Psychic Power in Prea 
 
 J. Spencer Kennard ; D.D. 
 
Book ! 
 
 Copyright^?.- 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 
 
PSYCHIC POWER 
 
 IN 
 
 PREACHING 
 
 BY 
 
 J. SPENCER KENNARD, D.D. 
 
 v 
 
 Edited with Memoir 
 
 by his son 
 
 Joseph Spencer Kennard 
 
 Philadelphia 
 GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
 
 103-105 South Fifteenth St. 
 
J3< 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 MAY, 14 1901 
 
 COPYRIGHT ENTRY 
 
 CLASS ^"XXc. N». 
 COPY 3. 
 
 Copyright, iqoi, by 
 George W. Jacobs & Co. 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In Memoriam vii 
 
 I. A Pulpit of Power the Need oe the Times . . i 
 
 II. Psychic Power in Preaching 15 
 
 HI. The Personal Factor in Preaching 29 
 
 IV. Commanding the Attention 47 
 
 V. The Psychology of Style 65 
 
 VL The Psychology of Emotion and Will .... 81 
 
 VII. The Sermon in Action 99 
 
 VIII. Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force ... 115 
 IX. The Psychic Power of Authority and Love . 131 
 X. The Psychic Power of the Holy Spirit ... 147 - 
 XI. Unrealized Ideals 173 
 
Un flDemoriam* 
 
In fIDemoriam* 
 
 IN the world of literature, of politics, of government, 
 or of finance, when a man has become famous, 
 
 has gained applause, has risen and overtopped his 
 fellows and has become a leader, ruler or king, how 
 the world is impressed with his personality, how filled 
 with comment at his passing from this life to that 
 which is beyond the grave ! Yet when he is weighed 
 there, in the balances of God, how small may be his 
 soul, how pitiful appear his character ! 
 
 Judged even by the world's standard, Dr. Kennard 
 was a distinguished man. As a pulpit-orator, as the 
 loved pastor of prominent city churches, as an earn- 
 est patriot, as a writer, as an evangelist, winning 
 souls; his name is known, his reputation is estab- 
 lished. This memoir, however, is not a panegyric. It 
 purposes to give, very simply and very briefly, the 
 record of a heart made great by goodness. It is a 
 tribute to a life filled with noble purpose and radiating 
 blessing upon his fellow-men. It is just one more 
 testimony to the truth of God's word that " they that 
 be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
 for ever and ever. ' ' 
 
 Because the life and work of this man so eminently 
 exemplified this wisdom and brightened his crown 
 with so many stars, a short account of that life and 
 work should be the most valuable chapter in a book 
 
 (vii) 
 
viii IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 whose aim and purpose is to help those who would 
 win souls. 
 
 Joseph Spencer Kennard was born in Philadelphia, 
 September 24, 1833. There his ancestors had lived 
 from before the days of Penn. They had occupied 
 prominent positions in the Pennsylvania and New 
 Jersey Colonies, and in the war of the Revolution they 
 were leaders of men and patriots. In his long ministry in 
 Philadelphia his father, Joseph Hugg Kennard, D.D., 
 an ambassador of heaven, was greatly honored of 
 God and men. There his son, Joseph Spencer, was 
 dedicated to the Lord at the time of his birth. Under 
 the care of parents who were remarkable for their 
 strong spiritual nature, he developed a fine inward 
 sensibility, which, grafted on an ardent temperament, 
 gave to his whole life among men an undertone caught 
 up in his musings upon the deep mysteries of Man and 
 Eternity and God : an undertone now joyous, anon 
 sad ; as, indeed, the contemplative soul is alternately 
 lifted to sunlit heights and depressed to the abysses. 
 
 At the age of twelve years he experienced conver- 
 sion, and received baptism at his father's hands in 
 the Tenth Baptist Church, Philadelphia. At school 
 this profession of religion brought upon him ridi- 
 cule from some of his fellows there ; but his bright, 
 sunny disposition, springing from a singularly beauti- 
 ful soul, his uncompromising moral earnestness, needed 
 no defense against their taunts. He was a natural 
 orator, having a clear, powerful and perfectly modu- 
 lated voice, graceful movements, a good command of 
 language and a certain impetuousness of delivery 
 
IN MEMORIAM. IX 
 
 which visibly proceeded from inward conviction. This 
 boy was father of the man. While he was a pupil in 
 the Philadelphia High School he, with seven fellow- 
 students, who, like himself at that time, were looking 
 forward to a career in the I,aw, formed the Forensic 
 Society. Among the first members of this society were 
 several youths who afterward rose to eminence in vari- 
 ous callings : Judge James T. Mitchell, of Philadel- 
 phia ; William T. Richards, the marine painter ; 
 Frank Stockton, the novelist, and George Reshe. As 
 a tribute to his high scholarship and character on 
 graduating from the High School he was chosen vale- 
 dictorian, both by vote of his class and desire of his 
 teachers. 
 
 He then entered L,ewisburg (now Bucknell) Uni- 
 versity, in the Senior Class. Shortly after entering 
 he decided to fit himself for a career in the ministry of 
 the Gospel. Through all his life thereafter there 
 remained vivid in his mind the memory of certain 
 passages of his spiritual experience in the retirement 
 of his closet at the University, in which he was favored 
 with sensible manifestations of the Divine Presence. 
 The youth had in these Divine visitations assurance, 
 which he never lost and never forfeited, that he was 
 chosen to be a Vessel of Election and a messenger 
 from God to the souls of men. That assurance, that 
 conviction, was as deeply and as firmly rooted then 
 and thenceforth in his consciousness as the sense of 
 his own being ; it was part of himself ; nay, it was the 
 principle and prime-motor of his life, of his personality ; 
 indeed, this is a Man sent of God, or he is naught ! 
 
X IN MKMORIAM. 
 
 He is still a youth, a novice ; but already he 
 recognizes in its full measure the grandeur and the 
 holiness of his vocation. In a letter to his mother, 
 from I^ewisburg, he writes : 
 
 I was sitting in my study, and I know not how it 
 was, but I am sure that God has visited me. My soul 
 was baptized in the glory of God. I was thinking on 
 prayer, on intimate communion with Him, and of 
 the glory of the redemption which Christ has pur- 
 chased ; the completeness of the righteousness with 
 which sinners such as I am are invested in Christ ; the 
 reality of the grace of God in Christ ; the reality of 
 the promises ; the certainty of their fulfillment ; the 
 amazing, the overwhelming reality of my being per- 
 mitted to come right into the presence of the great 
 God : so near, — so near and to meet smiles — only 
 smiles and arms of love extended to me. The three 
 Blessed ones seemed to stand around, inviting my 
 petitions. The Father, from whom I have gone like a 
 prodigal ; the Saviour, whom I have crucified, and the 
 Holy Spirit, whom I have grieved. Why those floods 
 of joy ? I heard the precious words, " Ask what thou 
 wilt." "O, then, give me love for souls." This is 
 what I want. Oh, Saviour, who died for sinners ! 
 Oh, Father, that would not that any should perish ! 
 Oh, Spirit of Grace, who loveth to lead souls to 
 heaven, give me this burning, impelling love for souls, 
 lost souls! 
 
 Again he writes: 
 
 When I hear of my friends being instrumental 
 in the conversion of sinners it makes me long to be 
 engaged in the blessed work ; I am impatient to be 
 about my Master's work ; yet, alas ! how unfit I am ! 
 My constant prayer is that God will make me an in- 
 strument for some good. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XI 
 
 He entered Princeton Seminary in 1854, and re- 
 mained there two years. He viewed the time he 
 was to spend in the seminary as a season for diligent 
 study of the Sacred Sciences, and of the art of Apos- 
 tolical preaching, as also for disciplining his own will 
 to make it in all things obedient to God's will, and 
 himself a fit instrument to God's hand for the work of 
 the ministry. A letter written by him to his mother 
 about this time shows that he was already engaged in 
 the study of the same problem which occupied his 
 mind and his pen up to the close of his life — the Phi- 
 losophy of Preaching — touching which this present 
 volume is proof that he studied that problem to some 
 purpose. But the letter shows that he was at the 
 same time contemplating the whole field of evangeli- 
 cal labor with a view to discover wherein the defenses 
 of the Church most needed strengthening. Mean- 
 while his own spiritual growth must not be neglected, 
 and he searches his heart to find out what hindrances 
 might there exist to the inflow of God's grace for his 
 own sanctification and for the salvation of souls. He 
 writes: 
 
 Since I have been here my ideas in regard to what 
 is eminently desirable in the education of a minister 
 ' ' that needeth not be ashamed ' ' have been enlarged, 
 so that I have resolved to make myself master of the 
 philosophy of the composition and delivery of ser- 
 mons, and also to make myself acquainted thoroughly 
 with Biblical and Ecclesiastical history in all its de- 
 partments, and with Hebrew and Greek Criticisms, so 
 as to be able to meet and refute, if circumstances 
 require, the cavils of learned skeptics. 
 
Xll IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 I have been reading in the letters and journal of 
 Henry Martyn, and the example of that holy man has 
 been like a great light to make my own darkness visi- 
 ble. I think my heart has been in some degree hum- 
 bled — for whereof have I to boast ? Were I the holi- 
 est of God's creatures, it would be surely of grace. I 
 enjoy near access to God at the throne of grace ; I 
 feel reluctant to leave the mercy seat. God's word 
 has an especial interest for me. Whenever I read its 
 pages I feel a thrill of delight, and when I meditate 
 on its precious words of encouragement and love, so 
 peculiarly adapted to my condition, my heart is melted 
 in tenderness, and a joy such as I experienced when 
 first I realized the forgiveness of sin, only a sublimer 
 and purer joy, reigns in my heart. 
 
 My plan of living, for the most part, is this: I 
 rise before light, from half-past four o'clock to six ; I 
 spend some time in study and one-half hour in devo- 
 tion, which is very sweet to my soul. Then I take a 
 walk of about two miles. In my walk I select some 
 subject for meditation, and I find this very profitable. 
 I return to breakfast ; after breakfast, study until reci- 
 tations. The intervening time until dinner I spend 
 in devotion. The afternoon I spend in the prepara- 
 tion and recitation of Homiletics and Greek exegesis. 
 Evening chapel prayers follow immediately the recita- 
 tions. After supper I generally spend in some prayer 
 meeting, or committee, or society. 
 
 Oh that God would enable me, in future, to keep 
 constantly in view the one and only object of all my 
 study and all my labors, His glory and the salvation 
 of souls! 
 
 Oh, come, thou mighty wind ; come, Holy Spirit, 
 and waft me onward and higher, and still higher, till 
 my entire self shall be absorbed in the glory of the Sun 
 of Righteousness! I^ike Him, to be meek and lowly ; 
 like Him, to be crucified to the world ; like Him, if 
 
IN MEMORIAM. Xlll 
 
 need be, crucified for the world ; like Him, to weep 
 for sinners ; like Him, to say," not my will, O Father, 
 but thine be done." Oh! to have no thought but 
 ' ' Christ Crucified ! ' ' To have no ambition but to 
 win souls to heaven ! 
 
 Ah ! my dear mother, I feel that prayers, and 
 strong cryings, and tears, and fastings, and abase- 
 ment, and self -mortification, and self-examination, 
 and fierce conflicts with myself and the buffetings of 
 satan, all, all ! are not too great a price to pay for such 
 glorious transformation — likeness to Jesus. 
 
 So eagerly did he pursue his studies in the sem- 
 inary that his health failed him, and for a while 
 he traveled in Canada, accompanied by his friend, 
 De Witt Taylor. Having been licensed to preach, he 
 made a missionary tour as agent of the American Sun- 
 day School Union, preaching and founding Sunday 
 Schools. He also, while at the seminary, for some 
 time preached in the Bordentown (N. J.) Baptist 
 Church. In 1856, when his course of studies was 
 completed, he received calls from two churches, one 
 from the First Germantown Church, Philadelphia ; 
 the other from the Bridgeton (N. J.) Baptist Church ; 
 this he decided to accept, aud December 23, 1856, in 
 the Tenth Baptist Church, Philadelphia, of which his 
 father was pastor, he was ordained to the Gospel min- 
 istry, and to that charge. Thus did he enter on his 
 labors, which through a long life were never inter- 
 mitted save for necessary rest. 
 
 It was in Bridgeton that he first met his future wife, 
 Nancy Reed Jeffers, whom he married in 1858. She 
 was the youngest of a family of beautiful girls, and 
 
XIV IN MBMORIAM. 
 
 was endowed with every gift and grace that could 
 make her the meet life-companion and helper of a min- 
 ister of the Gospel ; in his labors he was ever sustained 
 by her counsel, as well as by her active cooperation. 
 
 With a deep sense of the responsibilities of his 
 office and of the importance of redeeming the time, he 
 went about his labors in this his first pastoral field. 
 In his journal of that time he is seen to be constantly 
 struggling with what he calls his besetting sin, waste 
 of time ; though in addition to the duties of his 
 Bridgeton pastorate, he imposed upon himself the bur- 
 den of mission labors at places a considerable distance 
 from the town. At one of these outlying stations he 
 conducted meetings almost every night for two or 
 three months. In Bridgeton he set on foot sundry 
 movements that went beyond the conventional limits 
 of his Baptist pastorate, and were non-sectarian or 
 inter-denominational. Thus, he organized a Bridgeton 
 branch of the Young Men's Christian Association ; he 
 induced the churches to join in weekly union prayer 
 meetings ; once he prevailed upon the inhabitants of 
 the town to give up to prayer and fasting one whole 
 day ; on that day every place of business in Bridgeton 
 was closed, and the city was, so to speak, on its knees. 
 A memorable revival of religion followed. Hardly less 
 worthy of note was another innovation wrought by the 
 young minister — namely, that of ministers of different 
 denominations uniting in meeting at their respective 
 homes for social converse. And it was he that founded 
 the Bridgeton Conference of Baptist Ministers. 
 
 He stayed three years in Bridgeton, and there his 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XV 
 
 eldest son and namesake was born. In September, 
 1859, having resigned that pastorate, he assumed the 
 charge of the B Street Baptist Church, Washington 
 City. 
 
 The change from the quiet of an inland town to 
 the turmoil of the national capital was revolutionary. 
 John Brown's raid occurred between Mr. Kennard's 
 acceptance of the call and his removal. If the whole 
 country was electrified with suppressed excitement, 
 Washington was the storm centre, and one could 
 scarcely mention the dangerous topic without causing 
 an ominous flash. The spiritual atmosphere was cold. 
 People were more anxious about the condition of the 
 country than the state of the church. At K Street, as 
 in many other churches, there were many Southern- 
 ers, and a strong Southern sentiment before the elec- 
 tion of Lincoln. Truly, there were lions in the path 
 of the loyal j~oung minister. He and his charming 
 wife were received with a generous welcome by ' ' Old 
 Washington" society. He was asked to accept the 
 nomination for Chaplain of the House of Representa- 
 tives, an honor which he declined on account of the 
 necessary electioneering. Ushered into the sophisti- 
 cated life of a great city, his first battle was in 
 the cause of Temperance. In the years before the 
 "Women's Temperance Crusade" only a few inde- 
 pendent and hardy souls dreamed of advocating total 
 abstinence, but Kennard and his wife were among the 
 few. In writing to his father during those early days 
 he says : 
 
 I shall find it painful to maintain my principles 
 
Xvi IN MKMORIAM. 
 
 in regard to temperance here. The fact is, they have 
 wine everywhere you go, and everybody drinks. The 
 most sober and excellent members of the church, dea- 
 cons included, think nothing of it. They think it 
 
 strange I do not drink, as did without hesitation, 
 
 and expressed himself as doing it because we ought to 
 enjoy all the good things which our Heavenly Father 
 gives us, and be grateful for them. Since I have come 
 
 has not drunk at any of the companies where we 
 
 have been together. I must and will lift up my voice 
 against it. Every day I become more firm and deter- 
 mined in my principles. I have told them plainly, 
 though kindly, that I am, from the crown of my head 
 to the soles of my feet, an out-and-out temperance 
 man ; that I am utterly opposed to the drinking prac- 
 tices of society. 
 
 In the early days of his ministry he found one 
 of his most loved and valued friends in the Hon. 
 Amos Kendall (Jackson's Postmaster- General), one of 
 Washington's most distinguished citizens. The grand 
 old man was immediately attracted by the young 
 fellow of twenty-six, to whom life was at once so beau- 
 tiful and so solemn. He was not a member of the 
 church, but contributed largely to its support, and 
 considered the young minister his special protegi. 
 In their correspondence of later years Mr. Kendall's 
 letters were always characterized by a fatherly solici- 
 tude, which was not hidden by his old-fashioned, dig- 
 nified reserve. 
 
 After the installation of President I^incoln there 
 was an exodus of Southerners from the city, the B 
 Street Church losing some of its strongest supporters. 
 
 The news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached 
 
IN MKMORIAM. Xvil 
 
 Washington on a Sunday just before the hour of the 
 morning service. This was war ! The city was dazed 
 and frightened ; but to one man the immediate duty 
 seemed perfectly direct and plain ; he determined to 
 declare his position that morning. At the close of the 
 services the pastor of the B Street Church spoke of 
 the surrender, and urged his church to rally to the 
 support of the government. After a moment of 
 silence, the Southerners left their seats and went out. 
 
 What with the general turmoil in the city, what 
 with the falling away of the Southern membership, the 
 resources of the church were desperately impaired ; it 
 was unable to pay the pastor's salary, yet never was 
 need of a shepherd more pressing. Mr. Kennard 
 applied in May for a position in the Treasury Depart- 
 ment, which he immediately obtained. For a number 
 of months he spent six hours a day signing Treasury 
 notes, and gave the remaining hours to the work of 
 the church, visiting the sick and attending funerals 
 after four in the afternoon. While the church was 
 united in love of the pastor, sectional feeling was too 
 strong to be subdued or ignored. After a meeting, in 
 which a majority refused to receive Northerners as 
 members of the church, he sorrowfully resigned his 
 charge. Soon after his resignation a large number of 
 the loyal members went out and formed a new church. 
 
 The pastorship was offered to Mr. Kennard, but 
 his health was so much impaired that he could not 
 accept the charge, though he agreed to serve tem- 
 porarily. 
 
 But the clash of arms had an echo in the new 
 
XV111 IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 church. In the Union prayer meeting, too, there was 
 so much hesitation about mentioning the great ques- 
 tion of the day that Mr. Kennard wrote the leaders 
 that he could not have any part in the services unless 
 he were free to ' ' pray for the country. ' ' He was often 
 on the field of battle with the Christian Commission, 
 and ministered to the sick and dying soldiers. At 
 home he was continually brought face to face with the 
 horrors of war. At last, in October, he left the scene 
 of conflict for New England, and settled in Woburn, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The church at Woburn was strong, spiritual, 
 peaceful and united, and after the turmoil and anxieties 
 of his Washington pastorate, Mr. Kennard was greatly 
 cheered by the abundant fruits of his labors there. 
 Here his extraordinary spiritual force and sweet per- 
 suasiveness won all hearts, and through hearts his 
 words found access to souls. Soon after his settle- 
 ment in the town a revival in the church resulted in a 
 great harvest of converts. 
 
 The pastor records in his Journal, ''never so 
 happy and never so much real satisfaction in my 
 work." With the exception of an occasional visit 
 from neighboring pastors, he carried on the work 
 alone. From Mr. Kendall he received frequent reports 
 of the new Calvary Church, in Washington, estab- 
 lished by Mr. Kennard. To-day the church stands 
 as a beautiful memorial of the courage of that little 
 Gideon's band, as well as of the generosity of Amos 
 Kendall. 
 
 While in the midst of his labors in Woburn, Mr. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XIX 
 
 Kennard received what he considered an imperative 
 call to serve his country in the army. The nation was 
 passing through her darkest hours. Volunteers were 
 no longer ready to fill the breaches made by disastrous 
 battles. The draft raised a tempest of indignation, 
 of which the riots in New York were only a partial 
 expression. Mr. Kennard attended many public meet- 
 ings, and spoke earnestly in behalf of the government. 
 His eloquence had much effect in changing the current 
 of popular feeling, and his words were emphasized 
 by the news that he himself had been drafted. The 
 people protested, but he insisted upon going to the 
 front. As he had said, ' ' Every man should consider 
 the draft the call of God to service." This was the 
 occasion of a beautiful act of self-sacrifice on the part 
 of one of the members of his church, who presented 
 himself at the pastor's study early on the morning after 
 the news had been received. ' ' Pastor, ' ' he said, ' ' you 
 must not go. Your work here is too important. My wife 
 and I have been praying over this matter all night, 
 and I have decided to go in your stead." A little 
 later the venerable Deacon Converse, who had been 
 confined to the house for many months, appeared at 
 the door and repeated, ' ' Pastor, you cannot go. I will 
 send a substitute in your stead. ' ' But though his heart 
 was deeply touched by their devotion, the pastor's res- 
 olution was unshaken. When the time arrived for the 
 physical examination he set out for Lawrence. In the 
 evening a crestfallen ' ' conscript ' ' came home with 
 patriotism as strong as ever, but somewhat less buoy- 
 ant. Kennard had been refused on account of " deli- 
 
XX IN MBMORIAM. 
 
 cacy of physical organization." In the words of the 
 physician, ' ' he might last three months, but not longer, 
 and would cost the government more than he was 
 worth." 
 
 The climate of Woburn was severe, and each winter 
 he seemed less able to withstand its rigors. After a 
 vacation to recuperate his health, he returned to his 
 field in Woburn and renewed his pastoral work, but 
 continued to suffer with his throat. He was urged by 
 his physician and family to go to a milder climate, 
 and in September he accepted a call to Calvary 
 Church, of Albany, and in December became its pas- 
 tor. The pastorate in Albany was one of unalloyed 
 happiness. Almost immediately after his settlement 
 there the church received a great outpouring of the 
 Holy Spirit, and many souls were brought to Christ. 
 Ninety-six were baptized that winter. The church 
 also received large additions by letter, and its strength 
 was nearly doubled. 
 
 Two of Mr. Kennard' s old friends had followed him 
 to Albany — De Witt Taylor, the friend of his boy- 
 hood and youth, and John B. Mulford, his brother-in- 
 law, who became superintendent of the Sunday 
 School. 
 
 That same summer his father, Dr. Joseph Hugg 
 Kennard, pastor of the Tenth Baptist Church, Phila- 
 delphia, who had been its pastor since its formation, 
 in 1838, died. For his successor the "Old Tenth" 
 chose, as of course, the son. Only sixteen months 
 had Mr. Kennard been pastor of the Albany church, 
 but already he was held fast to it by many spiritual 
 
IN MKMORIAM. XXI 
 
 ties, and the alternative of severing these or of reject- 
 ing the affectionate call of his beloved father's children 
 in Christ was for him an exquisitely painful trial. 
 The Albany church protested against his leaving, and 
 only after repeated appeals from their pastor would 
 they consent to accept his resignation. The long-cher- 
 ished wish and hope of his father and the kindly, affec- 
 tionate invitation of the Philadelphia church prevailed. 
 The ' ' Old Tenth, ' ' under the ministry of the elder 
 Dr. Kennard, was a church ever alive, always "in 
 revival " ; its spiritual life never intermitted, but was 
 always as a strong, steady flame. His son was not 
 the man to suffer the sacred fire to die out; it glowed 
 and flamed in his own soul; and thence it radiated 
 through the church and beyond the bounds of the 
 church, even into the outer darkness of vagrancy and 
 godlessness. Being touched by the forlorn condition 
 of the human wastrels issuing from the station-houses 
 on Sunday mornings, with no place to turn to but the 
 drink-shops, Mr. Kennard proposed to his members 
 to invite them to a " Sunday Breakfast." A hall was 
 opened, where a hot breakfast was served each Sunday 
 morning to a forlorn company gathered from the 
 various station-houses. After the poor fellows had 
 been warmed and fed, they were glad to listen to the 
 preaching of the Gospel in the meeting which fol- 
 lowed. Many of these men were converted, many 
 were saved from the curse of intemperance; and, with 
 some interruptions, the Sunday breakfasts have been 
 continued ever since that time, and are one of Phila- 
 delphia's institutions to-day. 
 
XX11 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 As the city was at this time growing rapidly 
 toward the northwest, Mr. Kennard realized the need 
 of church extension in that direction, and opened a mis- 
 sion Sunday School, to which was given the name of 
 ' ' The Kennard Mission. ' ' From this lowly beginning 
 sprung what is now one of the most notable institu- 
 tional churches in America — Grace Church, known as 
 "The Temple," with its college, hospital and other 
 annexes — a noble monument to the pastoral zeal, the 
 indomitable enterprise and the administrative ability 
 of Dr. Russell H. Conwell. 
 
 After this Dr. Kennard was for five years pastor 
 of the Pilgrim Church, in New York City, and in that 
 period his labors were rewarded with conversions to 
 the number of over three hundred. When, in 1875, 
 Mr. Moody was holding that wonderful series of 
 meetings at the Hippodrome, Dr. Kennard was his 
 efficient co-laborer. He and his wife were constantly at 
 work in the inquiry room; and in the auditorium itself 
 his exhortations and his prayers were blessed by the 
 conversion of souls. Of all those who spoke, no voice 
 surpassed his in the power of reaching the utmost 
 corners of the hall. 
 
 At the time of Mr. Kennard' s residence in New 
 York the Baptist denomination was passing through a 
 very critical period in its history. Owing to the great 
 intellectual activity of the past century, there has been 
 a growing tendency to question all religious creeds. 
 No branch of the church has been free from the strug- 
 gle between the iconoclasts on the one hand, who 
 attacked long established doctrines and usages, and 
 
IN MKMORIAM. XX111 
 
 the conservatives on the other, who believed them- 
 selves defenders of the faith. The Baptists have 
 suffered less than others from these contentions owing 
 to their cardinal doctrine of the right of private judg- 
 ment. In the seventies, however, quite a storm was 
 raised over the communion question. The conserva- 
 tive element in the church suddenly awakened to the 
 fact that among the younger ministers was a growing 
 disposition to forsake the time-honored custom of 
 limiting the invitation to the L,ord's Supper to " mem- 
 bers of the churches of the same faith and order. ' ' 
 The theological position of the Baptists on the subject 
 of " believer's baptism " and immersion was never dis- 
 puted; but the corollary that only such "baptized" 
 believers were to be admitted to communion at the 
 Lord's Table, thus depriving them of fellowship with 
 Christians of other denominations, found many dis- 
 senters. The Church in England had always taken a 
 liberal view of the subject, and a small section of the 
 denomination in America was distinguished by the 
 title ' ' Freewill Baptists, ' ' because of its open Com- 
 munion position ; but such had not been the general 
 feeling in this country. The merits of the discussion 
 have no place in this sketch. Neither party to the 
 controversy was willing to yield in a matter of con- 
 science. A number of valuable men left the denomi- 
 nation, and there was danger of an irreconcilable 
 division in the ranks. 
 
 But the day was saved by the wisdom and courage 
 of a few men who could see both sides and were not 
 afraid to stand for justice and liberty as against party 
 
XXIV IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 feeling. Dr. A. J. Gordon, Dr. Kennard, Dr. Neale 
 and a few others believed that the Baptist doctrine of 
 soul liberty was of greater importance than any dogma 
 concerning the order of the sacraments, however 
 logically derived. While unflinchingly loyal to the 
 faith of the Fathers, they set themselves determinedly 
 against the spirit of ecclesiarchical coercion then ram- 
 pant. At no small cost to themselves, they kept firm 
 hold of the denominational helm until the ship should 
 right herself. The contest was long and bitter. The 
 question then at issue was not settled. It probably 
 will remain a subject for discussion for many years to 
 come, but it will never again become a matter of 
 church discipline or threaten the solidarity of the 
 denomination. 
 
 The strong reaction of his sensitive spirit after the 
 theological controversy resulted in great nervous ex- 
 haustion. This was increased by partial sunstroke, 
 and his apparently failing health caused anxiety to 
 his family. 
 
 In August, 1878, his health being restored, he 
 accepted a call from the Central Square Baptist 
 Church, East Boston, and held that charge for three 
 years, during which he devoted much of his time to 
 the study, critical and historical, of Buddhism and 
 other Oriental religions: one essay of his, of consider- 
 able compass, upon the life of Buddha, won favorable 
 notice among European as well as American scholars. 
 In this period, also, it was that he commenced a series 
 of articles on Pulpit Eloquence, out of which grew, or 
 rather which grew into, the present treatise. In 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XXV 
 
 recognition of these valuable contributions to the 
 sacred sciences and literature of theology, pure and 
 applied, Madison (now Colgate) University conferred 
 upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 He was chosen pastor of the Fourth Baptist Church, 
 Chicago, in January, 1882. There the larger oppor- 
 tunities for work afforded by a great city were again 
 his, and his vigor of body and mind was more than 
 restored. In his journal he says: " My health at 51 
 is apparently better than at 21." Certainly he had 
 greater power of endurance. The church building 
 was inadequate in size, comfort and attractiveness to 
 the needs of the congregation, but the people were 
 alert, zealous in good works and devoted to the pastor. 
 Soon after coming to the city, Mrs. Kennard, who had 
 always been interested in practical temperance work, 
 opened a mission on South Halsted street. From this 
 mission reformed men were from time to time brought 
 into the church, and were most kindly received. Some 
 of these men have become active Christian workers, 
 and one is a preacher of the Gospel. 
 
 For a number of years Dr. Kennard had felt 
 himself called to preach the Gospel as an evangelist. 
 He had talents peculiarly fitting him for such a high 
 vocation, and he possessed every qualification neces- 
 sary to success. A born orator, his commanding and 
 dignified presence, his powerful yet exquisitely modu- 
 lated voice, his abounding sympathy, his intimate 
 knowledge of the way to reach and influence the hearts 
 of his hearers, all combined to make him an almost 
 ideal preacher. To these qualifications he added care- 
 
XXVI IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 ful preparation, unremitting study, and the "open 
 mind ' ' which is always ready to learn from others 
 and profit by observation. 
 
 He entered upon the work of evangelism in 1887, 
 and for more than seven years deprived himself of 
 home comfort and the happiness of being with his 
 beloved family for the sake of increased usefulness in 
 the Master's cause. During the first winter he made 
 a tour of some of the principal cities of the South — 
 Atlanta, Montgomery, Macon and others — and, at the 
 urgent solicitation of the churches, his labors ..contin- 
 ued until the heat of midsummer. In the brief 
 period of eighteen days spent in Atlanta the church 
 was greatly revived and strengthened, and more than 
 a hundred were brought to Christ. In Montgomery 
 his work was still more remarkable, as he was able to 
 reach that most difficult of all classes, the young club 
 men. There he received this letter from — 
 
 Two young men who have been greatly benefited by 
 Dr. Kennard's preaching, and are praying for all the 
 young men of this city. For God's sake, don't leave 
 this week. Young men are talking and thinking 
 about religion who have before treated it with utter 
 contempt. Yours truly, 
 
 Two Hard Casks. 
 
 The people thronged to the meetings, and, as usual, 
 the preacher was unsparing of his own strength. He 
 would hold a service at any hour of the day or night, 
 when he could get an audience. Frequently he records 
 a morning service from eight to nine- thirty, an after- 
 noon service at four, and the regular preaching in the 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XXV11 
 
 evening, with an after-meeting lasting until ten 
 o'clock. On Sunday he addressed the Sunday School, 
 then preached, held a meeting for men in the after- 
 noon, and the usual service at night. While intense 
 and enthusiastic always, his preaching was never sen- 
 sational. As the interest in a church deepened the 
 atmosphere became tense with a spiritual emotion that 
 did not, however, tend toward hysteria. 
 
 Here, as in Atlanta, the people vied with each other 
 in expressions of love and appreciation. For, although 
 a Northern man, Dr. Kennard was entirely free from 
 sectional feeling, and the Southerners in turn were sur- 
 prised and delighted to find him so completely sympa- 
 thetic and ' ' one of themselves. ' ' 
 
 In one of his home letters he says : ' i I wish I had 
 a day or two to rest before beginning in Macon, but 
 my engagements overlap by reason that they are bound 
 I shall stay a few days longer at each place, and so 
 the next has to be postponed, and I hate to ask a fur- 
 ther postponement." In Macon he was received with 
 the same cordiality, and his work was blessed in the 
 same abundant measure. Very soon after his arrival 
 an incident occurred which stirred his righteous soul. 
 The Salvation Army had sent some of its officers to 
 the city, but the intelligent people regarded them with 
 suspicion, while the lower classes met them with 
 ridicule and hatred. 
 
 Two of these officers, after being grossly insulted 
 by the police and the mob, were arrested and thrown 
 into jail. The next morning a " trial" was given 
 them, and they were put under bonds to keep the 
 
XXV111 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 peace. That afternoon Dr. Kennard was to address a 
 meeting in the Academy of Music. He invited one of 
 the officers to occupy the platform with him, and in- 
 troduced him to the audience as ' ' a fellow laborer 
 who has had the honor of suffering in prison for 
 Christ's sake." Then the young man, an intelligent 
 and modest fellow, related his experience of conversion 
 and offered prayer, the evangelist kneeling beside him 
 on the stage. Afterward Dr. Kennard commended 
 and explained the work of the Salvation Army, and 
 denounced the action of the Mayor, the City Attorney 
 and the Recorder who tried the case. It was a danger- 
 ous stand for a stranger and a Northerner to take, and 
 many men would have kept silence, feeling themselves 
 justified in considering the possible injury to their own 
 work. But the warm-hearted Southerners recognized 
 his chivalrous spirit, and responded with cordiality. 
 One of the men denounced asked to be introduced 
 to the evangelist, and accepted the rebuke in a 
 friendly way. The Mayor also announced that he 
 would allow the Salvationists to hold meetings in any 
 of the parks, and even offered to provide seats for their 
 audiences. 
 
 It had now grown very warm, and Dr. Kennard 
 greatly desired to attend the Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion and seek a little respite from his labors. But the 
 pastor of the Macon church was ill and could not 
 preach, the meetings were continuously crowded and 
 many enquirers were coming forward each night. He 
 could not take the responsibility of leaving them. 
 When the meeting was over he went to Albany, 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XXIX 
 
 Georgia, and from there to Cuthbert, finishing his work 
 early in June, and having seen as the result of his 
 personal labors more than six hundred souls brought 
 to Christ. A letter from the last-mentioned place to 
 the " Christian Index" voices the general sentiment. 
 After recounting the fruits of the ten days' mission, 
 the writer says: 
 
 ' ' The preaching was all done, and the meetings 
 were mainly conducted, by Rev. J. S. Kennard, D.D., of 
 Chicago. Of all the evangelists from abroad whom I 
 have met, he most nearly approaches my notion of a 
 model New Testament evangelist. He may truly be 
 called a powerful preacher, yet he makes no effort at 
 elaborately intellectual discourse. His sermons are 
 remarkable for plainness and simplicity. There is, 
 both in his preaching and his methods of conducting 
 his meetings, an entire absence of eccentricities and 
 effort at mere sensation. With a lively, emotional 
 nature, full of genuine tenderness, and abounding 
 in the sweet arts of loving persuasion, he neither ex- 
 pends himself in awakening excitement in his hearers, 
 nor gives any erroneous or uncertain direction to 
 awaken feeling. With him Christ is emphaticalty all 
 in all. Believe in, accept, submit to, the loving 
 Saviour, who only can furnish the righteousness 
 demanded by God's holy law, and who ' is able to 
 save unto the uttermost all who come unto God by 
 Him,' is the burden of his every exhortation, warning 
 and persuasion. The indifferent are most tenderly 
 admonished of impending danger, the anxious are 
 carefully advised to read God's Word inquiringly and 
 upon their knees, while the cross is continually held 
 before their eyes as the sure hope which they may and 
 ought to accept now. None are hurried into the 
 church without careful inquiry into their spiritual 
 
XXX IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 state, and full instructions as to the nature and evi- 
 dences of regeneration, and concerning the important 
 obligations of a profession of religion. 
 
 One important characteristic of Dr. Kennard as an 
 evangelist is his complete recognition of the rights and 
 responsibilities of the local pastor. This characteris- 
 tic is, unfortunately, not possessed by all who assume 
 the evangelistic office. For the lack of it and on ac- 
 count of a free use of clap- trap, stage tricks and down- 
 right humbuggery, many who travel as dispensers of 
 the good news of salvation have incurred the suspicion 
 of ambition, self-seeking, and even of hypocrisy. The 
 sacred office of evangelist has itself been brought into 
 disesteem. Consequently, many careful pastors are 
 slow to admit the professional revivalist into their 
 fields. Yet among the classes of ministers catalogued 
 in the New Testament we find evangelists ; and obser- 
 vation shows that there are diversities of gifts to this 
 day in the church. Many men who are of great value 
 as constant instructors and as administrators of church 
 affairs are perceived by others, as well as acknowledged 
 by themselves, to be painfully deficient in the special 
 work of awakening the unconverted and openly gather- 
 ing souls into the church; while others, whose labors 
 in the latter line are unmistakably and gloriously 
 blessed, would be found equally wanting in some im- 
 portant qualifications for the pastoral office. 
 
 The entire community regrets his departure. Hav- 
 ing had the privilege of entertaining him during his 
 stay among us, I learned to love him very much. 
 Thanking God for sending him this way, I earnestly 
 commend him to the brethren everywhere. 
 
 John T. Clarke. 
 
 For the next six years Dr. Kennard spent almost all 
 his time in active evangelism. In 1888 he went to the 
 
IN MKMORIAM. XXXI 
 
 Pacific Coast, and greatly strengthened the churches in 
 San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Diego 
 and Riverside. Through special services he reached 
 many young men who were not accustomed to attend- 
 ing church, and had the joy of reaping a rich harvest 
 of souls. Great as was his desire to remain with his 
 family, and in a settled pastorate, the call to field 
 service seemed imperative. Again and again he crossed 
 the continent from east to west and traversed the 
 United States from north to south, laboring in cities 
 as far distant as Brooklyn, New York, and Sioux 
 Falls, South Dakota, and Austin, Texas. 
 
 He was not content with preaching the Gospel from 
 the pulpit. He carried it from door to door wherever 
 they would hear him. Of this work he wrote : 
 
 ' ' You cannot tell how this individual work, directly 
 to invite the people to Christ, goes to my heart. If I 
 had my way, I would just go on a tramp among the 
 destitute places, as Uncle John Vassar did. It is 
 about as near Christ's method as anything I can 
 think of." 
 
 During his few periods of rest he occupied the time 
 in writing. His home-coming was always looked for- 
 ward to by himself and his family with impatience. 
 When traveling he wrote almost daily, and never was 
 satisfied if a day passed without receiving a letter from 
 home. His arrival was the signal for general jubila- 
 tion, and the family would all gather around to hear 
 of his trip and tell of all that had happened while he 
 was gone. He was interested in all the details of his 
 
XXX11 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 children's life, anxious about their studies and much 
 concerned for their future. To his sons he was always 
 an ideal man. As each one launched out in his busi- 
 ness or profession he felt that his father had the 
 strongest interest in his success and shared his 
 anxieties. 
 
 His unaffected, courteous respect for womanhood 
 was ever conspicuous, especially in his relation to his own 
 wife and daughters. To the former he was always a 
 lover, and constantly attributed his success and the hap- 
 piness of his life to her. To the latter he was a friend 
 and companion, never unapproachable, always sympa- 
 thetic, while his keen enjoyment of a frolic bridged 
 the difference of years. His childlike trust in peo- 
 ple, even after repeated disappointments, occasioned a 
 great deal of playful reproof from his children. He 
 was extravagantly fond of music, and at any hour of 
 the day or evening would suggest that ' ' we have a 
 little singing. ' ' When depressed or anxious, he could 
 easily be brought to a cheerful state of mind by an 
 appeal to his sense of the ridiculous, as he was always 
 able to see the amusing side of a situation. His 
 geniality and his readiness to share in the griefs as in 
 the joys of other people won the affection of all with 
 whom he was brought into contact. He asked little for 
 his personal comfort or gratification, and . was revered 
 and loved by the poor and lowly. He had a naturally 
 quick temper, but he had too sweet a nature ever to 
 intentionally wound, and if he had spoken rashly in 
 his " haste," was immediate in his repentance and 
 sorrow. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XXX111 
 
 At the earnest solicitation of his family he 
 returned to regular pastoral work in the Belden 
 Avenue Church, Chicago, but after two years resigned 
 because of impaired health; that was his last pastoral 
 charge. 
 
 Dr. Kennard and his family then removed to 
 Pittsburg and became identified with the Shad3^ 
 Avenue Church, with whose pastor, Dr. Stanton, he 
 had a most pleasant association. The following 
 winter he went to visit his eldest son, who was living 
 in Florence, Italy, and spent nearly a year in Europe. 
 With the enthusiasm of a boy he absorbed the history 
 and art of that country. He revived his old acquaint- 
 ance with Savonarola, exploring the convent of San 
 Marco, climbing the many steps to the little cell of 
 the great preacher's prison, and hunting in dusty 
 little shops for portraits of the " Prediche." The 
 beautiful simplicity of St. Francis of Assisi fascinated 
 him and, having made himself familiar with the saint's 
 history, he paid a visit to Assisi to see the many spots 
 made sacred through their relation to the saint. He 
 was not less interested in the history and problems of 
 modern Italy. He was burdened with the sorrows of 
 Armenia, and he was moved to indignation by the 
 "Concert of Europe." With most of us distance 
 from the scene of sorrow seems to have a benumbing 
 effect upon the feelings. But Dr. Kennard was more 
 free from this insensibility than any one whom I have 
 known. His heart was touched by everything that 
 affected his brother man. 
 
 His soul instantly responded to the sublime in 
 
XXXIV IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 nature. Though full of interest in art and architec- 
 ture, he showed a greater delight in mountain scenery 
 or the majesty of the ocean. As the train slowly 
 climbed the Alps his face was radiant, his lips eloquent 
 with appreciation of glacier and mountain stream, of 
 snow-capped peak and verdant valley. 
 
 While in Florence he frequently preached for his 
 friend, Dr. McDougall, of the Scotch Presbyterian 
 church. On his way home he had the pleasure of 
 attending the Keswick meeting in L,ondon and of 
 hearing Joseph Parker ; but his life-long admiration 
 for Charles Spurgeon would have found his greatest 
 satisfaction in a sight of that rugged face. That, how- 
 ever, he was not to see until they met in the 
 Resurrection. 
 
 From this European trip, the only long vacation 
 of his life, Dr. Kennard returned much refreshed, and 
 at the earnest solicitation of the Pittsburg ministers 
 he undertook the rehabilitation of the distracted little 
 church at Connellsville. Through his tact, his 
 courage, his wisdom and his piety he reunited the 
 church and presented it to the denomination again ' ' in 
 its right mind." Of the next two years a part he 
 spent in Pittsburg, and a part in Philadelphia, his 
 native city. His mind was as vigorous as in youth, 
 and in the pulpit he gave not the least indication of 
 failing strength. Many of those who heard him in 
 the Fourth Avenue Church, Pittsburg, a few months 
 before his death, were astonished when they heard 
 that he was gone. But his heart continued to distress 
 him, and an attack of grippe sapped the springs of 
 
IN MEMORIAM. XXXV 
 
 vitality. He seemed to have a premonition that the 
 time was short, and strove to complete his literary- 
 work and to put his house in order. In the month of 
 September, feeling a great longing for the sea, he 
 planned to go to Atlantic City, though at the moment 
 of departure strangely reluctant to leave home. He 
 stopped in Philadelphia for medical treatment, and 
 there attended the Philadelphia Association, where he 
 spoke and offered a prayer long to be remembered by 
 those who heard it. He also preached in Germantown. 
 His letters from the seashore show the growing weari- 
 ness, the longing for his loved ones, but the still 
 greater longing for ' ' home. ' ' He recalled the forty 
 years of his married life, and his heart went out to the 
 wife of his youth as he blessed God for her love and 
 faithfulness. But the old ocean had lost its charm. 
 The monotonous waves were too boisterous for his tired 
 soul. 
 
 Restlessness soon drove him back to Philadelphia 
 to his son's home. The morning after his arrival he 
 drove from Chestnut Hill to Germantown and visited 
 the boarding-school where he spent part of his boy- 
 hood. In the evening he was not well. But, never- 
 theless, he went into the city the next day, " on his 
 way home ' ' stopping to bid farewell to the sister who 
 from early childhood, and through school and college 
 days, had been his confidant and counsellor. At her 
 house he was taken ill, and two days later, October 
 16, 1899, he ' ' went home. ' ' ' 'Absent from the body, 
 he was present with the Lord." 
 
 To his family and friends his death came with a 
 
XXXV 1 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 shock of surprise and grief; they were stunned. Let- 
 ters and telegrams poured in, all with the same note 
 of personal loss. One who had known him but a few 
 months said: " I do not think you will understand me 
 when I say that this is a terrible blow to me, and a 
 deep sorrow. And yet, having had him for a father, 
 you may be able to understand that his tenderness and 
 loveliness of life and character endeared him at once 
 to me, and I thought of him always with more affec- 
 tion than I feel for many people whom I have known 
 much longer and, in a way, much better." 
 
 An old friend of his early ministry said : ' ' Dr. 
 Kennard belongs so essentially to youth and active 
 life that any other life than this seems foreign and 
 alien to his nature. I always think of him as in the 
 old Woburn days — so bright, so buoyant, so happy, 
 making sunshine wherever he went, gladdening the 
 hearts of all with whom he came into contact. What a 
 useful life he has had ! What a multitude of lives he 
 has touched, and always for good ! What a throng of 
 ransomed souls will welcome him to his Heavenly 
 home!" 
 
 One who had known him only in business rela- 
 tions said: "It was with sincere regret and sorrow 
 that I read the news of Dr. Kennard' s death. My 
 heart went out in sympathy to you and yours. I 
 shall never forget the unequaled and never-failing 
 kindness and courtesy of Dr. Kennard in all social and 
 business relations. ' ' One who had never known him 
 at all, except through extracts of his sermons and 
 references to him found in her mother's Journal, wrote 
 
IN MKMORIAM. XXXvii 
 
 that she had become a Christian through reading that 
 Journal, and so thanked him for her mother's and 
 her own conversion. 
 
 The assembly of those who had known him best 
 and desired to render final honors to his mortal 
 remains was most fittingly held in the dear Tenth 
 Church, of so many blessed memories. If they could 
 have come from Bast and West and North and South, all 
 who had been blessed through his life, all who loved 
 him and loved God and men more because of him, 
 what a company it would have made! With more 
 than four thousand persons who had been led to Christ 
 through his labors, and the uncounted numbers of 
 Christians whose Christian life was richer and fuller 
 by reason of his teaching and example; with the 
 united voice of the churches which he had helped and 
 strengthened, and the churches of which he had been 
 the inspiration and originator ; with these and many 
 others to sing songs of rejoicing, what a triumphant 
 welcome awaited the Soldier of the Cross as he entered 
 into rest! 
 
 And they who had assembled to do him reverence 
 thought they saw heaven opened. The grief of the 
 sorrowing friends was hushed as they were enfolded 
 by the solemn peace of that hour and the glow of the 
 autumn sunshine which fell upon the scarlet leaves. 
 The simple service was conducted by Philadelphia pas- 
 tors who had been at one time or another connected with 
 his life and work. Dr. Hoyt, Dr. Peltz, Dr. Gordon, Dr. 
 Rowland and the pastor of the Tenth Church all paid 
 him their loving tribute. One had been with him in 
 
XXXV111 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 school and college, and his voice quivered as he spoke of 
 the stainless purity and buoyant courage of that young 
 manhood. Another had labored in the same city 
 during his pastoral days, and had felt the inspiration 
 of his intellectual and spiritual vitality. Another had 
 stood by his side in evangelistic work, and had had his 
 heart warmed by the fire of love for perishing souls. 
 Another had seen the last bright glow of that ardent 
 spirit before it had been caught within the veil. No 
 stereotyped words of comfort were needed by those 
 who had been comforted of God. All thought of self 
 was forgotten. The ordinary cares and pleasures of 
 life faded into insignificance. In recalling the life of 
 one so full of the mind of Christ they talked famil- 
 iarly of heaven. One read the verses which their 
 " Chrysostom " * had written just before his transla- 
 tion. 
 
 The Hon. John Wanamaker came forward and 
 said that he had pushed all business aside that he 
 might come and mourn with those who mourned for 
 his friend. "I have known him many years," he 
 continued, ' ' in early and in later manhood, and never 
 has he been found wanting. To me the word which 
 best expresses his message to us is ' fidelity. ' ' ' 
 
 One week later they laid him oh a sunny slope in 
 West Iyaurel Hill for his last sleep. Well might he 
 rest, who, like Paul, could say, " I have fought a good 
 fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
 Henceforth is laid up for me a crown." 
 
 Of Dr. Kennard's literary work mention has been 
 
 * The name given him by Dr. George C L,orimer years before. 
 
IN MKMORIAM. XXXIX 
 
 made several times. That lie had marked ability in 
 this direction none of those associated with him 
 doubted. Had his life been less laborious, had he been 
 permitted the periods of comparative leisure which 
 come to many ministers, he would have left behind 
 him very much that was valuable. He was constantly 
 looking forward to the time when he could ' ' settle 
 down and write." 
 
 Most of his writings were of the nature of essays, 
 brief and answering to the passing occasions — fugitive 
 pieces. He was a frequent contributor to several 
 religious papers, ' ' The Baptist Weekly, " ' * The 
 Watchman," " The Standard, " and for a number of 
 years to "The Homiletic Review." His articles on 
 Buddha, on Savonarola and on St. Francis of Assisi, 
 his three articles on ' ' The Outlook for Protestantism 
 in Italy," and his exquisite " letters to a Restless 
 Soul ' ' are among the most notable of these. The 
 series on Pulpit Eloquence (which are embodied in 
 this book) brought him scores of letters of apprecia- 
 tion and requests for a more extended review of the 
 subject. While living in Philadelphia he published a 
 "Memorial" of . his father, of which a critic said: 
 ' ' Portions of the work are written not only with the 
 strict fidelity to truth which characterizes the whole, 
 but with great beauty and power, especially the 
 graphic pen-portraits of Brother Kennard ' in the 
 Pulpit,' ' in Revivals ' and * in the Conference Room '; 
 while the tender and touching account of his transla- 
 tion is the most affecting I ever read. ' ' 
 
 In his series of papers called ' ' Clerical Table Talk ' ' 
 
xl IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 he showed a keen appreciation of the peculiar phases 
 and experiences of a pastor's life, which he illustrates 
 with a wealth of interesting and effective anecdotes. 
 His mind, however, was essentially poetic, and all his 
 writing is livened by imagination. He wrote verse 
 fluently, and some of his hymns have received their 
 appropriate setting in music ; but his finest work is 
 done in vivid prose. In his earlier period the excel- 
 lence is not sustained, though at times rising to 
 heights of eloquence; but later we find a virility, a 
 strength and a certain dignity of movement which 
 makes us regret that he gave not more time to literary 
 studies and to the work of authorship. 
 
 But he had a nobler mission than to make litera- 
 ture, and to it he gave himself without reserve. That 
 work was the preaching of the Gospel. To this his 
 highest powers were given, and to it all else was sub- 
 ordinated. Dr. Kennard always prepared his sermons 
 with the greatest care, giving the best fruit of heart, 
 and mind, and spirit to sustain his flock day by day. 
 He preached almost entirely without notes, but did 
 not trust to the inspiration of the moment. His ser- 
 mon was first thought out, then worked out, until all 
 the parts were firmly compacted, and the whole 
 pulsated with life and power. The profoundest 
 thought was presented in such simple language that 
 " the laboring man, though a fool," might understand 
 and little children feed upon the sincere milk of the 
 word. He never was solicitous about giving to his 
 sermons beauty of form, nor sacrificed a fraction of 
 their dynamic force to literary excellence. Once he 
 
IN MEMORIAM. xll 
 
 wrote : "To have people say to me, ' I was pleased 
 with your sermon/ or 'That was a fine discourse': if 
 sinners are not converted, it seems all such a sham. ' ' 
 Again: " I have a strong conviction of the supreme 
 value of spiritual power and a desire for it, I think, 
 more entire than my desire for any other gift or 
 attainment. ' ' 
 
 Yet the thoughts springing from so rich a soil 
 could not but clothe themselves with forms of beauty, 
 and his poetic soul found illustrations of the truth in a 
 thousand sparkling images. He was a natural critic, 
 with a mind keenly analytical in argument and a 
 ready wit with which to defend himself in repartee ; 
 yet he never indulged in satire. He was able to con- 
 tend with a theological adversary without losing his 
 own temper or wounding his opponent's feelings. At 
 one time he took occasion to answer some arguments 
 in a sermon on Evolution by Henry Ward Beecher, 
 and received from him a cordial letter, from which the 
 following extract is taken: * 
 
 "I have read your reported sermon, delivered 
 yesterday, with great interest. I have to thank you 
 for your kindness of feeling manifested and the absence 
 of that rigor of orthodoxy which seems to be but a 
 covert form of saying ' damn you.' But I am not say- 
 ing this as an expression of surprise. One would have 
 expected this excellent spirit in you. But the point 
 of my gratification is that the time has come for an 
 honest discussion of the views of the old and new 
 
 * Following this memoir the letter is given in full as presenting most, 
 clearly and compactly Mr. Beecher' s attitude toward " The New Theology. ' v 
 
Xliv IN MKMORIAM. 
 
 attacking Orthodoxy. I belong to this wing of the Christian 
 Army. But I cannot get my own views out, except by a com- 
 parison of them to the disadvantage of the standard views. If 
 to any I seem to bring wit and humor to an irreverent use, I can 
 only say, I do it because I cannot help it. So things come to 
 me, so I must express them — but not as a sneer, or scoff — though, 
 often with impetuous feeling, and with open mirth. 
 
 My life is drawing to an end. A few more working years 
 only have I left. No one can express the earnestness which I 
 feel that, in the advance of science, which will inevitably sweep 
 away much rubbish from the beliefs of men, a place may be 
 found for a higher spirituality — for a belief that shall have its 
 roots in science, and its top in the sunlight of faith and love. 
 For that I am working and shall work as long as I work at all. 
 
 The discussion has begun. God is in it. It must go on. It 
 is one of those great movements which come when God would 
 lift men to a higher level. The root of the whole matter with 
 me is, in a word, this : 
 
 Which is the central element of Moral Government, Love or 
 Hatred? 
 
 I say Hatred, for in human hands that is what Justice has 
 largely amounted to. I hold that they are not coequal. True 
 Justice, in its primitive form, is simply pain — and this suffering 
 is auxiliary, pedagogic — the schoolmaster until men are enough 
 developed to work by Love. Love is not auxiliary. It is the 
 one undivided force of Moral Government, to which God 
 is bringing this Universe. Forgive my length. I should wish. 
 to live in the affection and confidence of my brethren in the 
 Christian Ministry. But I cannot, for the sake of earning it, 
 yield one jot or tittle of loyalty to that Kingdom of Love which 
 is coming, and of which I am but as one crying in the wilder- 
 ness " prepare ye the way of the Lord." 
 
 I am affectionately yours, 
 
 Henry Ward Bekcher. 
 
A Pulpit of Power the Need 
 of the Times 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A Pulpit of Power the Need 
 of the Times 
 
 OF the Italian Renaissance, no figure, not even 
 that of Lorenzo the Magnificent, looms up so 
 commandingly as that of Savonarola, the 
 preaching friar. He stands there in the pulpit 
 of the vast Cathedral of Florence, a city brilliant 
 with art and luxury, and full of social corruption, gor- 
 geous religion and graceless living. He had been 
 summoned there by the entreaties of the despairing 
 Signoria and people, from the seclusion of his cell into 
 which his disgust at the seeming failure of his gospel 
 of reform had driven him. He came forth to preach 
 to that vast multitude of starving, hopeless Floren- 
 tines, besieged at once by powerful armies, pestilence 
 and famine , suffering and desperation marking every 
 face. To that miserable throng, lately his enemies, 
 Savonarola spoke as an ambassador of God ; he won 
 them to penitence, cheered them with promises of 
 divine mercy, and lo ! while leading them in a pro- 
 cession of tearful humiliation through the streets, a 
 messenger galloped into the midst proclaiming that 
 1 ' salvation had come ! ' ' Friendly ships, driven by a 
 tempest which scattered the blockading fleet, had 
 brought food and reinforcements. The surging mul- 
 
2 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 titudes cried out: "The friar's preaching has 
 saved us once more ! ' ' Then followed those wonder- 
 ful years in which the preacher successfully disputed 
 with the Medicean despot the moral dominion of 
 Florence ; I^orenzo clothed in luxurious unrighteous- 
 ness — Savonarola armed with the scepter of truth and 
 flaming zeal for God's honor and man's salvation. 
 And when we see him at last summoned to Lorenzo's 
 dying bed and ministering there in the spirit of Elijah, 
 we say : ' ' There is a man of power — a man for the 
 times ! ' ' He transformed Florence, at least for the 
 time ; literally enthroned Christ as King in Florence, 
 and inscribed his title, ' ' King of kings and I^ord of 
 lords" over the door of the Palazzo Vecchio, where 
 it still remains, a testimony of what once was done by 
 a Pulpit of Power. 
 
 Four centuries have passed since then, but human 
 nature has not changed. Freedom, law, intelligence 
 have wrought vast revolutions in society such as in 
 that day were only the dream of poets, and this morn 
 of the Twentieth Century is pregnant with a new his- 
 tory, with mightier issues and higher political and 
 social ethics than any that has preceded it, but no 
 age more imperatively needed a Pulpit of Power — a 
 Prophet voice proclaiming Him who, for man and the 
 nation and the age, is ' ' The Way, the Truth and the 
 Iyife." Are there not, now, social despotisms that 
 need dethroning, a social life that needs purifying, a 
 church that needs a Renaissance of primitive faith and 
 sacrifice, revolutionary forces that need a controlling 
 hand no less than Divine ? Are the School, the Press 
 
A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 3 
 
 and the State proving their ability to deal with these 
 perilous times and these transcendent issues? On 
 the 400th anniversary of his martyrdom, Florence 
 celebrated, with solemn pomp and festival of joy, 
 the memory of Savonarola. Flowers strewed the 
 place where the flames had swathed his dead body. 
 From a stage where his gallows had stood in the Piazza 
 Signoria eloquent lips eulogized him as preacher and 
 patriot for all time. And the hope of Italy, the hope 
 of America, the hope of humanity, to-day, is such a 
 ministry of heroic daring and spiritual power. 
 
 Twenty years ago a smart writer in the London 
 Times asked, " Why this preaching ? Why does this 
 man talk to us ? Why not be content to worship only 
 when we go to church ? ' ' About the same time, in a 
 more serious vein, the Edinburgh Review said, ''Divin- 
 ity fills up her weekly hour by the grave and gentle 
 excitement of an orthodox discourse, or by toiling 
 through her narrow round of systematic dogmas, or 
 by creeping along some low level of school-boy moral- 
 ity, or by addressing the initiated in mystic phraseol- 
 ogy ; but she has ceased to employ lips such as those 
 of Chrysostom or Bourdaloue. ' ' And these utterances 
 have had many an echo since, from sources of more 
 or less importance. An English Church clergyman, 
 a few years since, referring apparently to his own 
 National Church, elaborately argued "The Failure of 
 the Pulpit," and a New England religious periodical 
 invited a symposium on the solemn problem, ' ' Shall 
 we go on preaching ? ' ' These voices, which are quite 
 representative of a class not altogether frivolous, can- 
 
4 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 not be silenced by indifference or apology. A radical 
 and fearless reconsideration of the position and func- 
 tion of the preacher in this Twentieth Century — which 
 is neither the apostolic nor the mediaeval — is demanded. 
 It need not be feared but that it will appear, whether 
 from a religious or philosophical, a socialistic or 
 humanitarian, a patriotic or a practical, an ethical or 
 an evangelical point of view, that the pulpit is 
 neither obsolete nor obsolescent. The preacher is, and 
 should continue to be, a paramount power in human 
 society. 
 
 The pulpit no longer rules as it did when, allied 
 with the State, it was the chief fountain of learning 
 and authority ; when the preacher alone raised ques- 
 tions, ethical and social, and answered them, with 
 none to dispute his verdict ; when the seminary where 
 the minister was educated was the mystic treasury 
 of most of the learning, and his library contained the 
 rest. 
 
 To-day a continuous stream of information and 
 discussion of all subjects, and in popular form, rolls 
 through the land and finds its way to every door. The 
 most vital questions affecting human life and destiny 
 are affluently treated, not only in books, but upon every 
 platform, in religious and in secular newspapers, side 
 by side with politics and trade. Everybody knows 
 everything now-a-days, or thinks he does, and the 
 awe which the pulpit once inspired has disappeared. 
 In saying, however, that the power of the pulpit 
 as an institution has declined, we would by no means 
 concede that the power of the preacher has gone with 
 
A PULPIT OP POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 5 
 
 it. On the contrary, as the peculiar awe which in- 
 vested the office has lessened, the greater is the demand 
 that the man himself, as a living force among men and 
 called to a supreme function, should heroically attain 
 and maintain a personal power unaided by the but- 
 tressing of the State or the mystic authority of the 
 Church. 
 
 The highest and most enduring elements of power 
 remain the same in all the mutations of the ages, and 
 owe little to environment. They are at their best when 
 called to conquer without the alliance of favoring con- 
 ditions. If illustrations of this were needed, the ca- 
 reer of that man who, in our generation, has divided 
 with the world's greatest statesmen and princes the 
 interested gaze of his cotemporaries — Charles Had- 
 don Spurgeon — would be sufficient. Nay, the bene- 
 ficent and acknowledged forcefulness of a Moody 
 among the masses and a Phillips Brooks or a Maclaren 
 among the cultured, would prove that this strenuous, 
 conceited and materialistic age, not less than any 
 former one, confesses the preacher's power. I go 
 further ; I affirm that it is historically and rationally 
 demonstrable that times of enlightenment and pro- 
 gress, like these, are more favorable to the preacher's 
 power, more hospitable to it, more fruitful of the best 
 results than any since the dawn of Christianity. In 
 fact the preacher's power is as much nobler and more 
 enduring than that of the Savonarolas or the John 
 Knoxes of a former day, as that of the electrician, the 
 biologist and the statesman of these times is nobler 
 than that of the alchemist, the thaumaturgist and the 
 
 *s 
 
6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 feudal lord of an age of ignorance and superstition. 
 * ' Is he a physician of souls ? He can better operate on 
 wakeful than on torpid patients. Is he an advocate ? 
 He can better plead before an educated jury than a 
 clownish one. If his appeal is to men's will, it is, at 
 least to one unfettered by fear ; if to the conscience, it 
 is to one unclouded by superstition ; if to the heart, it 
 is to one never more aching with unrest or hungry for 
 reality and love." 
 
 The philosopher and poet declare that the times 
 are barren of enthusiasm and heroism ; and that a 
 frivolous materialism in its dance of death is tramp- 
 ling out the torch of the soul. There is some 
 truth and much folly in this despondent view of things. 
 It springs from a shallow skepticism which looks only 
 at the worst features of an age whose field of Christian 
 activities shows divinest enthusiasm and heroism for 
 humanity. But whatever truth there be in the pes- 
 simist's view of the times, it is all but a challenge to 
 the best exercise of the preacher's power. 
 
 If never before were men so utterly ' 'without God 
 and without hope ;" if, according to the poets of de- 
 spair, materialistic curiosity has "ripped, one by one, 
 the world's pretty dolls and scattered the sawdust 
 along its starless path," then it is surely the fullness 
 of time for the true Prometheus to appear again, if he 
 but carry in his reed the celestial fire ; it is time for the 
 herald who has a real message of life and immortality, 
 who has seen God face to face and gotten his message 
 from Him, to lift up his voice like a trumpet. 
 
 In a word, if a man know how to preach the everlast- 
 
A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 7 
 
 ing gospel, if he be himself a living incarnation of its 
 perennial freshness and force, its life and peace and joy, 
 if he be a voice that can speak, not only the seminary 
 lore, but the Saviour's love, then there never was a 
 time when he could have a more open and inviting 
 field, or a more grateful welcome among thronging 
 men, or a fairer hope of success in the highest sense. 
 If there is weakness in the pulpit in our day, it is not 
 the fault of the ' 'spirit of the age." The preachers of 
 the apostolic era faced such pharisaic pride, such 
 religious obstinacy, such depravity and frivolity, such 
 fortified selfishness as is not equalled in our age ; but 
 they were not dismayed — by the power of their words 
 they conquered. If the pulpit to-day is lacking in 
 power, the sin lies at its own door and cannot be shifted 
 to the shoulders of society. The people, the press, 
 public opinion in whatever way expressed, so far from 
 antagonizing, would eagerly welcome a pulpit of 
 greater power, in fact are insisting upon it. The 
 living preacher never had so many aids and openings ; 
 men's hearts and homes and lives were never more 
 hospitable to his message, and all the more as he 
 approaches them simply as a man sent from God with 
 a practical hope and help upon his lips. 
 
 In saying this I would not ignore those palpable 
 facts which tend to repress pulpit power. One of 
 these is found in the very process of ordinary theolog- 
 ical training in our seminaries. In spite of the eleva- 
 tion of religious scholarship, the development of pulpit 
 power shows in our graduates little advance. The 
 seclusion of the student, for the six or eight years of 
 
8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 his classical and seminary course, from contact with 
 the real life of the toiling world to which he is at 
 length to minister, and his constant dealing with 
 abstract thought, and breathing a scholarly atmos- 
 phere, is not conducive to that "love of the people" 
 which the Abbe* Mullois tells us is the first qualifica- 
 tion, or that "sympathy with their wants" which 
 Vinet makes the foundation of the preacher's efficiency. 
 His preaching is apt to be scholarly, theological, apolo- 
 getic, classical, dogmatic, correct — everything but 
 simple, natural, vital, enthusiastic, familiar, vehement, 
 or, in other words, powerful. 
 
 Nor can we ignore the temper and trend of the 
 age, its crowding of material activities and lack of 
 moral earnestness, its abundant inventions, sciences, 
 discoveries, enterprises, and its few spiritual lives ; 
 everything superficial — except human discontent, and 
 that very deep, and not without volcanic mutterings. 
 It is an era of fads, of laughter at everything, from 
 Heaven's law and love to Hell's penalties. Life seems 
 stripped of solemnity and sublimity, men's brains and 
 hearts becoming taverns for the revels of le jeune Steele 
 novelties rather than the home of truth and happiness. 
 There is a strong temptation, with such surroundings,. 
 to accommodate our teaching to the mood of the peo- 
 ple ; to make the Word only scintillate when it should 
 shine and burn ; to consult people's whims rather than 
 their wants, to be popular rather than powerful, and 
 to avoid sinking into insignificance, not by the strength 
 with which we breast the tide, but by the lightness 
 with which we float on the current. The very famili- 
 
A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 9 
 
 arity of the preacher's themes may put his soul to 
 sleep, while the panorama of the gay world may dis- 
 tract him, like the rest, from the pulpit's chief work. 
 Is it any wonder if power wanes, and the preacher 
 almost loses enthusiasm for humanity, and with 
 scarcely self-reproach sees the vanishing of his early 
 ideal ? 
 
 It is against such demoralizing and enfeebling 
 influences he is boldly to strive ; his nobility obliges 
 him to this ; his responsibility is imperative. The 
 objects which the preacher seeks to attain remain as 
 unutterably and inconceivably great as ever. God, 
 eternity, the soul, all that concern man's duty here 
 and his destiny hereafter — these are his themes, and 
 are as unfading as the blue of heaven, as inexhaustible 
 as the sorrows and joys of humanity. What power 
 ought that man to have who stands before an audi- 
 ence on whom he looks as immortal souls for whom 
 he must give account, unto whom those men look 
 with intelligent reverence, predisposed to be influ- 
 enced for good, where prayer lends its inspira- 
 tion and music its wings to the soul ! He stands 
 in a relation the most solemn of all this side the judg- 
 ment ; he speaks, as Heaven's ambassador, to the con- 
 science, the heart, the life, of every one beneath his 
 gaze; he pours the affluence of God's love, and light, and 
 life, over dark and tempted and struggling and weary 
 natures, probes the depth of human guilt, unveils the 
 glories of salvation, and performs his work environed 
 consciously by the powers of the world to come ! What 
 a boundless wealth of materials he has out of which to 
 
IO PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 weave the net in whose meshes the ' 'fisher of men" is 
 to catch souls ! The whole field of man's experience in 
 history, the whole field of current life in the world, 
 the realms of nature, science and art, he may lay 
 under contribution to illustrate and enforce the teach- 
 ings of God's Word, which in themselves abound as 
 much in variety as they do in sublimity. His divine 
 call involves his right to summon all the powers of 
 Heaven and earth as allies, but his own personal power 
 is, under the Divine Spirit, the chief element of 
 success. 
 
 What Pere L,acordaire, in his illustrious defence, 
 said of Genius may, with modification, be said of the 
 power and inspiration the preacher needs. ' 'Genius," 
 said he, "is formed by two things — God and a dun- 
 geon. ' ' If genius may be defined as energy exalted by 
 inspiration, then we may say that the power by which 
 we are to win and constrain the world to prostrate 
 itself before the Cross is the outgrowth of three 
 things — God and Solitude, and the I^ove of Souls. 
 Panoplied in the learning of the schools and the skill 
 of culture, we stand in the very focus of illumination 
 and illustration. On all the subjects we are called to 
 teach, and all the work we are called to do, we have 
 books, periodicals, conventions, symposia, examples — 
 what do we not have to make us a ministry of power ? 
 Only these we seem not to have, at least in impressive 
 evidence — God, and Solitude, and the Sacrificial I^ove 
 of Souls. We are responsible for the men of our gen- 
 eration ; Heaven is expectant of their conversion ; 
 their blood will God require at our hands ! Science 
 
A PUIvPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. II 
 
 has not convinced us that they are the children of 
 apes ; neither are they the children of the Devil. 
 Many of them are his bondservants, but they have 
 wants, hungerings, fears, hopes that are deep, surgent 
 and dominating as instincts, and these make them 
 susceptible to God when he is rightly presented. 
 But when is he so presented ? 
 
 We offer to these lost brethren, who with a blind 
 and dumb and aching instinct feel after Him if so be 
 they may find Him ; needing Him though they shun 
 Him — we may offer to these bewildered men an ortho- 
 dox God, a theological God, a historical God, a trans- 
 cendental God, nay, even a rational and scientific 
 God, and it may still be a dead God that we offer. We 
 may paint him as liberal and complaisant as the West- 
 ern Jupiter, or as dogmatic and cruel as the Eastern 
 Moloch, and, failing to attract by the one or to terrify 
 by the other, we will still have to cry to the heedless 
 and far-off throngs, "We have piped unto you and ye 
 have not danced ; we have mourned unto you and ye 
 have not lamented. ' ' Even Jesus Christ Himself, who 
 appropriated these words to His own ill-success, did 
 not get Himself believed and beloved while simply in 
 the body, though He was the fullness of the Godhead 
 incarnate. Crowned with a constellation of miracles 
 and speaking as never man spake, He preached of 
 God, yet ended His ministry with the bitter cry, 
 "How oft would I have gathered you — but ye would 
 not." A few days after and those same Jewish 
 peasants filled the air with their penitential cries, and 
 by thousands surrendered to God. Behold the reason ? 
 
12 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 God must be seen upon a Cross ere men will be 
 attracted to Him. "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto Me" — and He will not thus be seen except 
 as He is made to live while He dies in the eyes of all 
 the people. 
 
 The world will not be drawn to a crucifix, but 
 it may be drawn to a crucifixion, and its vital pre- 
 sentation in the burning words of a living ministry has 
 never failed to command and convert a multitude of 
 men. We must see Christ ere we can make others 
 see Him. We are to inspire our souls with the 
 silent, adoring, sympathetic contemplation of the 
 Christ whom we are to preach, transfigured by the 
 Holy Ghost, and blending His image with all our 
 thoughts and feelings. His cross must be erected in 
 the sanctuary of our hearts ere we can convince men 
 of its reality. We can preach about Christ if we have 
 some fine words in a paper book on the pulpit, but we 
 can preach Christ only when He dwells in us as a living 
 and luminous presence, possessing, engrossing, con- 
 straining by His ineffable beauty, and sorrow, and 
 love, all our powers into the expression by which we 
 •offer Him to men. Even in our highest efficiency we 
 are compelled to utter the sigh of I,acordaire to his 
 friend Montalembert, when the eloquent priest was 
 restoring to faith thousands of the young men of Paris 
 by his wonderful preaching in Notre Dame, "How 
 powerless is man for his fellow-man ! Of all his mis- 
 series, this is the greatest ! " We are doomed to see 
 the stream of humanity rush past us, in its pride and 
 passion, its gaiety and sadness, without hope and 
 
A PULPIT OF POWER THE NEED OF THE TIMES. 1 3 
 
 without God ; and even while we gaze a multitude 
 have vanished ! But we need not stand with para- 
 lyzed faith and fettered energies. L,et the scene drive 
 us to our knees and keep us there till we be endued 
 with power from on high. We must command time, 
 much time for solitude, contemplation of Christ and 
 prayer. It is always from lonely heights of medita- 
 tion men have come down to move the world. The 
 human soul that dreams of spiritual power and reve- 
 lation betakes itself naturally to solitude. Not only 
 the prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid and 
 founders of Religion in the mystic Bast have done so ; 
 even the Greek Meneander recognized, though he 
 sneered at, the phenomenon : ' 'The desert, they say, is 
 the place for discoveries. ' ' The Forerunner was there 
 prepared for his heraldship and the Son of Man for his 
 gospel and His Cross. The singer of the ' ' Divina 
 Commedia ' ' betook himself to the lonely convent of 
 Fonte Avellana and meditated there the cantos of his 
 " Purgatorio, ' ' and St. Francis chastened and replen- 
 ished his soul for his mission of sacrificial love in the 
 caves and forests of Umbria. We must dwell more 
 with God and gain power with Him if we would have 
 1 ' power with men. ' ' 
 
 It was by such solitary communion with God and 
 the study of the Bible that Savonarola acquired that 
 massive personal power, that energy of soul, that im- 
 perial will force by which, from his pulpit in the 
 Duomo, he ruled Florence. He had little rhetorical 
 culture, a bad voice, and, at first, indistinct express- 
 ion ; but he was at home with his Bible and his God ; 
 
14 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 he loved his people, he believed in his divine mission. 
 One of his biographers, Burlamecchi, says : ' 'The effect 
 of his preaching, both on his hearers and himself, was 
 wonderful. He soared into ecstasy and electrified men 
 as with sudden shocks. Once, when he preached on 
 the Deluge, as he ascended the pulpit, the people saw 
 he was laboring under the strongest emotion. Gazing 
 across them, he gave out the text, ' Behold I, even I 
 do bring a flood of waters upon the earth ! ' The 
 words and tone struck terror into every heart. ' ' Pico 
 della Mirandola, who was present, relates that a shud- 
 der ran through his whole frame and his hair seemed 
 to stand on end; and Savonarola declares that he 
 himself was not less moved than his hearers. Thus 
 Savonarola demonstrates that soul-power counts for 
 more than any other constituent element in eloquence. 
 It was not his learning nor his logic, but the eager 
 embrace of his soul and the vehement pressure of his will 
 upon the hearts of the rapt audience that conquered 
 and led them in the way of his divinely inspired pur- 
 pose. 
 
 If the study of this little book shall shed any light 
 
 upon this element of pulpit preparation and inspire any 
 of my brethren with a determination to develop and 
 employ this latent Psychic force, something will have 
 been done for the furtherance of the Gospel after the 
 author has been forgotten. 
 
Psychic Power in Preaching 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Psychic Power in Preaching 
 
 WHAT depths of mystery and miracle dwell in 
 that word ''Power." Who can define it? 
 Who tell us where its seat or fountain is ? 
 Who measure its dimensions or paint its features or 
 analyze its substance ? It dwells in the flashing light- 
 ning and falling dew, in imponderable air and mov- 
 ing glacier, in growing seed that lifts the rock and 
 electric current that drives the train. It swings the 
 planets in their cycles and wings a whisper around the 
 globe. Physical power is a mystery, but Psychical 
 power works greater miracles. A sentiment upheaves 
 a nation ; a passion overturns an empire. Soul-power ! 
 Who can sing its epic ? What science determine its 
 measure or method ? In what ultimate brain-cell or 
 blood-corpuscle does it reside ? ' * God hath spoken 
 once, twice have I heard this ; that power belongeth 
 unto God." And man, whom He has created in His 
 own image, humbly shares in this divine endowment. 
 I,uther said, ' ' He that can speak forcefully to men 
 is a man. ' ' That solitary monk who shook the world 
 ought to know. Doubtless he meant by ' ' a man ' ' not 
 simply a scholar, nor a homilist, nor a theologian, nor 
 a rhetorician, but, in the full, radical and robust sense 
 of the word — a man. 
 
 15 
 
1 6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 Much of the ineffective preaching that courts 
 drowsy ears or falls upon the pleased inertness of a 
 congregation is lacking in none of the features usu- 
 ally assigned in the schools to the model sermon. 
 There is truth well and definitely expressed, logically 
 compact, adequately illustrated and rightly applied. 
 Yet the people are listless. The defect in many instan- 
 ces is in the want of the man behind the sermon to 
 give it propulsion or the man in the sermon to give it 
 human vitality and a grappling, victorious energy. 
 Preaching is divine truth plus a man. For half a cen- 
 tury the science of preaching has accumulated a large 
 and opulent literature. To the garnered wisdom of 
 earlier times it has added standard works, periodicals, 
 reviews, text-books and lectureships. Yet, it has not 
 kept pace with other sciences or with the periodical 
 press, much less with the higher secular literature, in its 
 grasp of public attention and control of public opinion. 
 
 It is a hopeful sign that the pulpit of to-day is 
 less ruled by a bigoted fear of new ideas and methods 
 than ever before, and more prompt to recognize and 
 utilize whatever discoveries or results real science may 
 offer to its hand. 
 
 It is profoundly significant to note the increasing 
 interest of our ministry in the New Psychology. 
 Emerging from the nebulous condition in which em- 
 piricism and superstition rule, psychic phenomena and 
 laws are assuming the features and authority of a 
 science, and surely in no field may they more properly 
 have influence than in the development of the 
 preacher's power. 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 1 7 
 
 The doctrine of the storage, conservation and 
 transmutation of energy, in the physical realm, is one 
 of profound interest and importance. It has fur- 
 nished a new working hypothesis and larger views 
 of God and man. But there is an energy invisible 
 but of infinite potency in the psychical realm, whose 
 operations are none the less real, and whose study is 
 of paramount importance and fraught with stupend- 
 ous results. 
 
 As the sources and conditions of psychic energy 
 are being uncovered, they are sure to be brought more 
 and more within the scope of the preacher's studies. 
 The relation between psychological facts and forces 
 and the science of preaching is so intimate and vital 
 that their consideration cannot be neglected without 
 irreparable loss, both in pastoral and pulpit work. 
 These facts and forces are, by the scientific men of our 
 time, carefully separated from whatever is visionary, 
 fraudulent and empirical, and are accessible to fruitful 
 investigation. The occult power which produces the 
 phenomena grouped under the designations of hypnot- 
 ism, mesmerism, animal-magnetism, clairvoyance and 
 telepathy is not a modern discovery. Traces of its 
 empirical handling may be found in the East many 
 centuries ago. The ' ' seer " is as old as human his- 
 tory ; the ''magician " has always been a recognized 
 fact. His persistence and success are by no means 
 to be accounted for on the theory of skilful deception 
 practiced on the credulous, the superstitious and the 
 weak, or to physical laws unknown to the mass of 
 men. There may be — and the experiments of Mr. 
 
1 8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PRE ACHING. 
 
 Tessla and his co-workers point that way — physical 
 media and physical laws yet to be revealed, explaining 
 certain marvelous discoveries in the physical realm of 
 electrical action ; so in the psychical realm there is a 
 power, a medium and a law, whose phenomena are 
 abundant, but whose form and content are yet to be 
 searched out. It is claimed by skeptics that the inves- 
 tigation of these psychical phenomena will be fatal to 
 the teachings of Christianity ; but as other develop- 
 ments of real science, such as astronomy, geology, 
 biology and antiquarian discovery have, in turn, been 
 announced as oracles of doom to the Bible, and as each 
 has, in due time, blest what it was expected to curse, 
 so will the " New Psychology " and the " Society for 
 Psychical Research ' ' and all conscientious Science 
 prove to be the handmaid of the pulpit. The truth 
 has nothing to fear from the truth. 
 
 Experiments, conducted for the last quarter cen- 
 tury by many eminent scientists, prove the marvelous 
 power which one soul may exercise over another, pro- 
 ducing not merely physical movements but mental 
 processes and moral emotions in the subject. ' ' If it 
 be true," a distinguished psychologist has said, " that 
 one mind can influence another and convey thoughts 
 and ideas to it without using the ordinary avenues of 
 the senses, such a fact is far more scientifically extra- 
 ordinary than would be the destruction of this globe 
 by another heavenly body." Nevertheless, there is 
 abundant and indisputable evidence of the fact produced 
 by the several " Societies for Psychical Research," as 
 well as other reliable testimony. If mind can thus 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 1 9 
 
 influence mind independently of the senses (just as we 
 know electrical transmission can be made independ- 
 ently of the wire) certainly when we can call in the 
 vehicular aid of sight and hearing, with their bound- 
 less resources, the pulpit should receive a new impetus 
 in the evolution of power. This evolution should be 
 in two directions — the increase of psychic force and 
 the growth of spiritual power ; and these two are in- 
 timately related. 
 
 By the preacher's Psychic Force I mean his per- 
 sonal force as distinguished from the force of his logic, 
 his rhetoric or of the truth itself, on the one hand, and 
 from the supernatural power of the Divine Spirit on 
 the other. It is the energy of the preacher* s soul in 
 contact with that of the hearer. Says H. W. Beecher : 
 1 ' The living force of the living soul upon living souls 
 for the sake of their transformation is the fundamen- 
 tal idea of preaching. ' ' 
 
 Psychic force is an active element in all effective 
 pulpit work. If I were to group the three component 
 factors in an effective sermon, they would be : i . 
 Adequate presentation of the truth. 2. Psychic Force. 
 3. Divine Influence ; and that would be the ascending 
 order of their relative importance. This Psychic force 
 has its own function and action, as real as electricity 
 in nature. Electricity may impel the machinery or 
 light the town, but it cannot shape a flower nor make 
 the deaf to hear. So psychic force does not reveal the 
 truth nor renew the heart ; its function is to quicken 
 the soul's pulse, sway the will, awake to action. What 
 it is in its essence we are unable in our present con- 
 
20 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 dition of knowledge to state — just as we are unable to 
 determine the genesis and content of electricity. Per- 
 haps if traced each to its last retreat we should find 
 they had a common birth. The worshipers of light 
 in all ages have been the loftiest thinkers and the 
 purest livers. He who said, "I am this world's 
 I4ght, ' ' at once announced himself the ' ' desire of all 
 nations. ' ' But it is only of late that light is found to 
 be a form of force, and that it is not a simple element 
 but exceedingly complex. It is not incredible that one 
 or more of its forms and ingredients may reside, with 
 concentrated intensity, in those natures we call ' * mag- 
 netic," because they have a mysterious superiority 
 over other natures in the way of insight and dynamic 
 energy — are able to analyze, to attract, to excite and 
 
 subdue others at will. 
 
 A man may possess a sound mind, be a good soul, 
 in both senses, be of a loving spirit and yet possess 
 little will power. He may be poured into any mould 
 and keep shape in none. On the other hand, a man 
 may have but moderate abilities and yet attain great 
 success because he possesses a forceful will. It is the 
 will that enables a man to project his intellectual pro- 
 cesses into the minds of others. A remarkable instance 
 of will power in conquering a hearing and establishing 
 a permanent control over the minds of men is furnished 
 by Benjamin Disraeli in the English House of Com- 
 mons. An alien, handicapped by his early avocations, 
 at first the House refused to listen to him. "You 
 shall hear me!" he cried. And irresistibly he rose 
 step by step till he not only swayed the House but the 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 21 
 
 nation as prime-minister, with a solid array of the best 
 bred Norman-descended patricians of England at his 
 back yielding ready obedience to his wishes. 
 
 Examples of this masterfulness may be profit- 
 ably studied in the lives of such characters as 
 William the Silent, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon 
 I., Warren Hastings, Bismarck; still better in John 
 Knox, Luther, Savonarola, Dr. Livingstone and 
 "Chinese Gordon." George Dawson, that English 
 reformer and preacher, whose varied eloquence so 
 powerfully moved all classes of minds, used to say, 
 ' ' Whenever I address men I determine that they shall 
 listen" And they did, with rapt attention to the end. 
 William Hazlitt remarks that ' ' The orator is only 
 concerned to give a tone of masculine firmness to the 
 will, to brace the sinews of the mind. The speaker 
 must be confident, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcom- 
 ing all opposition by his ardor and impetuosity. We 
 command others by power, by passion, by will." 
 
 But while the amount of this power differs in dif- 
 ferent men, and is variable in the same man, probably 
 none are destitute of it by nature. There are latent 
 and occult energies in all our souls that only need the 
 excitation of an earnest purpose to impel men toward 
 God and the right, and intimate touch with the source 
 of all light and power in order to become, like His own, 
 effluent, radiating and fructifying. By habitual inac- 
 tion or excess such power may become torpid or enfee- 
 bled, and by normal exercise and education may be 
 developed. A man whose nature is contributive and 
 transmissive of moral and emotive life expends power, 
 
22 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 in a conscious or unconscious way unknown to ordinary- 
 mortals. Contact with men taps his psychic reservoir 
 just as the ripe olive drips at a little pressure, or the 
 frankincense becomes odoriferous at the touch of fire. 
 "There are men," says Professor K. P. Thwing, "who 
 would exhale a spicy, pungent life, if they knew how 
 to loosen and liberate the contents of their being. But 
 all their life they are under some physical or social or 
 moral restraint. Of course this donative, communica- 
 tive nature is partly a gift, but it is vastly more — a 
 growth. Thomas Aquinas' s 'Baptisma sanguinis , flu- 
 minis, flaminis' will surely melt these gelid and fire 
 these fearful souls. They can develop a nature more 
 porous and distributive if they would use proper means. 
 A man who is in possession of that subtle something 
 which enthralls men knows that he can emit or retain 
 it. He can husband those psychic forces which are 
 peculiarly his own, till he finds himself in conjunction 
 with absorbent, responsive souls. Then he lifts the 
 sluice-gates of his affluent and exuberant being and 
 enriches them with its treasured contents. ' ' 
 
 But many a preacher, who is the life of a company 
 of congenial friends, whose conversation at home or 
 whose after-dinner speech is contagious wit and vital 
 thought itself, finds himself in the pulpit constricted 
 in soul and speech. He is no longer a man, hut presto! 
 has become a minister, a religious pedagogue, a dig- 
 nitary, forsooth, or some other sort of unhuman buck- 
 ram, careful to maintain the clerical proprieties and 
 not to diminish the proper distance between the 
 "pulpit" and the "pews." Confidence, sympathy, 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 23 
 
 spontaneity, reciprocity are all wanting, and this not 
 with "malice aforethought," but through a false ideal, 
 or nervous tension, or want of daily heart- touch with 
 his people, or some other cause quite remediable, if he 
 wills to be his real self and all there is of him offered 
 and sacrificed for the people. 
 
 It is an indisputable fact that the building of the 
 sermon in the study, its elaboration as a literary 
 achievement occupies almost the whole horizon of the 
 preacher's outlook in reference to his pulpit. In addi- 
 tion the devout man includes a fervent invocation of 
 the Holy Spirit ; but all the time he ignores the value 
 and necessity of his own human spirit when in vigor- 
 ous action, rallying and compelling the thoughts which 
 his pen has armed with words, to move — to march — to 
 charge — to fight, hand-to-hand, and to conquer. 
 
 In a large view, and yet a scientific one, it may be 
 said that Conception, Imagination, Moral Emotion, 
 Enthusiasm and Will, all enter into combination in 
 Psychic Force. 
 
 Even in the planning and elaboration of the ser- 
 mon we recognize the need of this force; when we feel 
 the varying degrees of ability to grapple with the text 
 and compel it to yield the treasure that we know it 
 hides, the ability to "throw one's self into" the work 
 in hand, as we often express it. At times a vital thrill 
 pours itself from brain to pen, and the sermon is born 
 a living and a holy thing, while at others it seems but 
 a well-constructed and decorated dummy, with eyes 
 that see not and a tongue that speaks not and hands 
 that hold not forth the living bread. 
 
24 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 But it is especially in the pulpit, confronting the 
 people, in the critical hour of all the week for them 
 and for him — the expectant hundreds looking into his 
 face and ready to be moved, swayed and ruled by his 
 message — that the need of psychic energy appears most 
 imperative — that personal force, in a word, which 
 quickens attention, kindles imagination, awakens affec- 
 tion, vitalizes the will and moves all in the direction 
 of our purpose. The sermon is not an end in itself ; 
 it may not be even a power in itself ; more strictly it 
 is a vehicle of power, an instrument through which 
 psychic force may produce certain intellectual and 
 moral changes. Above all, the psychic energy of the 
 preacher is the instrument by which the Spirit of God 
 produces supernatural and eternal results. What I^eib- 
 nitz says is in a higher sense true of the Divine Spirit : 
 <( Uh seul esprit, qui est universel et qui anime tout 
 V univers, comme un m£me souffle de vent fait sonner differ- 
 ement divers tuyaux & orgue" So the divine breath, 
 animating all the universe of souls, will produce very 
 different notes from organ pipes dust-choked and 
 defective from what it would were every part of the 
 human mechanism clean, compact, well- voiced and in 
 perfect diapason. Pascal says man is "a thinking 
 reed' ' — by which I suppose he means a musical ' 'reed; ' ' 
 — but a trumpet-blast cannot be produced upon a flute, 
 much less can the orchestral power of the organ come 
 from the shepherd's "wheaten pipe." Hence physico- 
 psychical development is one of the most important 
 parts of the preacher's education. As a sword wielded 
 by a nerveless arm will fail of execution, no matter 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 25 
 
 how fine its temper or how keen its edge, even so a 
 sermon will produce but a still-born assent or languid 
 indifference if it is not energized by vigorous psychical 
 conditions in the man who utters it. The arrow of 
 truth may be a polished shaft, flashing and straight as 
 a ray of light, the bow may be an ideal of elastic 
 strength, but for accuracy of aim and carrying power, 
 all depends on the nerve-force of the archer, a nerve- 
 force that has been healthfully generated, and, work- 
 ing through a thousand delicate ramifications, gives 
 clearness to the eye, tensile grip to the fingers and 
 steady contractile movement to every muscle. 
 
 There is a tremendous electric potency stored in 
 the human soul when kept in harmony with God's 
 will and made the channel of His vital purpose. And 
 such a soul, guided by clear intellectual perceptions 
 of the truth and moved by a powerful emotion, con- 
 stitutes a psychic power which no mere marshaling of 
 logic or rhetorical art can produce. It is life, that 
 "fiery particle," rl Seivov as Dr. Brown would say. 
 Its quantity and quality will largely vary according to 
 the constitution and temperament of each man. The 
 nervous, sanguine temperament, redundant in elec- 
 trical vigor, will possess more of it than the phleg- 
 matic nature. There are men susceptible and recep- 
 tive who are almost destitute of the power to impart 
 force. It may be said in general that a vigorous mind 
 in a vigorous body furnishes a basis of psychic force. 
 The brain must be healthy, nerves well strung and 
 heart strong. From this substructure must spring the 
 glow of enthusiasm, the outflow of sympathy, the reso- 
 
26 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 luteness of conviction and the will to conqtier. As if 
 the cells of an electric battery each contained a differ- 
 ent acid, and wires from each combined to furnish the 
 electric current, so each of the reservoirs of power sup- 
 plies its part in generating psychic force in its higher 
 forms. 
 
 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has said : " The orator 
 — I do not mean the poor slave of a manuscript, who 
 takes his thought chilled and stiffened from its mould, 
 — impassioned speaker who pours it forth corruscating 
 from the furnace — the orator only becomes our master 
 at the moment when he is himself captured, taken pos- 
 session of by a sudden rush of fresh inspiration. How 
 well we know the flash of the eye, the thrill of the 
 voice, which are the signature and symbol of nascent 
 thought — thought just entering into consciousness, in 
 which condition, as in the case of the chemist's ele- 
 ments, it has a combining force at other times wholly 
 unknown!" 
 
 The experience of such a hearer, swept along by 
 the torrent of the speaker's fervor, is familiar, but I 
 think Dr. Holmes is mistaken in the idea that this is 
 the only or supreme conquest of the hearer. Equally 
 sure and more enduring in results is that deliberate 
 girding of the soul to a life grapple with an audience 
 by a calm, steadfast pressure of the heart and will to 
 bring their minds and affections into subjection and 
 response. 
 
 When Ole Bull, the fascinating violinist of world- 
 wide fame, on one occasion had melted a great audience 
 to tears, he said, speaking of it to a friend : ' ' Do you 
 
PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 27 
 
 know that I do not produce these effects by the mere 
 sound of my violin? I produce them by a direct action 
 of my mind upon the audience. I employ the tones of 
 the instrument simply for the purpose of opening the 
 channels through which I, myself, act upon their 
 hearts. ' ' Here is not the rush of a transient inspira- 
 tion, carrying all before it, but a deliberate purpose 
 steadily pressing forward to accomplish its end. 
 
 Talma, the tragedian, used to say that thinking 
 and feeling made the largest part of his art. To move 
 requires not only what Cicero calls ' * the eloquence of 
 the body, ' ' but that of the emotions as well. The inti- 
 mate relation between thought and language ; between 
 feeling and its true, yet varied, modes of expression; the 
 wonderful symbolism of a heart yearning to communi- 
 cate itself : all prove how profound and subjective are 
 the sources of power in preaching. Nor can we over-esti- 
 mate the value of this spontaneous impulse or vigor- 
 ous determination to grasp the hearer's mind and heart 
 with our own, to project our thought, emotion, will, 
 into his. In how many cases where the argument is 
 complete and the style ideal is the sermon powerless 
 because the insinuating, embracing and resistless force 
 of a glowing heart, a blending sympathy and a reso- 
 lute will are wanting to the whole demonstration. 
 
 The following words of M. de Cormenin, in ad- 
 dressing a body of French preachers, may properly 
 close this chapter, as it is full of lively suggestion and 
 in the line of our thought : 
 
 " Select with a quick and confident instinct, from 
 among the methods available to you, the method of 
 
28 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the day, which may not be the most solid, but which, 
 considering the disposition of men's minds, the nature 
 of the matter in hand — may be the best adapted for 
 making an impression on your audience. 
 
 1 'Take strong hold of their attention. Stir up their 
 pity or indignation, their sympathies, or their pride. 
 Appear to be animated by their breath, all the while 
 you are communicating yours to them. When you 
 have in some degree detached their souls from their 
 bodies and they come and group themselves of their 
 own accord at the foot of the pulpit, riveted beneath 
 the influence of your glance ; then do not dally with 
 them, for they are yours, your soul having, as it may 
 be truly said, passed into theirs. I,ook, now, how 
 they follow its ebb and flow ! how they will as you 
 will ! how they act as you act ! But persist, give them 
 no rest ; press your discourse home — and you will 
 soon see all bosoms panting because yours pants ; all 
 eyes kindling because yours emit flame, or filling with 
 tears because you grow tender. You will see all the 
 hearers hanging on your lips through the attraction of 
 persuasion ; or, rather, you will see nothing, for you 
 yourself will be under the spell of your own emotion ; 
 you will bend, you will succumb under your own gen- 
 ius, and you will be more eloquent the less effort you 
 make to appear so. ' ' 
 
The Personal Factor in Preaching 
 
chapter iii 
 The Personal Factor in Preaching 
 
 A YOUNG Jewish peasant stood beneath Judean 
 heavens and said, "I am the truth." Only 
 One could have said that without madness. But 
 as we study His history in the gospels and in the ages, 
 we recognize Him as the Son of God and Son of Man, 
 Source of eternal life and light. 
 
 The personal Christ still lives in that Gospel of 
 which he said, ' ' The words that I speak unto you, 
 they are spirit and they are life." The word which 
 the preacher is called to hold forth is distinctively 
 1 ' the truth as it is in Jesus. ' ' So completely is the 
 personal quality and quickening interblended with the 
 message, that while it takes dogmatic, scientific and 
 philosophic forms, its most real and, indeed, its only 
 perfect expression is through the preacher's own char- 
 acter and life to the degree in which Christ dwells in 
 him. The truth must not come alone through the 
 laboratory of his brain, but must be a living product, 
 conceived and carried in his soul, growing and strug- 
 gling toward birth — a living thing into which the man 
 has poured the warm blood of his heart and the energy 
 of his will. Some preachers are scarcely more than 
 talking manikins ; the sermon is no more a part of 
 them than the telephonic message is a part of the wire 
 which conveys it. 
 
 29 
 
30 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 The true preacher utters his message as one of the 
 consummate results of his personal knowledge ; it has 
 the arterial blood-streak of experience ; in a finite 
 and secondary way he is the incarnation of the truth, 
 even as Christ was in an original and infinite way. 
 For this reason the book can never supplant the 
 preacher. 
 
 It was the large infusion of this personal force 
 that made the throng press around Paul at Athens, 
 and Chrysostom at Constantinople, and Savonarola in 
 Florence ; and it is the same with every preacher that 
 draws men to God — with Robertson of Brighton, and 
 Spurgeon of London, and Brooks of Boston, and 
 Beecher of Brooklyn. The multitudes have not 
 wearied of preaching, but only of the average preacher. 
 I^et any man put a large, loving, vital manhood, rich 
 with the humanities, into his ministrations, and peo- 
 ple will respond to him. The preacher's soul is a 
 prism through which the white and dazzling light of 
 spiritual truth passes, and receives in passing human 
 coloring and refraction along the lines of human want 
 and sensibility. * Truth is transmuted into life only 
 through personality . / 
 
 The preacher's personality is not obtrusive, hardly 
 objective, in his pulpit work : in so far as he is self- 
 conscious he is weak, in so far as egotistic he is offen- 
 sive. In his self-forgetfulness, his abandon, is the 
 hiding of his power. He who confronts an audience 
 with "lam Sir Oracle ' ' depicted in his manner or 
 message, only amuses or repels ; the personality of 
 which we speak reveals itself in spite of him, and is felt 
 
tHE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 3 1 
 
 by the audience like an invisible radiation or intangible 
 perfume. In revelation, the prophet, poet, historian, 
 evangelist, apostle is recognized by the careful stu- 
 dent by his individuality. He is not a mere type- 
 writer obeying the divine finger-touch. 
 
 The sermon is a birth from two worlds — the 
 father is divine, but the mother is human, even as it 
 was with Christ, " the Truth," in the beginning ; and 
 it bears the features of the heavenly and the counte- 
 nance of the earthly parentage. A wholesome, virile, 
 genial character, therefore, will impart itself to the 
 sermon ; the same is true of one that is weak, vain 
 and sordid. Emerson says : ' ' The reason why we feel 
 one man's presence and do not feel another's is as sim- 
 ple as gravity. This is a natural force; the light, heat 
 and all nature co-operate with it. " So it may be said 
 character is an element with which the light, warmth 
 and energy of truth co-operate and, as by an elective 
 affinity, impart and receive, reciprocally, quality and 
 tone. 
 
 Herein we see the need of genuineness, disinter- 
 estedness, strength, spirituality, and — in a word — 
 Christlikeness. What he is as a man is of primary 
 consequence ; what he will be as a preaching man is 
 dependent on that. Some men grow in theologic and 
 rhetoric fullness and felicity without a corresponding 
 growth in manfulness, and will orate about truth and 
 charity while consciously or unconsciously false, self- 
 centered and self-circumferenced. Such a man is 
 sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. 
 
 The building of character is the highest ideal and 
 
32 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the most serious work of life. In the preacher it is 
 not completed when he begins to be a builder of char- 
 acter in others. He is bound to raise the volume and 
 value of his own manhood to its highest perfection. 
 He must be educated manward, as well as Godward, 
 through the whole range of his tripartite nature. 
 
 To this end the physical basis of manhood must 
 receive attention. Herbert Spencer says : ' ' He that 
 with men is a success must begin with being a first- 
 class animal." The Abbe* Roux quotes a lecturer in 
 Notre-Dame as saying: "If one wishes to preach 
 well one must have the devil in one's body." If he 
 had added, "and God in his heart," we should have 
 seen more clearly his point. Robust and surgent ani- 
 mal force and instinct, such as spring from splendid 
 health and natural passions, are a huge element of 
 power in the preacher, when reined and guided by the 
 dominating power of the Spirit of God. The interdepend- 
 ence of the mental and even the spiritual with and 
 upon the physical is such that the culture which im- 
 proves the organs and regulates the functions, en- 
 larges muscle and toughens sinew, will, at the same 
 time, develop brain, broaden the soul and invigorate 
 the will. An erect, elastic, graceful and firm bodily 
 condition has no small effect in inducing alertness, 
 beauty, decision and firmness in mental and moral ac- 
 tion. The healthful action of all the vital and nerve 
 forces gives to the speaker an added poise, dignity and 
 reserve power which are of high value in acting upon 
 an audience. When both mind and body are in action t 
 their reaction on each other is especially felt. The 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 33 
 
 audience also will take critical measure of the preacher 
 from without. His physical appearance and move- 
 ment is to them an indication of character. Muscular 
 integrity is a natural ally of moral wholeness. Robust 
 health and vigorous movement are generally magnetic. 
 Mental and moral power sometimes proceed from a 
 man who, like Robert Hall, is a martyr to physical 
 pain, but as a rule the aspect and tone of the physi- 
 cally feeble are at a discount on his impressiveness. 
 There are men a large part of whose magnetism is in 
 their fine, impressive physique, men who command 
 attention largely by a massive figure, a noble bearing, 
 a masterful air and an organ-like voice. 
 
 Courage also he needs, the courage of conviction, 
 of the faith which sees the invisible ; the courage of 
 his calling and commission as an ambassador of Christ. 
 He must dare to be independent of ' ' isms ' ' and 
 " ologies." The courage not only to do but to suffer 
 must be his. When that knightly preacher, Robert- 
 son, of Brighton, was warned by a woman that his doc- 
 trines would expose him to ostracism by the author- 
 ities of the Church of England, he calmly answered : 
 "I don't care!" "But, Mr. Robertson," was the 
 ominous warning, "do you remember where 'don't 
 care' brought the man?" "Yes," said he, with 
 utmost seriousness, "to a cross." To every brave 
 preacher the pulpit will be both a cross and a throne. 
 Crucified to self-interest and to fear of men, he attains 
 a sovereignty over men's souls. When the aged 
 Horatius was told his son was fleeing from the combat 
 which decided the supremacy between Alba and Rome 
 
34 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 and, seeing his indignation, they asked him what his 
 son should have done against three, the old man re- 
 plied, "He should have died!" A sublime answer 
 springing from a great soul and bearing the man above 
 all the weakness which pleads within us against self- 
 sacrifice for the truth. Of all the legitimate objects of 
 contempt, none is more conspicuous than a timid, com- 
 promising or neutral minister. The poet Crabbe is 
 represented, in the Rejected Addresses ; as illustrating a 
 type of neutrality not altogether extinct when he says : 
 * ' In the view of life and manners which I present, my 
 clerical profession has taught me how extremely im- 
 proper it would be, by any allusion, however slight, to 
 give uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, 
 however foolish or wicked." On the other hand, the 
 spirit of a Chrysostom, a Savonarola and a John Knox 
 still lives in a multitude of men, who daily illustrate a 
 fearless independence as champions for God and hu- 
 manity. By courage I do not mean the sang-froid of 
 ignorance and conceit, nor the stolidity of the stoic in 
 whom contempt of others is a shield, but the rational 
 and modest courage of conviction, faith and self-abne- 
 gation. 
 
 The secret of many a man's failure to rule others 
 is not in the weakness of his cause or of his logic, but 
 of his own spirit. When Admiral Dupont was explain- 
 ing to Admiral Farragut the reasons why he failed to 
 enter Charleston harbor with his fleet of ironclads, 
 Farragut listened till he was through, and then said : 
 "Dupont, there is one reason more." "What is 
 that ? " "You did not believe you could do it ! " It 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 35 
 
 Has been said that a surgeon ought to have * ' the heart 
 of a lion and the hand of a woman," and it is certain 
 that the physician of souls needs a relentless fortitude 
 as much as delicate tact and yearning compassion. 
 
 While his mission brings with it many fears which 
 oppress the stoutest soul — leading even a L,uther to 
 pause trembling at the foot of the pulpit stairs — yet 
 there are many things to inspire his courage. Among 
 these is the beneficent relation he sustains to his peo- 
 ple and their trust in him. He is to them a father, or 
 at least an elder brother. An apostle of grace, as 
 well, he stands there in " the solemn joy of responsi- 
 bility," and ministers to people who are saying in 
 their hearts, ' ' We are all here present before God, to 
 hear what He will say unto us through thee." He 
 ought to be courageous who knows that he is repre- 
 senting a throne of infinite authority and love ; who 
 preaches to save, and who hears resounding through 
 his soul the word of God to Moses, ' ' Certainly I will be 
 with thee, ' ' and of Christ to his heralds, ' ' I am with you 
 always. ' ' If, at times, surveying the vastness of his 
 task in turning men to God, and the smallness of his 
 native powers, his soul cries out, ' ' Who is sufficient 
 for these things ? " he has only to survey his spiritual 
 allies to shout in triumph, ' ' I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me!" Above all, 
 what courage ought he to have who is consciously 
 borne upon the tide of infinite power in the direction 
 of God's supreme plan, purpose and work for man's 
 salvation ! L,ike the Gulf Stream, which in the great- 
 est drouths never fails and in the coldest regions never 
 
kR 
 
 36 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 chills, displacing with its majestic course waters might- 
 ier than the Amazon and Mississippi combined, so that 
 divine current ' ' which makes for righteousness ' ' is as 
 much broader and mightier as the heavenly is superior 
 to the earthly, and is able to carry him on to results as 
 incalculable as they are supremely glorious. 
 
 The preacher should possess leadership as a per- 
 sonal trait. An English statesman once said that the 
 great need of the people was for men of ' ' light and 
 leading. ' ' There are men of light — some of them even 
 belonging to the higher illuminati — who fail in effi- 
 ciency because deficient in leadership, and there are 
 men able to lead, who, being lurid but not luminous, 
 destitute of the true light in themselves, lead men into 
 a wilderness or over a precipice. L4ght and leading 
 combined make the safe and successful preacher. As 
 a man of serene and spiritual life he interprets to 
 human souls the eternal, divine order and the meaning 
 of life — reveals to men their heart and God's heart as 
 well. He is, through the light that is in him, the 
 poet of human nature, the prophet of human attain- 
 ment, the guide of human aspiration. It is because 
 he addresses himself, like his divine master, to human 
 nature's deeper wants that he gains a hearing. His 
 message articulates the low, trembling whispers that 
 wander through the soul, he brings from afar faint 
 memories of a bygone purity and bliss, he lifts the 
 veil of the future and gives man a glimpse of another 
 and eternal order of things. 
 
 ' ' He points to higher worlds 
 And leads the way. ' ' 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 37 
 
 He needs to be masterful as an Alpine guide, to have 
 the generalship that inspires confidence and heroism 
 for righteousness. Such a leader was Arnold of K 
 Rugby, and Chalmers, and Robertson, and Gordon^ wM'fc 
 vSuch a leader will have that self-reliance which gives 
 robustness, elasticity and firmness in utterance and 
 action. Self -distrust is weakness ; a consciousness of 
 strength is impressive upon an audience, when 
 it is not colored with self-importance or diluted 
 with self -consciousness. " Be not dismayed at their 
 faces," is addressed to the modern preacher as 
 well as to the ancient prophet. His power of lead- 
 ership must be comprehensive. A stern and vehement 
 man, like Peter the Hermit, may be needful for a great 
 crusade against the vices that infect society or the des- 
 potisms that trample on souls, but a brotherly leader- 
 ship that inspires men to the daily conquest over in- 
 dolence, and procrastination, and selfishness in an 
 unheroic life is more needful. The light that shines 
 from him must not be the flaring torch of fanatical 
 radicalism any more than the cold, electric shining 
 through opal shades of criticism. It must be the 
 glow of sympathy which wins while it illumines and 
 inspires to effort while it reveals duty, even like that 
 fair guiding Star in the East, ever leading to a new 
 birth of Christ in the cradle of the coming years. 
 
 He must be a man of strong and settled convictions. 
 He must have reached conclusions in which his judg- 
 ment, conscience and whole heart firmly rest. If a 
 man's love rebels against his logic, if his doctrine and 
 his conscience clash, he is to that extent crippled. 
 
38 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 There are men who are never quite sure. They seem 
 to consider every question an unsolved problem, every 
 doctrine held by the fathers open to suspicion. Such 
 men may entertain by their aerial balancing — they 
 cannot lead. In a certain trial Daniel Webster said 
 of the argument of his opponent : " Gentlemen of the 
 jury, this man neither alights nor flies forward. He 
 hovers. Why does he not meet the case ? " We have 
 too many preachers who merely hover over the great 
 questions of doctrine, life and destiny, who neither fly 
 forward nor alight, and who think the highest philo- 
 sophical glory is in holding things in solution and 
 never announcing a conclusion. More than one 
 preacher might be the original of a flashlight picture 
 a parishioner made of his late dear pastor : " He was 
 a nice old man with an evenly balanced mind : one 
 part of his mind thought he would and one part 
 thought he wouldn't." A strong personality means 
 a rooted and muscular confidence in the great verities 
 of the Gospel and in man's susceptibility to them as 
 the power of God unto salvation, aye, as the foremost 
 power in the world, having always the ' ' right of 
 way, ' ' as invested with the prestige of splendid super- 
 natural triumphs in the past and unwasting energies 
 for the future. 
 
 That was a bold reply of Mirabeau to the king's 
 messengers, when, speaking on behalf of the French 
 Assembly, he said : " Go tell your master that we are 
 here by the power of the French people, and that it 
 shall not be wrested from us except at the point of the 
 bayonet ! " But the preacher can say : "I am here 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 39 
 
 in the name and by the authority of God ; O earth I 
 earth ! earth ! hear the word of the I,ord ! ' ' More- 
 over, he is backed by eighteen centuries of learning, 
 and virtue, and victory, all springing from the Gospel, 
 by more than ten millions of martyrs who have died 
 and unnumbered heroes who have lived to attest the 
 truth of what he proclaims ; he is the exponent of a 
 fact the most stupendous and a force the most irresist- 
 ible in the history of the race, and he is the tongue 
 which a present God uses and to which he says : 
 " Speak, and be not afraid, for I am with thee." If 
 these things be rooted in his soul and have become 
 native to the soil of his thought, he will not lack 
 power, and will often say with Bossuet, ' ' The human 
 heart is the most indomitable of all things, and when 
 I see it conquered by the truth I triumph and adore." 
 Another trait the preacher should possess and 
 cultivate is freshness of feeling. This is a virtue which 
 the men most eminent in the world's varied life, and 
 who have shaped the thought of their day, have pos- 
 sessed. It reveals itself in their art, their poetry, 
 their literary work, their statesmanship and pre-emi- 
 nently in their platform and pulpit. I have only need 
 to mention the names of Shakespeare, Burns, Michel- 
 angelo, Mozart, Gladstone, Beecher, Guthrie and 
 Spurgeon to bring up portraits of men who suggested 
 a perennial youth of heart and brain. A sympathy 
 with the ever new phases of the natural world, with 
 brightness of sky and bloom of earth, a quick inter- 
 est in the passing panorama of the world's current his- 
 tory and moral trend, an active and influential partici- 
 
40 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 pation in the social and civic reforms of his day, and 
 especially in the movements that interest the young 
 people, all will impart zest and heartiness, marrow and 
 momentum to his preaching. 
 
 True, the faithful minister carries many burdens ; 
 his contact with the seamy side of human life has 
 much in it to age him, the tragedy of the world's sin 
 and the weariness of its sorrow, the ponderous prob- 
 lems connected with the kingdom of God and the 
 stress of men's daily wants have a tendency to wear 
 out his freshness of delight in life and produce a pre- 
 ternatural gravity, if not grimness of spirit. These 
 influences he must conquer. Really there is no life so 
 joyous, as there is no vocation so elevating, as that of 
 him ' ( who bringeth good tidings and publisheth 
 peace." His mission brings him into relations of 
 moral beauty and pathos and inspiring hope and ten- 
 derness with a multitude of all ages and conditions, 
 who look trustfully and affectionately up into his face. 
 If he be a normally strong and healthy spirit, the de- 
 lights of his vocation never stale ; every phase of his 
 calling, every period of his ministry, supplies some new 
 charm and inspiration. He should be 
 
 "A man of cheerful yesterdays and bright to-morrows. '* 
 
 It is true there are preachers who grow stereotyped, 
 whose hearts grow prematurely gray and whose brains 
 become a mere dusty sermon factory. Their minds 
 and their discourses are not a blooming and moist 
 garden full of fresh perfumes, but like a herbarium 
 among whose dried flowers even the Rose of Sharon 
 seems to have a stale and musty odor. Their smiles 
 
THE PERSON AIv FACTOR IN PREACHING. 4 1 
 
 are solemn and studied, their tears are deliberate, they 
 excite themselves mechanically, their passion is theat- 
 rical, their pathos is warmed over, in their thunder 
 you hear the rattle of the sheet-iron and they rise on 
 the pinions of eloquence like the tame eagle when dis- 
 turbed from the perch. Praxiteles gave animation 
 to the marble statue ; they petrify living truths. 
 
 But a man may keep his brain and heart forever 
 fresh and springlike by drinking of the river of God's 
 pleasure, in nature, in human life, in the life especially 
 of the young, entering with sympathy into their jubi- 
 lant spontaneity, hopefulness and good cheer, above 
 all, by browsing in the perennial dewy and blooming 
 fields of the living Word. 
 
 A certain quality of vigorous youthfulness may 
 be gained by an original and natural communion with 
 the real world of human activities and motive forces, 
 keeping in the living current of to-day's thinking and 
 passionate ambitions. The man of affairs must not be 
 lost and submerged in the student, the dreamer. 
 Much, to be sure, may be learned of the phases of 
 human life and the working of men's passions from 
 our libraries. Poets like Shakespeare and Goethe and 
 philosophers like Bacon and Plato may open to us, if 
 we are critical students, much that is valuable in this 
 realm ; history may set before us illustrations, ideals 
 and models ; teachers may suggest to us methods of 
 study, but all these helps will not take the place of 
 close contemplation of the concrete and living speci- 
 mens of humanity among whom we move. What is it 
 we say to all who would learn to paint ? We tell them 
 
42 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 they will never learn by copying ; they must draw 
 from life and paint in the open laboratory of the mas- 
 ter-painter, the Sunbeam ; they must see and record 
 with their brush what they see ; then they will be true 
 and, therefore, ever new in feeling and expression. 
 The mere copyist never paints either with pen or 
 pencil that which is his own or that moves the heart 
 by its novelty or reality. A habit of looking deeply 
 into natural phenomena, of studying springs of action, 
 the psychology of life and character, will impart 
 breadth and richness and perennial freshness to our 
 currents of thought and emotion. 
 
 Freshness of feeling will also be preserved by 
 maintaining a healthy appetite and digestion. Dys- 
 pepsia and the worries that wait upon its leaden steps 
 are terribly ageing. Care for the hygienics and 
 athletics of his entire nature will reward him openly. 
 He must not only work faithfully, but play regularly ; 
 must not only gird with mighty tension, but relax and 
 rest at frequent intervals and give himself abundant 
 sleep. Even the all-enduring camel must have his 
 burden unloosed at night, but many a preacher never 
 lays aside his heavy pack ; he carries his church 
 burdens the whole twenty-four hours and the whole 
 twelve months through, and is writing sermons and 
 settling disputes and raising church debts in his 
 dreams. Is it any wonder that his soul grows seedy, 
 and that he becomes mentally round-shouldered and 
 decrepit ? 
 
 The preacher's work, to one who loves it, whose 
 soul is free-moving and eager in it, is itself an in- 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 43 
 
 spiration. It contains in itself, in its very processes and 
 habits, direct and wonderful power to invigorate body 
 and soul. When we consider the intimate connec- 
 tion and interdependence of the mental and physical 
 realms of our nature, this ought to be manifest. The 
 stimulus the body receives from the awakened, girded, 
 active mind, the gladdened heart and the upborne 
 soul in its entirety ought not to be other than refresh- 
 ing to the whole nature. 
 
 Passing upward, I remark that the preacher 
 should have a consecrated personality. In a material- 
 istic and ambitious age this consideration is none too 
 popular. In the pulpit work (and pastoral work as 
 well) of many a popular but powerless and perplexed 
 minister this is the one thing lacking. When the 
 necromancers of the middle ages were spending their 
 days and nights in experimenting toward the making 
 of gold by chemical process, it used to seem to them 
 that only one thing was needed to crown their efforts 
 with complete success. Often their combinations 
 would seem to demand but a single substance to pre- 
 cipitate or crystallize into golden metal. But this one 
 substance they never found, and so their mortars and 
 crucibles contained nothing precious. Somewhat sim- 
 ilar to these worthless compounds lacking only a sin- 
 gle element, are those pulpit ministrations which omit 
 "for Christ's sake" from their strivings after success. 
 This is the one thing which combines all thought and 
 effort in a divine result. The one thing whose absence 
 leaves but a poor residuum. An audience can com- 
 monly detect the absence of this element of highest 
 
44 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 worth. Christ enthroned in the heart, every ambition, 
 every personal aim, every effort concentrated in a 
 sublimely humble surrender to His purposes, His 
 love inflaming, constraining — this is power. Christ 
 shining in the life is eloquent and persuasive ere the lips 
 are opened, and is felt warming and illumining all the 
 utterances of the lips. The explanation of the marvel- 
 ous pulpit power of certain men of very modest talents 
 is in one word — consecration. 
 
 Bring your heart and brain and tongue, each 
 time you prepare to preach, and each time you ascend 
 the pulpit to God's altar, and invoke the hand of fire 
 to be outreached to take them and hold them while 
 you proclaim the message of Him whose you are and 
 whom you serve. The living force of a self -forgetful, 
 sacrificial soul, pressing, urging itself upon other souls 
 for their impregnation with the truth and their trans- 
 figuration from the dark and sordid life of the flesh in- 
 to the true life for which Christ made and redeemed 
 them, is indeed a spectacle for angels and men. And 
 this was Paul's conception of preaching when he said : 
 ''For tho' ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ 
 Jesus, I have begotten you through the Gospel." (i 
 Cor. iv: 15.) 
 
 This predominance of the personal factor marked 
 the apostolic age of victory over the nations. The 
 Holy Light was in them, and Christ had said : "Let 
 your light so shine before men that they may see your 
 good works and glorify your Father which is in 
 heaven." They shone as lights in the world. "They 
 brought to bear upon that corrupt age not only the 
 
THE PERSONAL FACTOR IN PREACHING. 45 
 
 searchlight of absolute truth, but the influence of clean 
 hearts and lives ; upon an age of glittering shams they 
 brought to bear the penetrating power of a character 
 and life vital and vigorous with eternal realities ; upon 
 the darkening and dying faiths of their day they 
 flashed the energies of a triumphant Faith, both in 
 God and human redemption, and they created a new 
 social conscience and wrought marvelous transforma- 
 tions in that first century, not by exploiting a new social- 
 ism, nor by the subtleties of theology, nor by the fasci- 
 nations of a gorgeous ceremonial, but by the witness 
 of lives beautiful with philanthropy, sublime with 
 self-sacrifice, commanding with the courage of convic- 
 tion and inspiring with enthusiasm for humanity." 
 And there are men not a few in our day, who are the 
 worthy successors of these apostolic preachers ; they 
 are in the line of the true and only ' 'Apostolic Succes- 
 sion. ' ' 
 
 The personal factor might be said to comprehend 
 almost all others. As the recovery and rebuilding of 
 men upon a Christly model are the preacher's great 
 business, the structure of his own character and the 
 style and tone of his own life must play a conspicuous 
 part. The chief thing, indeed, that a man contributes 
 to his age is his tone. The ' 'dignity of his profession' ■ 
 can avail him little if his personal quality is effeminate 
 or false ; the grandeur of the truth he represents can- 
 not conceal a narrow or timorous soul, even though a 
 man swagger in the pulpit like a Bombastes Furioso. A 
 character that, mountain-like, swells from deep, broad, 
 interior foundations, rock-anchored in the immutable 
 
46 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 verities of God, and rising toward heaven in spirit- 
 uality, while spreading out in genial humanities toward 
 the whole world ; or, to change the figure, a manhood 
 that finds its springs, like the Mississippi, among 
 heaven-lit peaks, and flows down, gathering many a 
 rivulet and stream, and, deepening, broadening, flows 
 majestically to the ocean of Eternity, making every- 
 thing live where it goeth — such a personality will prove 
 a psychic force in preaching. 
 
 Such a personality is to be developed. It must be 
 remembered that the compilation of all that he has 
 learned in college and divinity -school cannot construct 
 that type of the effective speaker which Aristotle 
 (Rhet. lib. 2, cap. 1) indicates as embracing "man- 
 liness, kindliness and wisdom," any more than a 
 mechanical arrangement of a child's block alphabet 
 can evolve a poem. Nor can a man dream himself 
 into such a breadth and independence and geniality of 
 character as he may covet ; he must hammer and 
 forge himself into it through the fires of the Holy 
 Spirit, and the study of such men as a St. Paul, a 
 St. Francis of Assisi, a Chalmers, a Guthrie, a Rob- 
 ertson, a Kingsley, a Gordon, a Phillips Brooks, and 
 other typical men, and, above all, by a perpetual com- 
 munion with the ideal type of manhood — the Christ, 
 who, ' 'holiest among the mighty and mightiest among 
 the holy, lifted the gates of empires from their hinges 
 and turned into new channels the course of the ages. ' ' 
 
Commanding the Attention 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Commanding the Attention 
 
 HE who possesses the art of awakening and hold- 
 ing the attention is a " Master of Assemblies.* ' 
 Psychology has concerned itself largely with 
 the results of attention — only of late have its laws and 
 mechanism been carefully studied. As a factor in pul- 
 pit work, its importance, from a psychological point of 
 view, can hardly be over-estimated. The attention 
 may be said to underlie all other mental operations, so 
 that its genesis and characteristics and phenomena are 
 an essential part of the preacher's study. 
 
 An adequate definition of attention would involve 
 the quotation of a number of authorities — a ' 'composite 
 photograph" which, even if practical, would be con- 
 fusing ; but every one of my readers sufficiently 
 understands what the term means. It is the bringing 
 of the consciousness to a focus in some special direction. 
 It embraces all degrees, from the momentary and 
 languid thought given to a passing remark, to the 
 state of complete absorption known as ' 'ecstasy. ' ' It 
 is subject to every degree of intensity and duration. 
 Whether considered objectively, as directed to external 
 things, or subjectively, as directed to internal events, 
 it is required to convert sensation into that grasp of 
 particulars which constitutes perception. Without 
 
 47 
 
48 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 attention we have meaningless and inconsequent 
 revery instead of coherent and productive thought ; 
 nor can we conceive of any act as being strictly vol- 
 untary or intelligent without its direction. Hence the 
 Psychology of the Attention is a study of the highest 
 importance to those who would by persuasive speech 
 lead men to action. It should be studied as a science. 
 As a feature in the course of Homiletics in our 
 divinity schools it has been given a scant and inci- 
 dental regard ; it should have a more full and specific 
 treatment. A candidate for ordination is carefully 
 examined as to his orthodoxy, but if he were asked to 
 define attention and state how he could go about 
 awakening and holding the attention of a congrega- 
 tion, he would probably be quite nonplussed, or at 
 least give crude and unscientific answers. And yet 
 this is a primary and essential factor in pulpit address. 
 To preach without awakening and holding the atten- 
 tion is but a waste of energy and a squandering of 
 thought. 
 
 The attention is the "coupling" by which the 
 locomotive draws the train ; if there is a ' 'missing 
 link" there, the engine, though well built and well 
 driven, spins away in rattling isolation, leaving the 
 passengers in provoking immobility. To awaken and 
 retain the attention is, therefore, imperative to suc- 
 cessful preaching. There are sensational and empir- 
 ical ways of doing this, and also others that are in 
 harmony with the constitution of the mind. 
 
 Attention has been defined as "the concentration 
 of consciousness, or the direction of mental energy 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 49 
 
 upon a definite object or objects." Its mode of opera- 
 tion and the effects produced by it may be compared 
 with the concentration of visual activity upon some 
 definite part of the field of vision, and the clearer per- 
 ception of that limited portion which is thus obtained. 
 
 The preacher's work is to make men first see 
 things, then feel them, then act upon them. If the 
 first result is not gained, the others, of course, fail ; 
 often if the first is obtained the other two go along 
 with it. The Arabian proverb, "He is the best orator 
 who can change men's ears into eyes," has application 
 here. 
 
 There are two qualities of attention — intensity and 
 duration — which are characteristic ; their combination 
 at the same moment raises it to its highest condition. 
 We must distinguish between spontaneous and voluntary 
 attention. The former is natural and primitive ; the 
 latter is mechanical, artificial, the result of education. 
 The former is the basis of the latter ; and both are to 
 be found in every degree of development, from the 
 feeblest to the most intense. A part of the preacher's 
 science is to be able to discern the degree of voluntary 
 attention in his congregation — when it begins, when it 
 increases, when it declines and when it ends. This is 
 not easy, but a degree of facility and proficiency may 
 be gained by study and observation. He will fail in 
 carrying his hearers with him if he has not this tact, 
 that is, if he is not in conscious and intelligent touch 
 with them ; he must throw out his mental tentacles 
 (which should be electrical), or, better, he should sink 
 from the pulpit to the pews his sympathetic grappling- 
 
50 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 hooks and "get hold" of the people, or he might as 
 well stop before he begins. 
 
 He must reckon with the actual human material 
 with which he has to deal. He stands before a mass 
 of faces and forms clothing an infinite variety of souls 
 — conscious, egotistic factors — each an independent 
 organism, an animate cosmos, in which involuntary 
 attention and sensation are found largely foreign to his 
 own. Could he study, as in a vitascope, the psychic 
 condition and movements of the average auditor, he 
 would see a constant coming and going of thoughts, 
 images, events, incidents, and emotions, which follow 
 each other in no rational order, but mingle with or 
 expel one another according to some law of association 
 which psychologists as yet only partially comprehend. 
 It may be, in a degree, compared to a kaleidoscopic 
 effect — forming, unforming, reforming various combi- 
 nations, only with different elements. His business is 
 to clear the field of these native vagrants by the 
 orderly invasion of his marshaled and moving ideas, 
 images and arguments. 
 
 He cannot mould the individual or the mass as if 
 it were plastic clay, or even in the fires of his fervor. 
 Men are sensitive, volatile, evasive; many of them 
 ignorant of and indifferent to the things they most 
 need to be persuaded of. To many the message is "a 
 thrice- told tale," or it is not congenial to their mood 
 or prejudices. Not a few, as soon as the text is 
 announced, lock their doors and close the blinds from 
 an unconscious or active antagonism to what they 
 think is coming. In some there is a chronic mental 
 
COMMANDING THK ATTENTION. 5 1 
 
 indolence or vagrancy of thought, some are dull and 
 slow-witted and some cold and unemotional. He is to 
 adapt his methods to reach each and all. 
 
 The capacity and readiness of attention are largely 
 a matter of education and habit. With people trained 
 to think consecutively, to observe objects and events, 
 to compare, contrast and draw conclusions, it is at its 
 best. 
 
 But the exercise of the attention is not always pro- 
 portionate to its capacity. The cultured are often so 
 surfeited, so blasS, so self-complacent or so fatigued 
 with more exciting or pleasurable mental occupation 
 that they yield only a languid attention to the 
 preacher's voice. Men and women of society are so 
 fagged with the dissipations of the week that it is 
 hard to arouse in them a quick interest in the message 
 of the Sabbath, while with many the browsing of the 
 interminable Sunday newspaper has tired their brain 
 to begin with. On the other hand, men and women 
 whose daily routine of humble toil presents little to 
 waken or satisfy the mind often make excellent 
 listeners if the theme and its treatment be attractive 
 to them. To awaken attention, we must concentrate 
 and hold the hearer's mind to a given idea, or train of 
 ideas, to the exclusion of those others, many and va- 
 grant, which normally or accidentally fill his horizon. 
 It means an effort on the part of the speaker, and a re- 
 ciprocal effort on the part of the hearer. His atten- 
 tion becomes the voluntary subjection of his entire 
 mental and physical activity to his own use in har- 
 mony with that of the speaker. It involves a unity of 
 
52 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 consciousness ; the whole being converges toward the 
 object presented, and is held in captivity — ears, eyes 
 and limbs, and almost the very breath are under the 
 same spell. 
 
 The speaker has not won the attention when there 
 is merely a decorous quietness, an uplifted face and 
 even a " hearing ear " ; for just as a man may read a 
 page of a book and not derive the slightest impression 
 from it, because his thoughts are elsewhere, so in 
 listening to a discourse. " People habituate them- 
 selves, ' ' as Bishop Butler says, ' ' to let things pass 
 through their minds, rather than to think on them. 
 The great number of books and papers of amusement 
 have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in 
 with this idle way of reading and considering things. 
 Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, 
 becomes a fatigue." 
 
 If this was true when written in 1729, how much 
 more is it applicable to the mental habits at this begin- 
 ning of the twentieth century, dissipated and feverish 
 through the daily and desultory browsing over the in- 
 terminable field of a cheap and often sensational press. 
 He who would command attention from the pulpit 
 must not underestimate the difficulty of his task. 
 
 What, then, is the process by which voluntary 
 attention is gained ? Prof. Ribot * says: ' ' It may be re- 
 duced to the following single formula : To render attrac- 
 tive by artifice what is not so by nature, to give an 
 artificial interest to things that have not a natural in- 
 terest. I use the word ' interest ' in the ordinary 
 
 * Psychologie de l'Attention, Chap. 2. 
 
COMMANDING THK ATTENTION. 53 
 
 sense as equivalent to the paraphrase — anything that 
 keeps the mind on the alert. But the mind is only kept 
 on the alert by the agreeable, the disagreeable or 
 mixed action of objects upon it, that is by emotional 
 states, with this difference, however, that here the 
 feelings that sustain attention are acquired, super- 
 added, not spontaneous, as in primitive manifestations. ' ' 
 "The whole question," says he, "is reduced to the 
 finding of effective motives ; if the latter be wanting, 
 voluntary attention does not appear. ' ' 
 
 To arouse attention we must awaken pleasure, 
 pain or surprise. The themes the preacher deals with 
 are intrinsically adapted to this end, more, indeed, 
 than any others, but it is not what things are, but 
 what they appear to be, that awakens interest, and 
 the eyes of the human understanding are naturally 
 darkened by sin so that the ' ' things that accompany 
 salvation ' ' do not appear in their true colors and pro- 
 portions, but obscured and distorted. Through Satanic 
 devices men are led to think evil good and good evil, and 
 through the glamour and fascination of things purely 
 secular, the supreme greatness and glory of things 
 spiritual are eclipsed, and even through passion or fear 
 they become repulsive. Human nature has not 
 ceased to turn from the sublime teachings of Christ 
 with the cry of impatience or contempt. " This is a 
 hard saying ; who can hear it ? " Christ is still to the 
 multitudes ' ' a root out of a dry ground without form 
 or comeliness, and there is no beauty that they should 
 desire him." Now, just as a man incapable of pleas- 
 ure or pain would be incapable of attention, so, unless 
 
54 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 we can awaken surprise, pleasure or pain by specific 
 psychological methods, we fail of gaining attention. 
 Voluntary attention must be excited by novelty ad- 
 dressed to the senses and through them to the intellect 
 and the emotions, and thus calling into action the 
 will which, with effort, purposely or unconsciously, 
 bends the whole man to that which is thus presented. 
 This impulsion of the mind in attention is not steady 
 like the pressure of the trolley arm upon the wire, it 
 is, rather, intermittent like the oscillation of a pendu- 
 lum. Continued tension speedily exhausts the power 
 of listening. To preserve its freshness and elasticity 
 there must be momentary rests for the mind to 
 unbend ; it will return enlivened. Voluntary atten- 
 tion, in its durable form, is really a difficult state to 
 maintain. The speaker should remember that. There 
 is always an effort and a feeling of effort. When 
 this is reduced — as the skilful speaker knows how — 
 to its lowest point, voluntary attention approximates 
 to the spontaneous, and so can be held to its work for 
 a longer time. We only do that easily which we do 
 unconsciously. 
 
 Sometimes attention is grafted upon a purely 
 selfish feeling — as the hope of reward or fear of punish- 
 ment, but there must always be an emotion prompting 
 to physical effort, an action of the will both summon- 
 ing the mind and inhibiting distraction. As attention 
 always depends on emotional states, we must contin- 
 ually keep this in mind. In man's physical organiza- 
 tion the states designated as needy appetite f inclination , 
 desire, constitute the true basis of emotional life. As 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 55 
 
 these have become more or less mental habits, atten- 
 tion does not depend wholly upon present causes, but 
 upon an accumulation of primary causes. (Ribot.) 
 Habitual motives thus have acquired the force of 
 natural motives. The work of the preacher is also 
 aided by what psychologists call ' ' anticipative atten- 
 tion" or pre-attention. Happy the preacher to 
 whose well-known brightness and life the expectant 
 people turn, as house-plants to a sunny window. A 
 man of established reputation for brilliancy, wit or 
 even eccentricity will be met, on confronting his audi- 
 ence, with this pre-attention, and is likely to hold it, 
 for obvious reasons. Without these exceptional gifts, 
 a preacher may secure a measure of the same advan- 
 tage by winning the confidence and affection of his 
 people and the community by his constant, wise and 
 sympathetic intercourse with them. Force of char- 
 acter, moral strength and geniality combined, personal 
 magnetism and even a reputation for pith and brevity 
 will secure this anticipative attention. 
 
 In general, it may be said, attractiveness is the 
 sceptre of attention. It may reside in personality, in 
 subject, in delivery, or in all three. The subject, of 
 course, is of supreme importance. If it does not make 
 a natural appeal to men's hunger and thirst, to their 
 hearts and homes, it is almost impossible to secure 
 attention, even though the preacher's personality and 
 elocution be attractive in a high degree. Bigness is a 
 prominent law of attention ; it is always attractive 
 even when not pleasing. Advertisers understand 
 this, and all business is conducted on that principle. 
 
56 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 Pettiness is the bane of our pulpits. A fraction of a 
 verse, with a fragment of pretty poetical sentiment 
 drawn from it, as a silken thread is spun from a co- 
 coon, satisfies the preacher, and the drowsy people 
 permit it. The men who command attention deal 
 with the great, vital questions which affect the men 
 and women of to-day for weal or woe, and they treat 
 those questions, not in an empirical, narrow or 
 abstruse, but in a concrete and practical way, yet 
 always with the magnifying and interpreting light of 
 gospel teaching and of eternal issues. I^ike God, they 
 see everything in the present, yet with an infinite 
 perspective and in the broad search-light of the 
 Judgment Throne. The preacher must be at once 
 prophet and herald. " Never forget," said Phillips 
 Brooks to the Yale theological students, ' ' that you 
 are above all things else heralds. ' ' He is to declare 
 "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" — "the king- 
 dom of God is within you." He must treat the 
 " powers of the world to come " as projecting them- 
 selves into this world, right among the marts and 
 factories and politics and schools and amusements and 
 homes of his own neighborhood. 
 
 People are not greatly interested by things in the 
 remote future ; " the life that now is " absorbs them, 
 but they can be made to see its greatness. They are 
 not attracted by pictures of their dying hour, but are 
 eager to know how to live happily and successfully. 
 They are attracted by crystallized demonstrations — 
 the abstract and metaphysical bore them. It grates 
 upon men to be asked to assist in the slaughter of some 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 57 
 
 comatose heresy when they are hungering for the 
 solution of the problems of their daily life. They look 
 listlessly upon the rearing and buttressing of a totter- 
 ing theological dogma, but they prick up their ears at 
 a trumpet-call to nobler living with strong hands held 
 out to help them. 
 
 Another law of attention is brightness and intensity. 
 The intensity of a sensation influences the amount of 
 attention given to it. Sermons should be constella- 
 tions — they are too often like the milky-way. An- 
 other law is the manifest sincerity of the speaker and 
 the heart-force that touches the most indifferent. You 
 sometimes hear men of whom you are convinced that 
 they do not believe, or at least do not realize, a word 
 they are saying. David Hume, when charged with 
 inconsistency in going frequently to hear Rowland 
 Hill, said, ' ' I like to hear sometimes a man who be- 
 lieves what he says. ' ' The accent of conviction and 
 the blood-streak of experience have a fascination that 
 is wanting in the most decorative theories. People 
 wake up when they not only hear of the historical 
 Christ, living in Judea twenty centuries ago, but see 
 the living Christ shining through the minister's face 
 and sermon as through a lattice, and scent the per- 
 fume of the Rose and the I^ily fresh from the gardens 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Another rule is, create expectation and surprise, 
 Charles Spurgeon used to say, ' ' Take the people in a 
 way they did not expect, let your thunderbolt drop 
 out of a clear sky, cultivate what Father Taylor (the 
 New York preacher to sailors) called ' the surprise 
 
58 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 power, ' avoid long introductions, leap into your sub- 
 ject, let your first sentences have something striking 
 in them, vary your speed, dash like the lightning, 
 move calmly like the flowing river, use the bass notes, 
 the clarion tones, be conversational, be dramatic, have 
 variety — that is what human nature craves. ' ' 
 
 Command of the attention will be affected by the 
 structure of the sermon. As I shall treat of that under 
 the ' ' Psychology of Style ' ' in the next chapter, I 
 will confine myself here to one or two general princi- 
 ples : First — order and unity. Some one has said that 
 sermons might be divided into two classes — "verte- 
 brate and molluscous." With the latter there seems 
 to be no framework on which it is built, and it might 
 as well be delivered from the middle to both ends. 
 Sermons of the molluscous kind discourage the hearer 
 before they have been rambling long. It is impossible 
 to keep up the attention. To concentrate thought the 
 discourse must be vertebrate. We do not want to see 
 the anatomy, but we want to know that it is there. 
 Phillips Brooks says, ' * The true way to get rid of the 
 bonyness of your sermon is not by leaving out the 
 skeleton, but by clothing it with flesh. Give your 
 sermon an orderly, constant progress, and do not hesi- 
 tate to let your hearers see it distinctly, for it will help 
 them, first, to understand, and then to remember what 
 you say." 
 
 While George Herbert in the Country Parson 
 warns us against ' ' crumbling up a text into small 
 parts, by which a passage ceases to be Scripture and 
 becomes a dictionary, ' ' I am convinced that a clear 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 59 
 
 statement, in the exordium, of the main points of 
 which the preacher means to treat, is adapted to keep 
 up a livelier interest than the modern practice, which 
 might be called the evolutionary style. 
 
 A lively curiosity may be excited when a presti- 
 digitator draws out of his mouth an indefinite length 
 of ribbon, and the attention is kept up by its seeming 
 endlessness, but exactly the opposite effect is produced 
 by the flow of discourse in which there are no resting 
 places and no breathing spots. The divisions should, 
 however, be few in number and show unity and prog- 
 ress. By these milestones the hearer will know that 
 you are hastening toward a goal, " Semper ad eventum 
 festinat. ' ' The attention is fagged by detail and dis- 
 cursive matter. Cecil used to say, "Above all things, 
 disencumber a sermon. ' ' 
 
 Now this we may do by a clear plan before 
 we begin — what have we to say and what limits will 
 we fix to our subject ? We must not commence our 
 voyage till we have a distinct course on the chart and 
 a near and definite port in view, and the hearers should 
 expect that. 
 
 ' ' Firstly ' ' and ' ' finally ' ' should be joined by suc- 
 cessive links, and they should be few. A sermon should 
 be like the grape-vines of California, which are not 
 grown for ornament, but for fruit. The branches and 
 foliage are "cut back " close to the stem, which itself 
 does not rise above your head, instead of wandering 
 over a high trellis ; and so you have the big, purple 
 bunches of fruit which one can gather right at hand. 
 
 Most men put too many distinct thoughts into a 
 
60 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 sermon and go too much into detail. They are afraid 
 of repeating the same thought even in a different dress, 
 or of appearing too limited in their range, or too simple 
 and elementary. We must remember that we are 
 not addressing an audience of savants, but men, women 
 and youths, who, outside their own profession, trade 
 or home duties have very vague and inadequate ideas 
 of the subjects that to us are familiar and of which we 
 can take in a wide horizon at a glance. The charm of 
 some of the greatest preachers, like Chalmers, was in 
 clinging to a few points and holding up new phases of 
 them till the people saw them clearly. 
 
 Indeed, an eminent preacher when asked the secret 
 of effective speech said, ' ' Repetition — repetition — repe- 
 tition." A Supreme Court Judge said to Mr. Finney 
 (Autobiog. p. 85), " Ministers do not show good sense 
 in addressing the people. They are afraid of repeti- 
 tion. Now if lawyers should take such a course they 
 would ruin themselves and their cause. ' ' ' 'When I was 
 at the bar," he added, " I learned that unless I did so 
 — illustrated and repeated and turned the main points 
 over — the main points of law and evidence — I should 
 lose my case." The Duke of Wellington, speaking of 
 an eminent British pleader, said, u When Scarlett ad- 
 dresses a jury there are thirteen jurymen." The 
 secret of winning in such a case the ear of a jury by 
 implicating your thought, your predilections, your 
 questionings with theirs is equally available as an ele- 
 ment of pulpit power. 
 
 The preacher should not ignore the physical basis 
 and conditions of attention. The activity of the brain, 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 6 1 
 
 the quickening and continuity of its physical move- 
 ments, are conditioned by the activity of its circulation. 
 Professor Ribot observes that the blood is to the gray 
 matter of the convolutions what oxygen is to the 
 burning fuel: it is at once an imperative need and a 
 natural stimulus. ' ' The consciousness, ' ' he says, ' ' will 
 fail to respond to any impression, if the circulation be 
 impeded or lowered below a certain amount." It fol- 
 lows that as physical conditions enter largely into a 
 man's actual power to think consecutively and with 
 concentration and interest, they should be studied. 
 Drowsiness, vagrancy of mind, dullness of perception, 
 mental languor and fatigue are, thus, the inevitable 
 results and concomitants of an imperfect circulation. 
 The presence of carbonic gas in an ill-ventilated audi- 
 torium and a temperature too cold or too warm are the 
 enemies of attention. Demosthenes or Paul could not 
 interest a partially asphyxiated or half- frozen audience. 
 And then there are distractions from uncomfortable 
 seats, garish decorations, giggling choirs, fretful chil- 
 dren and outri attires, all helping to make the preacher's 
 task embarrassing. 
 
 Since attention is so shy, capricious and easily 
 distracted, the preacher must catch it when it is most 
 free from burden. Sometimes the audience is tired 
 "before the sermon begins. Where intelligence, unction 
 and brevity control the order of service they stimulate 
 and lead up to the sermon, but they are often unduly 
 elaborated. By the time the organist has achieved his 
 "prelude," the chorister finished his programme, the 
 hymns read and sung, the Scriptures read and expound- 
 
62 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 ed, the "long prayer" completed, a volume of notices 
 read with comments, the attention of the people has 
 been occupied nearly an hour. If the worship that 
 precedes the sermon be full of life, unity and original- 
 ity of thought and fervor of feeling, it should be an 
 uplifting preparation of the mind and heart for the 
 sermon that follows, and this the wise preacher will 
 secure. 
 
 Attention and quickened emotion are reciprocal. 
 The preacher has the whole diapason of the motives on 
 which to play — as a skilful organist, he must under- 
 stand his keys, stops and combinations. His congrega- 
 tion includes every variety of life, every degree of 
 sensibility to impression. His ability to gain the at- 
 tention of the larger number will rest on his confining 
 his art to the simple and universal feelings in which 
 all share alike. Such are curiosity, hope of gain or 
 pleasure, fear of loss or pain, love of freedom, of rest, 
 of companionship, life in all its pleasurable forms — in 
 other words, the egoistic sentiments. Rising higher, 
 though reaching a more limited number, we may ap- 
 peal to the sentiments of justice, benevolence, sympathy, 
 social responsibility, patriotism, mercy, enthusiasm 
 for humanity — in other words, the altruistic sentiments. 
 Rising still higher, and reaching a still smaller number, 
 we have the moral emotions — love of the good, the 
 beautiful, the true; the sentiment of honor, nobility, 
 magnanimity, of the special obligations and privi- 
 leges of the prosperous and the strong. Pleasure in the 
 harmony of things, yearnings for an ideal state, all 
 these in all their combinations form the wide range of 
 
COMMANDING THE ATTENTION. 63 
 
 motives and emotions which will on the one hand pro- 
 duce attention, and on the other receive development 
 and vigor through the result of attention. 
 
 We can detect the degree of attention by noticing 
 the stillness or restlessness of the congregation, for its 
 direct effect is a concentration of physical movements. 
 A state of immobility prevails. There is an adapta- 
 tion of eyes, ears and muscles, a tendency toward con- 
 centration of consciousness and concentration of move- 
 ments. As Nature enlivens our attention by her in- 
 finite variety, so the attention is held by frequent transi- 
 tions from the didactic to the pictorial, from affirma- 
 tion to interrogation, from description to dialogue, 
 now a quotation and now an anecdote, now a verse of 
 poetry and now a flash of humor, sometimes a deliber- 
 ate pause, especially after a passionate passage, and a 
 new commencement in a different key, the quiet con- 
 versational manner following fiery declamation. All 
 these variations tend in the same direction of relieving 
 and, therefore, freshening the attention. Attention 
 cannot be gained by hammering the Bible, nor scream- 
 ing at the people. Often a whisper or an emphatic 
 pause is very effective. We should remember also the 
 psychic power of the eye in this connection. A silent, 
 searching and penetrating look wakens the attention 
 when words have failed. George Herbert says, ' ' The 
 Country Parson, when he preacheth, procures attention 
 by all possible art, both by earnestness of speech and 
 by a diligent and busy cast of the eye among the 
 auditors, with letting them know that he observes who 
 marks and who not, and with particularizing now to 
 
64 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the younger sort, now to the elder, now to the rich, 
 now to the poor, this is for you, and this is for you; 
 for particulars touch and awake more than generals." 
 I conclude with the remark that attention will 
 largely depend on the good- will and love of the hear- 
 ers. If the preacher possesses those magnetic qualities 
 which Aristotle specifies (Rhet. lib. 2. cap. 1), which 
 may be rendered, Manliness, Kindliness and Wisdom, 
 he has won half the battle to begin with. If the peo- 
 ple know he is not speaking in a perfunctory way, nor 
 as a schoolmaster, but as a father, brother, friend; and 
 especially if they know, from experience, that he will 
 not lose them in a labyrinth of speculation, but lead 
 them by a short, direct path to living fountains ; if he 
 preach as one who knows what he and his sermon are 
 about, and has something that has to be said, and that 
 he intends to be listened to, they will listen ; they know 
 that he will say plainly, frankly and briefly what he 
 has to say, and stop when he has said it, and before 
 they want him to. That man will have practically 
 solved the problem of commanding the attention. 
 
The Psychology of Style 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Psychology of Style 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have shown that the 
 Attention is the coupling by which the hearer is 
 
 drawn after the speaker — the gearing by which all 
 the machinery of his mind and heart is kept in motion 
 by the speaker's power. Unlike material coupling and 
 gearing, however, it is neither of iron links nor leather 
 bands, but as fragile as a spider's web. We are con- 
 cerned, then, to see that no unnecessary strain is put 
 upon it. The attention is with most, not only limited, 
 but capricious and impatient ; easily distracted, easily 
 wearied. Hence, if we would get our message over 
 the hearer's telephone before his ear is removed from 
 the transmitter, we must study the psychology of Lan- 
 guage as well as of thought. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in his profound and analytic 
 essay on the Philosophy of Style, says: "Regarding 
 language as an apparatus of symbols for the convey- 
 ance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical 
 apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its 
 parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In 
 either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine 
 is deducted from the result. A listener has, at each 
 moment, but a limited amount of mental power avail- 
 able. To recognize and interpret the symbols pre- 
 
 65 
 
66 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 sented to him requires part of this power ; to arrange 
 and combine the images suggested requires a further 
 part, and only that part which remains can be used 
 for realizing the thought conveyed." Keeping this 
 law in view, it is clear that simplicity, lucidity and 
 directness of address, both in vocabulary and rhetoric, 
 are of primary consequence. As in the transference of 
 electrical energy, it is important to avoid waste in the 
 process, so there is no more important problem in the 
 transmission of thought than how to produce a maxi- 
 mum of impression with a minimum of tax on the 
 attention, since whatever mental energy the hearer 
 expends in getting at the speaker's meaning leaves so 
 much less for grasping the value of his thought. 
 
 The familiar mot of Talleyrand, " Language is a 
 vehicle for concealing thought, ' ' derives all its point 
 from the fact that though words are the windows of the 
 mind, they are not absolutely crystalline, but varying 
 through all degrees of transparency down to actual 
 opacity. Hence within a limited range Pantomime 
 or Picture Language has a superiority over words. 
 Thus, the beckoning or repelling hand, the pointing 
 finger, the dilating eyes and raised eyebrows, or the 
 shrugging shoulders — each conveys thought with a 
 swift vividness that defies etymology. 
 
 Coming to words, — an ejaculation, " Oh ! Ah ! " 
 with their inflections, or a single word, as ' ' Wretch ! ' ' 
 1 ' Horrors ! ' ' ' ' Huzzah ! ' ' could not, in elaborate 
 sentence, find paraphrase. 
 
 Seeing, then, that in language we have an organ of 
 impression that is, at best, an imperfect transmitter of 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 67 
 
 our thought and emotions, we should seek to discover 
 the psychological laws by which attention may be 
 economized. According to Herbert Spencer, "The 
 friction and inertia involved in the application of rhe- 
 torical machinery to the mind, reduced to its lowest 
 point, indicates the secret of style. The choice and 
 arrangement of words and sentences, the right intro- 
 duction of imagery, and all figures of speech, the use 
 of quotation, even of omission and pause, are all in- 
 volved in the process. ' ' 
 
 In a rich and mosaic language like ours, there is 
 wide scope for selection of words, the law of selection 
 being fitness to the subject discussed and the audience 
 addressed. For the work of the preacher the simplic- 
 ity and force of Saxon-English has commended it to 
 all experts in the Science of Speech. It is terse and 
 transparent, robust and rugged, picturesque and illus- 
 trative. It abounds in monosyllabic and dissyllabic 
 words, whose sound suggests their sense more fre- 
 quently than any other language. It is near neigh- 
 bor to primitive language, it is the dialect of youth 
 and of the common people, and what it lacks of the 
 elegance of the French or the grace of the Latin and 
 Greek it makes up in vigor and grip of the attention. 
 It is even most approved for ordinary address by the 
 cultured, and is a characteristic of the writers and 
 speakers who have commanded the ears of men in 
 modern times. It is pre-eminently adapted to preach- 
 ing, which is not a work of art, but an effort to con- 
 vince and persuade through manifestation of the 
 truth. 
 
68 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 If the secret of effective style be in the economy of 
 the attention, we should select words as brief and 
 sentences as concise as clearness and perfect expression 
 of the thought will allow. Hence words of one and 
 two syllables are to be largely used . Thus : ' ' Return to 
 thine abode " may be more smooth, but " Go home" 
 is more vigorous. " 'Tis yours to live," is a flash- 
 light sentence, while ' ' I,ife is the privilege and pre- 
 rogative of all men, ' ' tires the mind as an axiom. Saxon 
 being the language of our earlier and more impression- 
 able years, the power of association makes such words 
 more vivid than the I,atinisms, Hellenisms and 
 Gallicisms with which the language of the schools 
 is leavened. 
 
 Nothing pleases, arouses and rests a congregation 
 like the vernacular of the heart. An illustration of 
 the liveliness and force of monosyllabic Saxon is found 
 in the familiar words of Goldsmith: 
 
 " As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm : 
 Though 'round its base the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head! " 
 
 Translate that into sesquipedalian and slow- 
 moving latinity, and we shall see how nerve and vigor 
 degenerate into dropsical feebleness, thus: " As some 
 stupendous mountain that elevates its magnificent pro- 
 portions develops its dimensions as it emerges from 
 the valley and intermediately surmounts the tempest : 
 the rolling clouds may gather around its foundations, 
 but perpetual luminosity envelops its apex. ' ' In the con- 
 trast it seems absurd, yet it is such grandiose turgidity 
 
THE PSYCHOIyOGY OF STYI,E. 69 
 
 that is sometimes heard from the pulpit. If the 
 Frenchman's mot, ( 'l,e style c'est 1'homme," be true, 
 then it is to be feared there is a vein of pomposity in 
 not a few preachers. Addison speaks of a man who 
 1 ' wrote upon the sublime in a low and grovelling 
 style, ' ' and truly it is appropriate sometimes to carry 
 the emotions of the hearers gradually upward to our 
 thoughts by words that have in them a sonorous maj- 
 esty. 
 
 It is sometimes better to say ' ' magnificent ' ' than 
 "grand," or "illimitable" rather than "vast," but 
 for the ordinary work of the pulpit the Saxon mono- 
 syllable is most forceful. It has an advantage, also, in 
 being often descriptive, the symbol picturing the idea 
 to the mind. Note such words as ' ' split, crash, gloom, 
 roar, click, croak. ' ' There is this additional advantage, 
 that such words adapt themselves to the speaker's 
 elocution with more ease than those which are more 
 arbitrary and complex. 
 
 Again, and for the same reason, a vocabulary that 
 abounds in concrete rather than abstract and in specific 
 rather than generic words will enliven the attention 
 and save extra mental exertion. DeWitt Talmage is 
 a conspicuous example of such a style, carried, perhaps, 
 to excess. To illustrate: "The assembling of a mul- 
 titude of townspeople to listen to the discussion of 
 current political issues is an interesting study to the 
 public-spirited citizen. " Translate into the concrete: 
 " To see the farmers and shop-keepers, bankers and 
 lawyers, the hobbling veteran and gaping school-boy 
 flocking to the town common to hear Major Jones's 
 talk on tariff and taxes is a study to the patriot. ' ' 
 
70 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 Economy of attention is next secured by the right 
 ' ' assembling ' ' of words in clauses and of clauses in 
 the sentence. Our rhetoricians furnish many rules 
 for composition with a view to transparency and ele- 
 gance, but one does not need to understand the gar- 
 dener's art in order to have a fine flower-bed, nor does 
 he need to memorize rhetorical rules in order to clothe 
 his thoughts in fitting style; natural taste and instinct 
 will come to the aid of an educated judgment and the 
 study of the best writers. To this the extempore 
 preacher will need to add the constant exercise of the 
 pen, which is the instrument of thought and gives 
 orderly march to the mind; if it be neglected, the style 
 becomes vague and slovenly; with it not only will his 
 vocabulary become enriched, but in the collocation of 
 words he will acquire facility. ' ' His words, like so 
 many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at com- 
 mand, and, in well-ordered files, as he would wish, fall 
 aptly into their own places. ' ' ( Mii/Ton, True Eloquence. ) 
 
 In the arrangement of predicate and subject the 
 attention is excited more effectually by pronouncing 
 the predicate first, especially as it determines the in- 
 teresting fact about the subject. Thus: " Sweet are 
 the uses of adversity." "Heroic is the spirit of sacri- 
 fice, ' ' instead of ' ' The spirit of sacrifice is heroic. ' ' 
 Again, the qualifications of the subject should not be 
 multiplied, for the attempt to simultaneously remem- 
 ber them requires a mental strain that is fatiguing, 
 and hence the effect is weakened. 
 
 The matter of climax should be carefully observed. 
 Lord Kaimes, in his Elements of Criticism, tells us that 
 
TH3 PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 7 1 
 
 "to give the utmost force to a period it ought, if 
 possible, to be closed with the word that makes the 
 greatest figure." But such a rule will have many 
 exceptions. Intelligent experiment with various 
 arrangements of the words and clauses will reveal the 
 one that is the best. A general rule may be followed, 
 however, that the subordinate parts of the thought 
 should precede and lead up to the main thought and 
 thus avoid a reaction of the attention, which is always 
 weakening.* 
 
 Again, concentration is to be studied. If brevity 
 is the soul of wit, not less is it the life of speech. The 
 Abbe Roux says, ' ' Thoughts are fruit and words are 
 leaves; let us strip off the leaves in order that thought, 
 thus exposed to the light, may gain strength, beauty 
 and flavor." We would rather say, thin out the 
 leaves when they hide the fruit and exhaust the 
 strength of the vine, but let us not forget that words 
 are the nursing mothers of thought. 
 
 In the next place the various forms of imagery 
 and word-painting give force to style. Not as an 
 ornament are they to be used, but to increase the 
 quickness of perception, to stimulate attention, imag- 
 ination and emotion, to open the gates of the soul to 
 the invasion of thought. They carry burdens that 
 the mind is thus relieved of. In a metaphor a whole 
 paragraph of explanation is condensed. It is easier to 
 
 * There is a style like that of Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 where the writer sees the totality of a sentence or passage and then pro- 
 jects it entire. And there is another like Shakespeare's who, as Coleridge 
 ("Table Talk") says, " goes on creating and evolving B out of A, and C out 
 of B, and so on, just as a serpent moves, which makes a fulcrum of its 
 own body and seems forever twisting and untwisting its own strength." 
 
72 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 grasp part of a thing than the whole; thus: "banners 
 of omnipotence' ' is more striking than ' ' armies of 
 omnipotence." When the speaker says "like," the 
 attention starts up to meet the simile. For example: 
 ' ' Iyike a thunderbolt from a clear sky fell the ver- 
 dict." Sometimes the simile comes last; as, "The 
 Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. ' ' The 
 force of these and other images is in the surprise and 
 pleasure they awaken by associating objects in nature 
 and life with facts that we want vividly seen. Care 
 must be taken, however, to avoid overloading with 
 elaborate descriptions or redundant figures — excess is 
 always weakness. It is well, often, to give a mere 
 hint of the image and sometimes to omit the formal 
 comparison, leaving the imagination to outrun the 
 speaker's expression and fill the gap, — a thing always 
 gratifying to the hearer. We must always be sure 
 that the illustration really illuminates, and is within 
 the range of the hearer's comprehension. If the light 
 that is within our illustration "be darkness, how 
 great is that darkness ! ' ' There is a marvelous 
 charm and witchery in that style which may be termed 
 dramatic-pictorial, the bringing-up the scene as if it 
 were going on before the eyes — "word-painting." 
 "Painting," says Coleridge, in his Table Talk, "is 
 the intermediate somewhat between a thought and a 
 thing," and it applies equally to word-painting and 
 that of the brush. A picturesque style is the most 
 vivid for putting ideas in the luminous concrete. The 
 improvisatore, the impassioned conversationalist, un- 
 consciously uses this power, and without it, in some 
 
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 73 
 
 degree, eloquence cannot exist. This power of word- 
 painting is born more of nature than of art, and, 
 though the most powerful of the forces which the 
 preacher can put in motion, is, strange to say, the one 
 that is most neglected. He who cultivates and uses 
 this has an infinite range before him and mighty- 
 forces at his command. It was when Thomas Guthrie 
 adopted this style (though he carried it to excess, as 
 he afterward confessed) that he found his great pul- 
 pit power. 
 
 Quotations from eminent writers or preachers 
 always awaken interest and lend authority to expressed 
 thought, and poetical quotations that are both illustra- 
 tive and brief are effective with most hearers; they 
 must, however, be rare, both in quality and quantity. 
 There is force in giving to Scripture incidents a mod- 
 ern setting, a familiar face. Mr. Moody, among mod- 
 erns, is an adept in this line. By all means the trite, 
 stereotyped and tame should be shunned. I would 
 give, however, no encouragement to a style that seeks 
 effect by startling eccentricities. There is an extrava- 
 gance of expression and a garishness of illustration 
 that is worse than tameness. Some sensational preach- 
 ers court the ears of a curious crowd by lowering the 
 style of pulpit address to the level of the Optra bouffe. 
 The mania for "wild and whirling words" is con- 
 tagious, and not a few of the preachers, imagining 
 that ' ' the pulpit is losing its power, ' ' believe they 
 can demonstrate the contrary by stunning the senses of 
 their hearers with flaming superlatives and rhetorical 
 rockets. Simplicity must never degenerate into silli- 
 
74 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 ness, nor must flash be mistaken for force. "The 
 expressions of thought," M. Jules Claretie has some- 
 where said, " should be a little like lightning, — rapid, 
 luminous and electric, and the more of this rapidity 
 and electricity it has, the longer — unlike the light- 
 ning — it will last. 
 
 Few things are more effective than anecdote when 
 brief and pithy; few more demoralizing when wrongly 
 used. Christ used anecdote as well as other forms of 
 illustration, but how apt, how luminous! The abuse 
 of anecdote in these days of abundant lay evangelism 
 is a conspicuous evil; its effective use is a matter of 
 keen discrimination and of true oratorical tact. 
 
 Illustrations in general are like windows to a 
 house, but they should be such as let in and let out 
 uncolored light. They should not be fanciful, or far- 
 fetched, or foreign to the hearers' appreciation. 
 Nature in her infinite variety, human nature in its 
 familiar traits, social life, current events, every-day 
 objects of the home, the shop, the farm, the street, 
 are more easily comprehended and more effective than 
 those from the realm of history, science or literature. 
 The latter are, however, eminently appropriate to a 
 well-educated congregation; and, indeed, may be made 
 effective with the uncultured if rightly handled. Intro- 
 ductions and supplements to illustrations should be 
 eschewed. Illustrations should be like sheet-light- 
 ning — quickly come, quickly gone — but lighting up 
 the landscape. 
 
 An illustration can often be condensed into a 
 word, e. g., "the rust of neglect" — "a vitriolic 
 
THB PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 75 
 
 sneer" — or into a brief clause, as where Dr. Guthrie 
 says, "A selfish man whose heart is no bigger than 
 his coffin, — just room enough for himself," or the 
 French wit, Rivarol's criticism of Condorcet, "He 
 writes with laudanum on lead paper. ' ' Could a whole 
 chapter describe so well a soporific and sodden style ? 
 
 Most valuable illustrative material in compact 
 form is found in the proverbs of all nations and ages. 
 They are cut gems of practical wisdom that, in the 
 setting of a sermon, shed lustre. 
 
 In general, we may say that the preacher, like the 
 poet, must speak the language of our common human- 
 ity, not the dialect of a class. He is to please, not 
 the few cultured in the congregation, but all; and the 
 natural style, that which springs from the depths of 
 sincerity, earnestness and affection, which is the child 
 of reality, will be the realistic and effective style. 
 " When we meet with the natural style," says Pascal, 
 " we are highly delighted, because we expected to see 
 an author and we find a man." Contact with men's 
 actual experiences, observation of the incidents lying 
 all around one's path, open eyes and open heart, a 
 companionship with writers who have seized and held 
 the attention of mankind, — Shakespeare, Walter Scott, 
 Wordsworth, Dickens, Le Sage, I,a Fontaine, Guthrie, 
 Robertson, Beecher, Talmage, Spurgeon, Brooks, 
 etc., — all differing, yet all presenting some features 
 that a student can easily grasp, will go far to develop 
 a psychic style. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie says the aim of style is "to prove, 
 to paint, to persuade; " it remains, then, to speak of 
 
76 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the adaptation of language to these ends; they each 
 have their own place, and neither should be over- 
 looked. 
 
 A style should be exact in definition; it should 
 hold out in open hand the point to be proved, and 
 then its logical process should be compact, — no loop- 
 hole for doubt to insert its sword-point. For the 
 proving of a proposition, elaborate sentences and 
 arguments should be shunned. Here, brevity and 
 condensation are jewels. Nothing is so wearisome as 
 overdoing in the process. There are men who do not 
 think they have proved a thing till they have cor- 
 ralled all the known proofs in the world, and to make 
 weight, have heaped on top all the analogies, and the 
 mind is overburdened and confused. As you listen to 
 some men enlarging the proofs of a self-evident propo- 
 sition you feel like uttering the rebuke the Athenian 
 populace hurled at the rhetorician, who began his 
 harangue with the praises of the strength and prowess 
 of Hercules, ' ' Does any one doubt it ? ' ' Cut short 
 the reasoning and paint the whole matter to the 
 imagination and feeling, so as to lead to action. 
 
 People are largely moved by their imagination 
 and sympathies. We must carry them along familiar 
 ways of thought and then beyond them. Sometimes 
 a word will awaken in the hearer a lively picture of a 
 scene or object, and if we associate our thought with 
 such a memory, we have made an impression. To 
 raise the curiosity on the instant by some surprise, 
 interrogation, exclamation or apostrophe throws open 
 the gateways of fancy. An effective style must 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 77 
 
 always have regard to this powerful ally in the effort 
 to persuade. As a rule, the onset should be bold and 
 vigorous, that the audience may catch a glimpse of 
 the strength of your position. ' ' I prefer, ' ' says 
 Montaigne, " those writers who level the first charge 
 against the strongest doubt. I look for good and 
 solid reasons to come after. ' ' 
 
 What shall we say of the craving for originality 
 in the aspiring preacher ?— originality in modes of 
 thought and expression? It is to be commended — 
 with discrimination. Only the lower order of minds 
 are content to travel in the worn ruts of convention- 
 ality and axiom. But originality, like happiness, is 
 apt to elude those who seek it directly and for its own 
 sake. In avoiding the stereotyped they may only fly 
 to the eccentric; the fear of being commonplace has 
 driven men into the outlandish. Montesquieu says, 
 ''When people run after smartness, they capture silli- 
 ness." (Quand on court apres V esprit, on attrape la 
 sottise. ) But if a man would be original in a safe, 
 sensible and sane way, let him make an independent 
 and absolutely free study of the great facts which 
 cluster around the soul, which have their centre in 
 the Cross and their circumference in the eternities; 
 let him closely and perpetually study human nature 
 with his own eyes and through the eyes of its great 
 interpreters, and above all, its divine interpreter, the 
 Bible; let him go forth and patiently study the infinite 
 variety and freshness of Nature's symbolisms; let him 
 descend reverently and sympathetically into the depths 
 of Christ's sacrificial soul; let him wed his heart and 
 
78 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 thought to the actual and true in human life to-day, 
 and he cannot be commonplace. 
 
 There is no Pierian Spring like that fount which 
 the lovely bosom of nature offers to her true children. 
 If a man be natural and perpetually replenished, he 
 will be sufficiently original to be true. If he be arti- 
 ficial, he is an imitator, whether he knows it or not. 
 True originality is unconscious, simple and child-like 
 in its spontaneity and modesty. 
 
 Psychic energy in style is that quality which 
 gives a sense of power in the speaker or in the truth 
 he speaks, and thus forces attention to the subject in 
 hand and stamps it on the mind of the hearer. It 
 belongs to that force of nature, thought and character 
 which are pre-eminently personal. Strong character 
 generates strong thought, formulates a strong style in 
 composition. This is the general rule, but specific 
 interferences of an abnormal and conventional charac- 
 ter may limit its universal application. 
 
 A psychic style possesses that vital, sympathetic, 
 human relation to a man's language by which he 
 makes the words personal to his own idiosyncrasy, 
 fills them with his own quality and tone of feeling and 
 gives his hearer the vivid consciousness of being in 
 direct electric touch with a living, sensitive, mental 
 and spiritual force. If he wields the vocabulary as 
 something outside of himself or decorates himself in 
 rhetoric, as in a garment, he does not fulfill this idea. 
 ' ' Style, ' ' says Schopenhauer, ' ' is the physiognomy of 
 the mind , and is a safer index to character even than 
 the face." A psychic style is the identification of the 
 man with his thought. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE. 79 
 
 The great source of energy of style is energy of 
 thought. A certain largeness of nature is essential. 
 A man may be, as Pascal says, "a thinking reed," 
 but a trumpet blast cannot come out of a flute. A 
 man may be both logical and instructive, and his style 
 still lack psychic energy. Cicero the philosopher and 
 Cicero the orator are like different men. ' ' You say 
 thus and thus," calmly affirms the writer. " Do you 
 mean to tell us thus and thus ? ' ' demands the impas- 
 sioned speaker. The writer asserts that ' ' the excesses 
 of Catiline became at last insupportable to the patience 
 of the Senate." "How long will you abuse our 
 patience, Catiline!" exclaims the orator. What a 
 thunderbolt from a clear sky with which to commence 
 an exordium! 
 
 Of the relation of style to the emotions and will 
 I shall speak in another place. I close here with the 
 remark that we must in composition keep in sight the 
 true aim of the sermon. If a man work as a sculptor 
 on the marble or a painter on the canvas, to produce 
 something artistic he will be likely to have his reward, 
 viz. : the approval, more or less, of his audience before 
 whom the work is displayed; but he will not reap 
 much other fruit from all his labor. A locomotive, a 
 printing press or a machine gun may be a work of 
 ingenuity and art, but that is not its object, and its 
 sole worth is in its power of execution. The same is 
 true of the sermon; fashioned symmetrically, adorned 
 with illustration, welded and tempered in the fires of 
 genius, its aim is to convince, convert and reconstruct 
 men. "A great sermonizer! " you say. What I 
 want to know is, Is he a great soul-saver ? 
 
80 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 What Prof. Guizot said twenty years ago has, 
 unfortunately, a present application. Speaking from 
 the point of view of a professor of history in a great 
 university, he thus compares the pulpit eloquence of 
 the seventh and eighth centuries with that of modern 
 times. " I said just now, gentlemen, that in the 
 seventh and eighth centuries the character of literature 
 had ceased to be a literature — that it had become, in 
 fact, a power; that in writing and speaking men aimed 
 only at actual and immediate results; that they sought 
 neither science nor intellectual pleasure, and that for 
 this reason the age was fruitful in nothing but ser- 
 mons and similar works. This fact is impressed upon 
 the sermons themselves. Those of modern times have 
 a style more literary than practical. The orator 
 aspires more after beauty of language, after the intel- 
 lectual satisfaction of his hearers, than to reach the 
 depths of their souls to produce real effects, notable 
 reforms, efficacious conversions. Nothing of this 
 sort — nothing of the literary character in the sermons 
 of which I have just been speaking to you; not one 
 thought of expressing themselves nicely, of combin- 
 ing images and ideas with art. The orator goes to 
 the point; he wants to do a work; he turns and turns 
 again in the same circle; he has no fear of repetition, 
 of familiarity, not even the inelegant and common- 
 place. He speaks briefly, but recommences every 
 morning. This is not sacred eloquence; it is religious 
 power* 
 
 * Guizot's " Histoire de la Civilisation," Vol. II., p. 24. 
 
The Psychology of Emotion and Will 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Psychology of Emotion and Will 
 
 THE crowning aim of the preacher is to lead men 
 to action towards good — towards the best — 
 towards God. Subjective psychology is the 
 philosophy of action. A knowledge of it will teach 
 him how to touch those springs of action — emotion, 
 desire, will. 
 
 ' 'Always throwing light upon the matter — that is 
 the only sort of speech worth speaking, ' ' said Thomas 
 Carlyle; but He who ' ' knew what was in man" said, 
 ' ' L,ight is come into the world, but men love darkness 
 rather then light." Light alone is not life, nor has it 
 power to create love. The intellect, however illu- 
 mined, has in it no force. 
 
 There is a pathetic, and often tragic, gulf between 
 knowing and doing. It is the preacher's crucial work 
 to bridge that chasm. Bunyan's " Slough of De- 
 spond," into which tons of theological works had 
 been dumped without filling it up, is solid ground 
 compared with this yawning crevasse. The Divine 
 Preacher realized this when, in closing His marvelous 
 sermon on the mount, he said, " He that heareth 
 these sayings of mine and doeth them not," etc. 
 
 Knowing, feeling and willing are the triumvirate 
 that move and direct life, the verdict of neither of 
 them apart from the rest is effective — at least it is not 
 
 81 
 
82 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 normally nor permanently effective. Feeling alone is 
 inoperative and unproductive. It is not an end in 
 itself, but a means to an end. The natural history of 
 an emotion is to arise, to increase, to culminate, to 
 recede and to vanish; and this history is usually very 
 brief. The will has no originating or self -determinat- 
 ing power, but is under the stimulus and control of 
 the emotions. 
 
 It is the work of the preacher to carefully study 
 the co-relation of the emotions and the will, for of 
 these he must become, in a sense, the master. What 
 Plato calls "the divine art of ruling men's souls" 
 belongs to him, and if he would not dishonor his 
 throne, he will realize the glory and responsibility of 
 his vicegerency. There is no work so sublime as to 
 influence souls, and its responsibility is infinite. 
 
 It is said that in moving a finger a man is starting 
 a force that may take the round of the universe. It 
 is certain that in performing a particular act or in 
 uttering a word a man may be putting in motion a 
 moral potency which may reach to the limit of a man's 
 life, and even over the world itself, and go down 
 through generations, as did the appeal of the humble 
 minister when he touched the chords of Robert Mof- 
 fat's heart. 
 
 Some general considerations of the psychology of 
 the emotions and the will every earnest preacher will 
 grasp: 
 
 I. Emotion is a tremendous power; it may be 
 called the electricity of moral life — a magnificent, a 
 wonderful and also a perilous element. Under the 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU*. 83 
 
 direction of a skillful leader of men emotion may- 
 furnish the motive power of conversion in an individual 
 or a nation. Savonarola from his pulpit transformed 
 the Florentine republic from moral debauchery to a 
 theocracy, and amidst the wildest enthusiasm had 
 Christ proclaimed ' ' King of Florence. ' ' Sacred songs 
 superseded ribald ballads in the streets, and the car- 
 nival of depravity gave place to festivals of religious 
 chastity. On the other hand, Robespierre and his 
 atheists, working upon the same elements, turned 
 Paris into a pandemonium of incredible crimes and 
 enthroned a prostitute as its tutelary divinity under 
 the name of the " Goddess of Reason." 
 
 II. The excitement of the emotions may lead to 
 faith or fanaticism, according as it is guided by the 
 moral intelligence. Ignorant or unscrupulous preach- 
 ers have seized this susceptibility and wrought up 
 excitements and startling and harmful manifestations. 
 On the other hand, anaesthetic preachers have sup- 
 pressed emotion to the extent of producing a moral 
 atrophy and spiritual paralysis. There are innocent 
 young sermons that touch the emotions as a breath 
 wakes a faint note on the seolian, that exhausts itself 
 in a sigh; and there are storm sermons that gash, like 
 lightning, the murky clouds of the soul and send 
 awful reverberations through its depths. Between 
 these extremes there are all degrees of the emotional 
 element in sermons. Those which address themselves 
 chiefly to the reasoning powers should not be destitute 
 of this feature; at least it should appear in the appli- 
 cation or peroration, while those which appeal chiefly 
 
84 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 to the affections should spring from and be controlled 
 by reason. The metaphysical and the sentimental 
 sermon both are equally deficient in psychic energy. 
 
 III. Men are led to action in all spheres of life by 
 the excitement of emotion. The very word carries in 
 it that meaning. Love, hate, delight, dread, sympa- 
 thy, contempt, joy, grief, etc., are essential and 
 potent factors in the drama of souls. The distinction 
 sometimes drawn by theologians between natural 
 emotion and religious emotion is, I think, as un- 
 founded as the distinction which a late distinguished 
 professor* draws between sacred and secular music. 
 Emotion, like music, is a simple element. Love is 
 love, whether it embrace sin or holiness; it is awak- 
 ened in the same way by that which is lovely (or 
 seems so), and it acts in the same way, drawing its 
 subject towards the object. 
 
 When the Spirit of God, through the Word, so 
 acts upon the soul as to reveal to the soul both sin 
 and holiness and the heart and God in their true 
 character, the corresponding emotions are awakened 
 and act in their characteristic way. Thus it is not the 
 emotions that are changed in character, but ' ' the eyes 
 of the understanding are opened ' ' to see things in a 
 new light. Emotion is not religious nor irreligious; 
 it is a psychic element, absolutely under the sway of 
 the objects presented to it, either external or internal, 
 as they are or as they appear to be. 
 
 IV. Our higher emotions are not only faculties 
 of feeling, parallel and ranking with our powers of 
 
 * Dr. John A. Broadus, Sermon on Worship. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 85 
 
 intellect and will, but they are of extreme value as the 
 greatest aid we naturally have in the pursuit of all 
 that is truthful, beautiful and good. 
 
 The place of the emotions in religion is clearly 
 defined. Their existence is a sign of moral worth, 
 and carries in it the hope of salvability. Any state in 
 which they are absent must be that of a fatally 
 maimed moral nature. To be ''past feeling" is, in 
 Scripture, equivalent to being past hope. Conse- 
 quently, appeals intended to arouse the emotions from 
 a latent or feeble to an active state are in the highest 
 degree reasonable and important. In fact, the culture 
 and development of the emotions is the true object at 
 which all the higher arts aim. 
 
 V. Emotion is awakened by either physical or 
 mental stimulants. We produce certain effects upon 
 the nervous system through the media of the senses. 
 All the senses are thus instruments of emotion, carry- 
 ing along the nerves to the soul appropriate impres- 
 sions and awakening corresponding emotions. The 
 same is true of images and ideas presented directly to 
 the mind by the exercises of the mind itself — as by 
 memory or imagination. The function of the Divine 
 Spirit, which must never be lost sight of, is to create 
 those appetencies which will receive these impressions 
 in a way harmonious with his own nature — i. e. , with 
 righteousness. The preacher does not need the aid 
 of the Spirit to awaken emotion, but that the emotion 
 awakened shall act in a righteous, that is, in a normal 
 way, free from the morbid tendency of man's fallen 
 nature. 
 
86 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 As a rule, ideas, to be quickening, must be pre- 
 sented in a concrete form; abstractions do not kindle 
 emotion. The teachings of Christ and all of those 
 who have moved men's hearts and changed their lives 
 have been pictorial, parabolic, incarnated in the facts 
 and memories of actual life. 
 
 VI. The preacher must reckon with the antago- 
 nizing current of perverted and chronic feelings as it 
 affects trains of thought. Conceit and settled prej udice 
 are among his veteran foes. He must also remember 
 that opposite or contrasting emotions exclude one 
 another, the more powerful remaining; as, for in- 
 stance, dread excludes hope, while feelings of the 
 same or allied kind intensify one another. Intense 
 feeling lords it over all the other powers; a tidal wave 
 of emotion will sweep away, for the moment, every 
 vestige of opposing arguments and facts. ' ' Feeling 
 is not merely a nihilist, but an iconoclast; we even 
 repudiate what we have felt, insisted on and revered. ' ' 
 Our feelings sometimes distort our common sense by 
 smiting us with mental strabismus. The emotion of 
 fear or hate, for instance, can produce the most in- 
 credible beliefs. A chronic self-complacency so braces 
 the confidence of the self-righteous man in his course 
 that, in spite of habitual failures to satisfy his con- 
 science and judgment, he persists in his self-righteous 
 effort with as full assurance as though all the others 
 had succeeded. 
 
 VII. "Special regard should be given to the 
 tender emotion. It surpasses every other life interest 
 because of its social relations, its touch of nature, 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 87 
 
 which makes the whole world kin; its sympathy, 
 which enters into the feelings of others for their be- 
 hoof — a vicarious impulse in opposition to the self- 
 seeking spirit." 
 
 The congregation as a whole and each individual 
 thereof represent two sentiments, the egoistic and the 
 altruistic. The degree in which each is developed 
 varies greatly. With some the altruistic is in excess; 
 their concern is for others; they scarcely consider 
 themselves to a degree needful for their own preser- 
 vation. With others, the egoistic is so supreme that 
 everything that passes through the alembic of their 
 thoughts is made to take its quality and character, as 
 it is advantageous to themselves. Between these 
 extremes there is every gradation. The preacher is 
 to act upon both these sentiments, to stimulate by 
 proper excitements and guide in proper directions both 
 these springs of action. 
 
 Concerning the egoistic, ideas and images, mem- 
 ory and imagination are to be invoked which will 
 awaken the hope of pleasure, of acquisition, of pos- 
 session, and those which awaken fear of personal pain, 
 privation and penalty and peril; while in the case of 
 the altruistic we are to present the sorrows, dangers, 
 distresses, necessities of others whereby compassion, 
 sympathy and benevolent self-sacrifice are awakened. 
 One man's emotions are aroused chiefly by appeals to 
 his self-love, self-preservation, self -gratification; he 
 can only be constrained to action by fear of present 
 and future loss and suffering, or hope of gain, enjoy- 
 ment and reward, while another is most effectually 
 
88 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 aroused by the picture of how others are to suffer pain 
 and injury, or be made happier by the way in which 
 he treats the Gospel message. 
 
 It is vain and useless to appeal to men to feel as a 
 matter of duty or reason. Men are never afraid of sin 
 because they ought to be, nor do they love God be- 
 cause to love Him is of the highest reason. Men are 
 simply wearied and antagonized by such vague and 
 impotent exhortations. 
 
 The link that connects feeling with action must 
 be studied. It springs from the law that connects 
 pleasure with larger sense of life and the converse. 
 Desire and volition are directly related to action. 
 Desire naturally prompts volition. Action is the child 
 of both. Desire is often estopped by conscious or 
 imagined inability to act. Hence we speak of the 
 1 ' pain of longing ' ' and of an aching desire. In 
 general, desire springs into pursuit; thus avarice is 
 the pursuit, not the enjoyment, of wealth. 
 
 Motive, strictly speaking, denotes not the intrin- 
 sic value of the object presented, but its value as it 
 stands in the view of the mind; not reality, but appear- 
 ance governs decision. For instance, suppose Christ, 
 in His true character as revealed in the Scriptures, 
 the incarnation of all that is supremely lovable and 
 trustworthy, be presented to the contemplation of a 
 worldly man and his will rejects him. Now, as the 
 mind is incapable of rejecting a good or choosing an 
 evil as such, it is plain that the reality and appearance 
 of good is in the state of the mind. Here lies the 
 essence of erroneous choice — the will preferring an 
 
THK PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 89 
 
 object which is apparently, but not really, preferable. 
 Objective appearance is the determination of choice. 
 
 VIII. The preacher must not trifle with the emo- 
 tions. This he may be tempted to do in order to show 
 his power, or simply for the gratification of the hearer 
 himself; for there are those who are pleased to be 
 wrought upon by the pulpit in the same manner that 
 they are pleased with an exciting play or novel. But 
 the preacher has a serious aim. If he excites emotion, 
 it is to win the heart, to induce decision and to build 
 character. Emotion wrought up with no ulterior 
 object is both an abuse and an injury to the moral 
 nature. When the attention is thoroughly awakened 
 and steadily held, the hearer is like a well-tuned harp, 
 each chord a distinct emotion, and the skillful speaker 
 may evoke a response from one or more at his will. 
 This lays him under a grand and serious responsibility. 
 I,et him keep steadily at such a time to his divine 
 purpose, to produce a healthful action, a life in 
 harmony with God and a symphony of service. 
 
 It has always been found that of those hearers 
 who have enjoyed an instructive ministry through a 
 course of years when, in a time of religious awaken- 
 ing, they are powerfully wrought upon, the emotional 
 excitement does not vanish fruitlessly, but usually 
 leads to intelligent conversion; while those who have 
 grown up under periodical excitements become seared, 
 as by fire, and often skeptical. 
 
 IX. It must be remembered, however, that the 
 most powerful feelings are sometimes independent of 
 the reasoning powers. As a careful student of motives 
 
90 PSYCHIC POWER IN PRKACHING. 
 
 has said: " Reason, reason, as much as you like; but 
 beware of thinking that it answers for everything. 
 This mother loves her child; will reason comfort her ? 
 Does cool reason control the inspired poet, the heroic 
 warrior, the lover ? Reason guides but a small part 
 of man, and that the least interesting. The rest 
 obeys feeling, true or false; and passion, good or 
 bad." (AbbSRoux.) 
 
 X. Emotion is the power whereby the man in the 
 pulpit and the people in the pews are physically uni- 
 fied; it must be, therefore, coming and going between 
 them with a trustful sympathy. Gladstone charac- 
 terized as the supreme influence of the speaker the 
 ' ' power of receiving from his audience in a vapor 
 what he pours back upon them in a flood." The 
 preacher who would sway an audience must not be 
 anxious about professional dignity; must be willing to 
 let himself go with what the French call abandon; 
 letting nature assert herself, fearless of criticism, 
 indifferent to conventional ideas. How manifest is 
 this free emotional element in Christ and in the 
 Apostle Paul ! 
 
 If a preacher is deficient in it, he must develop 
 that side of his nature; if it be in excess, it must be 
 controlled and disciplined if he would gain in power. 
 Even congregations may, through long training under 
 an unemotional ministry, become defective in suscepti- 
 bility; while others, through the over- stimulus of 
 emotional preachers, become either ennuyie or hysteri- 
 cal. If emotion is awakened habitually without a 
 basis of reasoning and the guidance of truth; if it be 
 
the psychology of emotion and will. 91 
 
 not the fruit of Scriptural ideas, it will be abortive. 
 Hence a preaching that is sweetly sentimental or per- 
 sistently exciting, as in certain kinds of " revival 
 meetings, ' ' becomes debilitating, and even hardening. 
 A healthy excitation of the feelings through a vital 
 presentation of the truth should bring forth the fruit 
 of vigorous action. 
 
 XI. Emotion, I said, is not an end in itself. 
 While as a faculty it adds its own characteristic ele- 
 ment to human life, giving to it its deepest interest, 
 yet, in the attainment of life's essential aim, which is 
 not pleasure, but achievement and character, emotion 
 must subserve that regal faculty of the soul to which 
 all the others are subject, viz., the will. It is this 
 which develops character and shapes the issues of 
 eternity. 
 
 XII. The sermon aims at the will. The philo- 
 sophic or didactic treatise may attain its end in reach- 
 ing the understanding; the aesthetic discourse appeals 
 to the taste and sentiment; but the sermon only 
 achieves its mission when it rouses the will to action. 
 Will consists in capacity for free choice. Its function 
 is to choose between the various objects of attraction 
 or desire, or, in certain circumstances, to act in accord- 
 ance with purely intellectual or moral motives and in 
 opposition to impulses and desires. 
 
 Emotion develops into motive and desire into 
 will. An essential condition of willing is an adequate 
 psychic cause. The will has no self-determining 
 power. It is swayed by the feelings, motives, desires, 
 passions — a vast variety of influences from within and 
 
92 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 without. While we present motives to a certain 
 course of conduct, we are to present those which will 
 lead men to resist the appeal of motives that are coun- 
 teracting. The will is certainly led to choose by the 
 presentation of motives, but the influence of motives 
 which ought to govern the will depends on the state 
 of the heart. Hence the need of the ' ' new heart ' ' 
 and the " right spirit," which only God can bestow. 
 Still, God works with men, *. e. y gives the heart 
 which will feel the influence of good motives at the 
 time they are presented. 
 
 The preacher should continually bear in mind 
 that while the will is governed in its decisions by fixed 
 laws, the element of a perverted nature must always 
 be reckoned with. The heart is so full of errors, 
 prejudices and delusions that things most excellent in 
 themselves are commonly rejected through the " de- 
 ceitf ulness of the heart." We address people whose 
 ethical ideas are misty and confused by false popular 
 maxims and social customs. 
 
 We must also keep in mind the feebleness and 
 vagrancy of the will power in many. In most it is 
 weak towards good and strong towards evil. The 
 feeble will is one that needs to be wrought upon by 
 the more powerful emotion; a greater severity of pain 
 or a greater attraction of pleasure must be presented 
 to the mind. 
 
 This is equally true where the conscience has 
 become blunted and where familiarity has generated 
 indifference. The physician of souls has to deal 
 largely with settled habits of levity, indolence and 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WILL. 93 
 
 procrastination. In such conditions, to arouse the will 
 to action requires intense vitality and startling, alarm- 
 ing, pathetic and vehement address. Many of the 
 most powerful preachers of former generations aimed, 
 like the prophets of old, to awaken terror. I speak 
 not of rude and fiery exhorters, but men of the best 
 culture and piety of their age, such as Chrysostom 
 and Savonarola, Massillon and Jonathan Edwards, 
 Whitefield and James Parsons. A phenomenon worth 
 studying is the almost entire absence from the preach- 
 ing of to-day of the appeal to fear and the presentation 
 of the " terror of the Lord," of which Paul speaks — 
 a persuasive factor which is never obsolete. Is the 
 lapse of that once powerful feature rational, scriptural, 
 evangelical, or simply super-aesthetical ? I am not 
 speaking of the form, but of the fact and spirit of it. 
 
 It is the preacher's object to awaken such feelings 
 and present such motives as are strongest with his 
 particular hearers. They must, therefore, spring from 
 their level, from their memory, their experiences, their 
 familiar observation, since motives drawn from a region 
 remote from their actual life meet no response. The 
 trend of consciousness, as determined by past experi- 
 ences, always enters into our willing. 
 
 Imagination and enthusiasm, which may be re- 
 garded as twin sisters, are valuable factors in arousing 
 the will. 
 
 The power to think visually, to picture spiritual 
 and invisible things as present and acting together 
 with actual and passing events and the outgoing fire 
 of the speaker's glowing soul, is irresistible. Malle- 
 
94 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 branche says, ' ' Un passione emeut toujours ' ' (an im- 
 passioned man always moves). And he adds: "Al- 
 though his rhetoric may be confused, it fails not to be 
 very impressive because his air and manner make it 
 felt, agitating the imagination and touching the 
 heart." '* The secret of oratory," says George Eliot, 
 1 ' lies not in saying new things, but in saying them 
 with a certain power that moves the hearer. ' ' The 
 primitive meaning of enthusiasm is God-within-ness; 
 and the enthusiast is an inspired man, to whom mind 
 and heart and will respond, as feeling that a moral 
 power is acting upon them which they cannot resist. 
 Some men's natures are like seething geysers; others, 
 like the genial glow of June; but to carry a popular 
 audience with him, there is nothing that helps the 
 preacher more than the psychic force of the contagious 
 warmth and outgoing impulse of enthusiasm. But 
 the effects of enthusiasm are largely evanescent — the 
 iron must be shaped on the anvil of facts by the ham- 
 mer of truth while it is at white heat. 
 
 XIII. Some of the new psychologists hold that 
 ' * character is the sole immediate cause of voluntary 
 action; motives are only mediate causes of them." 
 If by this they mean the normal, voluntary action, it 
 is true; a man's habitual actions are the fruit of his 
 character; but this only proves the need of diverting 
 him from his natural trend, lifting him above his nor- 
 mal action by the stimulus and stress of motives and 
 emotions adequate to produce such an effect. An 
 illustrative and typical case of such action is in the 
 declaration of Paul, ' ' The love of Christ constrainetk 
 
THK PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 95 
 
 us. " Notice the comprehensive movement indicated 
 by the Greek — seizing upon and carrying us above and 
 beyond our natural selves. 
 
 XIV. The preacher must ever bear in mind that 
 the dominant and permanent passion of human nature 
 is the insatiable desire to enjoy life in its fulness, and 
 take that as the key to the situation, the strategic 
 point of his campaign. 
 
 Pascal tells us that 1 * desire and compulsion are the 
 source of all our actions — desire of the voluntary and 
 compulsion of the involuntary." * 
 
 {La concupiscence et la force sont la source de toutes ?ws 
 actions ; la concupiscence fait les volontaires ; la force les 
 involontaires. u — Pascal: Penseesl., p. 220, Paris ed.) 
 
 I suppose he uses the word " desire " in a broad, 
 generic sense, embracing every inclination to act in 
 obedience to intensive feelings of whatever class. All 
 animal nature is surging with the swell of this vast 
 tide of intensive desires. In every direction we have 
 objects to stimulate them; on the one hand, attrac- 
 tions, charms, allurements and enchantments, hopes, 
 aspirations, longings, ambitions, determinations; on 
 the other, we have fear, dread, apprehension, abhor- 
 rence, envy, rivalry, jealousy, anger, fury, sorrow, 
 repentance, shame and remorse as the expressions of 
 the unattained, misdirected or irretrievably lost. Even 
 satiety, surfeit, tedium, ennui, become intolerable de- 
 mands for the exercise of our moral, physical or psy- 
 chical functions. 
 
 The universal struggle is for happiness, which in 
 
 * See Ward, " The Psychic Factors of Civilization," p. 72. 
 
g6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the popular sense means the enjoyment of the pleas- 
 ures afforded by the satisfaction of social, aesthetic, 
 moral and intellectual desires and tastes. If men 
 could be made to see in which direction happiness lies, 
 that soul force, the connate impulse of desire, will 
 urge them toward it, and the preacher will be saved a 
 vast amount of superfluous pleading. 
 
 XV. In popular speech the "heart" is spoken 
 of as the seat of the emotions, desires and will. This 
 may be due to the fact that the physical heart is the 
 seat of the sympathetic nerve plexus, and also the 
 force pump of the life current and the seat of vital 
 power. It is appropriate, therefore, to speak of win- 
 ning over the heart to the side of God; that is, to 
 create desires after God; that is, to lead men's will to 
 choose God because believing that happiness is to be 
 found in Him. 
 
 XVI. Finally, a firm belief in His power to do is 
 a condition of a man's willing. A man fettered by 
 poverty and toil may read of the delights of foreign 
 travel and wish to enjoy it, but he cannot will to do so 
 while conscious of his inability. The doctrine of the 
 *' Moral inability of the unregenerate, ' ' as held by the 
 Calvinists of a former generation, was naturally 
 paralyzing. The hearer's consciousness was always 
 against it, and he must secretly repudiate it ere he 
 could exercise his will in choosing Christ. It is an 
 undeniable fact that we are conscious of a free will: 
 hence fatalism is ruled out. Only the man who knows 
 that he is free is capable of being constrained. ' ' Free- 
 dom and constraint are reciprocal ideas. ' ' 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTION AND WIU,. 97 
 
 Hence, while the preacher's hope of influencing 
 the will is ultimately based upon the operations of that 
 Spirit who is said to ' ' make one willing in the day of 
 his power," he is never to forget that such divine 
 power operates along the lines of our human endeavor 
 and according to the constitution of the soul itself, 
 which is never ruled by physical force. It is of the 
 utmost importance that such objects, such motives, 
 should be presented as are best adapted to lead to a 
 choice, and that they should be presented in the most 
 vivid, comprehensible and striking manner possible; 
 nay, that they should be re-enforced, wave on wave, 
 motive propelling motive, only avoiding that excess 
 which is weakening. 
 
 Choice is the pre-eminently important and central 
 factor belonging to the will; it is the culminant and 
 decisive act of the interior life. By it the soul asserts 
 its sovereignty over the conduct. We must convince 
 men of the dignity, solemnity and responsibility of 
 this eminently personal act of free choice. To secure 
 the action of the will being of such importance, the 
 preacher must not fail to lead up to it. His peroration 
 or final appeal is in some respects the most important 
 part of his effort. I^et him not stop short of it, nor 
 let him spend so much time on other portions that he 
 must close in a hurried and weak way. Some preach- 
 ers habitually apologize for their undue length, and 
 think to propitiate their hearers by omitting the 
 "application." This is both psychologically and, 
 rhetorically a serious fault. In an intelligent congre- 
 gation it will be found that on many subjects which 
 
98 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the preacher is called to present the people are familiar 
 with the argument and motives, and they are pleased 
 when the preacher treats them as in that condition. 
 His chief work will then be to awaken their memories, 
 to illustrate confessed truths by fresh and objective 
 stimulants to the imagination and affection, vitalize 
 desire, give spur to impulse and make the focal point 
 of the will the chief attack of the sermon — "If ye 
 know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
 "He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to 
 him it is sin." " Behold, I have set before you life 
 and death, therefore choose life!" We must carry 
 the citadel of the will, or the opportunity is lost. 
 
 A single shock may be sufficient, when a chemi- 
 cal liquid is saturated with some salt, to precipitate it 
 at once into crystals; and he is a wise preacher who, 
 watching his audience, discovers the moment when a 
 brave, authoritative, confident challenge to immediate 
 decision is all that is needed to crystallize conviction 
 into conduct, impulse into immortal action. 
 
The Sermon in Action 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Sermon in Action 
 
 WHEN Saurin, the eminent French Protestant, 
 was preaching at The Hague, and places in 
 his church engaged a fortnight ahead by 
 the first people of the city, men even climbing on 
 ladders to get a sight of him through the windows, 
 the celebrated scholar, Le Clerc, for a time refused to 
 hear him, declaring that oratory was below the dignity 
 of the Christian pulpit and that he ' ' distrusted effects 
 wrought more by a vain eloquence than by the force 
 of logic. ' ' One day he yielded, and went on condition 
 that he should sit behind the pulpit screen so as not to 
 see the preacher's delivery. Before the sermon closed 
 he found himself in front of the preacher, listening 
 with rapt expression, unconscious of the tears that 
 trickled down his quivering face. 
 
 The incident is but one of the many historical 
 illustrations of the fascinating conquests of the sermon 
 in eloquent action. 
 
 The sermon is like the tent which the fairy gave 
 to Prince Ahmed, which, when folded, seemed like a 
 fan for a lady's hand; but spread it, and the armies of 
 powerful Sultans might gather beneath its shade. 
 The preacher's composition alone is like a folded tent; 
 a right delivery gives life and expansion to his every 
 thought, propulsion and impregnation to his whole 
 
 U.o. •- 
 
IOO PSYCHIC POWER IN PRKACHING. 
 
 mental and literary work. How can we over-estimate 
 the vital importance to the preacher, to the hearer of 
 that half hour in which the work of days (we might 
 almost say of years) is to be focussed upon the con- 
 gregation ! 
 
 The sermon in action. The place is a " valley of 
 decision;" the hour, a time of supreme effort, on 
 which the history and destiny of many souls may 
 hang. It is not a review of platoons of ideas, gar- 
 nished and drilled in the study, but a real struggle on 
 the part of the preacher to conquer his hearers and 
 win them over to the truth for which he pleads, and to 
 the life of the Spirit. The message which he utters 
 is freighted with the very excellence of saving truth, 
 and carries in it the supreme effort of Divinity in 
 man's behalf, and in its success or failure all heaven 
 is interested. The preacher in the pulpit occupies the 
 supreme strategic point in the moral universe. This 
 fact ought to stimulate his energies to their highest 
 effort. No wonder the lion-hearted L,uther trembled 
 as he ascended the pulpit steps ! 
 
 When Demosthenes answered that ' ' action ' ' was 
 the first, the second, the third quality in the orator, 
 his dictum seemed exaggerated. L,ord Bacon is sur- 
 prised. "A strange thing," he says, "that that part 
 of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the 
 virtue of a player, should be placed above those nobler 
 parts of invention, elocution and the rest, nay, almost 
 alone, as if it were all in all ! " But he evidently took 
 the word in a much narrower sense than the Greek 
 orator intended; he meant it to cover the substance of 
 
The sermon in action. ioi 
 
 the thought as well as the manner of its utterance. 
 The same misconception has led others to substitute 
 "energy" as the correct translation. But Demos- 
 thenes was supported by Cicero and Quintilian in 
 giving "action" the foremost place in oratory, and 
 they are justified, if we regard the word as including 
 all that is legitimately expressed thereby as the uni- 
 versal movement of all the psychical and physical 
 powers, to achieve the end the speaker has in view. 
 An intelligent, harmonious and sustained action is not 
 only the prime essential in preaching, if it is to produce 
 something more than a still-born assent; it is also 
 according to the laws of nature, and not artificial. It 
 is, therefore, capable of being studied as a science, 
 cultivated as a fine art, developed in all its parts and 
 applied with as much certainty as can electricity, 
 gravitation or heat. The laws which govern it are 
 not less exact than those which control other natural 
 forces. 
 
 Very much that is germane to this subject I shall 
 leave to the professional teachers of elocution and 
 delivery, confining myself to principles. 
 
 I. All true action in the pulpit must first proceed 
 from the soul. In other words, it has a psychic base 
 and spring. If the man's soul is in a healthy and 
 vigorous state, inspired by his theme, his thought will 
 swim to the surface and reflect itself in his physical 
 features and organs. By a subtle psychological law 
 the whole nervous and muscular system responds to 
 the sympathetic impulses of the emotions and will; 
 feeling and purpose mj^steriously and spontaneously 
 
102 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 press at every gate of the eyes, the lips, the cheeks,, 
 the hands, the feet, for expression. The preacher's 
 heart, swelling with inspired, energetic conviction and 
 emotion, lifts itself up like a great tidal wave, over- 
 flows its banks and pours itself forth in expressions of 
 the features, glances of the eyes, quivering of the 
 mouth, tones of the voice and movements of the limbs, 
 so that the physical structure becomes simply the 
 complex and delicate organ of expression for the 
 brain, and heart, and will. 
 
 And this distinguishes pulpit action from stage 
 acting. The former is in a large degree spontaneous 
 and natural; the latter is mainly the result of study, 
 art and imitation. The prejudice against what is 
 called ' ' theatrical ' ' preaching is due to the attempt to 
 copy the arts of the actor instead of gaining the full- 
 ness of life and its natural utterance. Art is by no 
 means to be despised; it has an important place in the 
 correction of faults and the development of grace and 
 impressiveness; but while it may guide and rectify the 
 forces of nature, when through bad examples they 
 have become cramped or distorted, it must always be 
 subordinate. 
 
 A sympathetic and yearning heart must give to 
 action its finest intelligence, beauty and radiating 
 warmth. Not only must the preacher dip his pen in 
 his heart when he writes his sermon, but he must let 
 his heart pulsate through the delivery of it. When 
 one puts a conch-shell to his ear he seems to hear the 
 echoes of the sounding sea on whose shores it had been 
 cast up; but science tells him that what he hears is 
 
THK SERMON IN ACTION. 103 
 
 the booming of the red sea of his own heart, rushing 
 through arterial channels and, from his living hand, 
 filling the convolutions of the shell with its mysterious 
 whispers. The same shell in a dead hand would have 
 no voice. The Word of God is such a shell, brought 
 from the eternal shore and held in the preacher's hand. 
 A living heart must pour its thrills of passion and 
 surges of pathos and waves of inspired emotion through 
 it, or its convolutions will yield no language the inner 
 ear can appreciate. 
 
 When the preacher is not satisfied merely to have 
 his discourse in li black and white,'' nor even in his 
 memory, like a recitation, but when, above all, he 
 carries it in his soul, if his soul dilates with it, travails 
 with it, then he is sure to deliver it with an " action " 
 that shall have at least the qualities of naturalness and 
 reality, which are essentials of success. 
 
 Without this, all the rules of the elocutionist 
 regarding gesture and voice will avail little. Even in 
 dramatic training the first canon of instruction for the 
 actor is to so incorporate himself with the character 
 he represents and the scenes he depicts as to catch the 
 mysterious, but essential, inspiration of reality. And 
 the triumph of his art is in so acting as to make his 
 audience forget that it is all a spectacle and to sway 
 their passions as by a real tragedy. 
 
 The triumph of the preacher is reached when the 
 infinitely solemn and glorious realities which he feels 
 shall express themselves with full weight of demon- 
 stration by every physical organ, as well as by every 
 mental and moral faculty. A man may have command 
 
104 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 of his sermon, and yet, like the late Dean Stanley and 
 some other able preachers, stand like a speaking statue; 
 but if his sermon has command of him, he cannot fail 
 to wield a weightier weapon, because he is electrified 
 into appropriate and eloquent movement, so that the 
 whole man becomes a visible, and audible, and living 
 sermon. 
 
 The overflow of thought- illumined nervous vital- 
 ity reveals its presence and quality primarily in the 
 highly susceptible nerves and muscles of the face, since 
 they belong to the vaso-motor system which acts auto- 
 matically and largely unconsciously. The will has 
 but little power to veil the emotions that surge in the 
 soul, and they betray themselves in the countenance. 
 " Nothing speaks like the countenance," says Fenelon 
 {Rien ne parte tant que le visage). What, in fact, is 
 the ' ' countenance ' ' but the secret soul and habit of 
 thought and feeling revealing itself in the features. 
 Words can only gradually unfold our meaning, but the 
 countenance gives expression to the speaker's feeling 
 before he utters a word. Vividness and intensity of 
 expression usually depend upon the liveliness of the 
 inward passion or thought. It is not, however, alto- 
 gether involuntary; it may be somewhat controlled by 
 the will, and may also be cultivated by study and 
 practice. 
 
 The eye is, among the silent factors of pulpit action, 
 a wonderful instrument of psychic expression, and too 
 little appreciated by the preacher. It can flash like 
 lightning and beam with love, invite with sympathy, 
 wither with scorn, burn with indignation, subdue with 
 
THK SERMON IN ACTION. 105 
 
 a steadfast, penetrating look that seems to read the 
 heart. Mirabeau quelled the ferocity of the French 
 Assembly with his lion eye, while that of a Napoleon 
 or Webster was a gateway, out of which marched 
 conquest. 
 
 The preacher who has not learned to look his 
 hearers fully in the face, individually and collectively; 
 who has not acquired that ' ' visional grasp ' ' which 
 fixes attention, and at the same time gives him a com- 
 manding survey of his field of battle, loses an element 
 of power inestimable. Nothing can take the place of 
 this subtile, electrical influence. 
 
 Standing in momentary pause and contemplation 
 of his audience, before a word is spoken, calm, earnest, 
 genial, commanding, the preacher can sweep, as with 
 a mild and awakening searchlight, his congregation 
 till every eye is fixed upon him and they feel the 
 luminous thrill of his individualizing, yet all-compre- 
 hensive, gaze. And then having become en rapport 
 with every man, he pours forth from that same fountain 
 of impressions scintillations that interpret, invite, con- 
 vince, persuade, appeal, and whole volumes of tender- 
 ness, enthusiasm, good cheer, trustfulness and expec- 
 tation may be read in his frank, kindly, unfaltering 
 eyes ! How much is gained by the penetrating, soulful 
 gaze at the asking of a question or the launching of a 
 truth! How much is lost when the eye is tethered to 
 a manuscript or wanders helpless to the ceiling or out 
 of the window ! 
 
 Another of the silent factors is the mouth. While 
 the eye is perhaps the most expressive feature, the 
 
106 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 mouth is the most sympathetic. Here, as in a nest, 
 gather a brood of emotions; the tenderness of love, the 
 quivering of pain, the curl of contempt, the firmness 
 of purpose, the smile of pleasure. Says L,avater: 
 ' ' The mouth is the interpreter and organ of the mind 
 and heart. In repose, as well as in the infinite variety 
 of its movements, it unites a world of characters. It 
 is eloquent even in its silence; it speaks, and will still 
 speak when it can never open again. ' ' A well- formed 
 mouth, generous in size, mobile, quick and sensitive 
 to the movements of the inner thought, is a bow that 
 abides in strength. Its conspicuous beauty and moral 
 importance impressed the philosophic Herder, who 
 says: " It is from the mouth the voice issues; inter- 
 preter of the heart and of the soul, expression of feel- 
 ing, of friendship and of the purest enthusiasm. The 
 upper lip translates the inclination, the appetites, the 
 disquietudes of love; pride and passion contract it, 
 cunning attenuates it, goodness of heart reflects it and 
 the passions incarnate themselves there with an inex- 
 pressible charm." 
 
 According to Delsart, the mouth has more than 
 2,000 phases of expression. Of course, the mobility 
 of the mouth, as well as the versatility of the eye, 
 varies with temperaments, with the acuteness of nerve 
 action, the keenness of susceptibilities, but it is largely 
 trained by habit and education. Its habitual expres- 
 sion reveals the constant action of the inner life. The 
 lips, like "Wordsworth's mountains, look familiar with 
 forgotten years, curved and channeled with memorials 
 of a thousand impulses. 
 
THK SERMON IN ACTION. 107 
 
 Another silent factor of psychic action is gesture. 
 By the varied and vivid movements of the hands and 
 the limbs thought may be vividly portrayed without 
 the utterance of a sound. Indeed, there are few 
 moral or physical emotions that pantomime cannot 
 express. The study of pantomime is almost entirely 
 overlooked by the preacher, as though it were lacking 
 in dignity and only fitted for comedy, whereas it is 
 Nature's first and most vivid interpreter of thought 
 and feeling. The hands are uplifted in prayer or 
 appeal, outstretched variously in pleading, inviting, 
 protesting, repelling, blessing, bestowing, welcoming; 
 they are clasped in entreaty, wrung in anguish, joined 
 in fellowship. 
 
 The student of action might profitably exercise 
 himself in his study by trying how large a part of his 
 discourse he could express by the language of panto- 
 mime alone. It is lamentable to see how generally a 
 constrained and awkward action, resulting from bad 
 education, fear, or the bondage of the manuscript, or 
 mere neglect, prevails in our pulpits. How many men 
 of taste revolting from "theatrical," " sensational, ' ' 
 ' ' demonstrative ' ' preaching run into the opposite 
 extreme of tameness, monotony and reserve! 
 
 Some men dread to look the people in the eyes; 
 others, transfixed in clerical propriety behind the desk, 
 fear to stride forth like men to meet their hearers, lest 
 they seem undignified. And while some, anxious to 
 be ' ' eloquent, ' ' whirl their arms in the affrighted air, 
 like the tattered effigy in the cornfield, others still — 
 wedding paralysis to piety — stand, like L,azarus, just 
 
108 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 risen from the tomb, bandaged in every limb, for 
 whom we feel like praying, ' ' L,oose him, and let him 
 preach ! ' ' How few there are who learn to tread the 
 pulpit platform with confidence ! 
 
 The eloquence of the body, the impression of 
 pose, gesture, facial expression and every muscular 
 movement are, however, all but humble allies and 
 servitors of that regal power — the voice. 
 
 It is in the pulpit that the crowned and sceptred 
 voice is enthroned; it is here it performs its sublimest 
 function. We marvel when we think how God has 
 made it (not the pen) the chief implement of man's 
 recovery to his allegiance. Whatever may be said of 
 the silent might of the printed word, it is and ever 
 must be the incarnate word, welling fresh from a 
 human soul, that commands the world's attention, 
 sways the heart and will and decides destiny. For so 
 has God stored up in the human voice a strange, 
 divine magic that it reaches depths, awakens responses, 
 electrifies the will and persuades to action in a way 
 unknown to written language. 
 
 ' ' The true preacher, ' ' says Dr. Joseph Parker, of 
 London, ' ' has nothing to fear from rivalry, for the 
 human voice has no adequate substitute. The heart 
 will not disdain any instrument of expression, but the 
 instrument which it loves with all its love is the human 
 voice — all instruments in one and all inspired. To 
 some, indeed, all voices are alike; but so are all colors, 
 all lights, all landscapes; their spirituality is at zero, 
 and what life they have is mainly in their blood. 
 What if the vocal powers be in reality spiritual rather 
 
THE SERMON IN ACTION. I09 
 
 than physical? That they are capable of intense 
 spiritual excitement is evident both in music and 
 speech, and none will deny that a tone will convey a 
 meaning which can never be properly expressed by 
 symbols. ' ' 
 
 In all history God has put highest honor and re- 
 sponsibility upon the voice. And no wonder, when we 
 consider the vastness and variety of its powers ! There 
 is no musical mechanism, from shepherd's pipe to 
 orchestral organ, that has such power to charm, to 
 soothe, to thrill, to awe, to melt to tears, or rouse to 
 wrath, or wake to love. Now it is a battle trump, 
 and now a harp of praise; it can thunder as on Sinai 
 and drop as the dew on Hermorj . There is no senti- 
 ment or passion of the soul which it cannot arouse and 
 express. There is no ear so dull but it has some tone 
 to pierce it, and no truth in all the range of revelation 
 that is not dependent upon it for perfect interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 Why, then, does not the preacher use his voice as 
 not abusing it ? Why does he not see that, like the 
 incarnate Word, it should be ' ' full of grace and 
 truth ? ' ' And yet, through neglect of study and 
 training, it comes to pass that the celestial music of 
 the Gospel gets about as much interpretation from the 
 average preacher as one of Beethoven's sonatas would 
 if rendered by a village brass band. If the dead 
 strings of a violin can be made to wake to rapturous 
 sweetness under the skilled hand of a Paganini, what 
 may not the painstaking student of oratory evoke 
 from these vibrating, living cords in the throat, which 
 
IIO PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the fingers of God have fashioned in order that His 
 breath may become vocal ! 
 
 These being the materials of pulpit action, the 
 preacher will habitually drill and discipline his forces 
 to their highest efficiency. 
 
 First. — The animal or physical basis must be built 
 up and brought into its best condition. If a preacher 
 presents a vigorous and imposing presence, like a 
 Chalmers, or Guthrie, or Phillips Brooks, he has a 
 great natural advantage; but men of less impressive 
 physique may make up in healthy intensity what they 
 lack in stature, breadth and muscle. Instances will 
 occur in all spheres of leadership where men have 
 radiated psychic power from a very limited amount of 
 the " mortal coil," who were second to none in sway- 
 ing an audience or winning a battle, tho' they would 
 hardly pose as a model for Hercules or Jupiter Tonans. 
 
 At the same time, physical vigor, girded loins and 
 steady nerves, a freedom from debility and a fullness of 
 health, erectness of carriage and decision in move- 
 ment, a fearless and commanding poise, may be attained 
 in all ordinary cases. It is certain that the rapid, 
 robust and effective working of the brain, the creative 
 imagination, passion and will depends greatly on vital 
 and vigorous physical conditions. 
 
 There is, indeed, an excitability of the emotions, 
 the fancy and the other powers in a state of disease 
 and nervous irritability, but it is spasmodic, hysterical 
 and without carrying power. It does not awaken and 
 propagate itself in the hearer if he is in a healthy 
 state. An abundant and sustained physical vigor and 
 
THE SERMON IN ACTION. Ill 
 
 elastic spring must be maintained; for without it the 
 will is variant, and energy of every sort, timid and 
 vacillating, working capriciously; it is the steadfast 
 and elastic impact of the soul alone that moves the 
 hearer to the point of action. 
 
 Hence the culture and care of the physical instru- 
 ment of psychic power should be a part of the preach- 
 er's education as much, surely, as the study of Hebrew 
 or Hermeneutics, and his vows of ordination should 
 bind him as much to communion with nature abroad 
 as with God in secret; while a dyspeptic stomach, a 
 limp manner and a whining voice in the pulpit should 
 be reprobated as much as a weak argument or an 
 effeminate theology. 
 
 He is bound to confront his audience in as perfect 
 a physical condition as an electric dynamo. He 
 should stand there as an incarnate galvanic battery, 
 stored not only with spiritual fervor, but with earthly 
 vitality. Burning the midnight oil is a psychic heresj^ 
 and coming to the pulpit with brain surcharged with 
 blood, nerves all a-quiver, vitality exhausted, counte- 
 nance ' ' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of ' ' — sleepless- 
 ness, and quite unfit to give masculine propulsion to 
 his sermon, is unfaithfulness to his high calling. 
 
 Second. — Freedom and integrity of soul must also 
 be cultivated. There is a " bondage of the pulpit." 
 Some men are fettered by doubt, even of their own 
 standing before God; others are in bondage to the 
 criticism of their hearers; a morbid diffidence enfeebles 
 some; hasty and imperfect preparation, fear of failure 
 or want of sympathy with their theme, or a chilling 
 sense of unreality causes the heart to sag; they cannot 
 
 V 
 
112 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 bear to look themselves in the face as heralds of God. 
 All this is weakening, and must by all means be 
 conquered. 
 
 A preacher' s soul also must be freed from conven- 
 tionalisms i?i matter and manner. Imitation is debili- 
 tating; he must not even imitate himself, much less 
 his seminary professor or the man who draws the 
 crowd, for he will be sure to lose tone and facility. 
 He must break the forms of scholastic thinking and 
 speaking acquired in the schools and be free to think 
 and speak along the simple human ways of the people. 
 He must implicate himself in the folds of their thought 
 and affection. He must annihilate the distance be- 
 tween the pulpit and the pew and stoop to conquer. 
 He must acquire the habit of being master of the 
 situation, feeling at home in the pulpit and knowing 
 just what he and his sermon are about; and his frank 
 and genial manliness of bearing will prove magnetic 
 of itself. 
 
 Third. — Earnestness of aim is also essential to 
 effective action. If a man shows no moral earnestness, 
 his action will be sure to betray him, his freedom will 
 appear careless and his energy seem artificial. 
 
 If he makes the occasion a dress-parade rather 
 than a battle, if he is more intent on displaying the 
 jewels in his sword-hilt and the gracefulness of his 
 fencing than in cleaving shields and dividing men 
 from their sins, his action will be void of dignity and 
 his audience will be quick to discover it. He has his 
 reward. Some simpering sister may tell him that the 
 sermon was " beautiful," he may hear others whisper- 
 ing, "Elegant," ''Fine," and he strays home with 
 
TH£ SERMON IN ACTION. 1 13 
 
 his head among the stars. But alas ! what playing at 
 preaching is that ! 
 
 Physical, intellectual and moral earnestness — 
 all must combine in psychic force. There is a mere 
 enthusiasm over syllogisms, a heat of argument, a 
 mental excitement, such as led the old philosopher to 
 rush into the street, en dSshabilli, crying: " Eureka ! " 
 And there are preachers as enthusiastic over their own 
 brain babies as that, and they think they are in 
 1 ' earnest. ' ' I have heard them as they clenched their 
 fists at their imaginary antagonists, got red in the 
 face and strained their utterance to the verge of apo- 
 plexy in demonstration of a thesis of which their 
 stunned hearers were mentally asking: " Well, what 
 of it?" 
 
 But there is a soul earnestness, as of mariners 
 pulling the life-boat; as of a father pleading with a 
 wayward son; as of a Moses in the gate of the camp, 
 and an Elijah on Carmel — a thing of life and power. 
 Whitefield was carried to conquest, in preaching, on 
 the torrent of such victorious earnestness; his soul 
 panting to get the truth lodged in the heart, his 
 imagination on fire, putting the torch to theirs, and 
 his well-trained dramatic action and voice, like a 
 grand organ that thrilled with its vox humana, plead 
 with its viola, roused with its trumpet notes and over- 
 whelmed with its full diapason, so that women would 
 weep convulsively and men cry out with fear or joy. 
 
 Fourth. — Again, a serene and courageous will is 
 a factor in psychic action. "The will," says Van 
 Helmont, ' ' is the first of all the powers and the 
 property most dear to all spiritual beings, and displays 
 
114 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 itself in them more actively the more they are freed 
 from matter." And Paracelsus, "The Divine,' ' as 
 he was called, adds in the same strain: " Faith must 
 confirm the imagination, for faith establishes the will." 
 Magician that he was, he may teach us a truth in the 
 dictum that ' ' determined will is the beginning of all 
 magical operations. ' ' 
 
 Though men are born into the kingdom of 
 heaven, " not by the will of man, but of God," yet the 
 divine Will finds its only adequate human channel in 
 the will of man. Hence a limp and languid will in 
 the pulpit makes the preacher an ineffective instru- 
 ment. The dynamic energy of a victorious, faith- 
 inspired will must be brought to bear on the vague 
 and vagrant spirit of the hearer. That is of the very 
 essence of psychic power. A free and persistent will — 
 free because disciplined by wisdom and guided by law; 
 energetic because a sane and benevolent purpose 
 nerves it — is, above all things, the conquering and 
 building force in the effective speaker. 
 
 It was the difference in will power that made 
 Chatham, with all his defects, a success, and Burke, 
 with all his excellencies, a failure in the British Par- 
 liament. It is due to this, also, that an uncultured 
 evangelist will bring men to a decision for Christ, who 
 have long listened with pleased immobility to the 
 superior discourses of their pastor. 
 
 It is the quickened passion that changes the ser- 
 mon from a camp into a march, and it is the aroused 
 will that transforms that march into a victorious 
 charge. Without the will power a sermon may be an 
 aesthetic treat; with it, it becomes a moral triumph. 
 
Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Sympathy an Element of Psychic Force 
 
 THERE is a sympathetic insight of human hearts 
 that enters largely into pulpit power — a subtile 
 inspiration, wherein dwells the soul of preach- 
 ing, and which must pervade its faculty and form, even 
 as the living spirit of a man pervades organ and 
 structure. 
 
 Mere theology has little interest for the masses of 
 men, and sermons on dogma and ritual weary the 
 empty pews to which they are addressed; but man is 
 ever an object of profound interest to himself, and was 
 never more seriously studied by himself than in this 
 day, when the minds of the people and the discussions 
 of the press teem with earnest, eager questions that 
 affect his nature, condition, social franchise, political 
 status and all that concerns his development and des- 
 tiny, but all, of course, limited to this material and 
 present world. 
 
 The drift of popular philosophy toward despair of 
 the future and the abandonment of the goal of per- 
 sonal immortality leaves man the subject of a life 
 without an aim and a heart without inspiration. Be- 
 neath its bubbling frivolities the spirit of this genera- 
 tion is sad ; the purple robe of material prosperities 
 and the abundant viands which load its table mock an 
 orphaned and empty soul. 
 
 115 
 
Il6 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 It is the concern of the preacher to feed this fam- 
 ished flock, leading it away from gilded husks and 
 sand-choked wells into God's green pastures and by 
 His waters of rest. It is not metaphysics that men 
 want, but bread; not the revel of imagination, but the 
 river of life, and an ounce of crystallized sympathy 
 will have more weight with them than a ton of the- 
 ories and speculations. 
 
 Therefore, to have power with men we must have 
 sympathetic insight into their nature and needs — such 
 an insight as comes, not from viewing them through 
 the medium of books simply, but through the trans- 
 parent medium of intimate personal friendship. Human 
 nature is usually masked. Its real sentiments and 
 deepest convictions shrink from the cold gaze of curi- 
 osity, and run to covert on the approach of a stranger; 
 and the way men avoid close contact with the average 
 minister is a familiar experience. Yet, somehow, peo- 
 ple flocked in throngs around One Man, and the most 
 timid children and troubled sinners sunned themselves 
 in His presence. It was because ' ' He knew what 
 was in man ' ' and touched them at all points with His 
 healing sympathy. 
 
 It is not enough that we know men as they appear 
 with Sunday manners in the sanctuary ; we must 
 know them when off guard and self-revealed — in their 
 real and not their artificial life. It is not enough that 
 we know what they say or even what they think, but 
 what they are at the motive fountains of their conduct 
 and character. 
 
 We must reconnoitre and explore the fortress 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 117 
 
 which we are to besiege, discovering its secret gal- 
 leries, mines and magazines, as well as the guns that 
 frown from its walls ; or, to change the figure, we 
 must study the patient whom we would cure, whose 
 natural constitution, temperament and habits have so 
 much effect in helping or hindering our healing work. 
 A comprehension of human nature in all its phases has 
 always been one of the strong points in the true leaders 
 of the world. Men of splendid intellectual and moral 
 qualities have failed to sway their fellows just for want 
 of understanding and feeling with the men of their 
 age. 
 
 This insight is essential to our deepest earnest- 
 ness. Beneath the surface of moralities our eye must 
 fix upon the rooted alienation from God ; beneath the 
 gay exterior we must see the secret woe, and through 
 the trappings of wealth and fashion behold a soul 
 shivering in rags and secretly moaning, ' ' I perish with 
 hunger. ' ' These deeper facts of humanity must en- 
 gage us ; but we must also view the grandeur that 
 still lingers in the ruins of the Divine image in men, 
 discover the jewels buried in the earth and see the 
 groping and hear the sighing of that royal prisoner in 
 the citadel of sin, and behold what a worthy being it 
 is whom we are seeking to liberate and enthrone. 
 
 It must be a sympathetic insight. Cynics like 
 Diogenes and Swift and Voltaire and Carlyle have had 
 insight of men, but to despise or despair of them. 
 Wits like Rabelais, Cervantes and a swarm of satirists 
 and comedians have had insight of men, but only to 
 laugh at the frailties and absurdities. Our insight is 
 
Il8 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 to be that of the Christian, the brother and the friend. 
 With purged eyes we are to see his sin and folly, his 
 want and misery, and at the same time his greatness 
 and possibilities, his sorrows and struggles, his yearn- 
 ings and all-embracing hunger and thirst after some 
 real good. And all this we must view in charity, our 
 love for men being something more than a sentiment ; 
 being, indeed, a sacrificial passion for their spiritual 
 and temporal well-being. 
 
 There is a study of man which is purely critical, 
 which has no reference to his spiritual value or con- 
 cern for his welfare; a study of him in the spirit of the 
 mental and moral anatomist ; of the philosopher, or 
 sociologist, or sentimentalist. To many students of 
 human nature and human history man is only a dis- 
 couraging and distressing problem. Said one of these 
 bitterly, ' ' The more I know of men the more I love 
 dogs." Antipathy to men's sins sometimes degener- 
 ates into a scowling dislike of the sinner. The frivoli- 
 ty, selfishness and hypocrisies of society result in a 
 morbid and growing alienation from the haunts and 
 homes of men ; the gulf widens, and the man becomes 
 a recluse. In the solitude of his study he tries to for- 
 get the ignoble, unresponsive crowd, with its petty 
 perversities and pauper sensualities. 
 
 But this is of itself a form of cowardice and sel- 
 fishness that must be crucified, or he will surely lose 
 personal power ; it will be sure to reveal itself in a 
 coldness, or austerity, or haughtiness of manner which 
 chills and hardens and repels those to whom he should 
 be a friend, a father and a counsellor. 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 119 
 
 If the minister be in sympathy with Christ and 
 with His work, he will be in sympathy with men ; he 
 will glow with the enthusiasm of humanity. Protracted 
 years of college and seminary training and exclusive 
 association with books and students often results in 
 the preacher entering upon his work more in love with 
 ideas than with men, in sympathy with his own class 
 rather than with men at large. 
 
 The true minister faces the world like the Byzan- 
 tine Madonna, with hands outstretched toward all the 
 race. He takes mankind into the light and warmth 
 of his heart. He studies man through the eyes of 
 Jesus Christ, along the lines of his nature as God made 
 him, of his failure and of his needs and of his possi- 
 bilities of perfect restoration and happiness. The effect 
 of this is to impart pathos, intensity, patience, eager- 
 ness and hope. No man now appears ' ' common or 
 unclean ;" the soul is of incalculable value : that solves 
 everything, leads to every sacrifice and effort. The 
 study of man's original and indestructible preciousness 
 is a constant support to his reverence and courage, 
 stimulates an infinite and active and yearning love. 
 This love being recognized by those to whom he min- 
 isters, awakens a confiding response and gives him a 
 peculiar psychic power. 
 
 Such a sympathy is higher and broader than pity, 
 solicitude or condescension; it is a feeling with and for 
 men in the whole range of their life struggle. It is 
 more than passive sensitiveness ; it is a lively and 
 steadfast outgoing of heart and hand, a struggle to 
 blend helpfully with other hearts and lives. It is an 
 
120 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 electric nerve, as delicate as the thread spun from the 
 insect's bowels, which, floating in the air, attaches 
 itself easily to the nearest object and becomes an aerial 
 bridge. It projects itself into other natures and estab- 
 lishes an invisible link of intercommunion, a spiritual 
 telegraphy, that makes the interpretation of thought 
 and feeling clear, and effective, and welcome withal. 
 
 There are natures cold, reserved, selfish, which 
 quite unfit their possessor for the true work of the 
 preacher. And there are natures that, from ungenial 
 environments, have grown undemonstrative and retro- 
 active, or have found a narrow channel for their affec- 
 tions and interests, so that literature, theology, criti- 
 cism, science of some sort, have won, fascinated and 
 enchained sympathies that the whole struggling world 
 might otherwise have enjoyed. Such men cannot ex- 
 pect that outflow of psychic energy in preaching which 
 comes from a larger, livelier interest in men. 
 
 The effective preacher will have heart-force ; an 
 affluent, genial, frank, confiding nature that } r earns to 
 blend itself with others, helping them to bear life's 
 burdens. Philosophical, idealistic and abstracted habi- 
 tudes of mind tend to paralyze psychic force by alien- 
 ating the preacher from the living touch of the actual, 
 current and concrete conditions and needs of men in 
 their daily trials, and sorrows, and cares. 
 
 Enthusiasm for man is fed by actual communion 
 with the flesh-and-blood humanity, as found in garrets 
 and mansions, in the roar of factories, the harvest- 
 field, counting-room, nursery and school ; aye, at the 
 village grocery, the local "primary," the court-room 
 
SYMPATHY AN FXKMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 121 
 
 and the jail. The decorous festivities of the college 
 and the grim passions of the labor strike, the pathetic 
 sweetness of childhood's faith and the dark abysses of 
 the aged skeptic's soul will all be included in the broad 
 horizon of the preacher's sympathies ; nothing that 
 concerns humanity will be foreign to his feeling. For 
 all he will spend and be spent out of the affluent ten- 
 derness of his own heart. 
 
 Dr. O. W. Holmes, writing in the North American 
 some years ago, deplored the weakening of the pulpit 
 resulting from the ' ' destruction of the priestly char- 
 acter of the preacher ' ' at the Reformation. He forgot 
 that the true preacher is essentially of the priestly 
 spirit, just in the degree that he possesses the heart of 
 Christ, who, as the high priest of humanity, sympa- 
 thized in all its temptations, sorrows and wants. He 
 may hold the key of human hearts without claiming to 
 have the keys of heaven and hell hanging at his 
 girdle. His Christly manhood survives, even though 
 he has sloughed off mitre, stole, chasuble and dal- 
 matica. The fierce communists of Paris, scorning 
 priestly pretensions, opened their hearts freely to the 
 simple-hearted McAll and his gospellers. 
 
 To contribute to psychic force, sympathy must be 
 robust, and not effeminate. It is never indulgent to 
 obstinacy, pride or indolence. It holds fast by God's 
 righteousness, while it compassionates man's miseries; 
 it condemns his sins, while stretching out strong hands 
 to rescue him from them. It disdains to flatter or 
 apologize, even while it refuses to cast stones at the 
 transgressor, recognizing the peril of all and the 
 
122 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 proneness of each to sin. It is no languid pity, but an 
 alert, hopeful and practical quality of soul that floods 
 the sermon with life, warms it with charity and pro- 
 pels it toward the hearer as the sinewy sailor propels 
 the lifeboat toward the wreck. Sympathy with no 
 nerve of truth in it makes a complaisant preacher, but 
 he has no masculine grip of his hearers. They may 
 feel his velvety touch, but will not be quickened by 
 his tonic grasp. 
 
 Sympathy must have in it inspiration to effort 
 rather than mere soothing under life's misfortunes ; 
 it is false when it leads men to pity themselves ; it 
 should have more of cheer in it than tears, and heal 
 wounds by rallying to further battle rather than by 
 bearing them to the hospital tent. 
 
 God's method with the despondent Elijah was to 
 summon him to duty, and Christ's way of comforting 
 Peter was to set him to strengthening his brethren. 
 The modern pulpit seems to accommodate itself more 
 to women than to men. It needs more iron in its 
 blood, more of the heroic quality that strung tightly 
 the nerves and sinews of the primitive Christians, the 
 Puritans, the Covenanters ; otherwise, how is this ma- 
 terialistic age, with its compromising and conventional 
 Christianity, to get vigor and enthusiasm ? The Prot- 
 estant pulpit has no weapon but the truth, and that 
 truth to most men has become trite. The people are 
 already familiar with all things sacred and profane 
 through the omnipresent press. 
 
 They come to church after a week's grazing of the 
 cyclopaedic newspapers and magazines, so mentally 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 23 
 
 ennuyi that they are not as easily interested in ethical 
 abstractions, creed championships and apologetics as 
 they were in more primitive times, when the catechism, 
 a devotional book or two and the almanac were their 
 mental and moral pabulum, when John Bunyan for 
 fiction and Fox's Book of Martyrs for tragedy and 
 Watts' s Hymns for poetry formed the library of the 
 people. 
 
 To-day the news from all over the world of every 
 kind competes with the oft-repeated teachings of the 
 pulpit. Nevertheless, men are still susceptible to the 
 real and the natural when flowing fresh from heart- 
 fountains ; and if we would make our message effective 
 among the rival voices claiming their interest, if we 
 would woo them to a life of consecration in a world 
 that was never so fascinating, we must bring the gos- 
 pel pulsing with soul throbs, overflowing with helpful 
 humanities. 
 
 In some men's nature sympathy is native and 
 congenial; it grows wild; perhaps needs pruning and 
 training. In others, it is almost an exotic; it needs 
 cultivating; we must fertilize its soil and give it sun- 
 shine and irrigation. It must be developed at what- 
 ever expense, if we would be effective. Some men 
 have to tear themselves away from their libraries, their 
 metaphysics, their sermon- writing and mingle with 
 the people in the home, the shop, the street, by the 
 sick bed, wherever they are found in real life. To 
 develop sympathy we must confide in the people, open 
 our hearts freely to them, shorten the distance between 
 the pulpit and the pew, win the people's confidence, 
 
124 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 be to them father, and mother, and brother, and 
 friend; find out what lies at the root of their daily 
 history, what they love and fear most. We must 
 share the troubles and delights of the children and 
 youths, the struggles and cares of toiling men and 
 burdened women, and let the experiences of all, both 
 high and low, touch us, blend with and color our 
 thought and feeling ; and thus the sermon will be more 
 and more a thing of life and reality. We must find 
 out what men are hungering and thirsting for, and 
 seek from God the supply. 
 
 The preacher is in communication, not with a 
 merely philosophic dream or theory of life, but with 
 its actual, stern and pathetic facts; with the seeming 
 cruelty of nature and the illusions of the world; with 
 the vanity and turbulence of youth; the obduracy of 
 unregenerate years. He combats the half- formed sin 
 and lukewarm repentance, the sharp pain of regret 
 and the rankling sting of unkindness, the weariness of 
 hope deferred and a joyless life, the sickness of a 
 present sorrow and the bitterness of a new bereave- 
 ment, the consuming fires of unbridled passion and 
 the weight of trouble that casts down the soul, with 
 none to raise it again. He talks to the fathers of 
 thankless children, to the young man about to enter 
 life, to the weary seamstress, with her poorly paid 
 work, and the young woman who seeks some clue to 
 her destiny and the best mode of expending her 
 energies, to the widow and fatherless, and to the 
 prosperous, with their dangers and responsibilities. 
 
 The contemplation of all these and many other 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 25 
 
 phases of life, and the dealing with them in gentle, 
 firm and loving truthfulness, will multiply and 
 strengthen the cords of sympathy by which the 
 preacher draws men to God. He will find his con- 
 genial as well as his proper function and field in the 
 common experiences of life — its business, sufferings 
 and pleasures — not in the emotional transports of a 
 vague and purposeless enthusiasm which has no 
 reference to anything beyond itself, its circle or its 
 church, and which leaves every-day virtues and simple 
 offices of good for transcendental emotions, whose 
 effects die with themselves. Alas for the congrega- 
 tions whose pastors give them gems of polished 
 thought instead of bread; who blow for them irides- 
 cent bubbles of sentiment instead of offering the cup 
 of salvation ! 
 
 When the preacher is en rapport with his hearers, 
 when a strong sympathy moves his own soul, it gives 
 him power to read the souls of men, to comprehend 
 what is transpiring within the bosom of at least cer- 
 tain individuals. * ' Man, ' ' says Carlyle, ' ' carries 
 under his hat a private theatre, wherein a greater 
 drama is acted than is ever performed on the mimic 
 stage, beginning and ending in eternity. " ' ' Not a 
 heart," says Amiel, "but has its romance; not a life 
 which does not hide a secret, which is either its thorn 
 or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope, comedy, tragedy; 
 even under the petrifactions of old age, as in the 
 twisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agita- 
 tions and tortures of youth. This thought is the 
 magic wand of poets and preachers." Sympathy (ow, 
 
126 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 iraflog ) , a feeling with another, is a sort of normal 
 clairvoyance, an elementary thought-reading. This 
 was one thing which gave George Whitefield such 
 power over an audience, that men cried out and 
 women fainted under the revelations he made to them 
 of their heart and life history. It was a familiar 
 thing for him to ' ' indicate what his hearers were 
 thinking about at the moment; and sometimes this 
 was so striking as to give them an impression of 
 almost supernatural insight." 
 
 Human nature, while in its essential features it is 
 the same in all men everywhere, yet presents a bound- 
 less variety of phases in detail. The preacher must 
 study these phases in the actual people he ministers to. 
 Many a person is alienated from preaching because 
 the man in the pulpit does not touch him. The teach- 
 ing seems abstruse, metaphysical, idealistic — anything 
 but human, familiar and practical. 
 
 The minister is liable to judge of the thoughts 
 and feelings and needs of the people by those of his 
 own class, or by those of fiction, of the dramatist, or 
 historian; and hence he is often addressing conditions 
 of mind, phases of feeling, forms of temptation and 
 experiences of life quite foreign to those to whom he 
 preaches. He is too often addressing creatures of his 
 own imagination, wasting his ammunition on men of 
 straw, exploding shells in trenches long since deserted. 
 He must find the real men, and women, and boys, and 
 girls of his own parish, where they are most at home 
 with themselves; where they are most sensitive, most 
 conscious of need. He will thus set his sermons to 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 27 
 
 running along the channels of their habitual thoughts 
 and aspirations. ' ' There is a man that understands 
 me; I will listen to him." People love the man who 
 comprehends them in a brotherly and helpful way. 
 
 Thomas Hughes, in Tom Brown's School Days, 
 gives us a boy's impressions at hearing Arnold of 
 Rugby's first sermon: 4< It was not the cold, clear 
 voice of one giving advice and warning from serene 
 heights to those who were sinning and struggling be- 
 low, but the warm, living voice of one who was fight- 
 ing for us and by our sides, and calling on us to help 
 him and ourselves and one another. ' ' 
 
 The value to the preacher's whole being of this 
 constant study of human nature cannot be over- 
 estimated or over-stated. The exalted value of men's 
 souls and the pathetic mysteries of human life will 
 have for him a fascination far greater than that of his 
 printed book. It will be pursued, not in a critical or 
 inquisitive way, but with the serious enthusiasm of 
 one who has alighted upon an inexhaustible treasure — 
 a problem of the highest moral interest. 
 
 The student of history, of art, of the physical 
 sciences, finds exhilaration and development, yet in 
 these there is limitation. But in the study of men as 
 immortal souls, freighted with infinite treasures of 
 faculty and affection, infinite possibilities of happiness 
 and misery, an endless career of growth and achieve- 
 ment, one finds stimulus for all his psychic powers 
 without a parallel. Here is a mine that grows richer 
 the deeper we delve, a nature that grows grander the 
 higher we ascend. Even the biologist, the novelist, 
 
128 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the poet, the historian, finds mental and moral enlarge- 
 ment and excitement in the study of man; but the 
 preacher who loves souls approaches his subject in a 
 different spirit — with reverence, faith and affection — 
 with both solicitude and hope. His concern is with 
 the ethical, psychical and spiritual man, and here he 
 will find scope for his intensest and broadest grasp of 
 thought and feeling. 
 
 Imagination also comes in to broaden our view 
 and quicken our sensibilities. 
 
 We think of each man as a little cosmos, popu- 
 lated with thoughts, feelings, purposes and passions — 
 an arena for tragic battle. We think what he has 
 passed through in the bygone years and of what he 
 may yet have to experience. We picture him as solv- 
 ing the problems of life, as choosing the better or the 
 worse part, as yielding to God or resisting His Spirit. 
 We think of him as renewed in soul, starting out on a 
 redeemed life, loving God and climbing heavenward. 
 We picture the powers of heaven and hell striving to 
 win him; we think of the heart of Christ loving him, 
 and the imagination has added its force to the pathetic 
 enthusiasm of the soul. 
 
 And thus if the preacher has a parent's or a shep- 
 herd's heart, he will grow daily in love for his flock, 
 in tender sympathy for his children; he will find in 
 his parish constant food for both his joy and his sorrow. 
 He fears for them, hopes for them, yearns for them, 
 till Christ be formed in them. He keeps in daily 
 touch with them; is the recipient of their most sacred 
 confidences. His sympathy is a magnetism that draws 
 
SYMPATHY AN ELEMENT OF PSYCHIC FORCE. 1 29 
 
 them to him. Thus he gains a power that may prove 
 men's salvation. He will discover that almost every 
 one of them, whether converted or not, has had a 
 religious history. This is true even of the most god- 
 less man who has come to adult years, however much 
 his soul may be trodden into worldliness by respectable 
 sin or trampled into the mire by the rush of swinish 
 sensualities. 
 
 There is a soft spot in every heart; would that we 
 could find it ! But the man guards it jealously and 
 fiercely, with an instinctive feeling that this is the very 
 citadel of his soul, which no cold theological hands 
 may touch and no human eye must look upon. Yet, 
 to the magic touch of frank and genial sympathy these 
 men will yield — even with the trust of children. 
 
 It is this power of insight that discovers to the 
 pastor the hearts of those who for months and years 
 have worn an aspect of utter composure or restless 
 defiance, while all the while the inner spirit was 
 trembling on the verge of conviction. At last, under 
 the penetrating warmth of the pastor's life and love, 
 these hearts melt with the rush of a river whose ice 
 barriers yield to the tender solicitations of the spring- 
 time. 
 
 I^et the preacher, then, cultivate his power of sym- 
 pathy. Let him in every breath breathe in the life of 
 his fellow men, every nerve of his body becoming a 
 conductor of the electric force between his own heart 
 and brain and those of his fellow men. The insulation 
 of a human being from his fellows is death, and is 
 complete in the grave. Our physical nature owes its 
 
130 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 existence and preservation to society. Neither life 
 nor the propagation of life is possible for the solitary 
 individual. Our emotional nature lives by love and 
 self -surrender; if these die, it is dead. 
 
 Even our intellectual nature can scarcely live and 
 flourish in solitude. Surely, then, if as preachers we 
 would become a healthful inspiration, a reforming, 
 regenerating and uplifting force in society, we must 
 implicate our brain, and heart, and life with the vital 
 essence of that society. When the prophet laid his 
 staff, by the hand of his servant, upon the dead boy, 
 he remained dead; but when he drew near and 
 stretched himself 'upon the lad, mouth to mouth, heart 
 to heart, hand to hand, then the lad, thrilled with 
 returning warmth, arose to life. 
 
The Psychic Power of Authority and 
 
 Love 
 
chapter ix 
 
 The Psychic Power of Authority and 
 
 Love 
 
 THE history of mankind, in every age and sphere, 
 is a demonstration of the psychic power of 
 authority, both in its objective and subjective 
 forms, whether that impression be clearly defined to 
 the subject or an irrational conviction. Whether 
 among men the most degraded and brutal, or among 
 men the most civilized and cultured, all are swayed 
 and led by what impresses them as authoritative. 
 There is an instinctive perception and recognition of 
 a something which carries with it submission and 
 obedience. Pride, passion, conceit or self-will may 
 for a while rebel against recognized authority; but 
 they are conscious of the unequal contest, and the 
 conclusion is either the fatal violence of desperation or 
 the humiliation of surrender. 
 
 Authority in the moral realm makes its appeal to 
 reason and conscience, and the combined consent of 
 these two will generally carry the citadel. This is 
 emphatically true in matters of the soul. The extent 
 to which religious authority, as represented by the 
 Church, the priesthood, the Pope, the creed and even 
 the visible symbol, has dominated the world, is one of 
 the marvels of history. It has been seen in the abject 
 
 131 
 
132 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 submission of lofty intellects and haughty crowns, as 
 well as in the slavish obedience of the more docile of 
 men. 
 
 In modern times and in Protestant churches there 
 has been a marked declension of authority. The 
 vicious excess to which Rome had carried its exercise 
 brought about a reaction which has reached an 
 extreme in our day ; which amounts almost to abdica- 
 tion. Men whose calling it is to represent Him who 
 " spake not as the scribes, but with authority," have 
 so generally renounced their high function that, in sub- 
 stance and manner and spirit, their message to the 
 world is as void of authority as it is of virility. 
 
 The vague and inconsistent attitude of not a few 
 ministers of religion doubtless suggested the cynical 
 division of the race into ' ' three sexes — men, women 
 and the clergy. ' ' Almost the only men who seem to 
 speak with authority are those speculators in ideas 
 who, assuming the title of the " advanced " or " the 
 higher critics," utter their oracular bulletins from the 
 dim caves of German universities; and their Anglo- 
 Saxon competitors who trot out their callow brood of 
 speculations with not enough meat on them to furnish 
 a child's lunch. 
 
 Are there not many pulpits which count it a 
 virtue to treat every postulate of theology as an open 
 question, which give the people their opinions instead 
 of ' * the truth as it is in Jesus ? ' ' 
 
 He is not altogether a fictitious character who is 
 represented as saying to his congregation: "The 
 Apostle Paul remarks " (thus and thus), " and I par- 
 

 PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND 1,0 VK. 1 33 
 
 tially agree with him ! ' ' There are not a few who, if 
 not exactly afraid to claim their soul is their own, are 
 at least too morbidly modest to utter themselves with 
 the boldness of conviction. "I venture to say, 
 although you may not agree with me," and similar 
 phrases are too familiar forms of address. The shep- 
 herds seem ambitious to put themselves on a level 
 with the sheep, and consult their preference as to 
 which way they should be led. They shrink from the 
 appearance of claiming superior wisdom and leader- 
 ship, and some are content to be recognized as simply 
 " a preaching brother," or, at most, the exponent of 
 the average sentiment and life of the congregation. 
 With some, it is oftener " thus say the scholars," or 
 "thus says the poet," or "the philosopher," than 
 " thus saith the Iyord." 
 
 The days of "proof -texts," which were like the 
 hammer and the fire in driving home and clinching the 
 truth, seem to have been superseded by the days of 
 cloudy illustration and fanciful analogies. The power 
 of the prophet has been lost in the pathos of the 
 pleader; and the pulpit, for the most part, is no longer 
 a throne from which the Eternal speaks through 
 anointed lips, but a platform for popular discussion of 
 current social and religious themes. 
 
 There are many notable exceptions to this state- 
 ment, and not a few men of prophetic fire and pente- 
 costal boldness, who make our hearts cry out, 
 " Would that all the lord's servants were prophets ! " 
 but the decay of authority in the pulpit is none the 
 less conspicuous in this age of material earnestness and 
 
134 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 mental levity . A perverted and presumptuous socialism 
 has subjected many of our pulpits to its leveling pro- 
 cess, and the latter seem struggling to secure popu- 
 larity with the ' ' masses ' ' at the sacrifice of power. 
 But the world will never be led by following it, and 
 the church and ministry that is to control men, that 
 is to win confidence, and inspire reverence, and mould 
 character, must speak with authority. Men in their 
 more serious moments, in their real mental perplexi- 
 ties and religious inquiries, yearn for authority, and 
 can find repose in nothing else. There are in every 
 congregation many sincere but unlearned souls, with 
 an incapacity or disinclination for independent investi- 
 gation, who are in a state of perpetual hovering, 
 unable to alight; or having timidly touched ground, 
 they are still fluttering and restless. To such the 
 voice of authority falling from the Shepherd and Phy- 
 sician of souls is a vast benediction, and their only 
 way to certainty. It brings peace and rest; the tossed 
 surface of their mind becomes like a calm lake, in 
 which the heaven of truth may mirror itself. The 
 clear recognition of authority is, to the critical and 
 contentious, a quietus; even dislike of the truth can- 
 not hold its own for long against it. I^ike the 
 Roentgen ' ' X-rays, ' ' it has a power to penetrate even 
 the fleshly indifference in which men's consciences are 
 often imbedded, and so reach that slumbering faculty 
 as to give it enlightened action. 
 
 As the world grows in intelligence it refuses to 
 submit to shams which masquerade in the garb of 
 infallibility, yet the history of the last half century 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND IvOVB. 1 35 
 
 shows that many of the most earnest minds, after 
 tossing on the shifting waves of speculation, philoso- 
 phy and doubt, have taken refuge in a so-called 
 ' ' infallible Church, ' ' because they had been led, by a 
 logic (in which there was a lurking fallacy) to believe 
 that authority resided there : and this largely because 
 its priesthood and literature persistently claimed and 
 pressed it into the foreground. That authority it 
 insisted on, which antiquity, universality and unity 
 warranted. With dignity, solemnity and unfaltering 
 accent of conviction the Roman hierarchy has de- 
 fended this claim till, in spite of many opposing facts, 
 it has carried conviction to minds of a high order, as 
 well as to the ignorant. 
 
 The yearning for authority is natural and of the 
 highest reason when the question is one that concerns 
 the immortal soul; and the church and ministry that 
 fails to answer it will fail to satisfy the heart or sway 
 the will. Men are creatures of faith, and faith can 
 only rest on the bed-rock of sovereign truth. 
 
 There must also be the conviction of the immu- 
 table. Faith only hovers restless if there be a symp- 
 tom of change. It must appear divine also — must 
 bear the credentials of a throne of eternal verity. 
 Men yield to the authority of the man who speaks as 
 an ambassador from the Heavenly King. Let the 
 preacher carry in his word and manner, and tone, this 
 quality, and it adds an almost irresistible power. And 
 this is a quality that cannot be well assumed. It must 
 spring from a deep conviction, a consciousness, solemn 
 and controlling, of his commission and anointing for 
 the high service of voicing the word of the Lord. 
 
136 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 When we have uttered God's truth we must not 
 be over-anxious to defend it. It is better simply to 
 keep on repeating it. It will vindicate itself. The 
 truth has nothing to fear from the truth, nor from 
 error, either; but it has something to fear from its 
 over-anxious apologists, and we may even abandon the 
 truth in our pursuit of its assailants. Despotic logic 
 does not always mean divine persuasion. 
 
 The temper of this age seems to oscillate between 
 intensity of concentration and recklessness of conse- 
 quences, between a passion for tragedy and a limitless 
 frivolity; but if we look a little deeper, we shall dis- 
 cover that a multitude of men are weary equally of the 
 philosophy of despair and the opera bouffe of social 
 hypocrisy; and they will put confidence in the man 
 who has a serious faith, whose gravity of manner and 
 depth of tone show his sense of the reality of things, 
 the importance of life, the perils and possibilities of 
 the men and women to whom he speaks, and the value 
 of his embassy to them. 
 
 Authority must wear the garb of gravity. Men 
 have ceased to stand in awe of the minister as a 
 ''ghostly confessor " — as holding the keys of life and 
 death ; but they are not yet willing to listen to a pulpit 
 popinjay who prides himself in not being " minis- 
 terial." There is a gravity which has nothing in it 
 oppressive or chilling — a gravity which is the child of 
 earnestness, and carries in it the pathos of a soul 
 burdened with a great responsibility and a great love. 
 
 To possess authority a man must have a clearly 
 defined creed. He must know what he believes, and 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 37 
 
 believe it with his whole soul. His Christian feeling 
 may be broad in its sympathies and free from bigotry, 
 but his doctrine must be a clear, deep stream, flowing 
 between solid banks, else it will become a swamp or a 
 morass. The expansive lake avails nothing to gener- 
 ate electric power. But how different when its water 
 flows through the close and rock-ribbed banks of 
 Niagara ! 
 
 To possess authority a man must have the spirit 
 of mastery — mastery of himself, of his subject and of 
 his method. Some men are by nature masterful — are 
 born to rule; but even in such, self-command must be 
 cultivated if they would command respect. Paul said 
 to the people of I^ystra, ready to give him divine 
 honors: "Sirs, we are men of like passions with 
 yourselves. ' ' Preachers of the true apostolic succes- 
 sion have learned how to ' ' keep under their body and 
 rule their own spirit." They were "competent to 
 curb erotic, erratic, eruptive forces in others, so far as 
 they had recognized, developed and subjugated their 
 own vehement and palpitating passions — no further. ' ' 
 Masculinity must not be sacrificed to meekness. Pas- 
 sive and passionless natures are destitute of magnetism. 
 As in chemistry, fermentation, which, unrestrained, 
 tends to corruption, rightly regulated, preserves sub- 
 stance and heightens quality ; so the surgent passions 
 in strong and disciplined men impart steadfastness to 
 the will and dominion over other minds. 
 
 Equally must he be master of his subject and the 
 method of presenting it. ' ' The words of the wise are 
 as goads and as nails fastened by the master of assem- 
 blies, which are given from one shepherd. ' ' 
 
138 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 The preacher of authority will not propound 
 truths in a hypothetical form. He will not say: 
 ' ' Does the soul die with the body ? ' ' He will use the 
 affirmative form: "The soul does not die with the 
 body; the soul lives forever. " The people respect a 
 strong, self-reliant and fearless affirmation, declared 
 boldly and in the name of God, which admits of no 
 "ifs" or "buts," which descends from on high, 
 claiming the assent of all without distinction. 
 
 Another aid to authority is consecration. How 
 many, in our day, have a secular air that speaks noth- 
 ing of inward or outward sanctity! They affect a 
 smart, airish, up-to-date, hale-fellow manner. They 
 awaken little respect and less reverence as being 
 ambassadors of the high court of heaven. In the 
 pulpit they deal with sublime things in a low way, and 
 with eternal things in a style that combines the wit of 
 the comedian with the logic of the campaign orator. 
 There is a lack of poise in the effort to be life-like, and 
 of dignity in the aim to be entertaining; a manner 
 quite foreign from Dryden's portrait of the minister: 
 
 1 ' Nothing reserved or sullen was to see, 
 But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity; 
 Mild was his accent and his action free. ' ' 
 
 Self -consciousness, the obtrusiveness of the ego, 
 is antagonistic to authority. It is impossible to be 
 seriously influenced by a vain preacher. ' ' The more 
 pains,' ' says the Archbishop of Cambray, " an haran- 
 guer takes to dazzle me by the artifices of his dis- 
 course the more I despise his vanity. I love a serious 
 preacher who seeks my salvation, not his own vain- 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 39 
 
 glory. ' ' Vincent de Paul wrote, with, reference to the 
 humble dignity and sobriety of certain clergymen in 
 his day, rinding expression in their outward form and 
 manner: " What the eye sees goes more straightly to 
 the heart than what the ear hears, and we believe 
 more unquestionably therein. There is a somewhat 
 indescribable in the exterior of God's own servants — a 
 something lowly, recollected, devout, which springs 
 from their inward grace, and which reacts upon the 
 souls of those who are brought in contact with them. 
 There are men among us so full of God that it is 
 impossible to look at them without being touched by a 
 mysterious power. ' ' 
 
 The basal source of authority is divine truth. 
 
 The men of this twentieth century do not bow to 
 the sanctions conferred by hoary antiquity or ecclesi- 
 astical ordination; office, and function, and reverend 
 titles do not carry the weight they once did. When 
 men ask of us, " By what authority do you claim our 
 ears ? ' ' we must produce something more than a 
 sheepskin written over with Latin credentials and 
 bearing the impressive seal of a university. Among 
 Protestants, even the ' ' Councils of the Church " is no 
 longer a phrase to conjure with; we cannot summon 
 venerable tradition, nor ecclesiastical law, nor the 
 power and penalty of excommunication to enforce 
 authority. The spirit of mental and spiritual inde- 
 pendence is rampant and everywhere abroad. Our 
 audiences are jewels, rather than disciples. Besides, 
 where the element of fear enters, there freedom of 
 choice disappears. 
 
14-0 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 Therefore, the dynamic force of authority resides 
 simply in the Truth itself and the Divine source from 
 which it springs. To speak with authority a man 
 must apprehend clearly, believe heartily and feel 
 deeply that the thing he utters is the unadulterated 
 truth of God. The Word as a divine revelation, a 
 divine message, a divine law, a divine gift, must have 
 taken full possession of the preacher's intelligence and 
 heart; his whole being must bow before it with 
 implicit faith and adoring reverence. He must him- 
 self have obeyed it; he must rest upon its granite 
 foundations for his own soul's salvation. Then he 
 is in a position and spirit to utter it with an authority 
 that springs from evidence and with the force of con- 
 viction that springs from experience. "I believed; 
 therefore have I spoken." " We speak the things we 
 do know, and testify of that which we have seen." 
 
 In listening to some men you feel repelled by an 
 impression that in their heart of hearts they do not 
 realize or believe a word of what they are saying; that 
 they have never experienced aught of the thing of 
 which they are speaking. In listening to others, you 
 know at once that they are on fire within with faith 
 and conviction of the truth, and that in earnestness of 
 purpose their lives correspond to their speech. And 
 these are the only men that reach you. It is simply 
 impossible not to listen to them. In the name of God 
 they lay hold on your understanding and conscience, 
 and you cannot escape them. When you come near 
 to them you feel the heat of the hidden fire, and you 
 know that this divine fire has been kindled by 
 Almighty love. 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OP AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 141 
 
 1 ' If God sent Francis de Sales to teach men, Pere 
 de Condren seemed fit to teach angels," says one of 
 his biographers. And another says: " There was all 
 the difference between Pere de Condren and most 
 other men that there is between one who relates to 
 you things he has seen with his own eyes and one who 
 only repeats what he has been told. ' ' Naturally, this 
 deep personal insight into spiritual truth gives a man 
 a great spiritual perception, not merely of ordinary 
 character, but of the spiritual condition and needs of 
 his audience, so that he seems to them to speak with 
 supernatural authority, to read their very thoughts, to 
 take a diagnosis of their souls and furnish the antidote 
 to their sins and sorrows; and they surrender to him, 
 as to a learned specialist, for their moral maladies. 
 
 Again, he will speak with authority who is con- 
 scious of the tremendous weight and consequences of his 
 message. Realizing the need of an authoritative utter- 
 ance on matters profoundly vital to the soul in such 
 critical conditions, he will base his message on nothing 
 less than the throne of God itself. The importance of 
 this supreme appeal, even the incarnate Word Him- 
 self reveals in such repeated assertions as, "The 
 word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's 
 which sent me," " My doctrine is not Mine, but the 
 Father's which sent me." If He whose word could 
 wake the dead and cast out devils felt the pressing 
 need of freighting his message with the august author- 
 ity of His Father, how much more we who, in con- 
 scious insufficiency, echo that word ! 
 
 And again, he will speak with authority who 
 
142 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 ' ' dwells in God and God in him. ' ' Christ said : * ' The 
 words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself, 
 but the Father that dwelleth in Me; He doeth the 
 works." And every one who takes up His message 
 and repeats it to the world must, in an humbler but 
 as real a way, speak as the Spirit which is in him 
 giveth utterance. It was said of one that " he habit- 
 ually preached as if Jesus Christ was standing by his 
 side," and nearly every one can recall some herald of 
 the Cross whose face almost shone like that of Moses, 
 and whose whole presence and expression awed the 
 hearer as of one who spoke as an oracle of God. 
 
 Personal authority, emanating from weight and 
 worth of character, is another dynamic factor. There 
 are men, to be sure, whose mere self-assertion, whose 
 air of superiority, whose owl-like assumption of wis- 
 dom or ponderous voice, carries with it an impression 
 of importance; but only to the ignorant or the undis- 
 criminating. The discerning will not fail to discover 
 beneath the lion's skin the elongated ears, and in the 
 affected roar the ridiculous bray of the less noble 
 beast. The man of authority in our day must possess 
 mental and moral volume and value. His depth, and 
 height, and largeness of soul must be manifest, as well 
 as his freedom from hobbies and eccentricities, from 
 pomp and pedantry. Simplicity and unaffected con- 
 descension toward the unlearned, serenity and patience 
 with the disputant, lucidity and precision in state- 
 ment, will all add to the psychic effect of authority. 
 
 Authority brings down high looks, disarms skep- 
 ticism, awakens confidence, silences cavil, sobers levity, 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND LOVE. 1 43 
 
 produces mental repose and makes a supreme demand 
 upon the will — a demand which is supported on the 
 one side by reason and on the other by conscience. It 
 changes the preacher's attitude from one of defense to 
 one of attack. The Great Preacher never took the 
 defensive. The Great Apostle to the Gentiles did not 
 instruct Timothy to preach apologetics, but to ' ' preach 
 the word. ' ' The command of the Master as to preach- 
 ing always implies an authoritative proclamation, and 
 primitive preaching was always of this character. By 
 manifestation of the truth they commended themselves 
 to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Psy- 
 chic force goes with positive, unmitigated, unfaltering, 
 uncompromising affirmation of the truth, an affirmation 
 as calm as it is fearless, in which boldness and hu- 
 mility, dignity and gentleness, are nobly blended. 
 There is no strength in a human soul that can ulti- 
 mately withstand a persistent and reiterated ' ' Thus 
 saith the I^ord. ' ' The man on bended knees will kiss 
 it as an extended sceptre, or as a descending rod of 
 iron it will dash him in pieces like a potter's vessel. 
 
 And of love. 
 
 This tone of authority must, however, be modu- 
 lated and sweetened by love, that mystic force that 
 pervades the kingdom of heaven, and which saturated 
 the spirit of Him who ' ' spake as never man spake. ' ' 
 
 Science tells us that the heat and light of the sun 
 must needs shine through the earth's environment of 
 atmosphere, or it would scorch and blind those it now 
 warms, and to whom its " light is sweet. " Equally 
 true it is that naked authority to a perverted and 
 
144 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 rebellious soul would only oppress, or harden, or shut 
 it up to impotent desperation. Clothed in an atmos- 
 phere of love, recognized as the pathetic imperative of 
 love, the soul opens to it as frozen nature to the 
 genial pressure of the resistless springtime. Icebergs 
 of defiant unbelief, scorning the tempests, melt down 
 and surrender when caught in the warm gulf -stream 
 of a Christly tenderness in the preacher. A nature 
 that hardens at dictation becomes pliant and malleable 
 in the fires of sympathy. 
 
 If we analyze the psychic power of this love, we 
 shall see in it the element of surprise. Men are so 
 used to seeing every one intent on his own interests, 
 gains and pleasures, doing everything because it pays, 
 that they at first suppose the preacher is actuated by 
 some selfish motive to increase his church for mere love 
 of fame or power. When they discover unselfish love 
 as his motive, they are as much surprised as if they 
 came suddenly on a blooming garden and crystal 
 spring in a dreary desert. They are disarmed, at- 
 tracted, hidden chords in their hearts are touched, 
 they surrender to the soothing or stimulating magic. 
 
 This psychic result is as natural as the product of 
 any other law of human nature. The heart is longing 
 for love ; while men may treat it lightly as a senti- 
 ment, they blindly yearn for it as a necessity, and 
 timidly or impulsively turn toward it as plants in a 
 room turn toward the sunny window. This instinct 
 is the ' ' lost chord ' ' which we must feel after with a 
 hand that has been nailed to the cross of Christ. It is 
 a wandering and timid child who must be wooed by 
 lips that have kissed the bleeding feet on Calvary. 
 
PSYCHIC POWER OF AUTHORITY AND 1,0 VE. 1 45 
 
 To say that the preacher is completely swayed by 
 a passion so pure and perfect would place him quite 
 above the infirmities of human nature ; if he live near 
 the Lord whom he serves, he will often be mortified 
 by the discovery of the contrast with that ideal. A 
 flash-light of introspection will reveal depths in 
 which pride and love of praise are lurking. The 
 illumined minister will sometimes hate and despair of 
 himself on this account. 
 
 It is related of L,acordaire that when he returned 
 from the pulpit of Notre Dame he would sometimes 
 prevail on one of his associates to scourge him with the 
 knotted rope of the penitent, to subdue the pride 
 which the applause of his sermon awakened; and many 
 a mighty preacher, like Whitefield, has fasted and 
 wept, on his face, before God, to exercise the false 
 love of fame and power which would usurp the sacri- 
 ficial love of souls. Doubtless the secret of much 
 wasted intellectual power and the alienating of some 
 men from our congregations is due to the absence of 
 the winning energy of love. 
 
 The preacher who humbly seeks an increase of 
 this all- important charm, this divine fascination, will 
 find it in continual study of the pathos of human life 
 and of the heart of his Master. Have we not discov- 
 ered that the human channel through which the love 
 of God is to find access to men must be in accord and 
 vital touch with the power that flows through him ? 
 Electricity loses its force in so far as it is encased in a 
 non-conducting sheath, and you cannot make a flame 
 pass through ice. Alas for the non-conducting pride, 
 
146 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 the icy intellectuality of our pulpits ! There is such a 
 wide difference between the reasonableness of truth 
 on which we are apt to depend and the ' ' sweet rea- 
 sonableness of Jesus Christ.' ' Insignificant is the 
 number who are impelled to faith and action by the 
 force of logic in comparison with those who are drawn 
 by their affections. And mere reasoning can control 
 the affections about as easily as a flame can be bound 
 and led by a rope. To have authority with men, they 
 must be loved much. L,ove is the only positive and 
 creative force that works among men. Its effect is 
 always life-begetting, organizing and energizing. If a 
 man has love, let him have it more abundantly ; if it 
 be lukewarm or diluted with self, let him get it purged 
 and heightened by the Spirit's fire into a Christ-like 
 fervor. If he has not love, let him not think to preach. 
 I*et him turn to speculation, or politics, or romancing 
 for fame and gold — but let him not trifle with souls for 
 whom Christ died. 
 
The Psychic Power of the Holy Spirit 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Psychic Power of The Holy Spirit 
 
 ON the day of Pentecost a band of peasant evangel- 
 ists faced the world with a new religion. They 
 were furnished with neither prestige nor earth- 
 ly power; they had neither a priesthood, nor temple, 
 nor learning, nor formulated creed, nor even organiza- 
 tion or visible leadership. They had only a Gospel 
 and the testimony of personal experience. But their 
 word was with power. With that weapon of fire they 
 attacked the iron fortresses of Antiquity, Supersti- 
 tion, Philosophy, Skepticism, luxury, Pride and Po- 
 litical Despotism, and everywhere prevailed. They 
 confounded the wise, convinced the infidel, converted 
 the depraved and reared the fabric of Christianity on 
 the ruins of every false faith. 
 
 And through all the ages since, wherever Christi- 
 anity has made substantial progress; it has been by a 
 Spirit-quickened Word in the lips of Spirit-endued men. 
 Christianity is the child of the Divine Spirit through 
 the seed of the Divine Word; its sustenance and de- 
 velopment are from the same eternally fresh and afflu- 
 ent source, and its power of victory over the world is 
 " not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 Speculators in opinions talk glibly of ' ' the religion 
 of the future," which they say is to supersede the Gos- 
 
 147 
 
148 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 pel; but the religion of the future must always answer 
 the deep question, ' ' Hath God spoken V ' That ques- 
 tion is triumphantly answered when the old Gospel 
 is preached with the fresh power of the Pentecostal 
 Spirit. 
 
 When He who was the Incarnate Word was about 
 to enter on His mission the Spirit visibly rested on 
 Him; and it was then the Father said, ' * Hear ye Him. ' ' 
 When He returned from the wilderness of fasting, 
 temptation and triumph, ' ' He returned in the power of 
 the Spirit into Galilee and taught in their synagogues, 
 being glorified of all." When He preached in Naza- 
 reth He began by quoting and applying to Himself 
 Isaiah's Messianic prophecy, "The Spirit of the L,ord 
 is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach 
 the Gospel." When He was preparing His disciples 
 to take up His work, He gave them a three- fold injunc- 
 tion and promise. He commanded them to tarry in 
 Jerusalem till they should be ' ' endued with power 
 from on high," and added the promise, "ye shall be 
 baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence;" 
 and, again, "ye shall receive power when the Holy 
 Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be my wit- 
 nesses." 
 
 In all these utterances the power of the Divine 
 Spirit is represented as the essential condition of the 
 effective ministration of the Word. In obedience to 
 His command they tarried in Jerusalem, watching, 
 praying and waiting till Pentecost, when the promise 
 of the Father and the Son received a mighty and 
 marvelous fulfilment; " they were all filled with the 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 49 
 
 Holy Spirit;" trie symbolic cloven tongues of fire sat 
 upon each of them, and ' ' they began to speak with 
 other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." 
 
 At this all Jerusalem was moved, and the multi- 
 tudes came running together to hear, repent, believe, 
 and thousands in a day were made the willing subjects 
 of the Nazarene, whom they had but lately rejected 
 and driven out of the world. Thus was inaugurated 
 the work of the Gospel ministry and the campaign of 
 Christianity for the conquest of the world. It is clear 
 that the anointing of the Holy Spirit was, then, the 
 essential and supreme condition of fitness in the preacher. 
 Every man who is called to preach the Gospel is under 
 the same injunction and is heir to the same promise. 
 
 That which was an essential preparation for Apos- 
 tolic preaching is equally essential to every true suc- 
 cessor of the Apostles, and its possession is his highest 
 credential. Without this power, preaching is but 
 "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal;" with it, the 
 Gospel becomes the ' ' power of God and the wisdom 
 of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. ' ' 
 Judith, presenting herself before Holofernes, clothed 
 herself in her richest attire — her bracelets, her ear- 
 rings, her fillets of purple, her pins of gold. In addi- 
 tion to this, "God gave her splendor." Thus the 
 preacher may clothe himself with truth, with logic, 
 with rhetoric, imagery, illustration and art, but these 
 are not enough for his high purpose. Except he be 
 transformed and transfigured by the Spirit of God, and 
 "clothed with salvation as a garment," he never can 
 be the agent of Divine transformations. 
 
I50 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 A moral diagnosis of the material upon which the 
 Gospel wrought on the day of Pentecost, and still 
 operates on the occasion of every Pentecostal sermon, 
 reveals human nature destitute of the life of God, a 
 chronic alienation from the truth and a ruling passion, 
 armed to resist its argument and appeal at all points. 
 But what a drastic and revolutionary effect that first 
 sermon had! As the word sounded in men's outward 
 ear it resounded to the abyss of their souls. It was 
 sharper than a two-edged sword; and, as it pierced, 
 they were conscious that it was wielded by an invisible 
 but resistless hand; convictions flash into their hearts 
 as the lightning cleaves the night; their sin against 
 Christ looms like a spectre of judgment; they tremble 
 in the grasp of their surging emotions. And as they 
 smite their breasts they cry out, " Men and brethren, 
 what shall we do ?" 
 
 Thus we see fallen, perverted and prejudiced human 
 nature, in the very beginning of the Gospel's mission, 
 absolutely conquered and transformed by spiritual 
 power. Human nature is still fallen, and ruled by the 
 same passions; the preacher's commission is the same 
 — to herald the Gospel; and the Gospel is Jesus Christ's 
 own message. The Word as touched by the senses has 
 passed into the heavens; yet the moment before he 
 ascended, and as the supreme incitement to his fol- 
 lowers in their preaching he said, ' ' I/), I am with you 
 always, with you to the end of the age. ' ' Therefore 
 our model and rule to the end of time is the same mes- 
 sage, to the same world, by the same Spirit, with the 
 same unction and sanction as that which He possessed. 
 
the psychic power of the hoi,y spirit. 151 
 
 The preacher is to think Christ's thoughts, to feel 
 Christ's emotions and to do Christ's works ; nay, 
 "greater works," He said, " than these ye see me do 
 shall ye do, because I go to the Father." The promise 
 has been literally fulfilled wherever a spiritual ministry 
 has held forth the living word; the deaf are made to 
 hear the joyful sound, the blind to behold the L,amb of 
 God; palsied souls spring into holy action, and the dead 
 in sin awake to righteousness and live for Christ. This 
 is the perennial fact of the Gospel — a living word 
 spoken by living men, producing holy and eternal life. 
 The operation of the Divine Spirit may be occult, 
 but the fruits are in beautiful, convincing evidence. 
 Christianity is unique in these respects, and quite out 
 of the field of all human religions. The latter peep, 
 mutter, stammer; Christianity speaks as light and as 
 thunder speak. It utters a "Thussaith the I^ord!" 
 Other religions dream, speculate, philosophize; Chris- 
 tianity affirms, proclaims, revolutionizes and shows 
 radical and eternal results. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is the supreme force in the preacher. 
 What life is to the body, that is the Holy Spirit to the 
 minister's work. What the sun is to the planet, that 
 the Holy Spirit is to the mind and heart of the minister, 
 imparting a divine and developing warmth to his affec- 
 tions and illuminating his intellectual processes. It is 
 the fertilizing and reproductive power in his soul. 
 
 The energy of the Spirit begins with the casting 
 down and out of self. It is as when the Angel of God's 
 presence wrestled with Jacob, humbling his native 
 pride, breaking his native strength, while in that very 
 
152 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 tour Jacob received the supreme blessing — ' ' power 
 with God and with men." The preacher is tempted 
 to prepare and preach his sermons from some form of 
 selfish motive; it may be gratification of intellectual 
 pride, or a lurking, unacknowledged and even undis- 
 cerned love of applause; it may be desire for a 
 crowded house, or solicitude to maintain his position or 
 climb to a higher one; it may be the natural but still 
 selfish desire for conspicuous success. It may be — 
 alas! what may it not be, in the endless variety of 
 motives and aims — divorced from the simple glory of 
 God and good of souls ? 
 
 Now, in as far as these motives sway him, they 
 weaken the force of his message as a Divine communi- 
 cation. But nothing will free him from them but the 
 baptism of fire; the pervading, searching, saturating 
 flame of the Holy Spirit, seizing upon him and bring- 
 ing all into subjection to the law of Christ, who said, 
 1 ' I came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him 
 that sent me, and to finish His work." 
 
 There are preachers whose pulpit work yields 
 apparently insignificant results, for all their elaborate 
 preparation. Their discourses are logical in structure, 
 clear in exegesis, rich in illustration, beautiful in style 
 and graceful in delivery, but they fall with the weight 
 of an iridescent icicle on an admiring but unmoved 
 congregation; no souls come to them in penitence, no 
 finny shoals fill their net, no spiritual children rise to 
 call them blessed, and demons laugh at their attempts 
 to exorcise them. The secret cause of their failure is 
 the absence of spiritual power. They need not a new 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 53 
 
 Gospel, nor a new field (though they are apt to seek 
 one or the other) , but a Pentecost in their study, a 
 fiery baptism in their souls. 
 
 Rev. Wm. Arthur has well said: "A piece of 
 iron is dark and cold; imbued with a certain degree of 
 heat, it becomes almost burning without any change 
 of appearance; imbued with a still greater degree, its 
 very appearance changes to solid fire, and it sets fire 
 to whatever it touches. A piece of water without 
 heat is solid and brittle; gently warmed, it flows; fur- 
 ther heated, it mounts to the sky. An organ filled 
 with the ordinary degree of air which exists every- 
 where is dumb; the touch of the player can elicit but 
 the clicking of the keys. Throw in, not another air, 
 but an unsteady current of the same air, and sweet 
 but imperfect and uncertain notes respond to the 
 touch; increase the current to a full supply, and every 
 pipe swells with music. Such is the soul without the 
 Holy Spirit; such the changes that pass upon it when 
 it receives the Holy Spirit, and such its action when 
 it is endued with the power of the Holy Spirit. ' ' 
 
 This power is demonstrated in various ways in 
 the preparation and delivery of the sermon; — to begin 
 with: 
 
 In the preparation. 
 
 I. In the discovery and interpretation of the truth 
 itself. It is of highest concern to remember that the 
 things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. How 
 can we claim to speak in the name of God and utter 
 1 ' the word of the I^ord ' ' except we have had inter- 
 preted to us that word by the Spirit of God, whose 
 
154 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 function it is to take the things of Christ and reveal 
 them unto us ? 
 
 The preacher is a prophet. The priestly office 
 ended with Christ, the prophetical is continued in the 
 preacher: " To another is given prophecy." This 
 function is not, indeed, for the predicting of future 
 events not before revealed; but he is nevertheless to 
 speak ' ' as the oracles of God. ' ' He is to stand be- 
 tween the living and the dead till the plague be 
 stayed ; to hold forth the world of life. 
 
 He is not responsible for the way in which men 
 treat the message, but he is responsible that he deliver 
 it with all faithfulness. And how is he to do this if he 
 has not received it from the throne ? What the pro- 
 phet tells forth he must first be told. In the Acts we 
 read that ' ' Judas and Silas, being prophets also them- 
 selves, exhorted the brethren and confirmed them;" and 
 when Paul urges us to covet the ' ' spiritual gift ' ' of 
 prophecy, it is because "he that prophesieth speaketh 
 unto men to edification, and exhortation and com- 
 fort." 
 
 The ancient prophet, when the Spirit of the I^ord 
 came upon him, was made to see, as his most exalted 
 vision, "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that 
 should follow," though he himself comprehended little 
 of the full significance of the vision ; and the preacher 
 of to-day enjoys highest communication from above 
 and utters his grandest message to the world, when 
 1 ' Christ and him crucified ' ' fills the horizon of his 
 awed and delighted contemplation, and He "whom 
 not having seen he loves ' ' becomes a vivid and moving 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 55 
 
 reality \ whose glory he proclaims and whose claims he 
 urges as if the invisible were standing by his side; as if 
 his eyes beheld and his ears heard, and his lips simply 
 voiced what Christ was speaking to him. 
 
 ' ' The same Spirit that summoned out of the remote 
 future the Messiah to appear before Isaiah as a * I^amb 
 led to the slaughter ' summons the same Saviour out of 
 the remote past as a L,amb dying on Calvary." The 
 difference between presenting a dead Christ on the 
 cross as a historic event long past and presenting a 
 dying Christ as revealed by the Spirit to the preacher's 
 soul is all the difference between a tame and formal 
 deliverance, which neither awakens the conscience nor 
 kindles emotion, and that forceful and penetrating 
 preaching which thrills and quickens to penitence and 
 love. 
 
 Intellectual processes, critical discriminations, 
 comparison of exegetical authorities, all will not suf- 
 fice to rightly interpret the word of God, except that 
 in all and above all, the student has the specific 
 anointing of the eyes by the Holy Spirit. It is this 
 holy fire that will cause the pure gold to flow from the 
 ore, the pure savor to ascend from the censer which 
 makes it a " sweet savor unto God and a savor of life 
 unto men. ' ' 
 
 The manner in which the Spirit operates may be 
 inexplicable, but the fact is sufficiently transparent 
 and comprehensible. 
 
 All the natural powers are raised above their 
 normal condition ; the insight of the mind becomes 
 more penetrating and exact ; the inductive processes 
 
I56 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 and imagination are purged and quickened and the 
 power of the truth on his own soul is increased. His 
 motives, aims and affections in handling the word are 
 freed from deceit and pride ; an intense reality invests 
 the whole process ; he is practically, though scarcely 
 consciously, thinking God's thoughts, and his soul is 
 expanding with emotions akin to the Divine. The 
 love of the Spirit for men pours its warm, genial 
 tides through his heart, and he finds himself pleading 
 with men as a man pleads for his own life. He 
 enters into Paul's experience when he cried "as 
 though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in 
 Christ's stead." 
 
 Herein lies his power with men. The pulpit loses 
 its hold on the life and thought of the people when 
 it loses its spiritual eyesight. If the preacher has but 
 the eye to see and the tongue to express the glories 
 of the kingdom of God, men will hear him gladly. 
 
 When William Blake, the poet-painter, was asked 
 if he saw the rising sun, he answered, (i No ! No ! I 
 see a heavenly host, and I hear them chanting, ' Holy I 
 Holy ! Lord God Almighty, Heaven and earth are full 
 of thy glory ! ' ' ' He saw with the spiritual eye and 
 heard with the spiritual ear of the poet; and he who 
 cannot thus see and hear, to him has not been given 
 to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God. 
 
 A lens may be made of ice through which sunbeams 
 passing will set on fire materials placed in their focus; 
 but not so with the light of truth passing through a 
 cold heart. The glowing temperature which the fiery 
 baptism gives is essential in the medium of transmis- 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 57 
 
 sion. If the preacher's soul be as a candle lighted by 
 the Lord, if his lips are touched by the live coal from 
 God's altar, if his lamp is continually filled by the oil 
 flowing from the living olive tree and tended by Him 
 who walketh amid the golden candlesticks, there will 
 be rays of truth streaming from that soul into others, 
 along which the Spirit's secret influence moves. 
 
 If he receive and hold the divine magnetism as 
 the Ley den jar holds electricity, he then only needs 
 the divinely appointed wire to conduct it to his audi- 
 ence. But that connecting medium is not of earthly ma- 
 terial, it is that Word which Christ meant when He 
 said : * ( The words which I speak unto you, they are 
 spirit and they are life." Its form may be infinitely 
 varied, its essence must be the same. It is the passion 
 of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ. 
 
 The Holy Spirit will clarify and intensify the 
 preacher' § faith in the Word. It is a part of the bap- 
 tism of the Spirit to plunge the belief of the brain 
 into the very blood of the heart, so that when the man 
 preaches his hearers will catch the contagion of his 
 vital faith. It was thus with the worldly man who 
 heard Charles Kingsley. " I went," he said, "as you 
 told me — you were right. That man delieves, and he 
 sent me to my Bible to read and pray. " The tone and 
 accent of conviction is a powerful factor in preaching — 
 an element utterly wanting in the professional, per- 
 functory and parrot-like essays of men whose doctrine 
 is merely hereditary or churchly. 
 
 The Spirit of God will give freedom to the preach- 
 er' s soul and tongue. Doubtless there is a " bondage 
 
158 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 of the pulpit ; ' ' it is a bondage of doubt, and some- 
 times of fear, and sometimes of the manuscript; some- 
 times of self-consciousness, sometimes of the audience 
 as a company of spies and critics ; but ' ' where the 
 Spirit of the I,ord is there is liberty. ' ' It is wonder- 
 ful what independence of circumstances, of men's 
 judgments, of nervous solicitude, it confers ! As the 
 flame leaps to heaven in bold, free, victorious energy, 
 regardless of opposition, subduing everything to itself 
 — so a spirit-inflamed minister is as free as were those 
 Hebrews in the furnace, their bonds consumed, them- 
 selves walking harmless with one like unto the Son of 
 God. 
 
 ' ' At such times the soul walks on high places ; it 
 walks automatically and with sovereign force, without 
 constraint or urgency of volition. The man himself 
 is amazed at the rush with which both thought and 
 utterance come. The reserved forces break into play. 
 Things are at hand which had seemed inaccessible. 
 Previous knowledge is as if transfigured. The whole 
 spirit is full of energy, full of light. It rejoices to 
 reveal itself in action and in speech ; and its words 
 are instinct with brightness and power." — Dr. R. S. 
 Storrs y Led. p. ioj. 
 
 What limit is there to the force of that man in 
 whom rolls and surges the deep, shoreless sea of divine 
 inspiration ; who is anointed with the oil of gladness 
 above his fellows; who is mightily conscious of the 
 ever blessed God, as a concrete and personal inhabi- 
 tant, a living sympathetic quickener of thought and 
 emotion ? He is upborne by a power invisible, but as 
 real as is the sea to the swimmer who floats on its 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 59 
 
 emerald bosom, or as the ambient air to the sailing 
 eagle. His utterance will be a blending of serenity 
 and energy ; he will be free from the nervous tension 
 and unnatural strain of voice and manner which ex- 
 haust both himself and his audience. 
 
 It is indeed impossible to express or overestimate 
 the force represented in the fullness of the Spirit. It 
 might be compared to the incalculable force of Niagara, 
 whose placid bosom and mighty plunge carry a power 
 competent to generate electric power and light for a 
 hundred great cities. 
 
 L,acordaire, speaking of his call to preach unex- 
 pectedly at Notre-Dame, says : ' ' Moreover, it is with 
 the orator as with Mount Horeb: before God strikes 
 him he is but barren rock, but as soon as the Divine 
 hand has touched him, as it were, with a finger, there 
 burst forth streams which water the desert. ' ' 
 
 Again, the Holy Spirit bestows the energy of a 
 divine insatiable yearning for the souls of the people ; He 
 imparts that thrilling, vitalizing power with which, in 
 the beginning, the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the 
 face of the waters, till out of darkness and chaos there 
 emerged a world of order, beauty and fruitf ulness. One 
 will have the experience of which Paul speaks in Gal- 
 atians, iv.: " My little children of whom I am again 
 in travail till Christ be formed in you;" and in I. 
 Corinthians, iv., 15: " For in Christ Jesus I have be- 
 gotten you through the Gospel.^ 
 
 What is this but that secret, vital movement of 
 the Divine Spirit in his most sacred and pathetic energy 
 involved in the birth of souls, in which exquisite pain 
 
160 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 and exquisite desire mingle in one soul, ready to die 
 that others may be born into the kingdom of heaven ? 
 This is not a natural stress and agony of desire, but 
 the Divine Spirit mightily quickening in the preacher's 
 soul infinite yearnings to reproduce, in the image of 
 Christ, the life that swells and pulsates in his own 
 breast. 
 
 In the pulpit. 
 
 But not only must the preparation of the sermon 
 itself, from the choice of theme to the peroration 
 or application, be under the guidance of the Spirit ; 
 not only must interpretation, argument, illustration 
 and all the product of meditation in the study be influ- 
 enced by the illumination and impregnation of the 
 preacher's mind and heart, but he must have the 
 enduement of spiritual power in the act and process of 
 delivery. 
 
 As one cannot carry fragrant ointment shut up 
 in the palm of his hand and unnoticed : the per- 
 fume will reveal itself — so the man of God in whose 
 soul and sermon a spiritual essence dwells, will betray, 
 unconsciously, to the congregation his secret. Even 
 in his ordinary life, 
 
 1 ' When one who holds communion with the skies 
 Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise, 
 And once more mingles with us meaner things, 
 It seems as if an angel shook his wings — 
 Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
 That tells us whence his treasure was supplied. " 
 
 Much more will this appear when the Ambas- 
 sador, direct from the Throne, receiving his message, 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. l6l 
 
 as it were, face to face with the Eternal, confronts the 
 expectant people. He will be recognized by them as 
 clothed with something more than secular or scholarly, 
 or oratorical interest. If his face does " not shine like 
 that of Moses coming down from the mount, with daz- 
 zling glory, yet there will be something in his mien, 
 his bearing, his action and utterance that will impress 
 the beholder with the thought, ' This man has been 
 with Jesus and learned of Him.' " 
 
 In the act of preaching the power of the Holy 
 Spirit operates along the nerves of the preacher's 
 whole being, producing results as real in the psychical 
 realm as in the physical realm does electricity or 
 gravitation. Both are mysterious and inexplicable ; 
 both are consciously felt as an experience, and both 
 are visible in their results. Effects are produced upon 
 the preacher's native faculties and upon those of the 
 congregation, which are supernatural and cannot be 
 accounted for by any known laws of the human con- 
 stitution. 
 
 Will any one doubt that the disciples, as they 
 preached at Pentecost, were conscious of a new energy 
 working through them, giving them new interpreta- 
 tions of the words of Christ, new understanding of the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, new boldness of faith, new 
 love and zeal for the salvation of men ? In every way 
 they were in a condition of mental and moral inspira- 
 tion and exaltation, and they boldly and promptly 
 answered those who wondered and those who scoffed, 
 by quoting the prophetic promises of the pouring out 
 of the Spirit and declaring this to be the fulfilment 
 
1 62 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 thereof. And the effects justified their claim. The 
 men whom not even the words of Christ had moved, 
 whom the awful pathos of Calvary had not touched, 
 were cut to the heart, in deep humility confessing 
 these despised disciples to be " men and brethren," and 
 anxiously seeking of them help in the cry, ' ' What 
 must wedo?" 
 
 Now, as men are so constituted by their Creator 
 as to respond to Him when the right chords in their 
 nature are struck by a cunning hand, the psychic 
 touch of the Spirit and the psychic answer will be 
 coincident. An experiment in physics, familiar to 
 the modern student, may illustrate this. Such is the 
 relation between the waves of sound and waves of 
 flame, that when a certain note is struck upon a musical 
 instrument held near a column of gas flame the latter 
 is thrown into lively agitation, while to every other 
 note it is impassive. In the same way, there is a tone 
 and quality in the spiritual character and expression 
 of the preacher by which the hearts of men will be 
 stirred to faith, repentance and love, while they would 
 remain senseless and unresponsive to the man who 
 spoke, however eloquently, on the lower plain of mere 
 worldly wisdom or aesthetic inspiration. The only 
 explanation we can give is in the language of Scrip- 
 ture — ' ' There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of 
 the Almighty giveth him understanding. ' ' 
 
 The dynamic force of the Spirit-informed and 
 Spirit-impelled preaching is due, then, to its being 
 pertinent to the purpose of God and the susceptibilities 
 of the hearer. The Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI^Y SPIRIT. 1 63 
 
 through Apostolic lips, spoke a universal language. 
 Every man heard, or thought he heard, those men 
 speaking in the tongue in which he was born. Even 
 so to-day, through the lips of the minister, the Spirit 
 speaks the native dialect of souls. Each hearer thinks 
 himself addressed. The preacher seems to read his 
 very thoughts and to be acquainted with his life ; nay, 
 he often interprets him to himself. He understands 
 now the blind groping and dumb pleading of inartic- 
 ulate yearnings and fears ; he sees depths and heights 
 in his nature hitherto suspected but unexplored, and, 
 spell-bound, he gazes wistfully at the preacher and 
 wonders ' ' whence hath this man this knowledge, 
 having never learned my private history nor looked 
 into my heart ? ' ' 
 
 The man who preaches in the power of the 
 Spirit produces impressions which no mere eloquence 
 can effect. Before that divine light which radiates 
 from his word the veil of darkness is rent from the 
 mind ; opposition to the truth surrenders, the frozen 
 affections melt, the reluctant will awakes to action, 
 conscience declares, ' ' I ought ! ' ' desire cries, ■ 'I would ! ' ' 
 and the whole man responds, ' ' I will ! ' ' 
 
 The Holy Spirit, like the gentle flow of the 
 river of God's pleasures through the soul, will impart 
 both to thought and utterance a freshness, liveliness 
 and naturalness that make it seem quite new and 
 original, like the day dawn and the stars. In point 
 of fact, there are few original men in any age. 
 Goethe says pointedly : 
 
 "In the world there are many echoes, but not 
 
164 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 many voices. ' ' But even an echo may be thrilling as 
 a celestial note if it be that of the Alpine horn among 
 the Swiss heights. The straining after originality is 
 often a pitiful exhibition of vanity. Nature is always 
 sufficiently original, and especially when washed in 
 fresh showers, or rent by lightning, or shaken by storms, 
 or bursting into springtime. And when the preach- 
 er's soul, enriched with truth and awakened by med- 
 itation, is further wrought upon by the heavenly 
 powers, shot through by the electric flashes, and 
 shaken by the supernatural energies of the Spirit, he 
 will speak a mightier message and a newer gospel 
 than that of the scribes and pharisees, whose pompous 
 platitudes are moldy beneath their purple. 
 
 How to obtain spiritual power. 
 
 To obtain this power the first step is to render 
 honor to the Holy Spirit. 
 
 We must recognize His personality and true 
 Deity. We must honor, trust and adore Him as 
 possessed of all divine attributes; omniscient, to know 
 all our needs; omnipresent, so that we do not need to 
 search for Him or wait for Him; omnipotent, so that 
 nothing is beyond His power to bestow on us or work 
 in us or for us, or in those to whom we preach, so 
 that what is impossible with men is easy with Him. 
 We must think of Him as the full and exact repre- 
 sentative of all that Christ was as the Way, the 
 Truth and the Life, His specific function being to 
 render vital the word and effective the work of Jesus 
 Christ: the very soul of Christ, the living ful- 
 filment of his promise: " Lo ! I am with you alway, 
 even to the end of the age. ' ' 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 1 65 
 
 It is right for us, therefore, to address our 
 prayers to the Holy Spirit as to the Father and the 
 Son. We should remind ourselves that all the divine 
 operations in our hearts, from the moment of the New 
 Birth till the entrance into Heaven as holy and victo- 
 rous beings, are through His power and wisdom and 
 love. 
 
 We must remind ourselves continually that 
 while it is the ' ' word of God ' ' we use as the instru- 
 ment of faith, and the Cross of Christ as the radiant 
 point of salvation, the Holy Spirit alone can make the 
 former a living word and the latter the ' ' power of 
 God unto salvation. ' ' We must never forget that this is 
 the age of the Spirit's administration, and that while 
 He glorifies Christ we must glorify Him. We must so 
 honor Him as to accept every impulsion given by Him 
 as God's own action on us, respond to His every 
 prompting, reverently surrender our whole being to 
 His possession and dominion, and so believe and obey 
 Him that His unhindered power may work through all 
 our powers — the faculties of a sanctified body, soul 
 and spirit. 
 
 Zoroaster required his followers, the Persians, to 
 quench their fires from time to time, and rekindle 
 them from burning coals in the temple of the Sun, 
 thereby reminding them that fire was Heaven's sacred 
 gift. And so the preacher must daily renew at God's 
 altar the celestial flame, reminding himself of his 
 dependence on the heavenly fire to kindle in other 
 hearts religious emotion and aspiration. 
 
 To fulfil his mission to men in the way most 
 
1 66 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 effective, he should cultivate, also, a profound sense of 
 responsibility. He knows that faithfulness to his 
 calling means nothing less than the use of talent raised 
 to its highest efficiency and of opportunity to its full- 
 est extent. He knows that his native powers, how- 
 ever cultivated, are utterly inadequate ; that God ex- 
 pects him to avail himself of supernatural "power 
 from on high ;" has commanded him to seek for it till 
 he obtain it. 
 
 I^et him get imbued with Paul's conception of 
 preaching, for it is the divine ideal for all time. How 
 the Apostle emphasizes the necessity of spiritual 
 power ! he regards it as the very essence and soul of 
 preaching. When Christ from the heavens commis- 
 sioned him, it was to perform a transcendent and 
 supernatural work, viz., to "open the eyes of men 
 and turn them from darkness to light and from the 
 power of Satan unto God." (Acts, xxvi., 18.) 
 
 He had no confidence in his mental grasp, his 
 learning or his zeal. He coveted spiritual power, and 
 called men to witness that his preaching was ' ' not in 
 word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost, and 
 in much assurance." "My speech and my preach- 
 ing," says he, "were not with enticing words of 
 man's wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit 
 and of power, that your faith should not stand in the 
 wisdom of men, but in the power of God." And, 
 again, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that 
 the excellency of the power may be of God and not 
 of men." 
 
 And such power is to be felt rather than de- 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OP THB HOLY SPIRIT. 1 67 
 
 scribed or analyzed. It resides in, it permeates a 
 man's whole being and the entire circle of his activi- 
 ties ; it cannot be localized, it cannot be identified ex- 
 clusively with any one of them. It is felt in the 
 solemn statements of doctrine and also in the in- 
 formal utterances of casual intercourse ; it is felt in 
 action no less than in language, in trivial acts no less 
 than in heroic ventures; it is seen in the very expression 
 of the~countenance: an unearthly beauty, whose native 
 home is in a higher world yet which tarries among 
 men from age to age. 
 
 It is nothing less than His spiritual presence 
 irradiating upon His servants ; they live in Him, they 
 lose something of their proper personality ; they are 
 absorbed into, they are transfigured by a life alto- 
 gether higher than their own. His voice blends with 
 theirs, His hand gives gentleness and decision to their 
 acts. 
 
 Importance of the subject. 
 
 The state of Christendom in this twentieth cen- 
 tury reveals, in an impressive way, the vital and para- 
 mount importance of the subject we have been discuss- 
 ing. The line of cleavage in the visible church of this 
 new era is already manifesting itself to be, not the line 
 that divides Calvinism from Arminianism, nor Baptism 
 from Pedobaptism, nor Congregational Independency 
 from Churchly Conformity, nor even Protestantism from 
 Romanism, but the line which divides a spiritual from 
 a secular church and ministry. 
 
 In one direction, men, both of the pulpit and the 
 pew, and of all evangelical creeds, are drawing together 
 
1 68 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 in conference, study and prayer for the development 
 of the spiritual life on Pentecostal lines. In another 
 direction the secular spirit has assailed the very chairs 
 of Theology and Biblical Interpretation in our schools ; 
 depth and earnestness of conviction concerning the 
 mission and life-force of the Church are retreating 
 from the pulpits and pews of many of our popular 
 churches, to find a refuge and a sphere in Keswick 
 Conferences, and Salvation Army barracks, and 
 Oriental Missions and Alliances, and Orchard Beach 
 Assemblies and Christian Endeavor movements and 
 others of kindred aims. 
 
 Meantime, the assaults of skepticism are not 
 directed, as formerly, against any particular doctrine 
 of the Bible, nor against the Bible as a whole, simply, 
 but against the very existence of the Supernatural. 
 
 In the beginning of the last half century, 
 Cardinal Wiseman, in the course of a theological 
 lecture, said : ' ' Fifty years hence the professors 
 of this place will be endeavoring to prove, not 
 transubstantiation, but the existence of God." He 
 foresaw that the battle of the giants would be not 
 over the Thirty-nine Articles, but over the primary 
 question whether there be a spiritual world or a 
 personal Divine Spirit. This seemed like a pessi- 
 mistic view at the time, but a broad survey of the 
 literature of to-day presents some ominous signs of its 
 truth. 
 
 In what direction are we to look for an antidote 
 to the materialistic spirit and trend of popular thought? 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 1 69 
 
 I am profoundly convinced that the only sufficient 
 vindication and defense of vital Christianity and the 
 only effectual weapon of its advancing conquest is a 
 ministry endued with the power of the Holy Ghost. 
 Is it too much to say that the preacher of the Gospel 
 is the trustee of human faith ? The place he holds as 
 a social factor has been secured, not from admiration 
 of his learning or eloquence, nor from his official 
 appointment, but because, first of all, he stands in 
 every community as a witness to that divine instinct 
 which recognizes in the operations of nature and in 
 the human soul and in history the immanence and 
 sovereignty of a personal God He appeals to the 
 sense of a higher and diviner reality in human life, 
 and offers for man's satisfaction spiritual and eternal 
 verities. He appeals to the latent instinct and yearn- 
 ing for immortal happiness. 
 
 1 ' Man, ' ' says Jacoby , ' ' is a yonder-sided animal. ' ' 
 ' ' Man, ' ' says Dr. Hedge, " is a yonder-minded being, 
 an embodied hereafter." But these are ideal con- 
 ceptions, largely these instincts are overborne by 
 the preponderance of things utterly secular; the powers 
 of the world to come have, in social and business life, 
 been dethroned. 
 
 The pulpit champions man's spiritual nature and 
 eternal possibilities. In the midst of the turbulent de- 
 mands and glittering deceptions of the passing world it 
 insists upon the claims of the soul and of the eternal fu- 
 ture. The preacher points to ' ' a far more exceeding 
 and eternal weight of glory' ' as the heritage and privi- 
 lege of men. He stands for God as though God did 
 
170 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 speak through him; and it is his business to justify- 
 that claim. The stupendous claims of the preacher to 
 a commission from the eternal Throne and to a right 
 of aid from a supernatural force make it imperative 
 that he should prove his credentials as the organ of 
 Divine influences by spiritual victories and trophies. 
 
 The actual condition of at least some sections of 
 the Church and its ministry might be represented in the 
 reply of those Kphesians to Paul : ' ' We did not so 
 much as hear whether the Holy Ghost was given" 
 Rev. B. B. Pusey in his Historical Enquiry into the 
 Theology of Germany puts the case in a parable on 
 this wise : 
 
 " I have heard how, once upon a time, the Chris- 
 tian faith heard of the threatening and formidable in- 
 cursions of her foes, so she determined to muster her 
 preachers and teachers to review their weapons, and 
 she found, beyond all her expectations, everything 
 prepared. There was, namely, a vast host of armed 
 men ; strong, threatening forms, weapons which they 
 exercised admirably, brightly flashing from afar. 
 But as she came near, she sunk almost into a swoon ; 
 what she thought iron and steel were toys ; the 
 swords were made of the mere lead of words, the 
 breastplate of the soft linen of pleasure ; the helmet 
 of the wax of plumed vanity ; the shields, of papyrus 
 scrolled over with opinions ; the spears, thin reeds of 
 weak conjecture ; the cannon, Indian reed ; the powder, 
 poppy seeds ; the balls, of glass ! Through the in- 
 dolent neglect of their leaders, they had sold her true 
 weapons, and had introduced these ; nay, they even 
 
THE PSYCHIC POWER OF THE HOI.Y SPIRIT. 171 
 
 made her former warriors, whose armor of faithfulness 
 and strength were proved, contemptible. Bitterly did 
 religion weep ; but the whole assembly bid her be of 
 good cheer ; they would show their faith to the last 
 breath. 'What avails me,' she cried, 'your faith, 
 since your actions are worthless ? Of old, when I led 
 naked, unarmed combatants to the field, one martyr, 
 one warrior faithful to death, was worth more to me 
 than a hundred of you in your gilded and silvered 
 panoplies ! ' " 
 
 The parable interprets itself ; and while we hope 
 and believe better things of the Church, so far as some 
 portions of the host of preachers and teachers are con- 
 cerned, it is a picture full of serious suggestion. No 
 words can picture the grandeur and solemnity of the 
 position of the " Ministry of Reconciliation." Oh, won- 
 derful work ! To be the organ of communication be- 
 tween a holy and happy God and unholy and unhappy 
 men ! To be an active and inspired instrument in that 
 mysterious transformation by which the sons of Adam 
 become the children of God; by which a new character 
 is communicated to men, crowned with infinite and 
 eternal blessings ! 
 
 Such a work might lure an archangel from his 
 seat. Let us not fail to grasp this incomparable 
 honor with equal humility and avidity ; and, with in- 
 telligent enthusiasm, seek by every means to become 
 ' ' vessels unto honor, sanctified and meet for the 
 Master's use and prepared unto every good work." 
 (2 Tim. xi., 21.) 
 
 With what jealousy should we seek to be purged 
 
172 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit ! How 
 should we humble ourselves to be the least of all men 
 in our poverty of spirit, simply ambitious to love and 
 to labor for them. Fervently, patiently and persist- 
 ently let us press toward the Cross till, winding our 
 arms about it and clinging there, bathed in its glory 
 and thrilled by its life, we shall carry into our work a 
 perennial and pentecostal power. 
 
Unrealized Ideals 
 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Unrealized Ideals 
 
 THE ideal and the real in the preacher's work are 
 apparently separated by a great gulf; but they 
 should never be regarded as contrasted. Strictly 
 the ideal is the conceived and vital, yet unborn or un- 
 developed real. It is the real not yet incarnated into 
 the actual — hovering as a beckoning angel in the 
 horizon. 
 
 The ministry of the Gospel, beyond any other 
 calling, suggests to each aspirant a sublimated life and 
 work. The minister who possesses the apostolic call, 
 impulse and aim; whose devout soul is seized upon by 
 the lambent flame of religious enthusiasm, evolves some 
 infinitely fair creation, and hope points to its full real- 
 ization, at least in the distant years. 
 
 What true preacher at middle life does not recall 
 the fair portraiture of the man, the ambassador from 
 heaven, the shepherd of Christ's flock, which adorned 
 in earlier years the picture gallery of his imagination ? 
 What a noble picture it was! How pure from earthly 
 stain! how full of seraphic fervor! how brave and un- 
 selfish in service, wedded to noble poverty! how happy 
 in simplicity of motive and zeal in action! how digni- 
 fied in humble bearing ! how salutary and loving in con- 
 versation with men ! how intimate and constant in com- 
 munion with God! With mind spiritually illumined, 
 
 173 
 
174 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 soul rapt into eloquent utterance by the sublimities of 
 your theme, with voice modulated to the thunders of 
 rebuke, the pathos of entreaty and the clarion tones 
 of triumphant faith, you saw yourself standing before 
 eager and silent throngs, an apostle of God confessed! 
 Such was the ideal. Alas! how far distant, as yet, we 
 are from its full-rounded realization! In truth, to most 
 men, for all their early dreaming, middle life reveals a 
 rather commonplace reality; and inspiration, with 
 broken wing, limps painfully along, with growing 
 sense of dissatisfaction, through failure to apprehend 
 that for which we were apprehended of Christ as his 
 ministers. 
 
 Why have we not attained our ideal ? 
 
 If we can answer that question, there is hope of some 
 higher character and work still left for us. Doubtless the 
 causes of disappointment are many, and do not all exist 
 in any one case. The idealist in any form of merely 
 earthly aim is doomed to disappointment; for life, if 
 divorced from the spiritual and eternal, is essentially 
 illusive. In so far as its pivotal point is self and its 
 horizon earth, life is a vain show, a dance of shadows, 
 an eager chase of mocking and receding beauties. 
 Could we personify the aoblest ideal of the merely 
 " natural man," we should need to include in the pic- 
 ture a viper sleeping in his bosom, destined to waken 
 one time or other, and a cypress wreath upon his brow, 
 be that brow lifted never so proudly. Let a true genius 
 conceive a sublime ideal, let him seek to reproduce it, 
 you will hear him mourn over his failures. His efforts 
 will, perhaps, produce something admirable; they will 
 
UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 75 
 
 satisfy everybody but himself. He will be like the 
 greatest poet of Rome commanding that his immortal 
 work be burned at his death; like St. Cecilia break- 
 ing her musical instrument when she hears in the dis- 
 tance the chorus of angels. 
 
 But the ideal of the man whose life is hid with 
 Christ in God, and who has become a partaker of the 
 divine nature, cannot be too lofty or radiant in moral 
 features — nor has it any inherent element of decay or 
 ultimate disappointment, for ' ' He shall perfect that 
 which concerneth us." Truly the function and aim of 
 the minister of Christ is essentially and immeasurably 
 grand : 
 
 " It well might fill an angel's heart, 
 It filled the Saviour's hands." 
 
 It has in it all the features of immortal worth and 
 beauty. In it there is scope for unlimited development 
 in every affection and faculty. Its object overtops all 
 others, its motives blend the human and divine, its 
 force combines the finest elements of native eloquence 
 with the unction of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 So long as it transcends not the pattern outlined 
 for us in the Scriptures, there is nothing in the ideal 
 of Christly or Apostolic character and service, as 
 painted by the most fervid fancy, that can outreach a 
 reasonable and practical attainment. It can be trans- 
 ferred to the sphere of actual experience without 
 dimming its luster or shrinking its symmetrical propor- 
 tions. Concrete illustrations of such actualized ideals 
 are seen in a Paul, a Chrysostom, a St. Francis, a 
 Chalmers, a Wesley, a Baxter, a Martyn, a Judson, a 
 
176 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 Gordon, and others well known to history, together 
 with many a man beyond his parish unknown save to 
 the recording angel. L,uminous witnesses these, shin- 
 ing sentinel characters all along the Church's history, 
 telling that the real ministry may closely approximate 
 the ideal. 
 
 Why, then, do most of us fall strangely short of it ? 
 
 Perhaps our portraiture has not been drawn from a 
 divine model, nor from any tt ue standard, but is simply 
 the outgrowth of egotism and worldly ambition. 
 
 Consider that disappointed and misanthropic 
 genius Dore, whose illustrations have won for him a 
 wide, if not an exalted reputation. Starting with a sen- 
 sitive organization and tender affections, he became the 
 victim of ambition for praise as a painter in oil. It 
 was characteristic of him to ignore model and law, and 
 to develop his powers according to his own capricious 
 fancy, exclaiming, * ' My mind is my model for every- 
 thing!" His egotism led him to think no laudation 
 could exceed his merit. He sought to startle the 
 world by the number and variety of his original con- 
 ceptions and the rapidity of his execution. He aimed 
 to cause a sensation and secure a medal from the 
 French Academy. He caused a sensation, he failed 
 to gain the medal, and he died of a broken heart. 
 Might not his ambition and his failure find many a 
 parallel in the ranks of the ministry? Each of us 
 knows some man now living and scarcely gray-headed 
 whose once tender and aspiring soul has been embit- 
 tered, whose passion for greatness, or at least popu- 
 larity, has scorched the freshness out of his affections, 
 
UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 77 
 
 who is growing prematurely old and fretful. He has 
 abandoned hope, because success eluded him; and has 
 it not been because his ideal was a brilliant vanity ? 
 
 The men are not few whose ideal is intellectual 
 ascendency, literary culture and distinction. The 
 spiritual and sacrificial elements are absent from their 
 conception. But a preacher had better toil in ob- 
 scurity with only mother- wit, practical sympathy, an 
 English Bible and the teaching Spirit to show him how 
 to work for his fellowmen than to mount to a con- 
 spicuous and sesthetic ministry in which only the cul- 
 tured class shall know or care about him. 
 
 The divine, Christly ideal of the ministry brings us 
 into service for the whole people. An ideal ministry 
 makes talent, scholarship, refinement, superiority of 
 every sort a debt to the world, rather than a luxury or 
 an ornament. "Not an act of Christ's life, nor a 
 word from his lips, gives any evidence that he would 
 have tolerated the awful anomaly of clerical life in 
 which a man ministers placidly in a palatial church to 
 none but elect and gilded hearers, with all the para- 
 phernalia of elegance around him, and with culture 
 expressed in the very fragrance of the atmosphere, 
 while ' Five Points ' and ' Boweries ' are growing 
 up uncared for by any labor of his, within hearing of 
 his organ and quartette." (Prof. Phelps.) 
 
 Sometimes an apostolic man revolts at the very 
 popularity and position which his genius has brought 
 him. Hear Robertson of Brighton, that man the most 
 distinguished of his generation as a preacher, saying: 
 " I wish I did not hate preaching so much; the degra- 
 
178 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 dation of being a ' Brighton preacher ' is almost in- 
 tolerable. I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed; but I 
 think there is not a hard-working artisan who in his 
 work does not seem to be a worthier and higher being 
 than myself. I do not depreciate spiritual work. I 
 hold it higher than secular. But how humiliated and how 
 degraded to the dust I have felt in perceiving myself 
 quietly taken by God and men for the popular preacher 
 of a fashionable watering-place; how slight the power 
 seems to be given by it of winning souls, and how 
 sternly I have kept my tongue from saying a syllable 
 or a sentence in pulpit or on platform, because it would 
 be popular!" This is from the man who has been 
 called the Arnold of the English pulpit. 
 
 With some men, while their ideal may have been 
 noble, failure to realize it is to be traced to mental or 
 physical indolence, or both; to dreaminess or vagrancy 
 of habit, or, what is worse, to moral cowardice. There 
 may be a sentimental yearning for ideal excellence. In 
 fond revery the poetic temperament imagines a career 
 and character invested with the noblest features; but 
 the nerveless will does not impel to action, self-indul- 
 gence procrastinates, and the heart, enamored with its 
 own emotions, lolls on its pillow of dreams when it 
 should be patiently plodding toward its goal. 
 
 A pleasant nest and popularity following in the 
 wake of talent, a comfortable income and a loving 
 family, the luxury of desultory reading and the lounge 
 with congenial friends, all combine to cool the fervid 
 glow of spiritual aspiration and weaken the high reso- 
 
UNREALIZED IDKALS. 1 79 
 
 lution to climb to a unique and original superiority in 
 character and work. Sometimes an environment of 
 sheer worldly cares, the coarse necessity of making a 
 small salary support a large family with liberal tastes, 
 anxieties arising from the crookedness of parishioners, 
 or the total depravity of things that cannot be made to 
 go right in church life, and, perhaps, physical maladies 
 or family sorrows — all may prevail to chill our enthusi- 
 asm, and turn our Pegasus into the wingless toiler on 
 the tow-path. 
 
 Perhaps the spirit and example of the people by 
 whom we are surrounded, their pell-mell chase for 
 material wealth, and luxury, and ease, for condition 
 rather than character; the social atmosphere of the 
 conceited, commonplace and uninspiring men, even in 
 the ministerial office, with whom we are thrown in 
 contact, tend to lower us to their level and generate a 
 secret skepticism as to the reasonableness of our ideal. 
 We learn to doubt whether its attainment is practicable 
 for us ; and if so, whether the world wants such char- 
 acters or could appreciate them ; and so we grow shy 
 of the romantic, and suspicious of our guardian-angel, 
 who may yet be beckoning us on to spiritual superi- 
 ority. 
 
 Another reason is our instinctive dread of loneli- 
 ness. We are too gregarious. We shrink from that 
 solitude of life and of spirit which separates all great 
 and lofty souls from the multitude. True, the man of 
 large and noble and original nature knows his kind, 
 and lives with them as the ordinary man does not and 
 cannot. The mountain is an integral part of the 
 
l8o PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 landscape, a familiar and beneficent factor of its 
 beauty, dignity, fertility and wealth ; but its cloud- 
 piercing peak, even when surrounded by other peaks, 
 must always be solitary. 
 
 A great work of art has something incommuni- 
 cable about it. In every high, ideal experience there 
 is a sense of loneliness; the distance it is removed 
 from the common standards and methods is clearly 
 marked by the deepening consciousness of isolation, 
 loss of companionship and sense of human sympathy 
 from those for whom we really live and labor as well 
 as from our comrades in the ministry. In the silent 
 solitude where only heaven and the Divine presence 
 environ the soul, one must be content to dwell as far as 
 his deepest feelings are concerned. 
 
 It was there Christ dwelt. But most men tire of 
 that solitude even for an hour. They hunger for 
 companionship ; their eyes, instead of peering within 
 the veil to see God's face, yearn for the familiar faces 
 of men. They seek books, newspapers, periodicals, 
 clubs, assemblies, society ; and like those angels of 
 the vision who * ' when they stood upon the earth let 
 down their wings," the soul loses its power of flight, 
 treads the level of ordinary men and adapts itself to 
 their standards. 
 
 Sometimes our ideal is not attained because its 
 salient features are adapted to an obsolete order of 
 things, or a foreign environment. The susceptible 
 student finds in the seminary library the memoirs 
 and works of a Chrysostom, Pascal, Savonarola, 
 Knox, Lacordaire, Pastor Harms, McCheyne, or 
 
UNREALIZED IDEAI<S. l8l 
 
 Henry Martyn, and he is fascinated. From one or 
 all lie selects features which he combines in his model 
 preacher and pastor. But his attempts to train his 
 thought and feeling to journey along the way of their 
 "diaries," or later on, to work upon their methods, 
 to train his flock to the church life they diffused, or 
 to dare enterprises to which they were impelled, all 
 fail. His preaching in their style, dealing with phases 
 of thought and habits of life prevalent with the people 
 to whom they ministered, proves to be, in large part, 
 beating the air. 
 
 He lives in a different age!; new kinds of temp- 
 tation, new forms of social life, have to be dealt with ; 
 the church to which he is attached has other tradi- 
 tions and usages ; other issues have arisen, and new 
 adaptations to the actual wants of the people must 
 follow. In his pulpit the splendid orations of a Bos- 
 suet or Jeremy Taylor, the stately movement of a 
 Robert Hall or Chalmers, are found as incongruous 
 and worthless to him as was the armor of Saul to the 
 stripling David. It is well for him that he has not 
 attained his ideal in such a case, for if successful, it 
 would only be to find himself out of harmony with his 
 period, and a mystic, or a philosopher, or a controver- 
 sialist in an age and among a people who require a 
 man and preacher adapted to their real life and current 
 thinking and suffering and struggle. There are some 
 triumphant defeats of which victory herself might be 
 proud. 
 
 But when our ideal is just and in harmony with 
 our native talents and mental make-up, then we are 
 
1 82 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 to cherish and guard it from decay ; we must strenuously 
 keep our souls alive to its pursuit, we must not lose 
 our faith in its attainment : 
 
 "To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter would be sin." 
 
 Regarding the oft-despised " air castle," Emerson 
 said : ' ' Build your castle in the air ; where else 
 should castles be built ? Only see to it that you put 
 foundations under it." Cloud-built towers, piled up 
 by winds and adorned by sunbeams, will fade when 
 the sun sets, and fall into wreck when the next breeze 
 strikes them ; but ideals of character and life-work 
 have no such airy genesis. They are children of the 
 heart and intellect, and that, too, when the affections 
 of the soul are healthy and normal, unwearied and 
 unsophisticated ; yes, they are oft begotten by the 
 Spirit of God. They are essential to the best develop- 
 ment of character and the fairest, noblest forms of 
 service. 
 
 Mere ambition for the rewards of success will lead 
 to unspiritual tone, narrowness of sympathy and a 
 distortion of moral symmetry. For all that is most 
 valuable and enduring in life, we must be carried 
 above ourselves by some inspiring example or con- 
 ception of the virtues in transfiguration ; some pure, 
 uplifting aim must be kept like a pole star constantly 
 before us. 
 
 I^et the minister not forget to read the memoirs 
 of the great and consecrated souls that have adorned 
 the Church, the higher illuminati whose biography 
 and work, whose struggles and victories, have rescued 
 
UNREALIZED IDEAI£. 1 83 
 
 human nature itself from ignomhry, have made the 
 Church revered by thinking men, and constrained us 
 thankfully to say, as we studied their portraits, "I, 
 too, am a minister of the Gospel." 
 
 To attain our ideal we must resist secular, even 
 literary, scientific, or literary seductions. The world, 
 even in its higher forms of socialist, political or 
 aesthetic philosophies, is not to be led by following it. 
 Social philosophers in this day are busy in their en- 
 deavors to build up society without God. The 
 prophet in the pulpit must insist on Christ as the 
 foundation stone and chief master-builder, and work by 
 His plans and with His materials. 
 
 In his naturalistic and materialistic environments 
 the preacher's soul is exposed to several forms of 
 temptation to lower his standard. A dreary sense of 
 unreality sometimes steals over him. He is dealing 
 with things unseen, with powers intangible by the 
 senses. If he is of a sensitive nature, with variable 
 temperament, he will sometimes be startled and 
 shocked to find himself preaching what he does not 
 fully believe, or is not sure that he has experienced. 
 As an ambassador, he cannot have an invariable im- 
 perative ; or as a herald, a constant enthusiasm ; he 
 cannot see nor hear much of the fruits of his work. 
 
 Is it strange that he is sometimes overwhelmed 
 with a fear of its unreality ? That he reaches after 
 something tangible, perhaps social problems ? But this is 
 not preaching. It is not enough that his teaching be 
 true; his work is to hold forth 7evealed truth, spiritual 
 facts and forces. And there can be no greater mis- 
 
184 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 take than to suppose that spiritual preaching is ideal, 
 but not practical. Preaching is most practical when 
 it is most spiritual. 
 
 "With all the sordidness of the times," says a 
 great living preacher, " the preachers that have been 
 the most powerful have been the most spiritual.' ' 
 We must seek to regain the sense of reality by a clearer 
 vision and firmer grasp of essential spiritual verities. 
 The preacher who seeks reality by preaching secular- 
 ises, however true, will not find the reality of preach- 
 ing. 
 
 Your ideal, my earnest yet discouraged brother, 
 is not yet actualized in your experiences ! Well, 
 remember there is, after all, something to be glad of 
 even in that. Thorwalsden, it is said, on the com- 
 pletion of his finest work surveyed it with a feeling of 
 sadness from the very fact that it satisfied him. 
 That exquisite genius, that severe critic of himself, 
 could see nothing to be improved, and he interpreted 
 the fact as a token that his talent had reached its 
 culmination, and that henceforth the fires of aspira- 
 tion would begin to pale. Doubtless there is a 
 secret, providential reason for the fact that your ideal 
 still eludes your grasp. Faith and Hope must have 
 a distant goal, or fall asleep in bowers of ease and self- 
 sufficiency. 
 
 Hence it has been said : "In our life there is 
 always some dream yet to be fulfilled. We have not 
 come to the point which we feel sure has yet to be 
 reached. Thus God lures us from year to year up 
 the steep hills and along roads flat and cheerless. 
 
I 
 
 UNREALIZED IDEAI^. 1 85 
 
 Presently, we think the dream will come true ; pres- 
 ently — in one moment more — to-morrow at latest ; 
 and, as the years rise and fall, the hope abiding in the 
 heart and singing with tender sweetness, then the 
 end, the weary sickness, the farewell, the last breath — 
 and the dream that was to have shaped itself on earth 
 welcomes us, as the angel that guarded our life, into 
 the fellowship of heaven."* 
 
 This, which was written of life's ideal in general, 
 is intensely true of the minister's hope. No loftiest 
 spirit in the Church's history of heroes ever thought 
 he had reached his ideal ; the noblest and most unsel- 
 fish mourned to the last their failure ; but each holy 
 and prayerful effort brings us nearer to our goal. 
 
 In conclusion, the Divine-Human Ideal, for all 
 time and for all Gospel heralds, is Jesus Christ himself. 
 What simple pathos in that word, ' ' He went through 
 all their cities and villages preaching the Gospel!" How 
 near that picture brings him to us! His character, 
 spirit and methods as a preacher are clearly drawn; 
 they are as inimitable as they are transcendent, and 
 they may be wrought in us through the habitual, ador- 
 ing contemplation of him. 
 
 In the life of St. Francis of Assissi — of whom 
 Ernest Renan said, ' ' There have been but two Chris- 
 tians, Jesus and St. Francis" — there is a touching 
 illustration of this impregnation of the soul with 
 Christ. This truly apostolic preacher, wedded to Pov- 
 erty and expended in Love as a herald of the Cross, in 
 his ungodly youth, while sadly seeking rest and purity, 
 
 * Dr. Joseph Parker. 
 
I 86 PSYCHIC POWER IN PREACHING. 
 
 once visited the church of St. Damian, among the Urn- 
 brian hills, in the midst of a cypress wood. Dilapi- 
 dated and served by a poor priest who had scarcely the 
 wherewithal for necessary food, the chapel contained 
 naught but a stone altar and a picture of the Crucifixion. 
 The Crucified One, bearing an expression of ineffable 
 calm and gentleness, instead of closing the eyelids in 
 eternal surrender to the weight of suffering, looked 
 down in self-forgetfulness, and its pure, clear gaze 
 seemed to say, " Come unto me." 
 
 Before this poor altar Francis prayed: ' ' Great and 
 glorious God, and thou, Lord Jesus, I pray ye shed 
 abroad your light in the darkness of my mind. Be 
 found of me, L,ord, so that in all things I act only in 
 accordance with Thy holy will." 
 
 Thus he prayed; and, behold! little by little it 
 seemed to him that his gaze could not detach itself 
 from that of Jesus; he felt something marvelous tak- 
 ing place in and around him. The sacred victim took 
 on life, and in the outward silence he was aware of a 
 voice speaking to him an ineffable language. Jesus 
 accepted his oblation, and the heart of the poor soli- 
 tary was already bathed in light and strength. This 
 vision marked his triumph. His union with Christ 
 was consummated; from that time he could exclaim, 
 with the mystics of every age, " My beloved is mine, 
 and I am his!" From that day the love which had 
 triumphed in the crucified One became the very centre 
 of his religious life, and, as it were, the soul of his 
 soul. 
 
 Thus must the vision of Christ's sacrificial love 
 
UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 87 
 
 for men become incorporated in the being of every 
 one who would fully enter into the fellowship of 
 Christ's work for souls. This direct, intimate and 
 enduring contact with Jesus is realized when belief 
 rises into fait/i, that living and life-imparting faith 
 which Vinet has so well defined: "To believe is to 
 look; it is a serious, attentive and prolonged look; a 
 look more simple than that of observation, a look which 
 looks and nothing more; artless, infantine, it has all 
 the soul in it; it is a look of the soul and not of the 
 mind — a look which does not seek to analyze its object, 
 but receives it as a whole into the soul through the 
 eyes. 
 
 This habitual look of the soul upon the Cruci- 
 fied, this mysterious but sympathetic communion with 
 the compassionate victim, will gradually impress, if 
 not on hands and feet and side (as in St. Francis), 
 yet on the heart and life of the preacher, the ' ' Stig- 
 mata ' ' of self-renunciation and sacrifice which is the 
 minister's ideal. The more we abide with Christ in 
 the wilderness and mountains, and even in Gethsemane, 
 the more will His divine manliness grow in us. We 
 shall break away from narrow and outgrown models, 
 become morally grand and strong, and move with free- 
 dom and world-wide sympathies; the psychic energy 
 of which we have spoken will become the natural life 
 of our ministry, the outflow of pathos and power from 
 every feature and faculty, from heart and voice and 
 eye and hand, will reveal "a prince having power 
 with God and men. ' ' 
 
 Enter with me this humble monastery in Milan 
 
1 88 PSYCHIC POWKR IN PREACHING. 
 
 and stand before this picture, which, after hundreds of 
 years, still retains an infinite charm. While artists 
 are copying and pilgrims are gazing, listen to the lesson 
 of its origin. A great master conceived its design and 
 prepared its outline, but under the burden of age de- 
 cided to commit the work to a beloved pupil. The 
 young artist, counting the work far beyond his talent 
 and experience, cried: " I cannot, master; the work is 
 too august, too high for my powers; no one but your- 
 self could complete such a design. ' ' "I commit this 
 work to thee, my son. Do thy best." 
 
 To all the youth's protestation the old man's re- 
 ply was: "Begin, my son, and do thy best." The 
 youth, trembling but devout, prepared his palette and 
 took the brush, and, kneeling before the appointed 
 work, prayed: " It is for thy sake, beloved Master. I 
 implore God for skill, patience and courage to perform 
 the task thou hast given me. ' ' Then with swelling 
 heart he began the work. From day to day the 
 master viewed the work, bestowing cheer and counsel. 
 The pupil's hand grew steadier, delight in his theme 
 increased, slumbering genius stirred and woke in his 
 soul, and fear was lost in reverent enthusiasm. At 
 length the work was finished, and the master gazed 
 upon it. Bursting into tears and embracing his pupil, 
 he exclaimed: " My son, I paint no more! " 
 
 Such is the tradition of ' ' The Last Supper, ' ' the 
 masterpiece of that greatest of religious painters, Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci. 
 
 Oh, preacher of the Gospel! The Master has com- 
 mitted to thy hand the sublime and yet simple work of 
 
UNREALIZED IDEALS. 1 89 
 
 reproducing His own life and mission in the world, and 
 His own image upon the hearts of men. To all thy 
 fears he answers, ' ' Do thy best, my son. ' ' Humbly and 
 faithfully toiling under the great Master- Workman's 
 eye, thy highest aspirations shall be more than realized 
 in the fulfilment of that promise, "They that turn 
 many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 THE END. 
 
By Joseph Spencer Kennard, A.M., PhJX 
 
 ENTRO UN CERCHIO DI FERRO 
 
 (In Italian) ♦ A study in psychology, 
 
 CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN ROMANCE. 
 
 A study of one hundred years of Italian fiction* 
 (Vol. I in early issue.) 
 
 ALASKA LEGENDS AND TOTEMS, 
 
 as reflecting the origin, religion and customs of 
 Alaska Indians. 
 
 WHEN THE PRINTER'S ART WAS YOUNG. 
 Early printers ; early colophons. 
 
 THE FRIAR IN FICTION. 
 
 A review of six centuries of the fictional friar, 
 as presented by the great writers of Europe. 
 (Vol. I in early issue.) 
 
 THE FALLEN GOD. 
 
 and other essays in literature, music and art. 
 
 THE FANFARA OF THE BERSIGLIARY. 
 And other stories of Italy. 
 
 STUDI-DANTESCHI 
 
 (In Italian). Studies in the Divine Comedy of Dante. 
 
 MEMMO ; ONE OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 A novel of Italian Socialism and of the 
 Florentine bread riots. 
 
 DE DEO LAPSO COMMENTARIUS 
 
 (In Latin). A study of Satan. In Press. 
 
& V-1&. 19qi 
 
i • '.- *