testimony for Christ, are the lives which speak 
 of him amid sobs of anguish, the only lives which 
 exhibit his beauty are the pearl-encircled lives, 
 made radiant by the records of past troubles. 
 
 It is the hard battle which tests the regiment, 
 not the easy one. The big game of the season is 
 a big game only because it presents altogether un- 
 usual difficulties for the home team. It is the bro- 
 ken sinner that proves the redemption of Jesus. 
 And the greater the trouble which vexes your 
 soul, the surer your testimony to the glory of your 
 Saviour. Make pearls of your troubles, Christians. 
 
 For we might as well accept the humbling fact 
 that we cannot effectively talk of our faith except 
 to those whose conflicts we have shared. The vo- 
 cabulary with which we clothe our belief is limited 
 in its exchange to those who have learned the same 
 phrases in the same travail of spirit. One cannot 
 stand upon a pedestal and pointing with raised 
 forefinger, say, " Go to Jesus." The injunction 
 which should rise from Christian lips is " Come to 
 Jesus." And the words are futile unless we have 
 traveled the same way. Billy Sunday makes Christ 
 real to the sodden bum because he saw Christ once 
 through the blear eyes of a defeated drifter. And 
 no man has a right to deplore such preaching until 
 he can move bums in the same effective way by a 
 more sophisticated appeal. Every limitation be- 
 
HOW TO MAKE A PEARL 91 
 
 comes an open roadway into the hearts of those who 
 have feh the same limitation. 
 
 Sir Arthur Pearson is stricken blind at the height 
 of an amazing career of usefulness. There must 
 have been moments of bitter unwillingness in his 
 soul. He must have prayed that the cup pass from 
 his lips. But the oncoming days brought him quiet 
 of mind, and he found that his blindness might be 
 a key to a hitherto forbidden portal of usefulness. 
 He could minister as no seeing man ever could to 
 the needs of England's blind. When the war began 
 to pour back upon Britain the pitiful flood of sight- 
 less soldiers, Sir Arthur Pearson took them under 
 his care, showed them that life was not irrevocably 
 spoiled by loss of sight, and taught them the tech- 
 nique of successful living under the hitherto crip- 
 pling handicap. He had made a pearl out of his 
 blindness. 
 
 J. M. Barrie's beautiful tribute to his mother is 
 replete with instances of similar triumphs. His first 
 chapter is called '' How My Mother Got Her Soft 
 Face." He tells the story of the death of her 
 first-born son. When the terror of that dark day 
 has penetrated our souls, Barrie says, 
 
 That is how she got her soft face and her pathetic ways 
 and her large charity, and why other mothers ran to her 
 when they had lost a child. " Dinna greet, poor Janet," she 
 would say to them, and they would answer, "Ah, Margaret, 
 but you're greeting yoursel'." 
 
 She had made a pearl of her grief, and other moth- 
 ers came to her when they had lost a child. 
 
 It was a terrifying crisis which made Lincoln 
 
92 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 president. He came to Cooper Union with a manu- 
 script speech, copies of which had been circulated 
 to the newspapers in advance of his appearance. He 
 began to read carefully and precisely what he had 
 written. The great crowd grew restless. Voices 
 from the back of the hall shouted, " Louder ! 
 Louder!" The situation was becoming a farce. 
 Then in his nervousness, he dropped one of the 
 manuscript sheets. It fluttered from the platform 
 beyond his reach. Panic-stricken for a moment at 
 the unbelievable disaster, he looked out over the 
 crowd, tossed aside the remaining sheets of his 
 address, smiled, swung out his long arms in the 
 first free gesture of the evening, and let himself go, 
 while the audience was melted into a shouting mass 
 of enthusiastic approval. He had not only told 
 them what he thought about politics. He had 
 proved to them that he knew how to make a pearl. 
 And the way he met the crisis spread as fast as the 
 sober statesmanship of his speech. 
 
 Christians, we shall not examine your own 
 troubles and annoyances. You know them too well 
 already. But whatever they are today, and what- 
 ever they seem to be tomorrow, there is but one way 
 of dealing with them. Fight them off with all your 
 might. Beseech God thrice that they depart. Then 
 if they stay, garb them with the beauty of patience, 
 and thank God for the chance to make a pearl. 
 
VII 
 
 WHY I AM A CHRISTIAN 
 
 Text : And he saith unto them, " But who say ye 
 that I am? " And Peter answereth and sayeth unto 
 him, " Thou art the Christ."— Mark 8 : 29. 
 
 I was once converted. Years ago, in the midst 
 of the thronging experiences of boyhood, Jesus my 
 Saviour came to me. My fears were banished, my 
 best hopes were confirmed, my cowardice left me, 
 my intimations of courage grew, the world left off 
 its somber aspect of fearfulness which it had worn, 
 conflicting motives and hesitations became resolved 
 in the unity of a happy trust, my sins were forgiven, 
 and I came to realize the unspeakable joy of that 
 forgiveness; best of all, I found in Jesus that hero, 
 that comrade, the inspirer and helper, the need of 
 every boy. I cannot banish from my mind the 
 memory of the night on which I confessed him by 
 baptism. The symbol was made so vivid for me, 
 the rite was such a natural expression, and when the 
 service was completed and the sermon had been 
 preached, and I had returned to the church audi- 
 torium, clothed again, looking like the same boy, I 
 suppose, but ever so different in the reality of my 
 experience, I stood near a little reed-organ, and held 
 on to the rococo wood scrolling which passed for 
 decoration, and in the ecstasy of my unexpected 
 
 93 
 
94 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 joy, I lifted my quavering boyish soprano voice and 
 sang as naturally as ever bird sings, " Children, give 
 your hearts to Jesus, in the happy days of youth! " 
 But I am a Christian now not merely because I was 
 once converted. 
 
 I joined the church once. The scenes are as real 
 to me as if they had taken place but yesterday. A 
 solemn meeting of a board of deacons stands out 
 in my memory largely as an aggregation of stiff 
 starched shirts, for I had never seen so many 
 " boiled bosom-fronts " in any one place before. 
 In all that group of friendly but not overencourag- 
 ing examiners, the one point of relief and confidence 
 was the presence of my father, who was deacon as 
 well as father, and hence was eligible to come to my 
 aid. He it was who parried theological questions 
 for me, it was his jolly chuckle which broke the 
 stillness of my embarrassment and made me feel at 
 home. I answered as best I could, but I recall that 
 my mind was impatient to be done with this pre- 
 liminary, for I wanted to join the church. I wanted 
 to become a part of the enterprise which had ac- 
 quainted me with Jesus. I wanted to share in the 
 plans and purposes of this group which had 
 absorbed so much of my parents' lives. This was 
 a wish entirely aside from my wash to confess 
 Christ. There were two distinct transactions 
 for me. 
 
 And if I had not joined the church just then, I 
 am sure I should want to join now. For I cannot 
 imagine myself living in a city without churches. 
 I love to see children flocking happily to Sunday 
 
WHY I AM A CHRISTIAN 95 
 
 school. I watch with joy those glad processions 
 of eager worshipers go thronging to the open doors 
 which lead to sanctuaries. I myself anticipate the 
 absorption of the nourishment which the church pro- 
 vides each week for my own soul. And I know 
 that the things for which I stand in civic and moral 
 life are the things for which the church is battling, 
 whether I am a part of the church or not. If these 
 reasons did not satisfy me, I should still be eager 
 to join the church for the sheer benefits which the 
 church would bring to me. It offers me the fra- 
 ternity of people w^hom I enjoy, on terms of utter 
 democracy. It gives me entree and welcome in 
 every city to which my journeys take me. It places 
 me at once in the heart of a congenial fellowship. 
 And whatever my business, it helps my business, in 
 so far as my business is a legitimate and a decent 
 one. But I was not then, nor would I be now, a 
 Christian because I want to join the church. I have 
 not dolefully assumed a name and a sign for the 
 sake of the institution which operates in that name 
 and on behalf of that sign. I am not a Christian 
 for the purpose of church-membership. 
 
 I am a Christian because I am eager to express 
 my personal loyalty to Jesus. He saved me, I shall 
 never forget that. But my Christianity is no un- 
 willing loyalty in gratitude for a past accomplish- 
 ment. I love the church, but my Christianity is no 
 passport into a comparatively desirable set. I am 
 proud of my faith, for it is only another way of 
 saying that Jesus is my present Master and my alle- 
 giance to him is an unfeigned and exultant pledge. 
 
96 '' PREACH IT AGAIN '' 
 
 For me, he has shown the way of life. All that 
 I know about successful living I owe to him. The 
 sense of exuberant joy which was mine when my 
 boyish heart claimed him as friend was but the be- 
 ginning of a life of newly revealed masteries. He 
 knows life. He knows God. He knows man. 
 And he knows all three so surely that he has been 
 able to say the secrets of life and of God in terms 
 intelligible to my own poor mind. What can I do 
 but acknowledge him! Why should I hesitate to 
 name him ! I love the Christ. I follow in his way. 
 I learn his truth. I crave his power. I long to 
 make him real to others who have not found him. 
 I am a Christian. For this is what a Christian is. 
 
 Propose if you vv^ll certain doctrinal tests for 
 Christians. Insist that a man has no right to claim 
 to be a Christian unless he can recite a stipulated 
 number of creedal articles. And I reply that creedal 
 articles without this present allegiance to the way of 
 Jesus, are utterly futile. Meanwhile a man may 
 never have heard of a creed, and yet be possessed 
 of this life-commitment to Christ's way. Erect 
 church barriers if you will, and insist that Chris- 
 tians will all be found within the enclosures which 
 you have marked out. And I shall reply by show- 
 ing you non-Christians inside the space, and hosts 
 of men and women committed to his way outside 
 the sectarian fences which you have erected. 
 
 No one can rob me of those colorful memories, 
 still vivid after the years, memories of that glory 
 which came into my ken when I saw King Jesus 
 and was unafraid. No one can deprive me of 
 
WHY I AM A CHRISTIAN 97 
 
 my happy comradeship in the confines of the Chris- 
 tian church. But I am a Christian because I am 
 today frank and happy in my statement of loyalty to 
 him and to the things which he has taught. 
 
 I love the Christ of yesterday, and the men who 
 proclaim that we must go back to Jesus find no un- 
 favorable reaction in me. Go back as far as you 
 will to him, and I find myself loving him. Go to 
 the Christ of the Gospels, and meet him face to face. 
 I love those quiet years of unpretentious silence, 
 with the other boys of the village, and with the 
 men of the shop. I love the simple months when 
 he lived so naturally that his neighbors in after 
 years could ask naively, '' Is not this the carpenter's 
 son?" in those incredulous tones which ''home- 
 towns " have used since the beginning of time. I 
 love those forty testing days of temptation, when 
 he looked out upon all the possibilities of his career 
 and fought through the battles in anticipation, van- 
 quishing the wild beasts of the spirit, through the 
 help of the angels of light. I love those full months 
 of *' doing good," while he fearlessly proclaimed 
 the amazing truths which God had revealed to him. 
 I love the compacted weeks of his preparation and 
 suffering. I see him on the cross, dying that his 
 kingdom of truth and light might be preserved 
 without compromise or failure through the cen- 
 turies until today and tomorrow. I see him rally- 
 ing his scattered ones by the assurance of his victory 
 over death and time. The fragrance of his life 
 escapes in the foolishness of the retelling. But I 
 go back to the sacred words of the simple narratives. 
 
98 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 and find him there again, the fairest, friendliest 
 figure that has ever crossed the minds of seeking 
 men. I have no other words for it. I love him. 
 There may be other heroes and other comrades 
 for other men. But for me, he is the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God, and I say so by my faith. 
 
 I love him in the yesterdays of history. There 
 have been ages which have obscured him. Dread- 
 ful things of darkness and hate have been done in 
 his name. His spirit has been invoked over scenes 
 of cowardice and carnage. But wherever his figure 
 stands out above the flames and smoke of men's 
 jealousies and bitterness, I cannot but love him. 
 I love him as he touches Peter with the forgiveness 
 of the new consecration. I love him as he wins 
 Paul and makes a hero out of a bully. I love him 
 as he anoints Luther in the secret places of per- 
 sonal dedication. I love him as he places the coal 
 of fire upon the humble lips of Wesley. I love him 
 as he sends Father Damien out into the hell of 
 leper-agony. I love him as he reclaims China by 
 the graces of a hundred hidden lives. When I see 
 him in the yesterday, my heart is humbled, and my 
 spirit bows unbidden, as before my King. 
 
 I love him in the plain sight of today. Even here 
 I find travesties of him parading his name and his 
 sign. But I love him as his people serve him in 
 the simplicity of their helpfulness when need calls. 
 I honor him when I hear Hoover, beset by a hungry 
 world, turn to the church of Jesus as the only re- 
 sort. 
 
 I love him as he ministers to individual seekers all 
 
WHY I AM A CHRISTIAN 99 
 
 around me. I love to see him touch souls as he 
 touched mine, and turn all their blindness into 
 sight, all their sighing into songs, all their burdens 
 into wings, all their tears into pearls of beauty. 
 Here comes a woman, recently confessing him in 
 baptism, now leading two younger women into the 
 meeting where they too are to join his ranks. There 
 is a smile of heavenly joy on her face, and a message 
 of heavenly happiness on her lips : " Oh, I cannot 
 tell you! It has changed my whole life. My home 
 is a new place ! " Then I turn to the Christ and 
 love him anew. Here comes a sturdy business man, 
 who has attended church for six years, and last 
 Sunday confessed Jesus in the symbol of burial to 
 sin and resurrection to newness of life in the 
 Saviour. He takes my hand and grips it firmly 
 while he says, " I want you to know, sir, that these 
 days have been the happiest days of all my life ! " 
 
 Then I seem to see Jesus, the Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the Jesus of history, the Jesus of the prosaic today, 
 the Jesus of the conquering tomorrow. There is 
 patience and joy in his gentle, brave eyes, and I 
 think he is smiling too as he hears me say, " Thou 
 art the Christ, the son of the living God." Lead 
 on, we follow Thee. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a man, — 
 
 And only a man, — I say 
 That of all mankind I cleave to Him, 
 
 And to Him will I cleave alway. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a God, — 
 
 And the only God,— I swear 
 I will follow Him through heaven and hell. 
 
 The earth, the sea, and the air. 
 
VIII 
 
 A PREACHER UNASHAMED 
 
 Text : " For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of 
 Christ."— Romans 1 : 16. 
 
 We live in a world which seems to be engaged in 
 a gigantic conspiracy to make a preacher feel 
 ashamed. The crux of the matter of scarcity in 
 prophet-material may be located at this exact spot. 
 The movies never place a preacher on the screen 
 without a sneer, unless they are deliberately cater- 
 ing to church trade and do not dare really express 
 themselves. Cartoonists choose a scathingly pitiful 
 type when they are forced to represent the senti- 
 ment of the clergy. Scandalously low salary levels 
 in average computations place the calling at the very 
 bottom of the list in the eyes of men who see sig- 
 nificance in money returns. Clergy-fare books 
 offering a fractional fare to those who will go 
 through the indignities involved, not only in apply- 
 ing but also in purchasing and presenting tickets 
 after the privilege has been granted, have become an 
 absolute necessity for thousands of preachers if they 
 are to do their duty without pauperism or private 
 fortune. Discounts offered in stores which are con- 
 scious of beautiful charity and have a right to all 
 the credit they can get, make clergymen feel like 
 dependents upon the industrial organism. And 
 100 
 
A PREACHER UNASHAMED 101 
 
 when a young man of any particular promise threat- 
 ens to enter the ministry, there are some pious 
 prayers of thanksgiving, and some saintly words of 
 encouragement, but the people of affairs on whose 
 word he relies for substantial judgment in other 
 realms flood him with commiseration and pity. His 
 college class is aghast at the pitiable waste of possi- 
 bilities. His relatives sacrifice him with many tears, 
 as if he were entering a lions' den. The highway 
 into the ministry is hung with drooping crepe and 
 echoes with the lugubrious strains of Chopin's 
 " Funeral March." 
 
 Perhaps it is better so. Perhaps unworthy men, 
 who had not caught the significance of the cross 
 of Jesus, might be lured mistakenly down the road 
 into the sacred calling, if there were less gloom 
 spread about the entrance. And that, of course, 
 would never do. We need heroes in the ministry. 
 And we have succeeded in making it almost forbid- 
 ding enough to ensure the exclusion of anybody 
 else. Maybe a frank confession of the joy which 
 awaits the preacher would be too much for the other 
 professions, which must have men from some 
 source, and would be utterly distressed if the min- 
 istry took all the promising youths. 
 
 But the tragedy of the present situation is re- 
 vealed when one examines what happens to the 
 ministers, once they have passed the mystic gate 
 which excludes all but heroes. The initiation over, 
 one might suppose that they would be allowed to 
 see things fairly and enjoy their fate. Not so. 
 They are hounded by their humiliations. They are 
 
102 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 expected to dress in some distinctive garb so as to 
 make possible a certain lowering of the voice when 
 they appear. They are set off in a corner, as if 
 they were too good for the common exchange of 
 men's conversation, but in reality they are being 
 put to bed like young children, when the adults 
 really get down to business. Is it any w^onder that 
 after the years, they begin to show the tragic droop 
 of the shoulders and the pulpit smile with which 
 the cartoonists have endowed them ? Is it any won- 
 that they become somewhat accustomed to an un- 
 protested compliance with the conditions of banish- 
 ment? The world has its way with them. Pity 
 has its just fruition in pitiableness. And preachers 
 grow ashamed. 
 
 Like a chill breeze from a snow-capped mountain 
 hurling itself into the sun-kissed languor of a Mexi- 
 can noon, comes the text of Paul, "I am not 
 ashamed ! " It wakes us, and sends cold shivers 
 down our torpid spines, and gets us up from our 
 siesta of humility in a moment of rousing. *' I am 
 not ashamed." 
 
 It was defiance hurled at pagan Rome, in the name 
 of the Master of men. But modern preachers must 
 take it upon their own lips, or the church of Jesus 
 will suffer shame and defeat. God helping me, I 
 shall never make craven apology for my profession. 
 Wall Street puts rich Rome to insignificance. The 
 might of modem world-encircling nations can make 
 imperial Rome into a petty province. The comforts 
 and ingenious devices of a Roman neighborhood 
 become crudities of a childish blunder when com- 
 
A PREACHER UNASHAMED 103 
 
 pared with the necessities of a modern home. And 
 all the knowledge of Rome seems like the first sen- 
 tences of a child's primer, when we survey the con- 
 tinents of truth which men's minds have explored 
 since then. 
 
 Yet I can utter, fearlessly, to a civilization whose 
 glory dwarfs the boasts of Paul's metropolis, the 
 defiance of his own lips, " I am not ashamed." Men 
 tell me that this is an unprecedented age of organ- 
 ized contribution to the treasure-house of general 
 wealth. They say that no man has a right to sur- 
 vive unless he can produce. They say that the 
 drones in the hive must be driven out by the slow 
 process of economic elimination, and they look at 
 me with sinister intent, satisfied in their own minds 
 as they see ministers' salaries being cut to the starva- 
 tion-point. But I defy them. Their talk sounds 
 like an echo from wealth-cursed Rome. There is 
 no man who works harder and who contributes 
 more to the wealth of the world than the intelli- 
 gent and enthusiastic Christian minister. Give us 
 a few more years, and the pendulum which is now 
 unfair toward the ministry will swing the other 
 way. It is even now on the downward stroke and 
 a new generation will confirm the ministry with 
 economic tribute to its producing and conserving 
 power. Babson's words are not drivel. 
 
 Before the magnificent array of imperialistic na- 
 tional ambitions, and the flaunting beauty of maj- 
 esty, I preach Jesus, unashamed. For his king- 
 dom has seen the boasts of other empires become 
 empty vaporings, and the cities of ancient monarchs 
 
104 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 become heaps of dust. Before the soft comforts of 
 this amazingly ingenious age, I preach Jesus un- 
 ashamed, for I know that faith in him has made 
 life glorious in prison cells and solitary caves of 
 persecution; and that men who tried to live with- 
 out him have had their transient joys turn to ashes 
 at their tastes. Before a world wise with the won- 
 der of science and discovery, inquiring, revealing, 
 searching, arranging, labeling, and docketing, I 
 preach Jesus unashamed. For I know that the 
 knowledge which he teaches is as eternal as the hills, 
 as necessary as bread and water to the life of the 
 soul, fundamental in its underlying of all other 
 truth, and ministering to the whole world of truth- 
 seekers. 
 
 But best of all, I preach Jesus unashamed, even 
 when 1 hear the happy achieving boasts of men 
 who are tasting the delights of other work. When 
 men grow rich around me, I count the gold of souls 
 won to him. When men count fame as their por- 
 tion, I find my glory in the oncoming victory of 
 Jesus. When men talk to me of the thrill of inven- 
 tion, I bend my mind to the translation of his way 
 into word and life. And when they sing of joy, I 
 show them a letter which came to me yesterday, a 
 letter from a traveling man who w^andered into my 
 church with a companion, both of them strangers 
 in a strange city last Sunday. They sat in the far 
 corner of the gallery throughout the service, and 
 left at the benediction, to walk and talk through the 
 long afternoon about the substance of the gospel 
 which they had heard preached. The companion 
 
A PREACHER UNASHAMED 105 
 
 had been strangely impressed with the claims of 
 Jesus, and told of his frank and sudden loyalty. 
 Twenty-four hours later, he was killed in a railway 
 accident, rejoicing that the few moments of preach- 
 ing had solved for him the hitherto inexplicable 
 riddle of a baffling life. 
 
 There is no joy to compare with the joy of the 
 preacher. Hear it, young men, from honest lips, 
 made eloquent by their honest joy. I preach Christ, 
 unashamed. And I open the garlanded gate, into 
 a calling that touches the heights of happiness. 
 
 H 
 
IX 
 
 RELIGION AT TWENTY-ONE 
 
 Text: When I went out to the gate through the 
 city, when I prepared my seat in the street, the 
 young men saw me and hid themselves. — Job 29 : 
 7, 8. 
 
 It was my privilege not long ago to spend a year 
 in the midst of a people who are at the critical cen- 
 ter of our Christian mission problem. I went to 
 them not as preacher or teacher, but as a native of 
 their land. For a whole year I spoke their tongue, 
 dressed in their attire, governed myself by their 
 customs, in fact, was one of them. My stay with 
 them was so recent, and my sympathy for them is 
 now so vivid and vital, that I wish to make a frank 
 report of my findings to you. For you are inter- 
 ested in their tribal habits, and in their ultimate 
 destiny. 
 
 I have heard travelers tell of the weird procedures 
 which are common-place in that land. I have heard 
 colorful descriptions of the polyglot language which 
 the natives use, of the weird music which stirs their 
 souls, of the bizarre and fantastic forms of dress 
 which are flaunted before the eyes of onlookers, and 
 of the grotesque social customs which affront our 
 more cultured civilization. I have recognized each 
 106 
 
RELIGION AT TWENTY-ONE 107 
 
 detail of description as real, but when these travel- 
 ers have gone on to say that the inhabitants of this 
 land are so different that they must be headed 
 straight for destruction, then I have been sure that 
 their conclusions were the results of hasty visits. 
 Perhaps these travelers had never penetrated into 
 the heart of the life of that nation, perhaps they had 
 never lived in the confines of that mysterious land 
 at all, or if they had lived there they had forgotten 
 all about it. And a quick careless glance at the su- 
 perficial surface had fooled them into an unfair con- 
 clusion. I bring you cheer, as fellow Christians. 
 These stubborn, elusive, difificult people, who do 
 not speak our tongue and do not think our thoughts, 
 may yet be brought under the sway of Jesus, if we 
 are careful in our translating and patient in our 
 teaching. 
 
 The land to which I refer is a State of Mind. 
 It is bounded on the north by Youth's Courage, and 
 on the south by Youth's Enthusiasm. It stretches 
 on the west toward Youth's Pioneering, and on the 
 east toward Youth's Dreams. It is the country 
 known as 21. However far any of you may be 
 from it now, most of you have lived there for a 
 little while once upon a time. 
 
 I could dwell on many phases of its life. I might 
 tell of that strange mental freak which leads the 
 natives to change their style of dress with each 
 new year, so that photographs showing the cos- 
 tumes of the ten last seasons would make one be- 
 lieve that ten different tribes were on exhibition. 
 High pompadours, elaborate and intricate coiffures. 
 
108 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 severe tight simplicity, and boyish bobbed locks — 
 these are the changing head-dress styles ; small hats, 
 large hats, and no hats at all; long trailing skirts 
 that sweep the ground, short skirts that give free- 
 dom and grace — these follow one another through 
 the ceaseless succession of dress-habits which might 
 lead you to believe that 21 lacked stability of judg- 
 ment. I might tell you of their language, which 
 uses the same vowels and consonants in the same 
 combinations as ours, but which results in wholly 
 different meanings, so that between the natives of 
 21 and ourselves there exists a language-gap as wide 
 and as serious as that between China and America. 
 But I hasten without apology to a consideration of 
 the theme which has occupied my attention since I 
 have returned from my sojourn in 21 — the religion 
 of 21. For you are Christians, somewhat dis- 
 couraged at the indifference which these blase na- 
 tives are showing toward your sincere missionary 
 efforts. And you want to understand the difficulty. 
 I think I have the right to assume this. 
 
 There has been in the past a rather curious ten- 
 dency to scorn the missionary opportunity which 
 21 presented. Job is a striking example of this atti- 
 tude. The text which you have already noticed is 
 plucked from Job's memories of his former bliss. 
 Out of his present misery, he is looking back upon 
 the good old days of his prosperity. And the cli- 
 max of his glowing description occurs when he 
 comments on his faith and his piety. He recalls 
 with deep gratitude that when he was at his best 
 religiously, he had only to walk down the street and 
 
RELIGION AT TWENTY-ONE 109 
 
 the young men gathered at the street-corners would 
 flee at his commg. This was an approach to a lively 
 religious ideal. Job was positively proud that his 
 piety sent youth off in howling dismay. 
 
 There may be Christians who feel that way about 
 it now. 21 is so noisy, so boisterous, so careless 
 of incense-odor and the solemn quiet of the sanc- 
 tuary. Maybe you would prefer to have young 
 people flee before you. You may deem their dis- 
 dain a subtle compliment to your faith. If so, 21 
 will not quarrel with you. You may have your 
 own way. They will leave you and never bother 
 you again. 
 
 But if you really care, if you are sorry that such 
 a magnificent stratum of life has been compara- 
 tively untouched by the program of the church, you 
 may be willing to hear, from a sympathetic inter- 
 preter, what 21 wants in religion. 
 
 For one thing, 21 demands enthusiasm. The 
 cool, shadowy faith of quiet formairsm, the cal- 
 culating contentment of the church which counts a 
 year well spent if it has recorded no startling losses 
 in membership, the sophisticated aloofness of those 
 who are happy to be saved and have no sense of 
 the tragedy of a world's misery and darkness — 
 these things repel 21. If religion means anything, 
 it must mean a consuming dedication to an insis- 
 tent propaganda of faith, and where the consum- 
 ing dedication is absent, 21 concludes with ruth- 
 less logic that religion does not mean anything. 
 Given a church which dares to dream no meaner 
 dream than a city captured by the forces of the 
 
110 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 Christ, and you will find 21 manifesting signs of 
 eager interest. 
 
 The new generation demands fearlessness. It 
 has been taught to believe that if a theory oF~an 
 institution shows signs of shrinking and embarrass- 
 ment when faced by unbiased and cold investigation 
 and comparison, there is something unworthy which 
 accounts for the shrinking. It demands a religious 
 faith which proscribes no books, prohibits no 
 courses of study, bans no contacts with the ever- 
 widening horizons of the world's knowledge, erects 
 no walls about itself, but frankly and fearlessly 
 welcomes every fair question. It instinctively shuns 
 the religion which may be observed only under a 
 vacuum-bell in controlled laboratory conditions. 
 21 wants a chance to test and try, and the things 
 which are not willing to submit are simply shelved. 
 
 The youngsters demand affirmatives. There is 
 something repellent to them in a religious faith 
 which boasts as its supreme attraction a carefully 
 indexed catalog of prohibitions. They are not 
 enormously impressed with a list of things one must 
 not do, and the penalties which ensue if one does. 
 But they do show signs of eager life when they are 
 confronted with an ideal of what one can do, and 
 some friendly counsel as to how one can be helped 
 in the doing. 
 
 Indeed, they do not quite understand what our 
 negatives mean. We were noticing a few moments 
 ago the language of 21, and the difficulties it pre- 
 sents to foreigners. Nowhere is this language- 
 gap more obvious than here in the realm of affirma- 
 
RELIGION AT TWENTY-ONE 111 
 
 tives and negatives. I have a daughter who is just 
 21 — twenty-one months, of course. And already she 
 is beginning to show the characteristics of the tribe 
 into which she m^U later be initiated. We adults 
 realize that a sharply spoken staccato " No, no, no, 
 no, no! " means: '' Darling, it would be better for 
 you not to touch that. Daddy and mother know 
 that it will hurt you." But do you think those syl- 
 lables of warning are thus interpreted by her learn- 
 ing mind ? You are mistaken if you do. When she 
 hears a ''No" it means to her: "Hello, here's 
 something extraordinarily promising. This is going 
 to be more interesting than usual. They always 
 give me that signal when I start into anything 
 which looks like real fun. Then they always try 
 to stop me. I must be quick and dip into this before 
 they start after me." And into it she dips, forth- 
 with. 
 
 You may be tempted to list her as an example 
 of total depravity. But I tell you that she simply 
 does not understand our language. And we are 
 fools, unworthy of her promise, if we grow impa- 
 tient and pettish, and do not seize the opportunity 
 to translate our futile " No " into a happy, smiling 
 " Yes " which points in a more promising and less 
 perilous direction, for her interest. 
 
 And all you " Nay-sayers " who have worn out 
 your vocal chords and your nerves prohibiting 21 
 from explorations upon which they immediately en- 
 tered with joy and singing, take notice. They were 
 not trampling on you. They did not know what 
 your " No " meant. And the pity of it is that you 
 
112 "PREACH IT AGAIN" 
 
 blamed them instead of buckling down to the ter- 
 rific task of achieving a proper and meaningful 
 translation in the native affirmative vocabulary of 
 21. Christians, now that you have wrought out 
 after years of toil translations of the Gospels which 
 make Jesus real and appealing to Chinese, and 
 Japanese, and Turks, and Czecho-Slavs, and two 
 hundred other dialectic groups, more or less, will 
 you try to make an interesting and tempting trans- 
 lation of Jesus into the native tongue of 21 ? They 
 will listen, if you will talk their language, even if 
 you do fumble over their peculiar idioms, and miss 
 some of their expressive grammatical constructions. 
 
 Remember that they are utterly indifferent about 
 promised and inflicted punishments, but if sins ap- 
 pear to hinder them on the way to the achievement 
 of fulness of life, they will pause a bit, and go back. 
 The nagging '* Don't "of outworn pedagogy is not 
 religion to them, but they are ready for a glorious, 
 forward-looking " Do." 
 
 21 makes its last demand when it insists that re- 
 ligion treat of life as well as death. It is not un- 
 mindful of the transitory nature of material things; 
 it does not overlook the immortality of lives well- 
 lived ; it has not lost its pity for those oppressed by 
 loneliness when a loved one has departed. But 
 some of the spectral blue light of mystery and un- 
 canniness which once played about the fact of death 
 has been removed from their minds. The new 
 generation has seen too many of its contemporaries 
 die, and that at the glad height of a glorious selfless 
 adventure, to feel the need of a religion which is 
 
RELIGION AT TWENTY-ONE 113 
 
 satisfied with relieving the pall of death. It has 
 little patience with those who are so intent upon 
 the melodies of glorified Zion that they have no 
 ears for the pity of the slums. It demands a faith 
 which is willing to be judged on the way it pre- 
 pares men for the life of tomorrow, as well as for 
 the death of the day after. 
 
 You are drawing back now in your cool reserve, 
 and you are saying quite icily : ** We cannot change 
 the truth to suit anybody. We must preach and 
 teach and live what we believe without compromise. 
 And if 21 does not like it, we are not at fault. 21 
 may want what it calls enthusiasm and fearless- 
 ness and affirmatives and life. But we can give 
 them only the good old gospel of Jesus, and leave 
 the issues to God." 
 
 Then 21 is proud of you. The youngsters would 
 be ashamed of you if you offered to compromise 
 your faith for anybody. But they go on seeking, 
 still, a religious faith which they in turn can avow 
 without compromise or reservation. And they are 
 finding that they have not far to go in their search. 
 They are reaching their goal in the faith of that 
 same Jesus who is dear to you. 
 
 Enthusiasm? His passion consumed him! 
 Fearlessness? He dodged no question, erected no 
 tabu, was disappointed only when a question re- 
 mained unasked in a seeker's mind through embar- 
 rassment! Affirmatives? He cut across a whole 
 complicated code of terrifying prohibitions with 
 specific penalties attached, and uttered his com- 
 mandments in two glorious af^rmatives of love. 
 
114 "PREACH IT AGAIN" 
 
 Life? Always he preached to the problems of liv- 
 ing, and his dying prayer was a sentence of satis- 
 faction at the completion of the task of life which 
 had filled his mind and soul, and at the confidence 
 which such life gave him for the rest. 
 
 Have we forgotten that he died, a young man 
 surrounded by young men? Have we forgotten 
 that his language is enlivened at every point by 
 the vivid words and idioms of 21? Have we so 
 libelled him in our preaching and our institutions 
 and our piety that the searching, eager natives of 21 
 have consigned him to the far distant limbo of 
 " after 40 " ? 
 
 Forgive us, 21. He is yours. Claim him, serve 
 him, love him, live for him! Prove to us once 
 again the eternal youth of the Christ! 
 
X 
 
 HOW TO MAKE THE SUN STAND STILL 
 
 Text: And the sun stood still, and the moon 
 stayed, until the people had avenged themselves 
 upon their enemies. — Joshua 10 : 13. 
 
 There was no day quite like it, before it, or 
 after it. 
 
 Word had come to Joshua that the kings had 
 come down out of their mountain fastnesses, and 
 were threatening to take Gibeon. The messengers 
 from the besieged city were breathless in their haste 
 and their fear : " Slack not thy hand. Come up 
 to us quickly, and save us, and help us!" The 
 words stumble over one another in their haste. 
 And Joshua slacks not. Without a moment's delay, 
 he summons his army into battle array. He tells 
 them the urgent necessity of haste. It is late after- 
 noon, but he is unwilling to wait until morning to 
 start. He knows that one more day will mean cap- 
 ture of the precious town. Into the shadows of 
 the evening he marches his mighty men of valor, 
 and all through the hours of the night they hurry 
 over hill and vale from Gilgal to Gibeon, tireless in 
 their eagerness for the fray. 
 
 Morning comes. The kings of the Amorites, 
 who have come down from the hills, make ready 
 
 115 
 
116 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 for their easy advance. The city which is their 
 prey, lies before them in the dawn-light like a rich 
 jewel ready to be claimed for their glory. But there 
 is dust in a great cloud along the Gilgal road. There 
 is the low thunder of human voices. There are 
 shouts of recognition and glad acclaim from the 
 valley. The little city is alive with eager prepara- 
 tion. Joshua and his hosts have come ! There will 
 be a fight for the prize. 
 
 The travel-stained army from Gilgal takes no 
 time for rest. They brush the darkness away from 
 their eyes, take one look at the besieging hosts, and 
 hurl themselves with shouts of confidence into the 
 fray. Tired beyond their realization, they are new 
 men in the fierce agony of battle. 
 
 But the foes are no untrained boys. These 
 Amorites have much stuff in them. The lines sway 
 backward and forward as the day toils on. The 
 city is captured and saved, and captured and saved 
 again, as the tides of battle change. The sun is 
 dropping low toward the west. Joshua knows that 
 they must win now or not at all. And the moments 
 are fleeting by like scared things. An hour more, 
 and it will be too late. These tired bodies and ex- 
 hausted minds would be utterly at a loss tomorrow. 
 He fights on with his men, but as he fights, he prays : 
 '' A little more time. Lord. Keep the sun high until 
 we win." 
 
 And the sun stood still, and the moon delayed in 
 her coming. Is not this written in the book of 
 Jasher ? 
 
 Of course, the great difficulty about the story is 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE SUN STAND STILL 117 
 
 the undoubted fact that in a universe of thronging 
 planets and intricate time-calculations, the pausing 
 of the sun and the moon while Joshua fought his 
 battle is not as simple a thing as it at first appears. 
 Secondly, it is now obvious that as far as the earth 
 is concerned the sun is always standing compara- 
 tively still, and the day could be prolonged not at all 
 by an obliging hesitation on the part of the sun. 
 The earth would find it necessary to cease in its reg- 
 ular rotation upon its axis in order to make daylight 
 accessible beyond the usual period. And thirdly, 
 exact measurement of the length of the day was 
 quite impossible. Watch companies have recently 
 engaged in an advertising campaign to stimulate in- 
 terest in the history of time-keeping devices. They 
 have revealed to us how startlingly recent are accu- 
 rate time-measurements, and how crude were the 
 best devices of ancient man. Ropes which burned 
 with fair regularity, hour-glasses with sand in them, 
 sun-dial arrangements, these were the finest flower 
 of yesterday's inventive genius. And even these 
 were denied to Joshua, for he was not the kind of 
 a warrior to take up a position off at one side of the 
 conflict and there carefully study the progress of 
 the afternoon on a dial. He was in the thick of the 
 fight. How was he measuring time? How could 
 he know that the sun stood still ? How was he re- 
 cording the altogether unusual events of the unusual 
 day? 
 
 He was using the most accurate measure of time 
 which has ever been devised : deeds. He was 
 measuring hours by accomplishments. And when 
 
118 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 the sun drooped low over the western hills, and 
 evening was almost upon him, he did pray that the 
 sun might stand still, so that he might fight through 
 to victory. Then he flung himself from his prayer 
 into the heat of the battle, and his mighty enthu- 
 siasm so communicated itself to his men that they 
 made those few moments of dusk count for more 
 than had the whole day before, and the kings of 
 the Amorites turned and fled, and the city was 
 saved. And as the hosts of Joshua gathered round 
 the camp-fire with their leader that night, and he 
 told them of his prayer, they said to one another: 
 " The prayer was answered. The sun did stand 
 still. That last hour seemed like a whole day. 
 What do we care about the futile denials of orderly 
 solar systems and artificial time-scales. Hours are 
 long or short as you fill them full or leave them 
 bare of accomplishment. Surely the Lord fought 
 for Gibeon. There was never day quite like this." 
 
 Time is never fairly measured by the numbers of 
 times a hand traverses the face of a clock. Time 
 has length and breadth and depth, and the man who 
 measures only length is absolutely deceived. Which 
 was the older ? Roosevelt, or that old woman who 
 died at 104, after quiet backwoods existence? 
 Which had lived the most of life? I have seen a 
 football team make the last few minutes of the last 
 quarter into a longer period than would encompass 
 all the play before. 
 
 And I have made the sun stand still. Have you 
 never felt the exhilaration of the experience? To 
 face an almost impossible task, to know the merci- 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE SUN STAND STILL 119 
 
 less onrush of the end of the day, to lift your heart 
 in prayer for a few more minutes of daylight, and 
 then to swing so much of life into those few mo- 
 ments that they become hours under the touch of 
 your dauntless willingness, this entitles you to a 
 place with Joshua. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
\. 
 
THE SERMONS OF THE SECOND YEAR 
 
 A similar experiment, carried on at the end of the 
 second year's preaching, involved the use of the fol- 
 lowing list. First place was awarded to Sermon 70, 
 '' An Adventure in Friendliness," a verse by verse 
 exposition of the thirteenth chapter of First Corin- 
 thians, using a rough and immediate verbal trans- 
 lation from the Greek text ; second place went to 
 Sermon 76, *' The Good Fortune of Bad Luck," a 
 discussion of the uses of adversity in human life; 
 while third place was given to Sermon 5, " On Dis- 
 tance in Religion," which was the favorite of the 
 first year, and was included in the second-year list 
 only because the vote of the congregation had 
 forced its repetition. Three sermons were repeated 
 as a result of the second ballots. 
 
 1. Henceforth. Text: Ephesians 4 : 14. 
 
 " The Christian's eyes are fixed upon the dawn of a to- 
 morrow." 
 
 2. 1922 Will Reward Fighters. Text : Romans 5 : 3. 
 
 " No follower of Jesus can pray a craven prayer for a soft 
 year." 
 
 3. The Folly of Vain Regrets. Text : Psalm 103 : 12. 
 
 " The only proper fruit of failure is not regret, but wisdom 
 for the next attempt." 
 
 4. Do You Listen for Angels? Text: Acts 8 : 29. 
 
 " There are angels speaking today to us, as plainly as they 
 spoke to Philip in the far-off vesterday." 
 
 123 
 
124 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 5. On Distance in Religion. Text : John 4 : 4-26. 
 
 " Three Negro songs can teach us the secret of nearness to 
 God." (Repeated by request from last year's preaching.) 
 
 6. Trade-Eyes. Text : 1 John 4 : 21. 
 
 "We see each other through the eyes of our trade. And 
 the Christian has trade-eyes of his own." 
 
 7. How TO Make a Pearl. Text : 2 Corinthians 12 : 7-10. 
 *'A pearl is the garment of patience wrapped around an 
 
 annoyance." (Repeated by request from last year's preach- 
 ing.) 
 
 8. Palm Sunday Christians. Text: Matthew 21 : 8-11. 
 
 " A few hours separate the ' Hosannas ' of Palm Sunday 
 from the angry shouts of ' Crucify Him ! ' " 
 
 9. The Easter Triumph. Text : 1 Corinthians 15 : 55-57. 
 
 " The resurrection is proven or disproven by the quality of 
 the disciple's life." 
 
 10. If Time Were Money. Text : Colossians 4 : 5. 
 
 " Time is money— the most precious currency in life." 
 
 11. The We-ness of Us. T^xt: 1 Corinthians 12 : 12. 
 
 He's not heavy, sir ! He's my brother! ' " (Repeated by 
 request from last year's preaching.) 
 
 12. Brother Saul. Text: Acts 22 : 13. 
 
 "This was a splendid gesture of love which saw in that 
 broken enemy of the cross a potential brother." 
 
 13. Take Your Choice. Text: Romans 7 : 15. 
 
 "*I have to live with myself, and so I want to be fit for 
 myself to know.'" (Repeated by request from last year's 
 preaching.) 
 
 14. The Other SroE of the Road. Text: Luke 10 : 31-33. 
 
 " The magnetism of need versus the magnetism of com- 
 fort." : 
 
 15. Says I, to Myself. Text : Psalm 19 : 12. 
 
 "What kind of a man are you when you talk to yourself?" 
 (Repeated by request from last year's preaching.) 
 
APPENDIX 125 
 
 16. If Luther Lived Today. Text: Romans 1 : 17. 
 
 " There are new battles for liberty of soul which require 
 the spirit of Luther." 
 
 17. The Baptist Church On Main Street. Text: Revela- 
 tion 3 : 8. 
 
 '"Against heart-breaking odds, the preachers on Main Street 
 battle for the truth. Help them ! " 
 
 18. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Text: Proverbs 
 31 : 30. 
 
 " Motherhood holds the destiny of America in its hands." 
 
 19. A Fool and His Money. Text: Proverbs 21 : 20. 
 " A fool is at the mercy of his money — or lack of it." 
 
 20. A Fathers' Day Sermon. Text: Proverbs 23: 15-23. 
 
 " There is need for sound advice on the problem of choosing 
 a father." 
 
 21. Christ and Healing. Text : 2 Corinthians 12 : 7-10. 
 
 " Jesus healed — but he seemed to fear the results of his 
 helpfulness on the issues of his Kingdom." 
 
 22. The Cold, Cold World. Text: Hebrews 13 : 8. 
 
 " The Senior who leaves college finds the world no colder 
 than the school." 
 
 23. America Does Not Forget. 
 
 "Memorial Day is a perpetual pledge of the faithful re- 
 membrance of America." 
 
 24. At the Heart of Things. Text: Acts 9 : 4. 
 
 " Have mercy on things. There are souls hidden beneath 
 the surface." 
 
 25. The Power of Kindness. Text: Proverbs 15: 1. 
 
 " There is no more mighty force in the universe than the 
 simple quality of kindness." 
 
 26. The Crime of Competitf^e Armament. Text : Isaiah 
 2 : 1-5. 
 
 "War is the fiendish extension of claws and hoofs and 
 teeth and fangs." 
 
126 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 27. Children's Day. 
 
 " ' The other side of every cloud the sun is shining.' " 
 
 28. Can Christianity Fail? Text: Galatians 2 : 5. 
 
 " The solemn responsibility for the whole battle-line must 
 rest on the heart of every Christian." 
 
 29. Why I Am Proud of Syracuse. Text: Revelation 21. 
 
 " Her achievements are many and great ; but I love her for 
 her promise." 
 
 30. Under Two Flags. Text : Psalm 20 : 5. 
 
 "There is only one banner for the church; any other alle- 
 giance is treachery." 
 
 31. The Joy of Thy Lord. Text : Matthew 25 : 21. 
 
 " Work — more work — still more work — these are the suc- 
 cessive rewards from Christ." 
 
 32. If. Text : Luke 7 : 36-50. 
 
 " He does know our shortcomings — and yet he loves." 
 
 Z'h. The Legend of the Lake. 
 
 " A sanctuary where all feuds and rivalries are forgotten, 
 and all beauties are shared in friendship." 
 
 34. Perils on the Heights. 
 
 " Men cannot climb very high without endangering their 
 humihty and their friendliness." 
 
 35. Great is Diana of the Americans. Text: Acts 19 : 34. 
 
 "What is the goddess whose silver statues make our busi- 
 ness? " 
 
 36. Labor vs. Capital. Where Stands the Church ? Text : 
 Colossians 3 : 11. 
 
 " Too long has the church balanced itself carefully between 
 two extremes." 
 
 37. Lord, Is It I? Text: Joshua 7. 
 
 "Am I hindering the coming of victory?" 
 
 38. Too Much Speed. Text : Mark 4 : 28, 29. 
 
 " No generation in history has lived at a faster pace." 
 
APPENDIX 127 
 
 39. Three Baptist Men at the Heart of the World. Text : 
 Daniel 3. 
 
 "May there be the figure of the Son of Man visible in the 
 flames." 
 
 40. The Blunder of Bluff. Text : Matthew 23 : 27. 
 
 " Alice Adams, the most pathetic figure of modern fiction, 
 is a victim of the allurements of blufit." 
 
 41. Light Invincible. Text: John 1 : 5. 
 
 *' Darkness cannot batter it down. We see a star through 
 billions of miles of darkness." 
 
 \42..i Lessons from My Ford. Text : Proverbs 16 : 32. 
 
 Watch your gas, watch your radiator, watch your oil." 
 
 43. Doorkeepers of the Lord. Text : Psalm 84 : 10. 
 
 " This church is built upon the hidden service of humble 
 doorkeepers." 
 
 44. One Wasted Year. Text: 1 Samuel 13 : 1. 
 
 "A year of idleness spreads its failure over all of life." 
 
 45. A Twentieth Century Parable. Text: Mark 13 : 34. 
 "Would Jesus tell us stories of ourselves?" 
 
 46. Beams and Motes. Text : Matthew 7 : 4. 
 
 " How easy it is to prescribe for our neighbor's faults ! 
 How difficult to look steadily in a moral mirror ! " 
 
 47. Money. Text: 1 Timothy 6: 10. 
 
 " Money is the miracle of modern communication." 
 
 48. Colgate to Syracuse. Text : Proverbs 3 : 13. 
 
 '■' The defeats of yesterday will not hurt us tomorrow." 
 
 49. The Acid Test of Discipleship. Text: Mark 10 : 22. 
 " A drop of acid tells the story — gold or base metal." 
 
 50. The Best Story in the World. 
 
 "The wistful tale of the boy who ran away and the father 
 who waited." 
 
128 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 51. The Zero Hour. Text: Exodus 14 : 15. 
 
 " Our first real battle since the new captain came." 
 
 52. Shall the Church Charge Admission ? Text : 2 Thes- 
 salonians 3:1. 
 
 " Not if one seeking soul would be shut out." 
 
 53. How TO Change the World. Text : Isaiah 28 : 9, 10. 
 
 " Patience — line upon line — precept upon precept — cour- 
 age ! " 
 
 54. The Big Game. Text: Hebrews 12 : 1. 
 
 " Football is a tiny atom when compared with the game 
 of life." 
 
 55. The United States Then Being in a State of War. 
 Text: 2 Timothy 2 : 13. 
 
 " Every color is heightened by the presence of war." 
 
 56. A Portrait of a Good Sport. Text : 2 Timothy 4 : 7. 
 "A modern ideal with inspiration in it." 
 
 57. How NOT to be Thankful. Text: Luke 18 : 11. 
 
 " Do not demand a background of misery for your own 
 joy." 
 
 58. The Strategy of Foch. Text: Proverbs 16 : 32. 
 " Remember the Marne and Ferdinand Foch." 
 
 59. Excommunication. Text: 1 Corinthians 11 : 28, 
 
 " ' He drew a circle and shut me out. 
 Heretic, scorner, a thing to flout.' " 
 
 60. How Much of Christmas Is Christian? Text: Mat- 
 thew 7 : 23. 
 
 *' Ask the tired clerks, the overworked postmen, the selfish 
 children, the extravagant parents." 
 
 61. Has He Really Come? Text: Matthew 2 : 2. 
 "Has He been born in you?" 
 
 62. Christ, Our Passover. Text : 1 Corinthians 5 : 7, 8. 
 " The memorial of our deliverance." 
 
APPENDIX 129 
 
 63. B. C. AND A. D. The Message of the Calendar. Text: 
 Galatians 4 : 10. 
 
 " What is this figure at whose life the world's dates con- 
 verge ? " 
 
 64. Denominational Disarmament. Text : John 17 : 20-26. 
 " The frightful cost of foolish precautions against our 
 
 Christian brethren." 
 
 (kk How Insane Are You? 1. The Calamity of Conflict. 
 Text: Romans 7 : 18, 19. 
 " The hypocrite has started on the road to madness." 
 
 66. The Poor Little Rich Girl. Text: Matthew 17: 1-10. 
 "Shall religion be pampered by its misguided friends?" 
 
 67. How Insane Are You? 2. The Refuge of Repression. 
 Text : Romans 8 : 10. 
 
 " Not less life, but more life in a better direction." 
 
 68. The Church Speaks to the New Chancellor. Text : 
 2 Chronicles 32 : 7. 
 
 " Live your faith among us. Show forth Christ." 
 
 69. How Insane Are You? 3. The Peril of Projection. 
 Text : Romans 8 : 22, 23. 
 
 " Most of our criticism of others is a reflection on our- 
 selves." 
 
 70. An Adventure in Friendliness. Text : 1 Corinthians 13. 
 "Faith, hope, and friendliness, which is greatest?" 
 
 71. How Insane Are You? 4. The Folly of Phantasy. 
 Text : Romans 8 : 24-28. 
 
 " The day-dreamer and the sermon-taster are both show- 
 ing symptoms of insanity." 
 
 72. Pity and the Pope. Text : Matthew 16 : 18. 
 
 " Encased in heavy robes and tedious traditions, he is a 
 symbol of bewildered tiredness." 
 
 73. The Eminent Sanity of Jesus. Text: John 10 : 20. 
 " Poise — the kingly steadiness of the Christ." 
 
130 " PREACH IT AGAIN " 
 
 74. The Soul of Lincoln. Text: Matthew 12 : 28-34. 
 "Would Lincoln join this church?" 
 
 IS, What It Means to Be a Christian. Text: Philippians 
 3 : 14. 
 
 " To follow the way of Jesus — and to wish to share that 
 way with others." 
 
 76. The Good Fortune of Hard Luck. Text: Proverbs 3 : 
 11, 12. 
 
 " There is no strength without discipline." 
 
 n. What It Means to Be a Baptist. Text : Psalm 122. 
 
 '* First one must be a Christian. And then one must love 
 the Baptist ideals." 
 
 V 
 
\. 
 

 Date Due 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mv - 
 
 
 
 
 Fj^mutf 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i-- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (|)