^ ITY or ILLINOIS 251 The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN MAY 2 0137' MA' m \ 0 1985 JUN2' 1991 JUL 1^?'" MAY 2 L161 — O-1096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/yalelecturesonprOObeec_0 YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. BY HENRY WARD BEECHER. DELIVERED BEFORE THE THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF YALE COLLEGE, NEW HAVEN, CONN., IN THE REGULAR COURSE OF THE " LYMAN BEECHER LECTURESHIP ON PREACHING." F1B8T, SECOND, AND THIRD SERIES. STSree Vtilumtn in One, BOSTON: ^be pilgrim press CHICAGO. / FIRST SERIES. Copyright by J. B. Ford & Co. in 18785 by William C. Bsecher in 1900. SECOND SERIES. Copyright by J. B. Ford & Co. in 1873: by William C. Bbecher in 1901. THIRD SERIES. Copyright by J. B. Ford & Co. in 1874; by William C. Beechiir in 1902. 5y^ LECTURES ON PREACHING. FIRST SERIES. THE PEESONAL ELEMENTS WHICH BEAR AI^ IMPORTANT RELATION TO PREACHING. 35973^ LETTEE. Theological Department, Yale College, Feb." 23, 1872. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Dear Sir, — Allow us to express our high estimation of the Lectures on Preaching given by you in the Marquand Chapel to the students of this Department. We value them for the views which they give of eloquence in general, and of that eloquence in particular which seeks to save men by the exposition and appli- cation of the gospel. We value them for their stimulating and inspiring effect on the hearers, and for the high ideal which they hold up before ministers and students for the ministry. We can- not but hope .that in some form of publication they will have a wider usefulness, not only among students preparing for the min- istry, but among preachers of the gospel in all the churches. It is with great satisfaction that we look forward to tne enjoyment of other courses from you in successive years. The Lyman Beecher Lectureship which was founded by your ^:>arishioner, Mr. Sage, and of which* you are so fitly the incum- bent, promises to exceed in usefulness our highest expectations. Yours truly, LEONARD BACON, {Lecturer on Church Polity ^ etc.) SAMUEL HARRIS, (Prof, of Systematic Theology.) GEORGE E. DAY, {Prof, of Hehreio and Biblical Theology,) JAMES M. HOPPIN, (P\of of Homiletics and the Pastoral Charge.) GEORGE P. FISHER, {Prof of Ecclesiastical History.) TIMOTHY DWIGHT, (Prof, of Sacred Literature.) / N 1871, Mr. Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, New York, contributed the funds necessary to found a Lectureship on Preaching in the Divinity School at Yale College, New Haven, Conn. In honor of my father, it was styled the Lyman Beecher Lectukeship on Preaching. As this title implies, it was the design of the donor and of the Theological Faculty to secure a more perfect prepara- tion of young men for preaching, as the highest act of the Christian ministry, by providing for them, in addition to their general and professional studies, a course of practical instruction in the art of preaching, to be given by those actively engaged in the practice of it. At the request of both the Founder and the Theological Faculty, I consented to serve as Lecturer in this course for three consecutive years. Since each class, however, passes through a three- years' course, it was deemed desirable that the lectures vi PREFACE. should not be condensed into a single course of twelve, to be repeated in substance each year, but that they should be so enlarged and divided as to give to each year its separate and distinct topics. I have therefore considered in this, the first year, chiefly the personal elements which bear an important relation to preaching. The second year will deal with the auxiliary forces and external implements by which the preacher pre- pares the way for the sermon, or gathers up its fruit: the conduct of public service, of prayer-meetings, and of social gatherings of every kind ; the function of music in public worship ; the methods of dealing with new fields of labor; the direction of church- work in old communities, — in short, a consideration of social and religious machinery as connected with preaching. I purpose to discuss during the third year the method of using Christian doctrines, in their relations to individual dispositions and to the wants of commu- nities. It will therefore be seen that this volume contains only one division of the whole course of lectures. The discourses here given were wholly unwTitten, and were familiar conversational addresses, rather than elaborate speeches. The phonographic report of the lecture on Sermon-Making," when prepared for the press, unaccountably disappeared, and was never regained. I was obliged to dictate a new lecture ixi PREFACE. vii the best way I could. Those who heard the course may by this circumstance explain the difference be- tween what they read and what they remember to have heard. HENRY WARD BEECHER. Brooklyn, N. Y., June, 1872. CONTENTS. xi Vll. Rhetorical Illustrations 154 The Nature of Illustration 154 Reasons for Illustrations in Preaching . . . 155 They assist Argument ...... 157 They help Hearers to remember .... 159 They stimulate Imagination . , . . . 159 The Art of resting Audiences . . . . 160 Illustrations provide for Various Hearers . . .162 Modes of presenting Argument . . . . 164 Illustrations bridge Difficult Places . . . . 165 They educate the People 168 Necessity of Variety . 169 Homely Illustrations 170 Illustrations must be Apt 172 How to get Information 173 Illustrations must be Prompt 174 The Habit of Illustrating 174 Questions and Answers 176 , VIII. Health, as Related to Preaching . . . 181 What is Health ? . . 183 Health and Thought 185 Health in Speaking .186 Popular Orators 187 Thrust-Power 188 Health as a Cheering Influence .... 189 Healthful Views of Christianit)^ ..... 190 Health as a Sweetener of Work . . . . 192 Practical Hints 193 Muscular Strength not Enough . . . . 194 The Art of Eating 194 Quantity of Sleep . . . . . , . 197 Badly Regulated Work 198 Sleep after Work 201 Questions and Answers 203 IX. Sermon-Making . . / 207 > The Discourses of Jesus ...... 207 Mode of the Apostles 208 Characteristics of Modern Preaching .... 208 xii CONTENTS. Laborioiisness of the Ministry 209 Preparation of the Sermon 211 Advantages and Dangers of Written Sermons . . 212 Advantages of Unw^ritten Discourse . . . .213 Points to be guarded in Extempore Preaching . . 216 Ideal Sermonizing 218 General Variety of Sermon- Plans .... 218 The Natural Method 222 Suggestive Preaching 223 V Expository Preaching 224 Great Sermons 226 Style 228 General Hints — Professional Manners . . . 231 Professional Association . . . . . . 233 Length of Sermons 234 Trust in Audiences 234 Summary 235 Questions and Answers 236 X. Love, the Central Element of the Christian Min- istry . . . 238 What is Love ? 239 Love, the Central Power of the Ministry . . . 241 Love, not mere Good-nature 243 Love of the Work 245 The Healthfulness of Benevolence .... 246 Love, a Power-Giving Element 248 The Sustaining Power of Love 253 Love, the Key-Note of Pulpit-Work .... 254 Love makes a Free Preacher 255 Questions and Answers 259 CONTENTS. fr-r l^' Lectdrb Pagb I. What is Preaching ? 1 The Scope of Preaching 2 The Pauline Method 6 A Bit of Experience ...... 10 The Power of Personal Christian Vitality . . . (|S) Sermons and Liturgies 14 Geneual Advantages of Directness . . . .17 Man- Building, the Preacher's Business . . . 19 Questions and Answers . . . ... .21 II. Qualifications of the Preacher .... 29 Show-Sermons . . . . . . . .31 Sympathy with Men ...... 33^ Personal Character of the Preacher .... ©7/ Fertility in Subjects Qo) Style 42 Qualifications for the Profession .... 43 Questions and Answers 49 III. The Personal Element in Oratory ... 53 Different Classes of Hearers 54 How to meet Differing Minds 58 An Easy Danger 59 Demands of Variety upon the Preacher ... 61 How to use One's own Special Forces . . . .62 Self-Training an Education 65 Preaching the Preacher's whole Business . . .67 External Hindrances ...... 69 Self-Consciousness ....... 72 a * X CONTENTS. Nearness to the Audience 72 Questions and Answers . . , , , .74 IV. The Study of Human Nature 76 Necessities of the Future 77 Relation of Bible Truth to Christianity in the World 78 (^^--^xample of the Apostles 80 Weakness of Gospel- Preaching in the Past . . 82 Special Reasons for studying Human Nature . . 82 The World's Advancement in Thought ... 87 How to study Human Nature 90 Metaphysical Studies 93 Phrenology as a Convenient Basis . . . .93 Social Habits ,. 97 Questions and Answers 99 V. The Psychological Working-Elements . . . 104 Circumstances alter Cases 104 Writing and Extemporizing . . . . . 105 Variations of Denominational Service . . . .106 The Power of Imagination ... .109 Emotion 118 Enthusiasm 121 Faith 122 ^ Questions and Answers 125 J VI. Rhetorical Drill and General Training . . 128 The Voice . . . 129 Various Vocal Elements . . . . . . 130 Necessity of Drill 133 Health of the Voice 135 Bodily Carriage — Posture 136 Gesture 136 Seminary Training . . . . . . .137 Study of the Bible 138 Theology . ' 140 A Small Parish at First - 141 An Early Experience in the West . . . .143 General Hints . . . . . . . 147 Questions and Answers . . . . . .148 LeCTUEES O]^ PEEACHma I. WHAT IS PEEACHING? January 31, 1872. DO not propose, in the few lectures which I shall give in this place, and which hardly deserve to be dignified by the name of lec- tures, to make them other than familiar conversations. This Lectureship is not to be confounded with a regu- lar Professorship of pastoral theology. Such a profes- o ;:rship is already founded in your Divinity School, and amply and ably served. This lectureship is an auxiliary to it; but even that only in one regard, namely, the^ element of Preaching. When one takes charge of a parish he assumes the care of several departments, w^hich, though intimately related, are yet in nature quite distinct. In his social relations, visiting from house to house, he is a pastor. In the management of the affairs of the church, the ap- pointment and conduct of the subordinate meetings, he is an administrator, or more like what in civil govern- ment is termed an executive. But besides this, he is to 1 ▲ 2 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. teach and inspire men from the platform or pulpit ; and that is wliat we mean distinctively by Preaching. The design of this lectureship i§ not to supersede the instruc- tions given already by the incumbent of the chair of Pastoral Theology, but to intensify one portion of his teachings by bringing in from the field those who are actively engaged in the work of preaching, that you may derive from them the results of their observation and experience. For I believe that it is the wish and purpose of this Institution to send out preachers, — not merely good managers, good pastors, but good preachers. THE SCOPE OF PREACHING. A preacher is a teacher ; but he is more. A teacher brings before men a given view, or a department of truth. He expends his force upon facts or ideas. But a preacher assumes or proves facts and truths as a vehicle through which he may bring his spirit to bear upon men. A preacher looks upon truth from the constructive point of view. He looks beyond mere knowledge to the char- acter which that knowledge is to form. It is not enough that men shall know. They must he. Every stroke of his brush must bring out some element of the likeness to Christ which he is seeking to produce. He is an artist, — not of forms and matter, but of the soul. Every sermon is like the stroke of Michael Angelo's cliisel, and the hidden figure emerges at every blow. A teacher has doubtless an ulterior reference to practical results ; but the preacher, not indifferent to remote and indirect results, aims at the immediate. " Now ! Noiu ! " is his inspiration. " Cease to do evil, at once. Turn to- ward good immediately. Add strength to every excel- WHAT IS PREACHING ? 3 lence, and virtue to virtue, iiow and continually." The eflect of his speech upon the souls of men is his objec- tive. It is this moral fruit in men's souls for which he plants his truth, as so much seed. Change the illustration and adopt the architectural figure so much employed by the Apostle Paul, of rearing a building. When a master-builder goes to the forest for material, he does not take trees of any and every kind, and then put them together at haphazard, or so as to accommodate his building to the form of the trees. The trees must conform to the house that is to be. The builder carries in his eye the future house, and selects his trees from the wood by the known wants of the house ; this one for a sill, that one for a corner-post, others for beams, and so on. Thus all truths, all sermons, are merely subordinate material and instruments ; the preacher's real end is to be found in the soul-building that is going on. He is an artist of living forms, of in- visible colors ; an architect of a house not built with hands — Jesus Christ, the foundation. There is another element which discriminates a preach- er from a teacher. Moral truths may become personal, as physical or scientific truths cannot. Number, weight, dimension, have no relation to a speaker's personal feel- ings or those of his hearers ; but hope, fear, joy, love, faith, have. A preacher is in some degree a reproduction of the truth in personal form. The truth must exist in him as a living experience, a glowing enthusiasm, an in- tense reality. The Word of God in the Book is a dead letter. It is paper, type, and ink. In the preacher that word becomes again as it was when first spoken by prophet, priest, or apostle. It springs up in him 4 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. as if it were first kindled in his heart, and he were moved by the Holy Ghost to give it forth. He is so moved. The preacher is one who is aiming directly at the ennobling of his hearer. He seeks to do this partly by the use of truth existing as a philosophy or by ordinary facts, but yet more by giving to such truth the glow and color and intensity which are derived from his own soul. If one may so say, he digests the truth and makes it personal, and then brings his own being to bear upon that of his hearers. All true preaching bears the impress of the nature of the preacher. " Christ in you." The truth is that which is represented in the historical Jesus Christ, but it is that truth in yoiil' or as it exists in each man's distinctive personality, which must make it a living force. Of course, in such a view, all preaching is to find its criterion of merit in the work performed in men's hearts, and not in any ideal excellence of the sermon. The sermon is only a tool, and the work which is accom- plished by it is to measure its value. No man is to pteach for the sake of the sermon, nor for the sake of " the truth," nor for the sake of any system of truth " ; but for the sake of the hearts and lives of the men that listen to his words. How aimlessly does he preach who has no thought of men, but who sympathizes only with his own cogitations! How yet more foolish is he who has a certain round of topics which he calls his system," and which he serves out almost me- chanically to meet his contract with the society which employs him ! It is hardly an imaginary case to describe one as ap- WHAT IS PKEACHING ? 5 proacliing the Sabbath day somewhat in this way: ''O dear me, I have got to preach ! I have beat out pretty much all there is in that straw, and I wonder what I shall preach on next " ; and so the man takes the Bible and commences to turn over the leaves, hoping that he will hit something. He looks up and down, and turns forward and backward, and finally he does see a light, and he says, I can make something interesting from that." Interesting, why ? For what purpose ? What, under heaven, but that he is a salaried officer expected to preach twice on Sunday, and to lecture or hold the prayer-meeting in the middle of the week; and the time has come round when, like a clock, it is his busi- ness to strike, and so he does strike, just as ignorantly as the hammer strikes upon the bell ! He is following out no intelligent plan. He is a perfunctory preacher, doing a duty because appointed to that duty. What would you think of a physician in the house- hold who has been called to minister to a sick member of some family, and who says, " Well, I will leave some- thing or other ; I don't know ; what shall I leave ? " and he looks in his saddle-bags to see what he has yet got the most of, and prescribes it with no directions ; the father, mother, and children may all take a little, and the servants may have the rest. Another physician, and a true one, comes, and the mother says, " Doctor, I have called you in to prescribe for my child." He sits down and studies the child's symptoms; traces theni back to the supposed cause ; reflects how he shall hit that case, what remedial agents are supposed to be effective, what shall be the form of administration, how often; he considers the child's temperament and age, 6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. and adapts himself to the special necessity of the iu^ dividual case. Do you suppose a man can deal with so subtile a thing as the human soul without any thought, skill, sagacity in adaptation ; can take a sermon and throw its contents over the congregation, and let everybody pick out of it what he can find, — each man left to take his share ? Can this be done in a ministry and accomplish any good ? Yes, in God's providence, some good is done even in this way. Paul said that the " foolishness of preaching" would do a great deal of good; and there is so much foolish preaching that it would be strange if some of it did not do some good, here or there. THE PAULINE METHOD. But preaching must come back to what it was in the apostolic times. It must come back to the conditions under which those men were so eminent for their suc- cess in winning souls. If you want to be a preacher to your fellows, you must become a ''fisher of men'' — your business is to catch them. The preacher's task is first to arouse ; secondly, on that aroused moral condition to build, and continue building until he has com- pleted the whole. The thing that a preacher aims at all the while is reconstructed manhood, a nobler idea in his congregation of how people ought to live and what they ought to be. To be sure, you will find in the New Testament that there is a great deal more in the preach- ing of the Apostles than this. There was a great deal that was incidental ; a great deal that belonged to the extrication of Christians from the Jewish thraldom ; a great deal that belonged to the peculiarities of the time, WHAT IS PREACHING? 7 and which can be transferred to our time by adapting, not adopting. If you will look through the New Tes- tament with your eye on that point, you will find that Paul — the greatest of all preachers, I take it — aimed all the way through, and certainly Peter, in his famous sermon on the day of Pentecost, aimed, at reconstructed manhood. Consider attentively Paul's idea of the woik of Christian ministers, as given in his letter to the Ephesian assembly of Christians (Eph. iv. 11-16, in- clusive). The end. Manhood. The means, Truth. The spirit. Love. The ideal, Christ. The inspiration, the living Spirit of God ! This being the aim of true preaching, there is but one question more to be added ; that is, by what in- strument, by what influence, are you to reach it ? The ideal of a true Christian preacher — I do not mean that no man is a Christian preacher who does not live up to this ideal, for we are all imperfect, but the id.eal toward which every man should strive — is this, to take the great truths of the Lord Jesus Christ's teachings, and the love of God to the human race, and make them a part of his own personal experience, so that when he speaks to men it shall not be he alone that speaks, but God in him. To quote texts to men is good for some purposes ; but that is not preaching. If it were, then you w^ould better read the Bible altogether, witliout note or comment, to men. The reason why reading the truths that are just as plainly stated there has some- times so much less effect than stating them in your ow^n way, is that the truth will gain a force w^hen it becomes a part of you that it would not have when merely read as a text. 8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. Look, for instance, at what Paul did when he preached. He was consumed with the love of Christ. He was made restless with the intensity of his feeling ; and wherever he went he did not preach Christ as John would. He did not preach Christ as Peter would. He preached Christ as Christ had been revealed to him and in him. It was the Pauline conception of the Lord Jesus Christ that Paul preached. You may say that Christ is one and the same, and w^hoever preaches him, it must be substantially the same thing. You might just as well say that the sun is one and the same, and that therefore whatever flower shows the sun's work must look the same ; but when you look at the flowers you will see some red, some blue, some yellow, some humble, some high, some branching. Endless is the work the sun creates ; but every one of the things which it creates, reflects its power and teaches something about it. It takes the experience of a thousand men brought into one ideal, to make up the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may read what Paul wrote about him, you may read what was written by John or Peter or James or Matthew, and the impression produced by either of these is fragmentary ; it is presenting some things out of the infinite ; and it cannot produce a conception of the infinite in the minds of men. When under the gospel men are made preachers, God works in them a saving knowledge of himself, gives them a sense of the sympathy between God and man, of the spiritual love which appeals from the infinite to the mortal; and then says to them, "Take this reve- lation of Jesus Christ in you, and go out and preach WHAT IS PKEACHING ? 9 it." Tell what God has done for your soul, not in a technical way, but in a large way ; take the truth re- vealed in you, and according to the structure of your understanding, your emotive affections, the sentiments of your own soul, filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, go and preach to men for the sake of making them know the love of Christ Jesus, and you will have a power in you to make that preaching effective. There is a place for knowledge, purely as such ; but that which you w^ant to effect is, from the consciousness of your own nature to describe the love of God, not in the abstract conception, but- experimentally, just as it has been felt by you, so as to produce a longing for the love of God in your hearers. It will be imperfect. There are no perfect preachers in the world. The only perfect men in this world are the Doctors of Divinity, who teach systematic theology. They know everything, all of it, and I envy them. But men that preach take only so much of the truth as they can hold, and, generally speaking, preachers don't hold a great deal. They ar^ all partialists. One of the most beautiful things I read in the life of Paul is in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, in which, when he has expressed his raptures in giving the ever- lasting exposition of love, he says : " After all, we are only fragmentary creatures ; we only see bits and spots ; now^ w^e see through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face ; now I know in part, I know only portions of things, but then shall I know as I am known." He felt how empty he was ; and yet what a creature was that Paul! What a magnificent moving spirit the man was ! But when he spoke about him- 1* 10 LECTURES ON PREACHING. self in that epistle, written late in his life, he felt that he was not a full man ; that he could not represent or re- flect the whole of the Lord J esus Christ. No man can. No hundred men can. It is your office as preachers to take so much of the truth of Christ Jesus as has be- come digested and assimilated into your own spiritual life, and with that, strike ! with that, flash ! with that, burn men ! A BIT OF EXPERIENCE. I remember the first sermon I ever preached. I had preached a good many sermons before, too. But I re- member the first real- one. I had preached a good while as I had used my gun. 1 used to go out hunting by myself, and 1 had great success in firing off my gun; and the game enjoyed it as much as I did, for I never hit them or hurt them. I fired off* my gun as I see hundreds of men firing off" their sermons. I loaded it, and bang! — there was a smoke, a report, but nothing fell ; and so it was again and again. I recollect one day in the fields my father pointed out a little red squirrel, and said to me, Henry, would you like to shoot him ?" I trembled all over, but I said, " Yes." He got down on his knee, put the gun across a rail, and said, " Henry, keep perfectly cool, perfectly cool ; take aim." And I did, and I fired, and over went the squirrel, and he did n't run away either. That was the first thing I ever hit ; and I felt an inch taller, as a boy that had killed a squirrel, and knew how to aim a gun. I had preached two years and a half at Lawrence- burg, in Indiana, (and some sporadic sermons before that,) when I went to Indianapolis. While there I was WHAT IS PREACHING ? 11 very much discontented. I had been discontented for two years. I had expected that there would be a general public interest, and especially in the week before the communion season. In the West we had protracted meetings, and the people would come up to a high point of feeling; but I never could get them beyond that. They would come down again, and there would be no conversions. I sent for Dr. Stowe to come down and help me ; but he would not come, for he thought it better for me to bear the yoke myself. When I had lived at Indianapolis the first year, I said : There was a reason why when the apostles preached they succeeded, and I will find it out if it is to be found out." I took every single instance in the Eecord, where I could find one of their sermons, and analyzed it and asked myself : " What were the circumstances ? who were the people ? what did he do ? " and I studied the sermons until I got this idea : That the apostles were ' accustomed first to feel for a ground on which the peo- ple and they stood together ; a common ground where they could meet. Then they heaped up a large number of the particulars of knowledge that belonged to every- body ; and when they had got that knowledge, which everybody would admit, placed in a proper form before their minds, then they brought it to bear upon them wdth all their excited heart and feeling. That was the first definite idea of taking aim that I had in my mind. Now," said I, I will make a sermon so." I re- member it just as well as if it were yesterday. First, I sketched out the things we all know. " You all know you are living in a world perishing under your feet. You all know that time is extremely uncertain ; that 12 LECTURES ON PREACHING. you cannot tell whether you will live another month or week. You all know that your destiny, in the life that is to come, depends upon the character you are forming in this life " ; and in that way I went on with my You all knows," until I had about forty of them. When I had got through that, I turned round and brought it to bear upon them with all my might ; and there were seventeen men awakened under that ser- mon. I never felt so triumphant in my life. I cried all the way home. I said to myself: ''Now I know how to preach." I could not make another sermon for a month that was good for anything, I had used all my powder and shot on that one. But, for the first time in my life, I had got the idea of taking aim. I soon added to it the idea of analyzing the people I was preaching to, and so taking aim for specialties. Of course that came gradually and later, witli growing knowledge and expe- rience. Young man, when you get a parish, don't be dis- couraged for the first ten years, no matter how poor your work. There is no trade that requires so long an apprenticeship as preaching ; and yet there is no trade to which they admit a man so soon, or in which he learns so fast. It is easier to study law and become a successful practitioner, it is easier to study medicine and become a successful practitioner, than it is to study the human soul all through, — to know its living forms, and to know the way of talking to it, and coming into sympathy with it. To make the truths of God and the Divine influences a part of your daily, enthusiastic experience, and to bring to bear out of WHAT IS PREACHING ? 13 your treasury what is needed here or there, — that requires a great deal of experience, and a great deal of study. THE POWER OF PERSONAL CHRISTIAN VITALITY. This living force, then, of the human soul, brought to bear upon living souls, for the sake of their trans- formation, being the fundamental idea, I think it will be interesting to you for me to state more at large the fact that not only was this the Apostolic idea of preaching, but it was the secret of the power of the first Christian Church for many hundred years. It is historically true that Christianity did not in its begin- ning succeed by the force of its doctrines, but by the lives of its disciples. It succeeded first as a light ; in accordance with the Master's command, " Let your light so shine before men that they, seeing your good works, m,ay glorify your Father which is in heaven." Make religion attractive by the goodness that men see in you ; be so sweet, so sparkling, so buoyant, so cheerful, hopeful, courageous, conscientious and yet not stub- born, so perfectly benevolent and yet not mawkish or sentimental ; blossoming in everything that is good, a rebuke to everything that is mean or little, — make such men of yourselves that everybody who looks upon you may say, That is a royal good fellow ; he has the spirit that I should like to lean upon in time of trouble, or to be a companion with at all times." Build up such a manhood that it shall be winning to men. That is what the early Christians did. It was not by doctrinal subtleties that they over- came philosophy. The heathen world found that the 14 LECTURES ON PREACHING. lowest class of people, the people least likely to attain the serious heights of philosophy, were developing traits that neither persecution, neglect, nor opprobrium could change ; so that after a while it began to be proverbial, that Christian men were more beautiful livers than any- body else. It was the beauty of Christian life that overcame philosophy, and won the way for Christian doctrine. Again, we are to seek to preach, not simply by our own personal experience, but by bringing together one and another in the church, and having the whole life of the church so beautiful in the community tliat it sliall be a constant attraction to win men unceasingly to us and our influence. This was what Christ com- manded, what the early church did ; and the world will be converted, not until the whole body of Cliristians become in this sense preachers. SERMONS AND LITURGIES. In view of the statements I have made, I wish to discriminate between the two great church bodies that exist. We are apt to divide tlie Christian world into the Protestant and Catholic. I prefer to divide it into the Evangelical and the Hierarchical. They are sharply distinguished by various other things, but by nothing more, it seems to me, than by this, that the Hierarchical body, in all its various forms, relies for its success upon the administration of ordinances and systems of wor- ship ; while the Evangelical body relies substantially for its success upon the living force of man upon man. Both hold to the indispensableness of Divine power; but one believes that power to work chiefly through WHAT IS PKEACHING ? 15 church ordinances, the other believes that it works through living nmi. Wherever you sliall find the altar and the sacrifice ; wherever you sliall find robes, candles, and liturgies ; wherever you shall find piled high instrumentalities of tliis kind, sermons shrink and sermonizers are fewer and fewer. Where the church looks for power in exter- nal forms, preaching tends to decay. On the other hand, where the ordinances are very few, and yet the church has life, the pulpit thrives and waxes strong. The man in the pulpit is the only thing the Presbyterian and Congregationalist have to rely upon ; but when you consider that preaching means the power of living men upon living men, you will see that they who have strength in the pulpit have the very heart of the matter. There is just as much difference between the man who is a mere administrator of ordinances, — which Paul thanked God he had not much to do with, for he had not been sent to baptize but to preach the gospel, and the administration of ordinances with him was one thing and the preaching of the gospel an entirely dif- ferent thing, — there is just as much difference between the man who administers ordinances and the man who preaches the gospel, as there is between the man who prints a chromo and the man that paints the picture which the chromo prints. The man that strikes out the original plan upon the canvas and brings it to its perfection is an artist. But the man who takes fifteen stones, every stone carrying one color, and from them prints the chromo, may produce a perfect picture, but after all he is nothing but the mechanician, putting the ink on the paper, while the stone does all the work. 16 LSCTURES ON PEEACHINa. The man that preaches with power is an artist. He is a living creature. But the man that merely comes to administer ordinances on Sundays or Saints' days, who goes through a regular routine, is nothing but the engineer who runs the machine. But does he not do good ? Yes ; a great deal. Is not the world better with him than it would be without him ? Yes ; a great deal better. Yet how miKih better it would be if you could have both, — if the man could be a living creature, to say what he has got in him, and then carry that along, and confirm it, and build it up by institutional influences. Preaching arouses, gathers material, prepares the way ; institutions come in to consolidate and keep. There is a reason why different churches and different men succeed as they do. For example, take a Presby- terian, or an Orthodox Congregational Church, in which the minister is an acute and eminent thinker ; he runs all to thought. He will indoctrinate his people, educate them, build them up disproportionately in their minds, and that is about all. Tilings will stand steadily, grow slowly, and develop but little. Eight alongside of him ^here is a man with strong, emotive, vitalizing life ; a man who is not so much after thoughts as he is after the people, or after bait to catch the people with. He means men, first, and last, and all the while. Systems, to him,' are beautiful if they wdll act like a net to catch folks, and good for nothing if they do not. High doc- trines, to him, are valuable, just in proportion as they give position from which to throw stones upon the besiegers round about. It is power over men that he wants. He is not necessarily less a teacher ; but what WHAP IS PREACHING ? 17 a vitality he will give to his church ! How strongly it will swell ! How it will grow ! What an effect it will produce in the community ! It is the living force with- in him that does it. It is the manhood in him ; it is the Spirit of God dwelling in him, that is the occasion of such a success. There is no church, in my experience, more suc- cessful than the Methodist Church in the West. I worked beside that church for fifteen years, and saw the whole operation, and knew the men that were in the church. They were not men largely equipped with theology. I knew Elder Havens when he began to preach. He knew so little, had so little culture, that he had to count the chapters to tell what chapter it was, and then count the verses to tell what verse it was ; yet afterwards he became no mean scholar. I knew hundreds of men there that were stammerers in learning. Yet, on the whole, they had eminent power. They did no institutional work ; but they had zeal, fer- vor, personal feeling ; and by that, little as their knowl- edge was, small as was the area of the thoughts they brought to bear, they transformed communities. They w^ore real preachers. They had the right idea of preach- ing, and they succeeded in spite of their ignorance. Their personal experience was very strong, and their feelings were outspoken, demonstrative. They brought to bear the truth of God in their souls upon the masses of mankind, and the effect corresponded to the cause. GENERAL ADVANTAGES OF DIRECTNESS. This view also will discriminate between sermons, — those which seek direct effects definitely aimed at, and B 18 LECTURES ON t^REACHlNa. those that are institutional sermons. There are sermons for preaching, and tliere are sermons also for teaching and confirming. I do not say you should not preach these secondary sermons ; but if that is the whole style of your ministry, you will not be so successful, al- tliough you may slowly advance. Every man ouglit to preach two kinds of sermons : one for direct power on men's minds and hearts, and the other for their broad- ening in knowledge ; but of this last class, less and less in our time, because the people have so many other sources of knowledge, and so many other training in- fluences are going on in the community. No man ought to go into the pulpit with the direct kind of sermon without having a definite reason why he selected one subject rather than another, and why he put it in one form rather than another. The old- fashioned way of sermonizing affords us some amuse- ment ; but they did a great deal of good with those queer, regulation old methods of first, second, third, and then the subdivisions. I remember that, in my boy- hood, the moment a man announced his text, I could tell pretty nearly as well as he could how he would laj^ it out, because I knew he must proceed according to certain forms. It seems to me that the highest conception of a sermon is, that it is a prescription which a man has made, either for a certain individual, or for a certain class, or for a certain state of things that he knows to exist in the congregation. It is as much a matter of pre- scription as the physician's medicine is. For instance, you say, " In my congregation there has been a good deal of affliction, which I think I ought to comfort. Now, WHAT IS PREACHING ? 19 of all ways of comforting, how shall I do it ? Shall I show the hand of God in all his administration ? What will that do ? That mode of consolation will raise people up into the conception of God ; but those that cannot rise so high will fall short of it and not get it. Or, I can show them how afflictions will elevate the soul ; and that will have another range. Or, it may be that I will not say a w^ord about that, but strike a blow that exhilarates men and lifts them up, independent of any allusion to troubles ; I may strike a chord to awaken the courage of men. What subject can I take which will most successfully sound that chord ? '* And so you look for your subject. You know what you are after the whole time. It is exactly like the watch- maker, who has opened your watch and discovered that something is wrong. He turns to his bench and pokes around among his tools, but cannot find what he w^ants ; he looks everywhere for it, and at last, there it is, and he takes it and uses it, for it is the only instru- ment exactly fitted to do just the thing he wanted to do in that watch. Now, in preaching to a congrega- tion there are living men to reach ; and there is a particular way of doing it that you want to get at. You search for it in the Bible; and you make your sermon to answer the end. This is psychological preach- ing, drawing from your own gradually augmenting in- telligence aiid experience, which will make you skilful in the ends you want to effect. MAN-BUILDING, THE PREACHER'S BUSINESS. I will add only one thing more, for I shall resume this subject ; and that is, that I have participated with 20 LECTURES ON PREACHING. a great many in one experience. I have been undei the penumbra of doubt. I look upon the progress of physical science and see the undermining influences that are going on. I see that probably churches as they are now constituted will not stand, and that a vast amount of what is called technical theology will have to un- dergo great mutations. I know there are many minds in the darkness of cloud who ask, Is there a God ? or, Is it a Pantheistic God ? or, Is there a revelation ? Can there be an inspiration in this world ? The whole of this reacts on the community, so that a young man who is thinking about preaching may say to himself, " I will not go into a profession which seems likely to be overthrown before long ; where, in a few years, all my employment will drop out of my hands, scepticism is prevailing to sucli an extent." Young gentlemen, I want to tell you my belief upon that point. True preaching is yet to come. Of all the professions for young men to look forward to, I do not know another one that seems to me to have such scope before it in the future as preaching. I mean this. There is one fact that is not going to be overturned by science ; and that is the necessity of human develop- ment, and the capability there is in man of being opened up and improved. If there is one thing that can be substantiated more clearly than another, it is that the development indicated by Christianity is right along the line of nature. Men walk from the fleshly up to the spiritual. If there can be one thing shown to be more true than another, it is that Christian- ity is walking toward spiritual love as the polar star, the grand centre. If there is one thing in this world WHAT IS PREACHING? 21 more worthy of being worked than another, it is the human sonl. And if there is one business better worth a man's thought than another, it is a profession that undertakes to educate men along this common line, of nature and Christianity together, and lift them up from basilar conditions and methods to the coronal heights where understanding, moral sentiment, taste, imagina- tion, and love are intermingled. That is the business of the preacher. It is not to grind a church. It is not to turn a wheel. It is not to cuff about the controversies of theology. It is a living work, — building-work. If you are to be true preachers, you are to be man-builders ; and in the days yet to come there is to be no labor so worthy of a man's ambition as that of building men worthily, that at last you may present them spotless before the throne of God. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Now for questions, if you want to ask any. Q. In keeping an eye upon the congregation, and looking for- ward to a ministry which may be for years, would you not think best to follow in the general system of thought which we call Calvinistic ? Can we pass by the teachings of the schools and construct our own theology ? Or shall we have for a background, for a corner-stone, if you please, of all our systems of thought and preaching, that system which is called Calvinistic ? Mr. Beecher. — I admire the discretion with which you put that question. If you had asked me whether you ought to follow that system which is Calvinism, I should say, No. But if you ask whether you ought to follow that system which is called Calvinisili, I say 22 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. it is very well to follow that ; for I have noticed what that which is called Calvinism may be defined to be. For instance, I consider myself Calvinistic, you know ; and in this way : I believe what John Calvin would have believed if he had lived in my time and seen things as I see them. My first desire is to know what is true;/ and then I am very glad if John Calvin agrees witli me, but if he don't, so much the worse for him ! While I accept the work that God did by him in the interpre- tation and in the systematization of truth, — and I shall have a good deal to say about Calvinism and in favor of Calvinism before I get through, in respect to its doctrines and its historic work, — yet it seems to me that I have the same Lord Jesus Christ that John Cal- vin had, the same Paul, the same John, and nothing that hinders me in any way from looking right into their hearts and forming my own idea of what they were and how they felt, just as he did ; with the addi- tional advantage that I have in the light of hundreds of years' unfolding of the Christian Church which he had not, for he constructed his system under the drip- pings of the old Eoman hierarchy. Besides, John Cal- vin had an inordinate share of intellect and not half his share of heart. Have I answered sufficiently ? Q. If you were requested to preach on Election and Predesti- nation in a church whose members held the old faith on these points, how would you meet that request ? Mr. Beecher. — I should preach it as I find it in the New Testament. I should not ask the catechisms, which are helps to those whom they help. I should take it as I find it in the New Testament, — that God has a pTan in the world ; that he works according to WHAT IS PREACHIISG ? 23 laws ; and that natural laws are divine decrees. I very frankly admit that those truths can be stated in a way so as to be very offensive and discouraging ; but I thank- fully believe that they can be stated in another way so as to be the foundation and groundwork of hope and courage. Whatever else you do, don't slam the door of possibility in any man's face. Don't hold up any of the truths of the gospel in such a way that the man who looks at them shall say it is not possible to be saved. The teaching of Christ and the Apostles was that God wanted all men to be saved, and made over- tures to them ; that there is a possibility of every man's being regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost. Build up such a spiritual superstructure that every little child shall feel it to be easier to live a Christian life than an ungodly life. Q. If you went into a neighborhood where Universahsm or Spirituahsm prevailed, woukl you preach against them, or pass them by ? Mr. Beecher. — I cannot answer that question pre- cisely, it would depend on so many considerations ; the first of which might be how far the preacher were himself infected with it. Secondly, what class of the community was infected. If the thinking class, and the influential, three or four families, I might take one course ; but if it w^as only the ignorant, and those that had no influence upon society, I might take another course. That is a theme w^hich I shall take up more fully by and by, in speaking of entering a new com- munity ; but I am quite wilKng to consider tho ques- tion now, for I do not fear to exhaust the subject. I rQcoUect hearing my father say that when he went 24 LECTURES OF ^KEACHING. to East Hampton and began to preach there, he was surrounded by the influence of French infidelity, and the leading men of that community were infidels. Said he : " I did not undertake to argue with them. I preached one or two great sermons, to shov them I had big guns and was not afraid of them ; and after that I preached right to their consciences ; and the result was that a great revival of religion came up there, and after that I never heard anything about infidelity." One of the most affecting little things came to my knowledge the other day. There was one man in that^congregation who was never converted, who never gave up ostensibly his ^fidelity ; although he loved my father very much in- deed, yet he never seemed to be brought into the king- dom during his time there. There was one little child, Harriet, born into our family, which after a short time fell asleep. This little baby was the only thing we left behind in moving from the place. So this man, twenty or twenty-five years after father had gone away, said one day to his wife, " I canno: bf ir to have that little child of Dr. Beecher's left there all alone " ; and he had the child taken up, and put it in his own ground, where his wife now lies on one side and he upon the other, and the little baby snugly gathered in their bosoms there. Such was the effect produced upon his mind by my father's preaching and example ; and although he did not outwardly come into the community of the faith, the impression never wore off, and I should not wonder if he were in heaven. Q. If you went into a neighborhood in which there were petty troubles among famihes, would you preach against such things ? Mr. Beegher. — Generally speaking, meddling with WHAT IS PREACHING ? 25 families is dangerous business ; and as it is dangerous personally, so it is dangerous pulpitly ; inasmuch as you would instantly, for the most part, produce sides, and they would take your sermon and turn it into artillery to fire at each other, backward and forward. No; if you want to cure one malign feeling, recollect that our feel- ings act, as it were, in poles ; that there is an antagonistic feeling. If a child cries, the nurse, who is a better phi- losopher than many wiser heads, makes the child laugh. She makes up faces, makes herself grotesque ; the child struggles against it for a while, but finally bursts out Icughing, and that moment tl- : crying and the anger are ill gone. Two opposite feelings cannot coexist. If anger is up, good-nature is down. If you want to get anger down, don't try to push it down, — that won't do ; but go to the other end and pry up good-nature. Q. Groing into a small place, where there are few educating influences, would not you preach a fair proportion of educating sermons ? Mr. Beecher. — Is not the arousing influence of the revival system an educating one ? Is there any educa- tion that proceeds so fast as that which takes place un- der a warm and newly developed moral feeling ? Men ^ in the ordinary stage are like robins' eggs in the nest ; you cannot feed them. Let the robin sit on them a lit- tle while, and by and by there will be nothing but four mouths, and as fast as you put in worms they will gulp them. To educate man in the cold and natural state is just like feeding eggs. Warm them, and give them life, and they will eat. Q. You speak of presenting the truth as a man thinks it and feels it and lives it himself. Is there a danger connected with 2 26 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. that, of being too egotistical in our preaching, so that when we present a truth as we feel it and think it, men will say, " Here is a man that professes to have a great deal deeper thoughts, and a great deal deeper feehngs than we have," and an antagonistic feel- ing will be aroused against us ? How can that be overcome ? Mr. Beecher. — You will never preach so wisely or so well, if you preach continuously, as to guard against all these dangers. You cannot help yourself. If a sur- geon were ten times as skilful as he is, and he had to probe a wound, he could not probe it so that it would be a luxury to tlie patient. If anything is to be cut off, or tied up, or changed radically, changed in such a way that the pride must come down, it will cause pain. It is not easy to take the yoke or the burden of Christ, in the taking of it ; it is only after you have got your neck accustomed to it that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. No matter how wisely or well you put it, there will be trouble, and it will be just in proportion to the disturbance you make. And the disturbance will be ac- cording to the wisdom and the love which you manifest. No man is such a master of his business that he can go into a community nrid preach, saying to himself, " This is ideally perfect." Your mode ot presenting the truth will be imperfect. Your partialisms are full of danger. For instance, if you are a quiet man, you will have a tendency to preach so as not to arouse any feeling. On the other hand, if you are pugnacious and energetic, your sermons will be aj^t to be full of lances and thrusts. There is a great deal about a man's personality that has got to be educated. If one is frank, genial, warm- hearted, and if he is going to be a minister, and pulls down his face and says, " Now I must walk with th^ WHAT IS PREACHING ? 27 utmost precision/' and he begins to walk just so, and to administer just so, thinking that coldness and sanctity have some peculiar relation to each oth^r, he does vio- lence to his uature. When God made him warm-hearted and gushing, he gave him a power with which to do his work. Take your strongest point and make the most of it. The modifications and limitations of this will come up for more remark hereafter. Q. Don't you think it is a good plan to preach a variety of sermons, intellectual and emotional? Mr. Beecher. — Never two alike, if you can help it. I heard described the other day a style of preaching which was likened to the way they are said to build ^ ships down in Maine. They build them down there by the mile ; and when they have an order they cut off so much, round up a stern and a bow, and send it. Thus some sermons seem to have been built by the mile. There seems to be no earthly reason why the preacher should begin in one place rather than an- other, or why he should stop in one jjlace rather than another. He could preach ten hours, if not ordered to stop ; and wherever he stops he is ready to begin again ; and so to go on until the judgment-day. That kind of iteration is the most hurtful of all things. A man keeps a boarding-house, and the boarders like bacon for breakfast. So he gives them bacon on Mon- day, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, — until by and by one of them comes to him ^ and says, " Mr. Jacobs, we like bacon pretty well, but lately we have got tired of it ; we should like something else." Well, what will you have ? " " Let ^8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. US have pork and beans." So he gives them pork and beans on Monday, pork and beans on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and keeps feeding them on pork and beans until they protest again. Now, everybody gets stale on any one thing. Seventeen sermons on the doctrine of retribution as it is found in nature rather tire a man out. Mrs. Stowe said, when she returned from Germany, that she really enjoyed the German church singing until they reached the eighteenth or nineteenth stanza, but she generally got tired then ; and it is about so with preaching. II ^QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PEEACHER February 1, 1872. ^^^^ LOQUENCE has been defined, sometimes, as the art of moving men by speech. Preach- ing has this additional quality, that it is the art of movino- men from a lower to a his/her life. It is the art of inspiring them toward a nobler manhood. In thinking about the preparation for the Christian ministry, we are apt to regard the sermon as the chief thing; and certainly, in the whole series of instru- ments, it does rank highest, for the power of the man, all that he has been doing collaterally, culminates in that. After all, there is a world of encouragement for men that cannot preach. If a preacher is a true man (and a true man spreads out and covers with himself all times and all places), he preaches not only while he is in the pulpit ; but just as much when he is conversing with a little child upon the sidewalk, when he is in a social company, or when he is out on a sportive or picnic occasion with his people. A true minister is a man whose manhood itself is a strono^ and influential argument with his 30 LECTURES ON PREACHING. people. He lives in such relations with God, and in such genuine sympathy with man, that it is a pleas- ure to be under the unconscious influence of such a mind. Just as, lying on a couch in a summer's even- ing, you hear from a neighboring house the low breathing of an instrument of nuisic, so far away that ^ you can only hear its palpitation, but cannot discern ' the exact tune that is played, and are soothed by it and drawn nearer to hear more ; thus the true Chris- tian minister is himself so inspiring, so musical, there is so much of the divine element in him, rendered homelike by incarnation with his disposition, brought down to the level of man's understanding, that wher- ever he goes little children want to see him, plain people want to be with liim ; everybody says when he comes, " Good ! " and everybody says when he goes away, " I wish he had stayed longer" ; all who come in contact with him are inclined to live a better life. Manhood is the best sermon. It is good to fill the minds of people with the nobleness and sweetness of the thing itself to which you would fain draw them. "Go preach" was no more authoritative than ''Let your light so shine that men, seeing your good works, shall glorify your Father." There is no form of preaching that can afford to dis- pense with tlie preacher's moral beauty. He may be as hoinely as you please, physically ; as awkward as you please ; but you will find in the true preacher some- where an element of beauty ; for God works always toward beauty, which is one sign of perfection, so that, though not an essential element, beauty is still a sign and token of the higher forms of creation. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 31 I endeavored to impress you yesterday with the idea that preaching is tlie exertion of the living force of men upon living men for the sake of developing in them a higher manhood. I say a higher manhood rather than a higher life, because I do not wish to separate a Chris- tian life as something distinct from the movement of the whole being. Men are not like musical organs of many stops, one of which is Eeligion, as something separable and distinct from the rest of their nature. Ee- ligion is harmonized human nature. It includes every element which manhood includes. It is wdiolesome- ness of soul. It is manhood, on a higher plane. It includes the physical, the social, the intellectual, the aesthetic, the moral, the spiritual. Tlie whole man work- ing in harmony witli the laws of his condition, — that is the New Testament idea of a Christian man. And that which we undertake to do by preaching, whether in its technical or special form, by the delivery of a ser- mon or in its collateral and more diffusible forms by social intercourse, is to mould and shape men into a nobler manhood, Jesus Christ being the highest ideal and exemplar. Our ministry is effectual in propor- tion as we do that, and deficient in the proportion in which we fail to do it. SHOW-SERMONS. A good many young men, beginning to preach, feel that they don't know what to do. They naturally fall back upon their note-books, upon the development of some system of truth. They undertake to present to their people topic after topic based upon great gospel themes. And of course they can do no better than that 32 LECTURES ON PREACHING. in the beginning. Still, that is rather preparing to preach than preaching. It is like a man who is prac- tising with his rifle at a target that he does not see, who hits by accident if he hits, rather than by deliber- ate aim. You cannot expect a man to do better until he has learned. It is no easy thing for one to be in such familiar possession of the great moral truths re- vealed in the Bible, and in such familiar knowledge of men's natures and dispositions, that he can take of the one and fit it to the other almost by intuition. But intuition is only a name for superior habit. No one should be discouraged in the beginning of his ministry, therefore, if he finds himself running short of subjects ; preaching a great deal and accom- plishing but very little ; having comparatively a light hold upon truths, and not being able by these truths to grapple men effectually. Every one has an ideal in his mind. He thinks of Whitefield ; and of J onathan Edwards, with the man pulling at his coat-tails and trying to stop that terrible burst of statement and de- nunciation that was crushing the congregation. Every young man who is aspiring wants to do great things, and to preach great sermons. Great sermons, young gentlemen, ninety-nine times in a hundred, are nui- sances. They are like steeples without any bells in»^ them ; things stuck up high in the air, serving for or- nament, attracting observation, but sheltering nobody, warming nobody, helping nobody. It is not these great sermons that any man should propose to himself 'as models. Of course, if now and then in legitimate, hon- est, and manly work, you are in the right mood, and are brought into a state of excitement of which a great QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREAClIEH. 33 sermon is the result, preach it, and don't be afraid. But great sermons will come of themselves, when they are worth anything. Don't seek them ; for that of itself is almost enough to destroy their value. I do not say this for the purpose of abating one par- ticle of your studiousness, or the earnestness with which you labor. I do not undertake to say that there may not be some indulgence at times in that direction ; that is to say, if you have wTitten a sermon that has done good, it may do good again. But I do say that, gener- ally speaking, show-sermons are the temptation of the Devil. They do not lie in the plane of common, true Christian, ministerial work. They are not natui'al to a man whose heart is moved with genuine sympathy for man, and who is inspired in that sympathy by the fire of the Spirit of God. There is a false greatness in sermons as well as in men. Vanity, Ambition, Ped- ^ antry, are demons that love to clothe themselves in rhetorical garments, like angels of light ! J SYMPATHY WITH MEN. In speaking of bringing to bear upon men a living force for their exaltation in the spiritual life, I want to call your attention to the very natural substitutes that men take for this. I know men of great learning, — I could mention their names, and you would recognize them as men of great ability in their pastoral lives, — men of the greatest breadth of thought, and really and interiorly men of profound emotion ; but their ministry has never been very fruitful ; that is, they have never moved either the multitudes, or, very largely, the indi- viduals, of the communitv where they have been. I 34 LECTURES ON PREACHING. have thought I saw the reason of it in this : that their sympathy ran ahnost exclusively toward God. They were on God's side altogether. They were always vindicating God. They were upholding the Divine government. And they produced, if I may say so, the feeling that tliey were God's attorneys, that they were special pleaders on that side. I would not say that a man should not be in sympathy with God, but it must be remembered that God himself is in sympathy with sinful and erring men, that he broke down all the bril- liance and glory of the heavenly estate tlmt he might mingle himself among them; and no preacher is the true agent of God, or really takes sides with God, who does not sympathize with men, but who simply holds up the majesty and sternness and power and glory of the Divine government. I have seen men who all the while produced tlie impression, God — God — God ; there was nothing in them that breathed of gentleness, sweetness, or syir • pathy, — the very tilings that characterized Christ, a A which were in him the interpretation of the real in- terior Godhead ; those things were absent from their ministry ; and, if you will not misunderstand it, I would say that they failed because they had too exclu- sive a sympathy with God. Then I have seen another class of men who were so constructed and educated that they had an intense sympathy with ideas, with organized thought, religious V system, or philosophy ; who studied profoundly, who constructed ably, who had much that was instructive in their work. But after all, wdiile everybody felt the strength of their sermons, almost nobody^ cxs moved or QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 35 changed by them. And I have seen ministers with not one quarter of this equipment really lift and inspire a congregation, producing an effect which, witli a j)roper following up, might have been permanently crystallized into life and disposition. ^ There should be in you a strong sympathy with the intellectual elements of the ministry ; but it should never overlie, and certainly should not absorb or im- pede, the more legitimate sympathy you are to have with men themselves. Eeflect for one moment what must have been the state of mind of the man who wrote such a thing as this : — " For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death ; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ." Paul was intensely proud, sensitive as a thermometer ^ is to heat ; and you will see that under all the sweet- ness, the efflorescence of the Christian life, there is still the principle of egotism : — For I think that Grod hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death ; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake ; but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong: ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place ; and labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat ; we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." You will recollect other passages in which he said that to the Jew he became a Jew that he might win Jews ; and to those without law, as without law, that 36 LECTURES ON PREACHING. he might bring them all to God. There never wavS such a manifestation of the willowiness of a man of absolute steel in disposition. He was one of stern personal identity ; and yet, by the love of Christ and by the sympathy he had with men, he said, — or would have said, had he spoken in modern English, — "I know how to fit myself to every sinuosity and rugosity of every single disposition with which I have to deal ; ^yjou cannot find me a man so deep or so high, so blunt or so sharp, but I would take the shape of that man's disposition, in order to come into sympathy with him, if by so doing I could lift him to a higher and a nobler plane of life." When I see men standing in the royalty of ordina- tion, who have been made golden candlesticks of grace, who feel what is called ''the dignity of their profes- sion," and move up and down in life, neatly receiving the praise and deference of everybody round about them, and requesting men who pass to look upon God's ordained ministers, I think by contrast of Paul, with that diffusiveness that he gave himself, that univer- sal adaptation of himself, — who mothered everybody, whereve: ne went. There is not a thing so menial in the kitchen, there is not a thing so distasteful in the nursery, there is not a thing so offensive to every sense, that the mother does not say, over her sick child, " Now let me do it ; should the child die, it would be a grief to think that aruybody did these things but me." The mother makes haste to do those most offensive things for her darling child because she loves it. Q\.nd so the true man has that vital sympathy with men, that there is nothing that he would not become or do, if by QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 37 so doing he could get hold of them and make better men of them, that, as Paul says, he may present them H^3,ultless before God.7 PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE PREACHER. Your work, therefore, as a Christian minister, let me say as the first point I want to make this afternoon, in addition to what I said yesterday, requires that you should, first of all, see to the elevation of character of the man that preaches. He it is who ought to blossom. You cannot become a good minister simply by being expert in theology. You cannot without it, either ; the- ology must be practically or technically learned. But you cannot be a true preacher with this equipment alone. A dictionary is not literature, though there is no ^ literature without the contents of the dictionary in it. You have got yourself to bring up to the ideal of the Xew Testament. A part of your preparation for the Christian ministry consists in such a ripening of your disposition that you yourselves shall be exemplars of what you preach. And by an exemplar I do not mean simply that you must be a man who does not cheat his neighbor, or who unites in himself all the scrupulosi- ties of the neighborhood ; but a minister ought to be entirely, inside and out, a pattern man; not a pattern man in abstention, but a man of grace, generosity, mag- nanimity, peaceableness, sweetness, though of high spirit, and self-defensory power when required ; a man who is broad, and wide, and full of precious contents. You must come up to a much higher level than com- mon manhood, if you mean to be a preacher. You are not to be a needle to carry a thin thread, and sew up 38 LECTURES ON PREACHING. old rags all your life long. That is not the thing to which you are called. You are called to be men of such nobleness and largeness and gentleness, so Paul- ine, and so Christlike, that in all your intercourse with the little children, and with the young people of your charge, you shall produce a feeling that they would rather be with the minister than any gentleman in the State, — always fresh, always various, always intent on the well-being of others, well understanding them and their pleasures and sympathies, promoting enjoyment, promoting instruction, promoting all that is noble in its noblest form and purest Christlikeness, — that is what it is your business to be. Now, with that disposition and tendency well estab- lished in yourselves, and with sympathy established between yourselves and your parishioners, my young friends, you will never lack for sermons. If your sermons are the reproductions simply of systematic theology, you will lack for them, — thank God ! You may have sermons on theology, on technical theology ; do not suppose that I am undervaluing them. I am only undervaluing the idolatry of them. By theology I understand simply the philosophy of religion, — accu- rate thinking, systematic, articulated thinking; and that I believe in — in its place. But this I say, that there is no theology in the world that is anything more than an instrument. It is a mere tool to work with, an artillery to fight with. J Sermons are mere tools ; and the business that you have in hand is not making sermons, or preaching ser- mons, — it is samng men. Let this come up before you 80 frequently that it shall never be forgotten, that none QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 39 of these things should gain ascendency over this prime controlling element of your lives, that you are to save men. And the first thing you have to do is to present to them what you want them to be. That is, if you are to preach to them faith, the best definition you can give of faith is to exercise it. If you wish to teach them the nature of sympathy, take them by the hand. Talk with the young men, and let them get acquainted with you ; and they will soon find out what sympathy means. If you would explain what true benevolence is, be your- selves before them that which you want them to un- derstand and imitate. What does the apostle tell us ? . Ye are our epistles, known and read of all men," said Paul ; and he could say it, and so could the whole primi- tive church, and so can we yet to-day. If it were a good thing to do, I could pick out to-day the examples from my church, and say, " This is what I mean by zeal tem- pered with prudence ; that is what I mean by the sweet forbearance of love ; if you would see what disinterested kindness is, see there " : and the rest would all say, "Amen." That is certainly the law of the pew, and what is the law of the pew ou^rht to be the law of the pulpit. Christian ministers are to be, not men that pray four times a day, and wear black clothes and white cravats and walk with the consciousness that the whole uni- verse is looking upon them. A minister is a live man. He is a large-hearted man. If anywhere else he is deficient, he cannot be deficient in heart. Some one asked me yesterday. What was to be re- garded as a proper call to the ministry ? I reply, the 40 LECTURES ON PREACHING. possession of those qualities which make a good min- ister, — good sense, good nature, good health, and down- right moral earnestness. It is signally true, however, in this matter, " that many are called, but few are chosen/' We need more manhood and less profes- sionalism. Scholarship is good for little that does not enrich manhood. It is the man that is in you that preaches. When God calls he begins early, and calls through your parents. " Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee ; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Be sure that it is yoit that is called. It is evident that in many cases some one else was meant when certain persons heard a call. When God calls very loud at the time you are born, standing at the door of life, and says, " Quarter of a man, come forth ! " that man is not for the ministry. " Half a man, come forth ! " no ; that will not do for a preacher. " Whole man, come ! " that is you. The man must be a man, and a full man, that is going to be a true Christian minister, and especially iii those things which are furthest removed from selfishness and the nearest in alliance with true divine love. ^JCNjiTliCwJ Sympathy with your people, insight of their condi- tion, a study of the moral remedies, this will give end- less diversity and fertility to your subjects for sermons. He that preaches out of a system of theology soon runs his round and returns on his track. He that preaches out of a sympathy with living men will sooner exhaust the ocean or the clouds of water, than his pulpit of material. It is true that subjects mnst be studied; that FERTILITY IN SUBJECTS. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 41 principles must be traced, that facts must be collected and arranged, that books must be studied, that systems must be understood. But all this is far back of preach- ing. It is general preparation. Out of the stores thus accumulated one must select for sermons, on the prin- ciple that a physician selects remedies for the sick, or stewards provide food for the household, with an eye on the persons to be treated. The wants of your people must set back into the sermon, and give to it depth, direction, and current. Preaching is sometimes word- brooding ; sometimes it is a. flash of light to those in darkness; sometimes a basket of golden fruit to the hungry, a cordial to the comfortless, — all to all, — just as Christ is All in All ! You will very soon come, in \ your parish life, to the habit of thinking more about your people and what you shall do for them than about your sermons and what you shall talk about. That is a good sign. J ust as soon as you find yourself think- ing, on Monday or Tuesday, " Now, here are these per- sons, or this class," — you run over your list and study your people, — " what shall I do for them ? " you will get some idea what you need to do. Sometimes it is to call men from their sins ; sometimes to repress the malign ; sometimes to encourage hope in the faint- hearted ; sometimes to instruct the understanding ; some- times to broaden men's knowledge, and move them off* of their prejudices. There are a thousand things to do. • ^ A preacher is a carpenter, building a house. You ought to know, as the house goes up, what you shall do next. Or, if it be built, and you are to furnish the house, you are to determine what is to be its furni- ture, and how distributed. You will know that this 42 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. room is not lighted, or that room is not warmed. Wherever you go among your people, you will, to use ^the mercantile figure, "be taking account of stock." That will suggest an endless number of subjects, and these subjects will turn you back to the New Testa- ment to see what you can find there ; and that will send you back to Nature, where you will see what is in God's other great revelation. In this way you will grow fertile. You will not be troubled in looking for subjects on which to write ser- mons ; your only trouble will be to find opportunities for delivering sermons. I know that some men are more fertile than others ; but a sympathetic study of human life is a remedy for uniform theology. STYLE. The effect of this notion of preaching — preaching from sympathy with living men rather than from sym- pathy with any particular system of thought — upon the preacher's style will be very great. I have often heard ministers in private conversation, and said to my- self, Would to God you would do so in the pulpit ! " But the moment they are in the pulpit they fall into their scholastic, arti ficial style, which runs through the whole ministerial life. A man will talk to you naturally, and say, " I do wish you would come down to-night ; the young people had the promise of your coming, and why won't you come ? " — sweet, natural, pleading, per- suasive. Yet he will go into the desk, where prayer is to be made in a persuasive tone, and he will begin address- ing the Lord with a drawling, whining falsetto in voice, and a worse falsetto in morals. He has thrown himself QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 43 out of his proper self into a ministerial self, — a very different thing ! A man will stop you in the street and discourse with you there, and be just as limber and affable in his sentences, just as curt and direct and crisp and simple in conversational vernacular as any one ; and yet in the pulpit, two-thirds of what he has to say will be Latin periphrases w^oven together ; three members on one side the sentence-pivot, balanced by three members on the other, and that recurring all the time. This style is false to everything but books. It may be all in sym- pathy with them ; but no man in earnest, talking to his fellow-men with a purpose, falls into that artificial style. >^^^^^''^he man who preaches from the heart to the heart can hardly help preaching so that there shall be a natural- ness in his style, and that will be the best style for him. I have known men who would be excellent ministers, if it were not, first, for their lives ; secondly, for their theology ; and thirdly, for their style. QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION. One other point. I was asked yesterday if I would say a few words as to " the call." I have already in- dicated a word as to the call for the ministry. Practi- cally, it acts in this way. Young men are sometimes brought up to it, as I was. I never had any choice about it. My father had eight sons. Only two of them ever tried to get away from preaching ; and they did not succeed. The other six went right into the ministry just as naturally as they went into manhood. Therefore, so far as personal experience is concerned, I have nothing to say. I have observed, however, in classes in college, and 44 LECTURES ON PREACHING. elsewhere, that where young men have not been brought up to believe all through their childhood that they were to be ministers, they generally have the question brought to their minds in some serious mood, whether they ought to go into the law, or into medicine, or to be civil engineers, or whether they ought to go into the ministry. They think about it a good while, and at last it is borne in upon them, without any special reason, that they had better preach ; and they resolve to do it. These are young men who ordinarily cannot form judgments ; they drift. When you look beyond this number, what are some of the elements that fit a man for the life of a true Christian minister ? I say, first, the preacher ought to be a man who is fruitful in moral ideas, has a genius for them, as dis- tinguished from every other kind of ideas. We know what it is to have a genius for arithmetical or mathe- matical ideas, for musical ideas, or for aesthetic or art ideas. A tendency in the direction of moral ideas, whether developed or susceptible of being developed, is a prime quality. A second quality fitting a man for the Christian min- istry, is the power of moving men. If a man is cold and unsympathetic, perhaps he may be able to make himself over ; but if he cannot, he had better not go into the ministry. It will be a hard task for such a one. But a man that has quick sympathy, apprehensiveness of men, intuition of human nature, has eminent qualifica- tions for a minister. Every merchant, who is a true merchant, has to know how to deal with his customers. The moment they come into the store he reads them. A good jury lawyer must have the same aptitude. We QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 45 are all the time obliged to use these qualities, the knowl- edge of men, the power of managing men. A real mas- ter of men, when one draws near to him, forms a judg- ment of the new-comer just as instinctively and as quickly as of a locomotive or a horse. (Do you ever see a fine horse go by and not take his points ? Then your education has been neglected.) A minister who w^alks down a whole street and sees nobody, who only looks inside of himself, is but half a minister. Self-absorp- tion is permissible once in a while ; but the aptitude to deal with men, to incite the springs of human thought and feeling, the knowledge of how to move men, — that is to be maintained m power only by in- cessant practice and observation ; but if you have that in connection Avith the genius for moral ideas, you have two qualifications. A third qualification is w^hat I may call living hy faith, the sense of the infinite and the invisible ; the sense of something else besides what we see with the physical eyes ; the sense of God, of eternity, and of heaven. If I were asked what had been in my own ministry the unseen source of more help and more power than any- thing else, I should say that my mother gave to me a temperament that enabled me to see the unseeable and to know the unknowable, to realize things not created as if they were, and oftentimes far more than if they were, present to my outward senses. The rain comes out of the great ether above. You see nothing of it to-night, though it is there, and descends to-morrow on the grass and the flowers; so out of the invisible realm of the spirit within which you are living under the crystalline dome of eternity, populous with love and law and truth. 46 LECTURES ON PREACHING. you will have a sense of the vastness and magnitude of the sphere in which you are working which will descend upon your life with fructifying power. - Another thing : you should have good health ; and a fair portion of common sense, which is the only quality that I think never is increased by education ; that is born in a man, — or, if it is not, that is the end. But if, with those other qualities, you have good sense and good vigorous health, and withal are of a good social disposition, you have the qualifications out of which a minister can be fashioned. There is one thing more. I do not think that any man has a right to become a Christian minister, who is not willing and thankful to be the least of all God's ser- vants and to labor in the humblest sphere. If you would come into the Christian ministry, hoping to preach such a sermon as Eobert Hall would have preached, you are not fit to come in at all. If you have a deep sense of the sweetness of the service of Christ ; if the blood of the redemption is really in your heart and in your blood ; if you have tasted what gratitude means, and what love means, and if heaven is such a reality to you that all that lies between youth and manhood is but a step toward heaven; if you think that the saving of a single soul would be worth the work of your whole life, you have a call, and a very loud call. A call to the ministry is along the line of humility, and love, and sympathy, and good sense, and natural aspirations to- ward God. I recollect when I returned from the first revival in which I ever worked. I had been at Indianapolis be- tween one and two years, and there had been no revival QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PEEACHER. 47 (and I had never been in one since I was a boy). I went out, on Brother Jewett's call, from Indianapolis to Terre Haute ; and I w^orked there three weeks in a revival until my heart was on fire ; and it rained a stream of prayer all the way home from Terre Haute to Indian- apolis. It was like an Aurora Borealis, I have no doubt, ray upon ray, for that whole distance, if angels could have seen it. It was in that feeling all the way, " Lord, slay me if thou wilt ; but I will be slain, or will have life and salvation among my people." On Sunday I gave notice that I would preach every night that week. We had a dingy lecture-room in my church that would hold about two hundred people. I preached Monday night, and we had a storm ; Tuesday night it rained again, and when I called upon any who were awakened to remain, no one stayed ; and I said, It makes no difference ; if the Lord wishes it to be so, I do ! " On Wednesday night I preached again, with more power, and called for inquirers at the close ; one poor little thin servant-girl stopped ! She smelt of the kitchen and looked kitchen all over. When I dismissed the congregation, my first feeling, I know, as I went toward her, was one of disap- pointment. I said to myself that after so much work it was too bad. It was just a glance, an arrow whichf- the Devil shot at me, but which went past. The next minute I had an overwhelming revulsion in my soul ; and I said to myself, "If God pleases, I will work for the poorest of his creatures. I will work for the heart of a vagabond, if I am permitted to do it, and bring him to Christ Jesus." I felt it; and I thanked God that night for that girl's staying. He paid me the next night, for two of my sweetest children — not my 48 LECTURES ON PHEACHINa own, but they were like my own to me — stopped on the next night, and after that the work went on. If, therefore, you feel willing to work for Christ's sake, for the sake of eternity, for the love that you have for the intrinsic sweetness of the work of the ministry, the moulding of men and making them better and helping them upward; if this is itself sweet and pleasant to you ; if you are moved to do it in low places, without renown, and are willing to take your crown hereafter for it, you are called, and there is no doubt about it. But if you want only this, — to be very eloquent men, and to watch the eloquence of others ; or if you want to have a big church, with a big salary behind it, and if that is your call to the ministry, stay away. You may be called, but it was not the Lord that called you ; it was the Devil. Don't come from pride, but come from a love for the work; and then, let me tell you, your work will be music. I hear ministers talk about their cares and their burdens. There are cares and burdens, but no more than there are discords in Beethoven's sympho- nies ; and your work will be as sweet and as musical as his symphonies are. Working for men ! There is nothing so congenial. It is the only business on earth that I know of, excepting the mother's business, that is clean all the way through ; because it is using superior faculties, superior knowledge, not to take advantage of men, but to lift them up and cleanse them, to mould them, to fashion them, to give them life, that you may present them before God. I am done, unless you wish to ask questions. I am open to-day and every day for them. (itJALIFiCATiONS OF THE PKEACHlilR. 49 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. How shall one get the power of adaptation of one's self to others, and how shall he increase it ? Mr. Beecher. — If you were taking drawing lessons, and attempting to portray the human face, but with so little success as to make it very doubtful what you were trying to do ; and if you should look up to your teacher and say to him, How shall I increase my ability to draw faces ? " what would he say to you ? Practice, — practice, — that will do it." Preaching is in one sense an art ; not in the ignoble sense. It is a thing to be learned, both in general principles and in practical de- tails. It is learned by some, as every trade is, much more easily than by others. It is learned by continu- ous trying and practising. A young minister ought not to be discouraged if he works three or four years in a parish before he really begins to get the control of things. Q. Is it a good way to learn to move men by learning to move children ? Mb. Beecher. — Yes ; any way ; not merely with children, but with everybody else. You are all of you in society. You have class-mates, room-mates. You can begin practising a good deal of the ministry now. Suppose, in a thing in which you have been accustomed to make your room-mate give up to you, after this you give up to him. Suppose you take some of the familiar Scriptural texts, " Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of another " ; " In honor preferring one another " test yourselves by 50 LECTURES ON PREACHING. that. See if you can in all cases give up, one to an- other; give those around you the advantage of every opening, and hold yourselves hack. Try all these tests. These are admirable principles ; and if you do not learn adaptation by practising the Christian virtues, then I am mistaken. What is minister ? It is servant ; serving men in love is ministering. Q. What is the occasion of the tendency toward short pastor- ates in churches nowadays ? Mr. Beecher. — Largely, I think, the divine mercy toward the parish. I do not mean by that that I con- sider a short pastorate a desirable thing, provided the conditions of long pastorates are complied with ; but if a man has only a little in him, and is not going to have any more, I think his removal is a great mercy to his parish. When the cup is empty, it would better be re- moved and another one filled and brought in its place. Where one has breadth ; where he will give himself to the work of the ministry, in public and in his study both ; if the study and the street work into each other all the way, he has a true ministry, and he has that in him which will last. A long pastorate has some ad- vantages that cannot be over-estimated. But shallow men, w^ho are sometimes called broad men, ought to have short pastorates. If you take the Erie Canal, and without increasing the amount of water, remove one bank to a distance of half a mile, you will broaden it very much, but you will have perhaps only a quarter of an inch depth of water. A great many men spread themselves out, and broaden, in that w^ay, and grow shallower and shallower. Such men soon evaporate. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE PREACHER. 51 Q. Some of us expect to spend several months this summer in preaching. Would you encourage us to preach in the revival style the very first thing, and keep on right through? Mr. Beecher. — If you mean by the revival style, that which is addressed exclusively to the feelings, I should say Xo, not in all cases. You may be thrown among a set of mountain men, where your preaching will be a great deal more out of the pulpit than in it. Paul, you know, wove tent-cloth ; and I have no doubt that when he sat down with the common people and worked with them, he was preparing to preach to them. The first thing you want in a neighborhood is to get m rapport with the people. You want to get their confidence, to induce them to listen to you. It is a part of the intuition of a true preacher to know how to get at men. He looks at a man as Hobbs looked at a lock, who always asked himself, How can I pick it ? " When I see a man I instinctively divide him up, and ask myself. How much has he of the animal, how much of the spiritual, and how much of the intellectual ? And what is his intellect, perceptive or reflective ? Is ^ he ideal, or apathetic, or literal ? And I instinctively adapt myself to him. There is no mystery about this ; it is simple enough. You all adapt yourselves in just that way. You never treat an ox in any other way than as an ox. You never treat it as if it were a horse. But that same process by which you adapt yourselves unconsciously to the more apparent and superficial aspects of nature can be carried further ; you can adapt yourself to the disposition of another, and know how to take him, where to take him, what will offend, and what will not offend. 52 LECTURES ON PREACHING. Q. How would you influence a contrary man who stayed away from church for a month ? Mr. Beecher. — Very likely you labored with him too long. There are a great many ways. There is no one way of working upon men. You must try them. In fact, you have got to try men as J you try fish. You put on one fly, and when you cast, the trout don't rise. You whip it hither and thither a little while and try it. Perhaps it is the wrong time of day. You change the fly and try again. You come another hour of day ; and if he won't rise, you come to-morrow and try again, and by and by you will catch him ; but very likely it will be by what you do not look for at all, and he will bite, and you hook him unexpectedly. You are not to sup- pose you can bring men down as you would go into the woods to fell a tree. Some men require a good deal of diplomacy and management, and it takes a good deal of time. How long was it before the Lord himself managed you ? How long God's providence waits for us ! Many are the influences brought to bear upon us before we are subdued. You must not be in a hurry or impatient. You have not lost a man because he does n't take the truth the first time. III. THE PEESONAL ELEMENT IN ORATOEY. February 7, 1872. SHALL talk to you to-day on the general subject of Personalism, as affecting your suc- cess in reaching men with the truth, — in- cluding various modes of bringing yourselves to bear on others, from the pulpit, and the helps and hindrances in doing so, both on the mental and spiritual side, and on the physical or material side. Ko man ever preaches, all the time thinking of pro- ducing specific effects, without very soon being made conscious that men are so different from each other that no preaching will be continuously effective which is not endlessly various ; and that not for the sake of arresting attention, but because all men do not take in moral teaching by the same sides of their minds. I remember when it was the custom, and it was supposed a proper thing to do, for ministers to hold up a regular system of moral truth, sermon by sermon, and chapter by chapter, until the received average views of the day had been spread out before the congregation ; and then it was hoped that a Divine Sovereignty would apply these truths to men's hearts. Experience ought to have 54 LECTURES ON PREACHING. shown chem that there is a class of hearers in every intelligent community that will never be led except through their reason. Tliey will require that the path be laid down for them, and that they see it before they follow. Tliey will not be content to receive the truth in any other mode than by the idea-form. If they cannot get it in one church, they will go to another ; and if still they cannot find it, they will go nowhere. Yet, if you shape your preaching, as often literary men in the pul- pit are accustomed to do, to the distinctively intellectual men in the community, you will very soon fill them full and starve the rest of your congregation ; because, right alongside of them, there are natures just as noble as theirs, but not accustomed to receive their food through the mouth of reason, except in an incidental and indi- rect way. We all use our reason, more or less, in all processes ; but then there are a great many persons who want the truth presented in emotive forms. DIFFERENT CLASSES OF HEARERS. The hard reasoner says, No tears for me ; don't color your preaching ; I want it pure as the beams of light, f and as transparent ; and the calmer and more inexor- ably logical its propositions, and the more mathematical its proof, the better I like it." But there are in any community probably six to one who will watch for the emotional and impassioned part of the sermon, saying " That is the preaching I want ; I can understand what I feel." They are fed by their hearts. They have as much right to be fed by their hearts as the others have to be fed by their reason. You should strive, in setting the table in your church THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 55 ^vJierever you may be, to do as the hotel proprietor does. He never says to himself, " What dish do I like best ? ^ — that will I put on the table " ; or, " What dishes do Lawyer A and Physician B like best ? " He spreads his tables for the benefit of the community at large, — something for everybody; and he does wisely. The man who means to catch men, and to catch all of them, must prepare bait for those that bite purely by the un- derstanding, and just as much bait for those that bite largely by their emotions. But there is another class. I recollect my dear old father talking about persons that worshipped God in clouds and saw the hand of God in beauty. He would say, " It is all moonshine, my son, with no doctrine nor edification nor sanctity in it at all, and I despise it." I never knew my father to look at a landscape in his life, unless he saw pigeons or squirrels in it. I have seen him watch the stream, but it was, invariably, to know if there were pickerel or trout in it. He was a hunter, every inch ; but I never could discern that he had an sesthetic element in him, so far as relates to pure beauty. Sublimit)^ he felt. Whatever was grand he appreciated very keenly. I do not think that he ever looked at one building in his life, except the Girard College. When he came suddenly upon that, and it opened up to him, he looked up and admired it ; and I always marvelled at that, as a little instance of grace in him. That is laughable to you, I have no doubt ; and since these addresses are the most familiar of all talks, I will give you a little more of my amusing experience with him at home. When he became an old man he lived six months in my family, and became during that time 56 LECTURES ON PREACHING. much interested in the pictures hanging on the walla of the house. One which particularly attracted his at- tention, and with which he was greatly pleased, repie sented a beautiful lake, with hunters ensconced behind trees, shooting at ducks on the lake. He would look at that picture every day, and I, not thinking of the sportsmen, but only of the charming landscape, said tc myself, " Well, it is good to see him breaking from the spell of some of his old ideas, and, now that he has be- come old, to see these fine gifts growing and coming out, — to behold him ripening into the aesthetic element in this way." One day I stood behind him, as he was looking at the picture, unconscious of my presence. Said he, "He must have hit one, two, three — and, I guess, four!" Now, it is not strange that a person should, under such circumstances, having no appreciation of the beau- tiful in his nature, laugh to scorn the idea that beauty could ever lead a man to God, or bring him within the influence of the Lord Jesus Christ, or incline him to climb from a selfish to a spiritual life ; but, I tell you there is many a mouth that requires to be fed by the aesthetic element. It is not a vain thing to hear men say that they feel more like worshipping in music than in any other thing. The best organist in America for extemporaneous music is Mr. John Zundel. When he was converted, and came into the church, he said to me one morning, " It seems that everything in the world is new. Last night I prayed, but not as you do." I asked him what he meant, and he answered, " I do not speak my prayers." " Well," asked I, how do you pray ? " " On the pianq THE PERSONAL ELEMENT ORATORY. 57 always/' said he. That was true. He wouk^ sit dowp at his piano, when in a worshipping mood, shut his eyes and pray with his fingers. I did not wonder at it wheu I heard his music. When I entered the first gallery of any magnitude in Europe, it was a revelation to me ; I was deeply affected. It was at the Luxembourg. I had never imagined such a wealth of glory. The sense of 'exhil- aration was so transcendent that I felt as if I could not stay in the body. I was filled with that super- sensitiveness of supernal feeling which is true wor- ship ; and I never seemed to myself so near the gate of heaven. I never felt capable of so nearly under- standing my Master ; never in all my life was I con- scious of such an earnestness to do his work, and to do it better than I did, as while under the all-pervading influence of that gallery of beauty. I find a great many persons who say, " I do not much enjoy going to church, but if I am permitted to wander out into the fields, along the fringes of the forests, and to hear the birds sing, to watch the cattle, and to look at the shadows on the hills, I am sure it makes me a bet- ter man." Some others, like my dear old father, would say, " That is all moonshine ; there is nothing in it, no thought, no truth, and no doctrine of edification." But there is truth in it. There are minds that open to spiritual things through that side of their nature more readily and easily than through any other. This should be recognized. Then there is another class. There are a great many persons who are keenly sensitive on the side of imagi- ^ nation, and they never really receive anything as true, 3* 58 LECTURES ON PREACHING. until the fact or principle is, as it were, enveloped in a little liaze. They need the mystic element. They do not want sharp outlines. There is something in mys- tery which is attractive to them. And yet some preach- ers insist that truth should be set before all men in its most accurate and exact form. You might just as well attempt to reduce the clouds to triangles and circles, in order to mathematically demonstrate their beauty to the eye of an artist. HOW TO MEET DIFFERING MINDS. Now, in order to reach and help all these varying phases of your congregation, you must take human nature as you find it, in its broad range. Under- stand this, that the same law which led the Apostle to make himself a Greek to the Greeks, and a Jew to the Jews, and to put himself under the law with those who were under the law ; and that same everlasting good sense of conformity in these things, for the sake of taking hold of men where they can be reached, and lifting them up, requires you to study human nature as it is, and not as people tell you it ought to be. If a maiu^^ can be saved by pure intellectual preaching, let him have it. If others require a predominance of emotion, provide that for them. If by others the truth is taken more easily through the imagination, give it to them in forms attractive to the imagination. If there are still others who demand it in the form of facts and rules, see that tliey have it in that form. Take men as it has pleased God to make them ; and let your preaching, so far as concerns the selection of material, and the mode and method by which you are presenting the truth, fol- THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 59 low the wants of the persons themselves, and not simply the measure of your own minds. AN EASY DANGER. Too often men find a certain facility in themselves in single directions, and they confine their preaching to that particular line. The consequence is, their congre- gations are very soon classified. One sort of a preacher gets one sort of people, and another sort gets another sort of people, instead of all churches having some of every kind of mind in them. They become segregated and arranged according to ministers. That is very bad for the churches. It is a good thing for a village that it has but one church for all the people ; where the rich and poor, the cultured and the unlettered, have to come together, and learn to bear with each other. This is a part of that discipline and attrition which smooths and polishes men, and makes them better, if there is grace to do it. But in the cities you will find that churches are classi- fied ; and in the city of New York I can point out to you many a church in which there are almost no poor, plain people, but the great body are people of \vealth, culture, and refinement ; and the pulpit is invariably high-toned, perfectly pure in language, clear and me- thodical in discourse, always proper, — so proper, in fact, that it is almost dead for want of life, for want of side branches, for want of adaptation and conformity to human nature as it is. It is under such circumstan- ces, where a man follows a single groove in himself or in his congregation, and does it because he learns to work easier so, year by year, — and it is really on that 60 LECTURES ON PREACHING. account, — that preaching becomes narrowed down and very soon wears out. It has been asked here, why pastors change so often. \ Preachers are too apt to set the truth before their con- gregations in one way only, — whichever one they find they have the greatest facility for ; and that is like playing on one chord, — men get tired of the monot- ony. Whereas, preaching should be directed to every element of human nature that God has implanted in us, — to the imaginative, to the highly spiritual, to the moral, to that phase of the intellectual that works up and toward the invisible, and to the intellectual that works down to the material and tangible. He is a great man who can play upon the human soul ! We think him a great artist, who can play on an organ with sixty stops, combining them infinitely, and drawing out harmony and melody, marching them through with grand thought, to the end of the sym- phony ; that indicates a master, we think. It does ; but what organ that man ever built does not shrink in comparison with the one that God built and called Man ? Where you have before you a whole congrega- tion or a whole community, and all their wants and needs are known, and you are trying to draw out of them a higher and nobler life, what an instrument you have to play upon, and what a power it is when you have learned it, and have the touch by which you can play so as to control its entire range and compass ! There is nothing more sublime in this world than a man set upon lifting his fellow-men up toward Heaven, and able to do it. There are no sensations in this world comparable with those which one has whose whole soul THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 61 is aglow, waking into the consciousness of this power. It is the Divine power, and it is all working up toward the invisible and the spiritual. There is no ecstasy like it. DEMANDS OF VARIETY UPON THE PREACHER. There is another question which I have barely hinted at, and that is, in attempting to address the truth in different forms to men, so as to meet the wants of a whole community, must not a man be universal like Shakespeare ? How can you expect men, taking them as they are, to do this ? My reasoning is this : It is not to be supposed that men will do it in perfection, that they will do it at once, or that they will ever more than approximate to the ideal. I shall have occasion to repeat every time I speak to you this thing, — you have got to learn your business. It will take years and years before you are expert preachers. Let nobody puff you up by saying you are able preachers, because you can preach three or four good sermons. You have three or four tunes ; that is all. You are not practised workmen until you understand human nature, and know how to touch it with the Di- vine truth ; until you comprehend the Divine truth in so many of its bearings upon the human soul that you can work with tolerable facility from the truth that is in J esus to that which is in man ; and, quite as often, can reverse the process. That is the study. You have not begun your education yet. You are but getting ready to study when you begin to preach. If you preach for five years, and find that your work is slow, and much of it obscure, and does not produce the re- 62 LECTURES ON PREACHING. suits aimed at, do not be discouraged. The work is so great that you need not be ashamed, after working for years, to find that you are still an apprentice and not a journeyman. HOW TO USE one's OWN SPECIAL FORCES. The question, then, comes up, How far shall a man conform to the strong tendencies of his own nature ? One man is himself very imaginative, and not a reasoner ; or, he finds himself possessed of a judicial mind, calm, clear, but not enthusiastic ; while another finds himself an artist, as it were, with a mind expan- sive and sensitive, seeing everything iridescent, in all colors. Can these men change their own endowments ? Or, how can one conform to the endowment of the other ? A minister says, " I am naturally very sensitive to the praise and opinion of men. When I speak I can't get rid of the feeling of myself I am standing before a thousand people, and I am all the time thinking about myself, — whether I am standing right, and what men are thinking of me. I can't keep that out of my mind." What is such a man to do ? Can he change his own temperament ? On the other side, there are men who say, " I don't care what people think of me ; I wish I cared more. I am naturally cold, somewhat proud, and self-sus- tained. People talk about sympathy and a warm side toward men, but I never feel any of that. I do what is right, if the heavens fall, and go on my way. If people like it, I am glad ; and if they don't, that is their lookout." How can you change that disposi- THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 63 tion ? How can a man alter the laws that are laid down for him ? Well, in one sense, he cannot change at all. You can make just as many prayers, write just as many resolu- tions, and keep just as long a journal as you please, re- cording the triumphs of grace over your approbativeness, and when you are screwed down in your coffin, you w^ill have been no less of a praise-loving man than when you were taken out of the cradle. That quality grows, and it grows stronger in old age than at any other time. You will find that men get over some things in time ; they become less and less imaginative ; they become less severe as they grow older ; but, if vanity is a part of their composition, old age only strengthens it, and they grow worse and worse as they grow in years. In general, too, if a man has a strong will, I do not think he loses any of it as he gets along through life. It be- comes fixed, firm as adamant. But it is not necessary that you should change much. Go and look at Central Park. Before the artistic hand of the landscape-gardener began to work upon its sur- face, there were vast ledges of rock in every direction, and other obstructions of the most stubborn character. Now, if, when the engineer came to look over the land for the purpose of laying it out into a beautiful park, he had said, "How under the sun am I going to blast out those rocks ? " lie would have had a terrible time of it, and would have been blasting until this day. In- stead of that, however, he said, " I will plant vines around the edges of the rocks and let them run up over. The rocks will look all the better, and the vines will have a place to grow and display their beauty. In that way I will make use of the rocks." 64 LiECTURES ON PREACHtjJ(^. So it is with your own nature. There is not a single difficulty in it w^hich you cannot make use of, and which, after that, would not be a power for good. Suppose you are conscious, in your disposition, of approbativeness. Do you think you are more sensitive than thousands of God's best ministers have been ? But perhaps you love the praise of men more than the praise of God. The thing for you to do, then, is to train your approbative- ness, so that, instead of delighting in the lower types of praise, — those which imply weakness and which unman you, — you will strive after those which rise steadily higher and higher in the things which are of God. Now, it is not your fault that you have the ele- ment of approbativeness, but it is your fault that you suffer it to feed on despicable food. Train it to desire approbation for things that are noble and just, for doing, intensely, whatever is disinterested among men, and for things that other men cannot do. Task yourselves as men should do, and not like boys or puling girls. Have such a conception of manhood in Christ J esus that you would scorn praise for things that are less than noble. Strike a line through the head, and seek praise for things that are represented above the line and. not below it. You cannot find a more beautiful or illustrious in- stance of the transformation of a great constitutional faculty than in Paul, — Paul, the fiercely proud and arrogant, the man that was originally made for a per- secutor. For, the moment the summer of Christ's love drew near and shone on him, he became a changed man. Although he moans and yearns in his teachings, and his letters are full of self-consciousness, yet it is all THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 65 extremely noble. It is beautiful. I would not take a single I " out of Paul's epistles ; and yet you might take scores out of every one of them, and they would scarcely be missed, there are so many. Where was there a man whose pride was more regal than his ? and what a power it was, and how he used it for Christ's sake ! In regard to strong constitutional peculiarities, I would say, therefore, that you cannot eradicate them, and that you should not try to change them very much. ^--lYou can regulate and discipline every one of your emo- tive powers ; but do not try to quench them. Do not crucify anything. Do not crucify your passions. Do not crucify any basilar instinct. There is force in it, if you know how to use it as a force, in the propulsion of moral feeling and moral ideas. You may be naturally ambitious ; you will be ambitious to the day of your death. Do not attempt to take away your constitu- tional endowment, only train it to things which are consonant with Divine sympathy and with true life. Make it work, not for yourself, but for others, and it will be a power that you need not be ashamed of. SELF-TRAINING AN EDUCATION. This whole necessity of self-use is provided as a school of education for every man, and especially may it be made eflticient in the dissemination of the Gospel. He who gives his whole life-force to the work of converting men unto Christ, will find, I think, that for a long time he scarcely will need anybody to tell him what to do and what to be. You must go into a parish and say to yourself, " There is not a man, woman, or child within 66 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the bounds of this parish to whom I am not beholden. I am to bring the force of my whole soul to bear upon these persons. I am to get thoroughly acquainted with them. I am to make them feel my personality. I am to prepare them to hear me preach by gaining their confidence outside of the church and pulpit." You must meet them in their every-day life, in their ruggedness and selfishness. You will find one man spoken of as a laughing-stock in one neighborhood, and another as an odious man in another. Nobody can be a laughing- stock or odious to you. You are like physicians who attend the inmates of a hospital; it matters not to them from what cause the patients are lying hurt and wounded there. Sick men belong to the physician's care, and he must take care of them. Do not pick out the beautiful and good, or those who suit you. Select from your parish the men who need you most, and if you cannot be patient with them, if you cannot bring your soul to be a sacrifice for others and bear with them, how can you make them understand what J esus Christ did for the world ? You have got to do that same thing right over again at home, with the members of your church, with the outcast and with the wanderer. You must be, if I may say so, little Christs. You must make a living sacrifice of yourself again and again, against your instincts, — humbling your pride, holding in desires, submitting to things you do not like, and doing things which are repugnant to your taste, for Christ's sake and for man's sake ; learning to love to do it; and so interpreting, by your personality, what it means for Jesus Christ to have made a sacrifice of him- self for the salvation of the world. What else did the THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 67 Apostle mean by saying, "Christ in you"? And if he promises to abide in you, how can he abide in you in any other sense than that ? PREACHING THE PREACHER'S WHOLE BUSINESS. The next point I wish to make with you is, that if you are to be preachers in any such sense as this which I have explained to you, preaching will have to be your whole business. Now, in a small way, everybody preaches ; but if you are going to be professional preach- ers, if you will make that your life-calling, it is not probable that there is one of you who was built large enough to do anything more than that. It will take all that you have in you and all your time. I do not think a man could run a locomotive-engine, paint pictures, keep school, and preach on Sundays to any very great edification. A man who is going to be a successful preacher should make his whole life run toward the pulpit. Perhaps you will say, " Are you not, yourself, doing just the other thing ? Don't you edit a paper, and lecture, and make political speeches, and write this, that, and the other thing ? Are you not studying science, and are you not an fait in the natural enjoy- ments of rural life ? " Well, where a man stands in the pulpit, and all the streams run away from the pulpit down to those things, the pulpit will be very shallow and very dry ; but when a man opens these streams in the neigh- boring hills as so many springs, and all the streams run down into the pulpit, he will have abundant supplies. There is a great deal of difference, whether you are 68 LECTURES ON PREACHING. Working in the collaterals toward the pulpit, or away from the pulpit. You can tell very quickly. If, when a man comes back from his garden, his lectures, his journeys, and his aesthetic studies, or from his scientific coteries and seanceSy he finds himself less interested in his proper work, if the Sabbath is getting to be rather a bur- densome day to him, and it is irksome to be preach- ing, he must quit one or other of those things. The streams run from the pulpit instead of into it. But if, when a man feels he is called to be an architect of men, an artist among men, in moulding them; when one feels that his life-power is consecrated to trans- forming the human soul toward the higher ideal of character for time and eternity, he looks around upon the great forces of the world and says to them, " You are my servants " ; to the clouds, " Give me what you have of power " ; to the hills, " Bring me of your treasures " ; to all that is beautiful, " Come and put your garment upon me " ; and to all that is enjoyable, "Fill me with force and give abundance to the ful- ness of my feeling," — if a man makes himself mas- ter of the secrets of nature that he may have power and strength to do his work, — then he is not carrying on three or four kinds of business at the same time. He is carrying on one business, and he collects from a hundred the materials and forces by which he does it. That is right. It will do you no hurt, but will bene- fit you, if you will make yourself familiar with public affairs. But you must not let public affairs settle down on you and smother you. You must keep yourself abreast of science ; but you must be surer of your faith THE PEKSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 69 than science is of its details. You must see to it that you are the master of everything, and not it the master of you. If music is more to you than your duties, it is dangerous ; but it ought to be a shame to you that it is dangerous. Jf genial society and the flow of social merriment is sweet to you, and it seduces you from your work, it is perilous, — but it is a shame that these things should so easily overcome you. You ought to build yourselves on a pattern so broad that you can take all these things along with you. They are the King's ; and you have a right to them. You have a right to be a child with children ; the best fellow among young men. You have a right to all manly recreations, but you must see to it that you are stronger than the whole of them. You have a right to feel like other men, and to take part in all their interests, but you must be larger than them all. You must feel that you are charged with the realities of the great world that is hanging over our heads, — and, my God, such a world ! that never says anything ; that keeps silence above us, while the destinies of the ages have been rolling onward ; and where there are such things going on, that I marvel no sound ever drops down to us. But if a man lives and has seen Him that is invisible, and It that is invisible, all these lower things are open books unto him; ajid, instead of weakening, they be- come elements of strength and power. EXTERNAL HINDRANCES. A man may spend one half the strength of his life trying to overcome obstacles that interpose betw^een himself and men, which is absolutely unnecessary. I 70 LECTURES ON PREACHING. told Brother Storrs in his church edifice that, with all his splendid success, I thought one full third of his life was spent in overcoming the natural resistance of that church structure to the gospel ; not because it was beautiful, for I think a beautiful church- is a help, but because it was constructed on the principle of isolation or wide separation, — as though a man should sit one side of a river and try to win a mistress on the other side, bawling out his love at the top of his voice. However she might have been inclined, one such shout would be too much for tender sentiment. Churches are built now on the same principle as they formerly were, in the days of the founders of the old cathedrals. Then the services turned on the effect of music, and the production of awe by the shimmering lights, by the dimness and vagueness. They turned on the presentation of gorgeous apparel and all kinds of things for the eye to behold ; but there was very little preaching, very little. Because they built their churches on a cruciform plan, we — who have revo- lutionized old theories, who believe that a church is a household, and that a preacher has a personal influ- ence upon men, and is not a mere machine — build our churches just like them. You will see, in every culti- vated community, churches built for modern preaching purposes on mediaeval principles. We will take the church in New York called the Broadway Tabernacle. In it there are two lines of columns which hide a range of six pews, on each side straight from the pulpit clear through to the corner of the church, where the men and women cannot see the preacher on account of these architectural adjuncts THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 71 which run up to the ceiling and make the church so beautiful. There the people can sit and look at the columns during the whole of the sermon-time. In Dr. Storrs's church in Brooklyn* there was for- merly a space of from fifteen to twenty feet between the pulpit and the pews. It has been' changed. But formerly you could see the minister only down to his chest. He stood in that box, stuck up against the wall, and then came a great space, like the desert of Sahara; and over on the other side of it began to be his audience. Before he can fill such a space the magnetic influence of the man is all lost. He has squandered one of the best natural forces of the pulpit. That is not the worst of it. When a man is made by God he is made all over, and every part is necessary to each and to the whole. A man's whole form is a part of his public speaking. His feet speak and so do his hands. You put a man in one of these barrelled pulpits, where there is no responsibility laid upon him as to his body, and he falls into all manner of gawky attitudes, and rests himself like a country horse at a hitching-post. He sags down, and has no consciousness of his awkwardness. But bring him out on a platform, and see how much more manly he becomes, how much more force comes out ! The moment a man is brought face to face with other men, then does the influence of each act and react upon the other. I have seen work- men talking on the street, stooping, laughing, and slap- ping their hands on their knees. Why, their very ges- tures were a good oration, although I did not hear a word that was said. A man who speaks right before * The Church of the Pilgrims." 72 LECTURES ON PREACHING. his audience, and without notes, will speak, little by- little, with the gestures of the whole body, and not with the gestures of one finger only. No man will speak long with any interest when he thinks about himself. You may have the very best of sermons, but if your boot pinches or you have a painful corn, you will think about the boot and about the corn, and not about the sermon. A man needs to be brought out of himself as much as possible. You must relieve him from all manner of external embarrassment. Put a man where he is liable, as I have been, standing on the head of a barrel at a political meeting, to go through, and what will he think of ? Now, on a little narrow platform one can walk backward and forward to be sure, but if he go toward the edges ever so little, he is in fear of stumbling off. Yet even that is better than a box-pulpit. What has that to do with preaching ? What do you want with it ? What is it for ? This evil is not confined to pulpits merely, but to all places where a speaker has to address a large body of men. I think the matter so important, that I tell the truth, and lie not, when I say that I would not accept a settlement in a very advantageous place, if I was obliged to preach out of one of those old-fashioned swallow's- nests on the wall. ^ The next point you should look to is to have your pews as near as possible to the speaker. A preacher must be a man among men. There is a force — call it SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. NEARNESS TO THE AUDIENCE. THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 73 magnetism, or electricity, or what you will — in a man, which is a personal element, and which flows from a speaker who is en rapport with his audience. This principle should be utilized in the work of preaching. I do not say that Jonathan Edwards could not have preached under the pulpit disadvantage. He could have preached out of anything. But there are not many men like Jonathan Edwards. The average man needs all the extraneous advantages he can press into his service. People often say, " Do you not think it is much more inspiring to speak to a large audience than a small one ? " No, I say ; I can speak just as well to twelve persons as to a thousand, provided those twelve are crowded around me and close together, so that they touch each other. But even a thousand people, with four feet space between every two of them, would be just the same as an empty room. Every lecturer will understand what I mean, who has ever seen such audi- ences and addressed them. But crowd your audience together, and you will set them off with not half the effort. Brother Day, the son of old President Day, of Yale College, was one of my right-hand men in founding the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn ; and being a civil engineer, and the church having voted to build, he went into my study with me to plan the edifice. He asked me what I wanted, in the first place, and how many people I wanted the church to seat. I told him. " Very good,'' he said ; " and how do you want them located ? " "I want them to surround me, so that they will come up on every side, and behind me, so 4 74 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. that I shall be in the centre of the crowd, and have the people surge all about me." The result is, that there is not a better constructed hall in the world for the purposes of speaking and hearing than Plymouth Church. Charles Dickens, after giving one of his read- ings in it, sent me special word not to build any other hall for speaking ; that Plymouth Church was perfect. It is perfect, because it was built on a principle, — the principle of social and personal magnetism, which emanates reciprocally from a speaker and from a close throng of hearers. This is perhaps the most important element of all the external conditions conducive to good and . effective preaching. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Rev. Dr. Bacon. — Would you recommend the hanging of one or two architects by court-martial ? Mr. Beecher. — I do not know that a court-martial would be the proper tribunal by which to try them, but I would at least make them recite the Westminster Catechism every morning as a punishment. Architects, however, do a great deal of good work. They certainly help, by the exterior of churches, to beautify our towns and villages. But there is a certain thing that I never found an architect to be wise about, — ventilation. I never knew anybody else who was. There is no diffi- culty in ventilating a house when there is nobody in it. The difficulty is to have a house full of people, and then to ventilate it. How can you get fresh air into a room, after letting out the bad air ? Draughts will be caused, and people will take cold. That question architects have never been able to solve. THE PERSONAL ELEMENT IN ORATORY. 75 In reference to prayer-meetings, this lecture has a bearing which I may as well mention here. One of the great difficulties with them ordinarily is that people are so separated as to lose the whole social element. You will notice that, after a prayer- meeting, which has been very dull and very stiff" and very proper, has been closed, and the brethren gather around the stove, they commence talking socially among themselves, and then it is that the real conference-meeting begins. One dea- con says, Brother So-and-so, when you were speaking on such a topic you said so and so." He goes on and makes quite an effective little talk, but you could not have dragged it out of him with an ox-team during the meeting; and so one and another will speak up and join in, and they will get warmly interested in their discussion. Around the stove was the real meeting. The other was the mere simidacrum of a meeting. IV. THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATUEE. February 8, 1872. Y impression is that preachers are quite as well acquainted with human nature as the average of well-informed citizens, but far less than lawyers, or merchants, or teachers, or, especially, politicians. The preachers of America have been, I think, as intelligent and suc- cessful as any that ever lived. As a body of men they have been upright, discreet, and wise in the general management of the affairs of Christian churches. As a body, they have in their personal and administrative or pastoral relations been, on the whole, sagacious in matters pertaining to human nature. Nevertheless, Preachers, both English and American, have not preached to man's nature, as it is. It is true that in the applications of sermons, par- ticularly such as are known in America as Eevival Sermons, much knowledge of human nature is shown, and efficient use is made of it. But, in a larger gen- eralization, it may be said that there have been but two schools of Preachers. One may be called the Ecclesi- astical school ; in which term I include the whole THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 77 body of men who regard the Church on earth as something to be administered, and themselves as chan- nels, in some sense, of Divine grace, to direct the flow of that Divine institution. Ecclesiastical preachers are those who administer largely and preach incidentally, if one might say so. There is also the Dogmatic school of Preachers, or those who have relied upon a pre-exist- ing system of truth, which has been founded before their day and handed down from generation to generation, and who apparently proceed upon the supposition that their whole duty is discharged when they have made a regu- lar and rejjetitious statement of all the great points of doctrine from time to time. NECESSITIES OF THE FUTURE. N"ow, the school of the future (if I am a prophet, and I am, of course, satisfied in my own mind that I am !) is what may be called a Life School. This style of preach- ing is to proceed, not so much upon the theory of the sanctity of the Church and its ordinances, or upon a pre-existing system of truth which is in the Church somewhere or somehow, as upon the necessity for all teachers, first, to study the strengths and the weaknesses of human nature minutely ; and then to make use of such portions of the truth as are required by the special needs of man, and for the development of the spiritual side of human nature over the animal or lower side — the preparation of man in his higher nature for a nobler existence hereafter. It is a life-school in this respect, that it deals not with the facts of the past, except in so far as they can be made food for the present and factors of the life that now is ; but rather studies to understand 78 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. meUy and to deal with them, face to face and heart to heart, — yea, even to mold them as an artist molds his clay or carves his statue. And in regard to such a school as that, while there has been much done inci- dentally, the revised procedure of education yet awaits development and accomplishment ; and I think that our profession is in danger, and in great danger, of going under, and of working effectively only among the relatively less informed and intelligent of the commun- ity; of being borne with, in a kind of contemptuous charity, or altogether neglected, by the men of culture who have been strongly developed on their moral side, — not their moral side as connected with revealed re- ligion, but as connected rather with human knowledge and worldly wisdom. The question, then, comes up, Do men need this intimately practical instruction ? and if so, must there be to meet it this life-school of preachers ? RELATION OF BIBLE TRUTH TO CHRISTIANITY IN THE WORLD. But I am asked, " Have we not, in the truth as it has been revealed in Jesus Christ, everything that is needed ? If a man take the Gospels, and the life and sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and preach these, is he not thor- oughly furnished to every good work, and does he need to go outside of the Bible ? " Yes, he does, for no man can take the inside of the Bible, if he does not know how to take the outside. The kingdom of God and of truth, as it is laid down in the New Testament, is a kingdom of seeds. They have been sown abroad, and have been growing and de- THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 79 veloping in the world ; and, whereas, when they were initiated they were but seminal forms, now they have spread like the banyan-tree. And shall I go back and talk about acorns after I have learned about oaks ? Shall I undertake to say that the Infinite Truth that is in Jesus Christ is, all of it, comprised in the brief and fragmentary histories that are contained in the four Evangelists; that human life has been nothing; that there is no Providence or inspiration in the working of God's truth among mankiud ; no purposed connection between the history of the world for eighteen hundred years, vitalized by the presence of the Holy Ghost and those truths in the New Testament ? All that Chris- tianity has produced is a part of Christianity. All that has been evolved in human existence you may find as germ-forms in the Bible ; but you must not shut your- selves up to those germ-forms, with stupid reverence merely for the literal text of the gospel. It is the gos- pel alive, the gospel as it has been made victorious in its actual conflict with man's lower nature, that you are to preach. What Christ is you are to learn, indeed, with all reverence, from the historic delineation of his sacred person and life ; but also you are to read him in the suffering human heart, in the soul triumphant over suffering, in the self-sacrifice of the mother for her child, in the heroic father, in every man and woman who has learned from Christ some new development of glorious self-giving for noble purposes. These are the commentaries expounded to you, through which you shall be able to know Christ vitally. All human na- ture that has been impregnated with a knowledge of ChTist is the Bible commentary which you have to 80 LECTURES ON PREACHING. read in order to know who Christ is, and to learn that he is not shut up in the Gospels alone. EXAMPLE OF THE APOSTLES. It is said that ministers ought not to know any- thing but ''Jesus Christ and him crucified/' but that is said in a different manner from that of tlie Apos- tle. He did not say, " I preach nothing but the his- torical Christ and him crucified." He said that he put the whole dependence of his ministry upon the force that was generated from Christ and him crucified ; and not upon his own personal power, presence, or eloquence. He relied upon the living presence of Al- mighty God, as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. He depended upon moral power ; and it is a perversion to say that men are to preach nothing but the literal, textual Christ, or the literal, textual four Gospels, or the literal, textual Epistles ; for all of life is open to you. You have a right to preach from everything, from the stars in the zenith to the lowest form of creation upon earth. All things belong to you, for you are Christ's. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness of it. The Lord is our Father, and therefore we are heirs. It is also said, Are we wiser than the Apostles were ? " I hope so. I should be ashamed if we were not. " Are we better preachers than they were ? " Yes, we ought to be better preachers in our time than they would be. They were adapted to their times, ad- mirably ; but I think it is as much a misapplication of things to bring down literally the arguments of the Apostles from Jerusalem to our times, as it would have been, were it possible, to carry back all the scien- THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. tific knowledge, and all the developed political econ- omy which we now have, and preach them in old Jerusalem, within the Temple. We should be barba- rians to them, and they woulcj be comparative barba- . rians to us. Adaptation to the times in which ive live,^ is the law of Providence. The Apostles were adapted ' to their times. We must be similarly adapted, — not in a passive, servile way, but in a living, active way, and by taking an interest in the things which men do now. What did the Apostles preach ? Did they not preach like Jews to Jews, and Greeks to Greeks ? They had liberty, and they took the things they found to be needful in their time, to the people to whom they ministered. The following of the Apostolic ex- ample is not to pursue, blindly, their external forms, but to follow the light of their humanity and that of the gospel. This was the example they set : What- ever tended to elevate men from the lower to the higher sphere, the Apostles thought lawful for them to employ in their ministry. You may ask if they did not understand human nature without all the study that I am recommending. I think that they did understand a great deal of hu- man nature. It does not follow, however, that jovl\ should not attempt to understand as much and more than they did; for such an argument as that would really be not only against a more scientific basis of knowledge of human nature for the modern preacher, but against all development of every kind, against all growth, against all culture and all refinement. You must not pattern yourselves on the antique models, / altogether, except in principle. 82 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. WEAKNESS OF GOSPEL-PREACHING IN THE PAST. It is said by some, " Has not Christianity bee'> preached by plain men, who did not understand S( very much about human nature, in every age of the world?" It has; and what have eigliteen hundred years to show for it ? To-day three fourths of the globe is heathen, or but semi-civilized. After eighteen hundred years of preaching of the faith under the inspiration of the living Spirit of God, how Tar has Christiauity gone in the amelioration of the condition of the race ? I think that one of the most humiliating things that can be contemplated, one of the things most savory to the scorner, and which seems the most likely to infuse a sceptical spirit into men, is to look at the pretensions of the men who boast of the progress of their work, and then to look at their performances. I concede that there has been a great deal done, and there has been a great deal of preparation for more ; but the torpors, the vast retrocessions, the long lethargic periods, and the wide degeneration of Christianity into a kind of ritualistic mummery and conventional usage, show very plainly that the past history of preaching Christianity is not to be our model. We must find a better mode. SPECIAL REASONS FOR STUDYING HUMAN NATURE. We need to study human nature, in the first place, because it illustrates the Divine nature, which we are to interpret to men. Divine attribute corresponds to our idea of human faculty. The terms are analogous. You cannot interpret the Divine nature except through THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 83 some knowledge of human nature. There are those who believe that God transcends men, not simply in quality and magnitude, but in kind. Without under- taking to confirm or deny this, I say that the only part of the Divine nature that we can understand is that part which corresponds to ourselves, and that all which lies outside of what we can recognize is something that never can be interpreted by us. It is not within our reach. Whatever it may be, therefore, of God, that by searching we can find out, all that we interpret, and all that we can bring, in its moral influence, to bear upon men, is in its study but a higher form of human mental philosophy. Now, let us see what government is. It is the science of managing men. What is moral government ? It is moral science, or the theory upon which God manages men. What is the management of men, again, but a thing founded upon human nature ? So that to understand moral government you are run right back to the same necessity. You must comprehend that on which God's moral government itself stands, which is human nature. But, again, the fundamental doctrine on which our labors stand is the need of the transformation of man's nature by the Divine Spirit. This is altogether a ques- tion of psychology. The old theological way of stating man's sinfulness, namely, Total Depravity," was so gross and so undiscriminating, and was so full of endless misapprehensions, that it has largely dropped out of use. Men no longer are accustomed, I think, to use that term as once they did. That all men are sinful, is taught ; but what is meant by ' sinful ' ? " is the ques- 84 LECTURES ON PREACHING. tion which immediately comes back. Instantly the schools begin to discuss it. Is it a state of the fibre of the substance or the soul ? Is it any aberration, any excess, any disproportion of natural elements ? Wherein does the fault lie ? What is it ? The moment you discuss this, you are discussing human nature. It is the mind you are discussing. In order to know what is an aberration, you must know what is normal. In order to know what is in excess, you must know what is the true measure. Who can tell whether a man is selfish, unless he knows what is benevolent ? Who can tell whether a man has departed from the correct idea, unless he has some conception of that idea ? The very foundation on which you stand to-day necessitates knowledge of man as its chief basis. Consider, too, how a minister, teaching the moral government of God, the nature of God, and the con- dition of man and his necessities, is obliged to approach the human soul. Men are sluggish, or are so occupied and filled with what are to them important interests, that, ordinarily, when a preacher comes into a com- munity, he finds it either slumbering, or averse to his message, or indifferent to it ; and, in either case, his business is to stimulate the moral nature. But how shall he know the art of stimulating man's moral nature who has never studied it ? You must arouse men and prepare them to be molded. How can you do it if you know nothing about them ? A man who would minister to a diseased body must have an accurate knowledge of the organs, and of the whole structure of the body, in a sanitary condition. We oblige our physicians to know anatomy and physi- THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 85 ology. We oblige them to study morbid anatomy, as well as normal conditions. We say that no man is prepared to practise without this knowledge, and the law interferes, or does as far as it can, to compel it. Now, shall a man know how to administer to that which is a thousand times more subtle and important than the body, and which is the exquisite blossom of the highest development and perfection of the human system, namely, the mind in its modern development, — shall he assume to deal with that, and raise and stimulate it, being ignorant of its nature ? A man may know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, he may know every theological treatise from the day of Au- gustine to the day of Dr. Taylor, and if he does not understand human nature, he is not fit to preach. Suppose a man should undertake to cut off your leg because he had been a tool-maker. He had made lan- cets, probes, saws, and that sort of thing, all his life; but he had never seen a man s leg amputated, and did not know exactly where the arteries or veins lie. Sup- pose he should think that making surgeons' tools fitted him to be a surgeon ; would it ? The surgeon must know his tools and how to handle them, but he must know, too, the system on which he is going to use them. And shall a man, charged with the care of the soul, sharpen up his understanding with moral distinctions and learned arguments, and know all about the theories of theology from Adam down to our day, and yet know nothing of the organism upon which all these instrumentalities are to be used ? Shall he know nothing about man himself? The student who goes out to his work with a- wide knowledge of theology 86 LECTURES ON PREACHINa. and no knowledge of human nature is not half fitted for his duty. One reason why so many succeed is, that although they have no formal instruction in human nature, they have learned much in the family, and in the school, and by other indirect methods, and so have a certain stock — I might say an illegitimate stock — of knowledge, but one which was not provided in the system of their studies. If I might be allowed to criticise the general theologi- cal course, or to recommend anything in relation to it, I should say that one of the prime constituents of the training should be a study of the human soul and body from beginning to end. We must arouse and stimulate men, and seek to bring them into new relations with truth, witli ourselves, and with the community. Every man has a right to go to you, if you are a min- ister who has aroused him to a sense of his relations with God, and say to you : " J^ow, my circumstances and temptations are thus and so ; give me some sort of a chart for my future guidance." But how can you, if you know nothing about human nature ? You leave him to fumble his way along the best he can. There is no special chart for him at your hands. Every man has to run liis ship in a channel peculiar to himself. There never were two men in the world that could follow each other like two ships being piloted into New York harbor. No two men are alike ; therefore, each man has to adapt to himself that which is brought to him for his own special use and improvement. What many men need is that their minister shall be able to form such an analysis of their nature that he can suggest where such a development should be repressed, and where another thp: study of human nature. 87 should be stimulated, and tell the man how to use him- self, socially as well as morally. Shall a man be born like a little child into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and then be left to shift for himself — as men mostly are, after being admitted into the church and talked to for a few weeks — after the revival has spent its force ? Shall they be left to return to their own un instructed devices, and find their way, during the rest of their lives, as best they can ? Thanks to the real intelli- gence of the community and to the heads of families, there is a great deal of progress made in this direction ; but how far it arises from a true ideal of preaching and the administration of the truth in the hands of wise preachers, I cannot say. How few ministers are there who can really comfort men, and how much need of comforting there is in this w^orld ! How the office of comforter has fallen into disuse ! How much nobler woman is than man in the administration of this gospel-gift from Jesus Christ ! Woman is ordained to perform many things much better than man, on account of her superior delicacy of organization and keenness of perception. Woman is a better instructor, from her very make and educa- tion, and as the molder and trainer of children in the household is by far man's superior. THE world's advancement IN THOUGHT. There is another consideration that we cannot blink, and that is, that we are in danger of liaving the intelli- gent part of society go past us. The study of human nature is not going to be left in the hands of the church or the ministry. It is going to be a part of every sys- 88 LECTURES ON PREACHING. tern of liberal education, and will be pursued on a scientific basis. There is being now applied among scientists a greater amount of real, searching, discrim- inating thought, tentative and experimental, to the whole structure and functions of man and the method of the development of mental force, than ever has been expended upon it in the whole history of the world put together. More men are studying it, and they are coming to results, and these results are starting, directly or indirectly, a certain kind of public thought and feel- ing. In religion, the psychological school of mental philosophers are not going to run in the old grooves of Christian doctrine ; they are not going to hold the same generic ideas respecting men. And if ministers do not make their theological systems conform to facts as they are, if they do not recognize what men are studying, the time will not be far distant when the pulpit will be like the voice crying in the wilderness. And it will not be Prepare the way of the Lord," either. This work is going to be done. The providence of God is rolling forward a spirit of investigation that Christian ministers must meet and join. There is no class of people upon earth who can less afford to let the develop- ment of truth run ahead of them than they. You cannot wrap yourselves in professional mystery, for the glory of the Lord is such that it is preached with power throughout all the length and breadth of the world, by these investigators of his wondrous creation. You cannot go back and become apostles of the dead past, drivelling after ceremonies, and letting the world do the thinking and studying. There must be a new spirit infused into the ministry. Some men are so afraid THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 89 that, in breaking away from the old systems and origi- nal forms and usages, Christianity will get the go-by ! Christianity is too vital, too really Divine in its inner- most self, to fear any such results. There is no trouble about Christianity. You take care of yourselves and of men, and learn the truth as God shows it to you all the time, and you need not be afraid of Christianity ; that will take care of itself. You might as well be afraid that battles would rend the sky, or that some- thing would stop the rising and setting of the sun. The power of Divine love and mercy is not going to be stopped, and will certainly not be stopped by the things that are true. You cannot afford to shut your eyes to the truths of human nature. Every Christian minister is bound to fairly look at these things. Every scientific man who is studying human nature is bound to open his eyes and ears, and to study all its phenomena. I read that Huxley refused to attend a seance of Spiritualists. He said, contemptuously, that it was a waste of time, and gave expression to other sentiments of disdain. I am not an adherent of the spiritual doctrines ; I have never seen my way clear to accept them. But phenomena which are wrapping up millions of men and vitally affecting their condition are not to be disdained by scientific men, whose business it is to study phenome- nology of all kinds. No scientific man can rightly refuse to examine them. He may say that he has no time to do it, and that some other man must investi- gate them. That would be right. All men cannot do all things. But to speak of anything of this kind with contempt is not wise. I am not afraid to look at this 90 LECTURES ON PREACHING. thing, or anything. I am not afraid tliat we are going to have the New Testament taken away from us. We must be more industrious in investigation, more honest in deduction, and more willing to take the truth in its new fullness ; and we must be imbued with that sim- plicity in faith and truth which we inculcate in our people. HOW TO STUDY HUMAN NATURE. With this general statement of the necessity of the study of the human nature and mind in its structure and functions, I will pass on to the next point, which is the way in wdiich this study is to be prosecuted. Ho^ are we going about it ? the first place, you must study facts, scientifi- cally. I think that such works as Bain's, while criti- cisable in many directions, are nevertheless w^orks of very great interest as showing a wise tendency in the investigation of the mind of man, — the founding of mental philosophy upon physiology. I do not com- mend the system in all its particulars, but I speak of its tendency, w^hich is in the right direction. I would say the same, also, of Herbert Spencer s works. There is much in him that I believe wdll be found sovereign and noble in the final account of truth, when our knowledge of it is rounded up. There was never a field of wheat that ripened which did not have a good deal of straw and husk with it. I doubt not but Her- bert Spencer will have much straw and husk that will need to be burned. Nevertheless, the direction he is moving in is a wise one, which is the study of human nature, of the totality of man, THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 91 It was believed once that man did not think by the brain. I believe that notion has gone by. Most men now admit that the brain is the organ of the mind. It is held that it cannot be partitioned off into provinces, and that there are no external indications of its various functions. I shall not dispute that question with you. It is now generally conceded that there is an organiza- tion which we call the nervous system in the human body, to which belong the functions of emotion, intel- ligence, and sensation, and that that is connected inti- mately with the whole circulation of the blood, with the condition of the blood as affected by the liver and by aeration in the lungs ; that the manufacture of the blood is dependent upon the stomach. So a man is what he is, not in one part or another, but all over ; one part is intimately connected with the other, from the animal stomach to the throbbing brain ; and when a man thinks, he thinks the whole trunk through. Man's power comes from the generating forces that are in him, namely, the digestion of nutritious food into vital- ized blood, made fine by oxygenation ; an organization by which that blood has free course to run and be glo- rified ; a neck that will allow the blood to flow up and down easily ; a brain properly organized and balanced ; the whole system so compounded as to have suscep- tibilities and recuperative force ; immense energy to generate resources and facility to give them out ; — all these elements go to determine what a man's working power is. And shall a man undertake to study human nature, everything depending upon his knowledge of it, and not study the prime conditions under which human nature must exist ? 92 LECTURES ON PREACHING. I have often seen young ministers sit at the table, and even those of sixty years of age, eating out of all proportion, beyond the necessities of their systems ; and I have seen, on the other hand, ministers who ate below the necessities of their systems, under a vague impression that sanctifying grace wrought better on an empty stomach than on a full one. It seems to me that all Divine grace and Divine instruments honor God's laws everywhere ; and that the best condition for grace in the mental system is that in which the human body is in a perfect state of health. That is a question which every man can best settle for himself. Some men under-sleep, and some over-sleep ; some eat too much, and some too little. Some men use stimu- lants who do not need them, while others avoid them who need them, and would be better for their use. There is a vast amount of truth relative to the indi- vidual that is. not studied by the minister, though it ought to be, as to the incoming and the outflow of force. Some clergymen prepare themselves to preach on Sunday by sitting up very late on Saturday night, and exhausting their vitality, thus compelling them- selves to force their overtasked powers to extraordi- nary exertion to perform their Sabbath duties; which entails upon them the horrors of Blue Monday, the re- sult of a spasmodic and drastic excitement. It is, and it ought to be, a purgatory to them. You must study yourselves as men. Is there no self-knowledge that can be acquired, so that a man shall know how to be merciful to his beast ? You see that whatever relates to the whole organiza- tion of the human body and its relations to health and THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 93 to perfect symmetry must be studied, for all these re- lations are intimate, and concern both your own work- ing powers and the material among men that you will have to work on. METAPHYSICAL STUDIES. ^ In studying mental philosophy after this fashion I would not have you ignore metaphysics. The percep- tions of those subtle relations, near and remote, specific and generic, that obtain among spiritual facts of differ- ent kinds, I understand to be metaphysics ; and that, I suppose, must be studied. I think it sharpens men, and renders them familiar with the operations of the human mind, if not carried too far, and gives them a grasp and penetration that they would not get other- wise. It is favorable to moral insight, when developed in connection with the other sides of human nature. While I say that you ought to study mental philosophy with a strong physiological side to it, I do not wish it to be understood that I decry mental philosophy with a strong metaphysical side to it. PHRENOLOGY AS A CONVENIENT BASIS. There is one question beyond that. The impor- tance of studying both sides of mental philosophy for the sake of religious education is one point ; but when the question comes up how to study mental philosophy, I do not know anything that can compare in facility of usableness with phrenology. I do not suppose that phrenology is a perfect system of mental philosophy. It hits here and there. It needs revising, as, in its present shape, it is crude ; but nevertheless 94 LECTURES ON PREACHING. when it becomes necessary to talk to people about themselves, I know of no other nomenclature which so nearly expresses what we need, and which is so facile in its use, as phrenology. Nothing can give you the formulated analysis of mind as that can. Now let me say, particularly, a few things about this, and personally, too. I suppose I inherited from my father a tendency or intuition to read man. The very aptitude that I rec- ognize in myself for the exercise of this power would indicate a pre-existing tendency. In my junior college year I became, during the visit of Spurzheim, enamored of phrenology. For twenty years, although T have not made it a special study, it has been the foundation on which I have worked. Admit, if you please, it is not exactly the true thing ; and admit, if you will, that there is little form or system in it ; yet I have worked with it much as botanists worked with the Linnsean system of botany, the classification of which is very convenient, although an artificial one. There is no natural system that seems to correspond to human nature so nearly as phrenology does. For example, you assume that a man's brain is the general organ of the spiritual and intellectual functions. I see a man with a small brow and big in the lower part of his head, like a bull, and I know that that man is not likely to be a saint. All the reasoning in the world would not convince me of the contrary, but I would say of such a man, that he had very intense ideas, and would bellow and push like a bull of Bashan. Now, practically, do you suppose I would commence to treat with such a man by flaunting a rag in his face ? My first instinct in regard to him is what a man would THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 95 have if he found himself in a field with a wild bull, which w^ould be to put himself on good manners, and use means of conciliation, if possible. ^ On the other hand, if I see a man whose forehead is very high and large, but who is thin in the back of the head, and with a small neck and trunk, I say to my- self. That is a man, probably, whose friends are always talking about how much there is in him, but who never does anything. He is a man who has great organs, but nothing to drive them wdth. He is like a splendid locomotive without a boiler. , Again, you will see a man wdth a little bullet-head, having accomplished more than that big-headed man, who ought to have been a strong giant and a great genius. The bullet-headed man has outstripped the broad-browed mail in everything he undertook ; and peo- ple say, " Where is your phrenology ? " In reply, I say. Look at that bullet-headed man, and see what he has to drive his bullet-head with ! " His stomach gives evidence that he has natural forces to carry forward his purposes. Then look at the big-headed man. He can't make a spoonful of blood in twenty-four hours, and what he does make is poor and thin. Phrenology classifies the brain regions well enough, but you must understand its relations to physiology, and the dependence of brain- V/ork upon the quantity and quality of blood that the man's body makes. ~ You may ask, " What is the use of knowing these things ? " All the use in the world. If a person comes to me, with dark, coarse hair, I know he is tough and enduring, and I know that, if it is necessary, I can hit him a rap to arouse him ; but if I see a person who has 96 LECTUBES ON I^REACHINC. fine silky hair, and a light complexion, I know that he is of an excitable temperament, and must be dealt with soothingly. Again, if I see one with a large blue watery eye, and its accompanying complexion, I say to myself that all Mount Sinai could not wake that man up. I have seen men of that stamp, whom you could no more stimulate to action, than you could a lump of dough by blowing a resurrection trump over it. Men are like open books, if looked at properly. Sup- pose I attempt to analyze a man's deeds ; I can do it with comparative facility, because I have in my eye the general outline of the man's disposition and mental ten- dencies. A deed is like a letter stamped from a die. The motive that directs the deed is like the matrix that molds the stamp. You may know the mold from the impression made by the stamp. You must know what men are, in order to reach them, and that is a part of the science of preaching. If there is any profession in the world that can afford to be without this practical knowledge of human nature, it certainly is not the pro- fession of a pr'&acher. While I urge the study of man from the scientific side, let me say, also, that this study is not enough, and that what we need is not simply this elementary analytical knowledge. We must study human nature for constructive purposes, also. That is the differen3e between a true preacher and an incompetent one. The lawyer must study human nature, in order to get at the facts of his case ; the merchant, for the sake of his own profits ; the politician, for the sake of carry- ing out certain political ends ; but these do not imply that men are to be made better or worse. A minister THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 97 studies human nature for the purpose of regenerating men. We study men as florists do flowers, when they wish to change them from simple blossoms into rare beauties. The object of the florist is to make them larger, to enhance their color or fragrance, or whatever other change is desired. It is to make more out of human nature than we originally find in it, that we are studying it and training it. SOCIAL HABITS. You must be familiar with men ; and you are fortu- nate if you have been brought up in a public school. There is a good deal of human nature learned by boys among boys, and by young men among young men. That is one of the arguments in favor of large gatherings of young men. A man who has struggled out from between the stones of the farm, and has fought his way through the academy, with the pity of every- body, — a pity which might well be spared, because it was God's training, — has a fine education for prac- tical life, because he knows men. The study of man is the highest of sciences. Besides this general knowledge we are to have, we should take kindly to individual men, for the very pur- pose of studying them. Now, I take great delight, if ever I can get a chance, in riding on the top of an omnibus with the driver, and talking with him. What do I gain by that ? Why, my sympathy goes out for these men, and I recognize in them an element of brotherhood, — that great human element which lies underneath all culture, which is more universal and more important than all special attributes, which is the 98 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. great generic bond of humanity between man and man. If ever I saw one of those men in my church, I could preach to him, and hit him under the fifth rib with an illustration, much better than if I had not been ac- quainted with him. I have driven the truth under many a plain jacket. But, wliat is more, I never found a plain man in this world who could not tell me mair^S things that I did not know before. There is not a gate- keeper at the Fulton Ferry, or an engineer or deck- hand on the boats, that I am not acquainted with, and they help me in more ways than they know of. If you are going to be a minister, keep very close to plain folks ; don't get above the common people. There is no danger that you will lose your sympathy with culture and refinement, as some people seem to fear. There is no danger that you will lose your purity and sensitiveness. There will be nothing incompatible in this course with the performance of your professional duties as a preacher. Good-heartedness and good, plain, hearty sympathy with men, will help everything in you which ought to be helped, and diminish those things which ought to be diminished. Study human nature by putting yourself in alliance with men. See how a mother, that best of philosophers in practical matters, understands every one of her children and the special differences between them all ; and does she not carry herself with true intuition as to their daily needs, and with the interpreting philosophy of sensitive love ? She is the best trainer of men, and has the best mental philosophy, so far as practical things are concerned. There is but one other point. While you study men scientifically, in regard to the fundamental elements THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 99 . of human nature, and again by sympathies and kindly relations to individuals to learn them well, you must be much among them, generally. You must act with men. Learn to be needful to them and to use them. A minister who stays in his study all the week long, and makes his appearance only in his pulpit to preach, may do some good, of a certain sort ; but the preacher must be a man among men. Keep out among the people. I do not mean to say that you ought to make a great many pastoral visits, but that society — men, women, and children, of all sorts — ought to be your continual and familiar acquaintances. Books alone are not enough. Studying is not enough. There is a training for you in the actual daily contact with men, of mind with mind, which will keep you down, and you will not have so much professional pride. You will find many men abler than you, and a good many men who are better qualified to teach grace to you than you are to teach them. You will often find how very superficial has been your teaching to men. No man will find a better study than where the droojiing heart is laid bare to him, or where the ever-flashing intelligence is acting in his presence. There you can see what your work has been, and what it is to be in the future. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. Can a minister be eminent both as a pastor and as a preacher ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes. It will depend, however, upon how large his pastorate is, and how much he undertakes to do. A man may not be able to take a large care of 100 LECTURES ON PREACHING. individual souls, and yet study in such a way as to be able to meet the exigencies of a city pulpit, or any labor of that kind which requires exceeding freshness and newness ; he must make an average. He must keep up his pulpit, but at the same time he must keep up his knowledge of human nature, and if he can have no substitute or assistant he must do pastoral work. I do very little of it myself, but have many assistants, and the work is done. Q. Has not science demonstrated that phrenology is imper- fect? Mr. Beecher. — I do not know that science has demonstrated it. Those who are best acquainted with it are conscious that with some crudenesses it contains a great many elements of truth, and that it is one of the tendencies in the right direction ; and when the knowl- edge of the human mind shall be finally made clear, I think it will be found that much has been owing to phrenology. Q. Would you recommend the study of Hebrew as part of a theological course ? Mr. Beecher. — There are a great many who are naturally called to scholarship, and who should educate themselves with a view to contribute to the learning of the day. A man who has that turn of mind is wise to study Hebrew. Some study of it is beneficial in other respects. I do not think that the amount of study required in our theological seminaries will hurt anybody. You need not scoff at any part of the study as if it were a surplusage. There is nothing that is taught here that you will not thank God for in the THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 101 course of your life. You can save yourselves a vast amount of trouble hereafter by faithful study now. Q. How much time ought a minister to spend in examining his text in the original ? Mr. Beecher. — Well, just as much as is necessary I to get the real spirit of the text, and that will depend upon yourself. If I should conclude to study my text from the Old Testament, in Hebrew, I think it would take me most of the week to ascertain what it was ! I o^et alonff better with the New Testament. Question by Dr. Bacon. — How far should a preacher imitate the example of Christ, and give utterance to truths which are disagreeable to the hearer ? Mr. Beecher. — No rule whatever can be given in regard to that. Whatever provocation arises from the preacher's manner or untowardness, of course, is blame- worthy in him. If he will speak truths meet for persons to hear, let him learn " speaking the truth in love." Instruct in meekness those who oppose you, for peradventure God shall give them repentance. And if you are speaking the truth, it is essential that those who hear you believe you are sincere before you can work with them. But manner is much. In the early abolition days two men went out preaching, one an old Quaker, and another a young raan full of fire. When the Quaker lectured, everything ran along very smoothly, and he carried the audience with him. When the young man lectured, there was a row^, and stones, and eggs. It became so noticeable that the young man spoke to the ^ Quaker about it. He said, " Friend, you and I are on 102 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the same mission, and preach the same things ; and how is it that while you are received cordially I get nothing but abuse ? " The Quaker replied, " I will tell thee. Thee says, ' If you do so and so, you shall be punished,' and I say, ' My friends, if you will not do so and so, you shall not be punished.' " They both said the same things, but there was a great deal of differ- ence in the way they said it. Q. Is it not true that Spurgeon is a follower of Calvin ? and is he not an eminent example of success ? Mr. Beecher. — In spite of it, yes ; but I do not know that the camel travels any better, or is any more useful as an animal, for the hump on its back. Q. May not a man be too self-conscious in his preaching ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes, but every preacher must watch his own tendencies, and labor to counteract the excess of them. In astronomy, they have always to make an equation of corrections. Every man has his own equa- tion. The different nervous activities of men make a difference in the observations of different astronomers. Every great astronomer has his own personal equation, which is generally known. That must be calculated for, in using his observations. So, every minister ought to have his personal equation, and he ought to use it himself all the time. One man says, " I am inclined by nature to take the cautious and the fearful view." Xow, he must take pains to look on the hopeful side of everything ! Another man says, " I am in- clined to benevolent views," and he must strive to bring out the conscience element. You see the appli- cation. THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 103 Q. What proportion of the study of human nature ought to be found in books, novels, etc. ? Mr. Beecher. — You can give no proportion, as you can in a physician's prescription, for the simple reason that men learn with different facilities. Some men will learn more in six months from free intercourse with people than other men will learn in six years. There is nothing in this world that will take away from a man the responsibility of finding out things for him- self. The principle being given, you must find out what you yourself need in the different methods of working and the proportions of them. V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. February 14, 1872. T is somewhat difficult to reduce to anything like precision many of the directions which I shall attempt to give you, young gentle- men, because your course will be determined so much by circumstances, that what might be true at •one time would not be true at another. CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES. For instance, in regard to preaching, the field into which you go will have very much to do with it, both as to its manner and the preparation you will make for it. A man set in an uncultivated field in the far West, among the rude pioneers, would, both inwardly and outwardly, use a different method from that which he would employ in an old and cultivated community, where the church had been organized for a long time, and where the men and women had been well instructed — drilled, indeed — in casuistical and doctrinal theol- ogy, its principles and truths. You would not think of preaching elaborate sermons in doctrinal sequence, going among people who had been utterly unused to THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WOEKING-ELEMENTS. 105 any such course as this. In a new community good sense would teach you at once, and if it did not, neces- sity would very quickly teach you, that you could not preach as you w^ould in the old pulpit. My early min- istry was spent in the West, and I had the opportunity of seeing, time and again, ministers from parishes in the East, coming out into the scattered populations of the West, made up from every quarter of the w^orld ; and it was an edifying spectacle to see the amazement, the gradual awakening, the chagrin, the confusion, the embarrassment, the glimpse of hope, the putting out of the new method, the readaptation, and, finally, the successful issue of these new ministers into their new" work ; for they had to be acclimated, not in body alone, but in preaching as well. So, I say that what would help you on the supposition that you were to settle in the East might be of very little importance to you if you were going to settle West, in Montana, for instance, or in Texas, at the South. WRITING AND EXTEMPORIZING. Then, again, different personal temperaments and habits may have very much to do wdth your mode of preaching ; and the ever-open question comes up, " Shall I write my sermons, or shall I extemporize ? " That depends, to a very considerable extent, upon a man's temperament. If he be extremely sensitive and fas- tidious by nature, and, withal, somewhat secretive and cautious, it would frequently be almost impossible for him to extemporize with fluency. Sometimes men are so oppressed under the influence of an audience that they cannot possibly think in its presence. Drill and 5* 106 LECTURES ON PREACHING. long habit may alter this ; but still, if it is rooted in a man's nature, he may never conquer it. And after all, the real thing for him to do is to preach, and whether he write his sermon or speak it without writing, let him see that he trains himself to do his work. This ques- tion is the same as asking, " Is it best for a man wdio is going hunting to take out cartridge-shells already y loaded for his gun, or shall he take loose ammunition and load with powder and shot, according to circumstan- ces, every time he is going to shoot ? " Now that is a fair question, and there is a great deal to be said on the subject. But, after all, the man who goes where the game is, always finding it and bringing it home with him, is the best hunter ; and I care not whether he carry fixed or loose ammunition. That is the best cat that catches the most rats. And in your case that will be the best form of sermon that does the, work of a ser- : mon the best. If you can do best by writing, write your sermons ; and if you can do better by not writing, do not write them. This merely by way of illustrating the difficulty there is in giving specific directions in matters of preaching. VARIATIONS OF DENOMINATIONAL SERVICE. There is another modifying circumstance that comes in, and that is the church economy through which you undertake to administer. You go out into a community, and find it already organized. Some of you will very possibly officiate in the Episcopal Church, while others of you will find yourselves in the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, or THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 107 Congregational churches, and some even, perhaps, in the Roman Catholic Church. Now you may ask, What difference does the church make ? Is not man the same, no matter what church he is in ? But really there are two great churches : those who believe that God works by the power of the truth, and according to the great natural laws ; and those who believe, in addition to this, that he works through a church organization of a definite character, which has in it certain specified and ordained channels. And, in point of fact, in proportion as churches or par- ishes are organized according to this last belief will the amount of preaching be less. There is less of it for the obvious reason that the church economy requires so much time and labor in other directions. You have to keep going the great organism in which grace inheres, and you worship by means of certain forms, ordinances, sacraments, and persons, all of whom are, in a sense, sacred; and you are obliged to give a great deal of your attention and care to the administration of that economy. You will find in the Episcopal Church — and I do not say whether it is best or not — that the average duration of the sermon is twenty or twenty-five min- utes, the service occupying an hour and a half or two hours, not one eighth of which is occupied in preach- ing. They depend upon the reading of the Scriptures, upon their musical services, and upon their forms of prayer, the sermon being but a minor thing among many considered more important. On the other hand, churches like the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and the Congregational have no liturgy, and no elaborate church 108 LECTUHES ON PREACHING. service ; they are obliged to emphasize that which they have, and the sermon becomes the chief thing in such denominations. That is the power they hold in their hand; and if they cannot wield tliat they can wield nothing ; for besides that there is very little, I am sorry to say, that is effectual in the work of their ministry, — and that is the weak spot in our scheme. Although there is a great deal of preaching in the Methodist Church (as developed under Wesleyan teach- ings), yet you will take notice that that is not all. While they preach a great deal, and put an emphasis upon it, yet, after all, they expect the main work to be done otherwise. When the preaching is over, they have a rousing good time in the social meeting, singing and praying, and then it is expected that men will be caught and brought into the church. You will find that generally, in New England, they have run to preaching. Why ? Because they had nothing else to run to. The pulpit was made every- thing of, and the whole economy of the church was barren outside of that. There was very little of sing- ing, and what there was did not always minister to grace. The praying was sometimes most helpful, and sometimes not so much so ; but after the reading of the Scriptures (and that, in my childhood, was not very much indulged in in parish churches), the main thing was preaching. Now, if one goes into a community where the ser- mon is everything, and other things are almost nothing, of course his preaching will be very different from what it would be were he to go into an Episcopal or a Meth- odist Church, where there is a large economy besides THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 109 preaching, on which the minister depends for success in his labors. Again, you may have to build uj) a com- munity. Or you may have to arouse them, — to loosen up the earth, and, as it were, take soil there, where the ground has been ploughed and worn out and abandoned, like old Virginia's soil. Or you may have to take new prairie soil and break it up yourself. All these things will determine your style of preaching. So, then, when you go away from here into your field of labor, you will find that it is only very little of what you have heard in the seminary that you can immediately apply. You must do things according to some principle of common- sense, aside from what you may have learned here. All these lessons that you are being taught in the seminary are of a great deal more importance to you than you believe now. You will think better of your theological training twenty years hence than to-day, perhaps. But, after all, mother- wit and a patient finding out of your road from day to day are going to teach you in the last instance, and they will be your best teachers. THE POWER OF IMAGINATION. Yet, despite all these necessary differences, there are certain important elements that enter into all ministries. And the first element on which your preaching will largely depend for power and success, you will perhaps be surprised to learn, is Imagination, which I regard as the most important of all the elements that go to make the preacher. But you must not understand me to mean the imagination as the creator of fiction, and still less as the factor of embellishment. The imagina- tion in its relations to art and beauty is one thing ; and 110 LECTURES ON PREACHING. in its relations to moral truth it is another thing, of the most substantial character. Imagination of this kind is the true germ of faith ; it is the power of con- ceiving as definite the things which are invisible to the senses, — of giving them distinct shape. And this, not merely in your own thoughts, but with the power of presenting the things which experience cannot primarily teach to other people's minds, so that they shall be just as obvious as though seen with the bodily eye. ^ Imagination of this kind is a most vital element in preaching. If we presented to people things we had seen, we should have all their bodily organism in our "^-^ favor. My impression is, that the fountain of strength in every Christian ministry is the power of the minister himself to realize God present, and to present him to the people. No ministry can be long, various, rich, and fruitful, I think, except from that root. We hear a great deal about the breadth of the pulpit, and about the variety of the pulpit, and about carrying the truth home to men's hearts. I have said a great deal to you /about it, and shall say more. I claim that the pulpit has a right and a duty to discuss social questions, — moral questions in politics, slavery, war, peace, and the intercourse of nations. It has a right to discuss com- merce, industry, political economy ; everything from the roof-tree to the foundation-stone of the household, and \everything that is of interest in the State. You have a duty to speak of all these things. There is not so broad a platform in the world as the Christian pulpit, nor an air so free as the heavenly air that overhangs it. /You have a right and a duty to preach on all these THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. Ill things ; but if you make your ministry to stand on them, it will be barren. It will be rather a lectureship than a Christian ministry. It will be secular and will be- come secularized. The real root and secret of power, after all, in the pulpit, is the preaching of the invisi^ tie God to the people as an ever-present God. The preacher, then, must have the greatness of the God- power in his soul ; and when he is himself inspired with it, — and filled with it so familiarly that always and everywhere it is the influence under which he looks out at man, at pleasure, at honor, and at all the vicissitudes of human life, — still standing under the shadow of God's presence, he has the power of God with man when he comes to speak of the truths of the gospel as affecting human procedure. This power of conceiving of invisible things does not only precede in point of time, but it underlies, and is dynamically superior to, anything else. Now, imagination is indispensable to the formation of any clear and distinct ideas of God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost. For myself, I am compelled to say that I must form an ideal of God through his Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is indispensable to me. My nature needs to fashion the thought of God, though I know him to be a Spirit, into something that shall nearly or remotely represent that which I know. I hold before my mind a glorified form, therefore ; but, after all the glory, whatever may be the nimbus and the effluence around about it, it is to me the form of a glorified man. And I therefore fashion to myself, out of the spirit, that which has to me, as it were, a Divine presence and a Divine being, namely, a Divine man. 112 LECTURES ON PREACHING. But now come the attributal elements, the fashion- ing of the disposition, and not only that, but a fashion- ing of the whole interior. I bring to you some day the face, in miniature, of one very beautiful. You look upon it, and say, " Who is that ? " I describe the person and give you the name. You say, "It is a beautiful face." But you do not, after looking at it, feel that you are acquainted with the person. Now I will take you home with me and introduce you to the friend whose name belongs to this picture ; but still you would not feel that you knew her. You salute her morning and evening, converse with her, and take part in the social festivities. You admire her tact, her delicacy, and her beauty. You say the acquaintance opens well. She seems to you very lady-like and at- tractive. On the Sabbath day the Bible-class assembles, and you go there with your friend. In the recitations and the low-toned conversations she shows great knowl- edge and moral feeling, a bright intellect, and marvel- lous discrimination. But, still, you do r ot feel that you know her. Then you fall sick, and experience that delicious interval just after a severe illness, which one sometimes has, — the coming dawn after a long night, heralding the morning of returning health. In that time the hours are to be filled up, and she becomes a ministering angel unto you. She is full of resources for your comfort. You notice the wisdom of lier management, the power she has to stimulate thought, to play with the imagination, and to cheer the heart. I am not now speaking of one to whom you are to be affianced. It is not for you ; only you are making the acquaintance of one whose portrait you had seen, but THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 113 nothing more. And by thus living in communion with you, she has affected you, little by little, in such a manner that it has been brought home to you ; and you say, " I have found a friend ! " W ell, who was she ? Did you hiow her when you first saw her portrait ? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ when you merely see his portrait, as it were, in the Evangelists ? , Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ when you simply range through his words of wisdom, and take them, germ-words as they are, with all the fullness that you can ? No, not until you have been intimate with him, and have had your hearts lifted up in their noblest elements into that serener air through which God only communicates. It is not until you have been in this atmosphere, not only on the Lord's day, but on the in- tervening days. It is not until, by the Holy Spirit, you have been made sensitive in every part, and the Lord Jesus Christ becomes chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely. It is not until you have the power to transfuse Jesus Christ into your whole life that you know him, — until there is something in the morning dawn that brings you the thought of him, in the hush of the evening, at noon-time, in the budding and springing of the trees, in the singing of the birds, when you sit listless on the grass in the summer, in the retreats of man, in the cities and towns, with the fertile power of suggestion and association by which you feel that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. When you know him in all the boundless domain of nature, everything speaks to you of your Lord Jesus Christ. Just so, in your father's house, every room speaks to you of your mother who is gone, H 114 LECTURES ON PREACHINCt. — every stair in tlie staircase, every sound of the bell, every tick of the clock, and everything under the roof, bring back to you her memory. It is not until Jesus Christ fills the soul full, and, he is yours, born into you, made familiar, rich, and various, touching something in every part of your nature, and spreading out over all the things around about you, that you have the imagi- nation to conceive of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have a living conception of him, which you can teach and present to others. But this imagination is required still more vividly in the second step, namely, the power to throw out your conceptions before others, and such a preaching of the Lord Jesus Clirist as shall bring him home to your hearers. How will you undertake to do this ? You will have little children to deal with. You will have persons of great practical sense, but of very little imagination, if any. You will have persons of a way- ward, coarse temperament, and again others of a fine, sensitive nature. You will have those who take moral impressions with extreme facility, and who understand analogies and illustrations ; and you will have others who understand nothing of this kind. These persons you must imbue with a sense of Christ's presence with ^ them. This is the prime question in your ministerial ^ life, — how to bring Jesus Christ home to men, so that he shall be to them what he is to you. You may pre- sent Christ to them historically, and far be it from me to say that you must not put great emphasis upon the historical study of Christ ; but you must remember that Christ, as he was eighteen hundred years ago, in- terpreted by the letter, is not a living Christ. It is an THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING -ELEMENTS. 115 liistorical picture, but it is not a live Christ. Thence must you get your materials, out of which to make the living faith. Many a minister believes that after he has been delivering a series of sermons on the life and times of Christ, he has been preaching Christ. He has been merely preaching about him, not preaching him. There is many a minister who has been preaching the philosophy of Christ ; that is, a view of Christ in which, with infinite refinements and cultured arguments, he makes him one of the persons in the Trinity, — who is jealous for his service, jealous for his honor, exactly discriminating where the line of infinity comes down and touches the line of finity, and pugnacious all along that line, — and then thinks that he has been preaching Christ. Some ministers think that they have been preaching Christ when^ they have been discoursing about the relations of Christ to the law, the nature of his sufferings, how it was necessary that he. should suffer, what the effect of his suffering was upon the universe, and what was the nature of the effect of his suffering upon Divine law, and on the Divine sense of justice. They work out of the life and times of Christ, and out of his sufferings and death, a theory of Atone- ment, or, as it is called, a Plan of Salvation," and present that to men, and then they think they have presented Christ. Now I am not saying that you should not discuss such themes, but only that you should not suppose m so doing you have been preaching Christ. You cannot do it in that way. To preach Christ is to make such a presentation of him as shall fill those who hear you. They must be made to conceive it in themselves, 116 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. and he must be to them a live Saviour, as he is to you. One of the noblest expressions of Paul is where he exclaims, " Christ who died, yea, rather, who livethj' as if he bounded back from the thought of speaking about Christ as dead. He is one who liveth again and reign eth in the heavens over all the earth. There is danger of a mistake being made here. You might ask me if you ought not to preach atonement. Yes. Ought you not, also, to preach the nature, suffer- ings, and death of Christ ? Yes, provided you will not suppose you understand more than you really do on these subjects. There is much in that direction that may contribute to instruction ; but it seems to me that what you need, what I need, and what the community needs, is that, in a world full of penalty, where aches, pains, tears, sighs, and groans bear witness to Divine justice, — where, from the beginning, groanings and tra- vailings have testified that God is an avenger, — there shall be brought out from this discouraging background the truth of the gospel, that God loves mankind, and would not that they die. He is the God that shall wipe away the tears from every eye. He is the God that shall put out with the brightness of his face the light of the sun and of the moon. He shall put his arm around about men, and comfort them as a mother her child. That is the love of God in Christ Jesus. With this we would stimulate men when they are sluggish, would develop their better natures, give them hope in a future life, cheer them onward in the path of duty, and give them confidence in immortality and eternity ; for in God we live and move, and have our being. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 117 The imagination, then, is that power of the mind by^ which it conceives of invisible things, and is able to' present them as though they were visible to others. That fs one of its most transcendent offices. It is the quality which of necessity must belong to the ministryy The functions of the preacher require it. In godly families it was, formerly, the habit to discourage the imagination, or to use it only occasionally. They mis- conceived its glorious functions. It is, I repeat, the very marrow of faith, or that power by which w^e see the invisible and make others see it. It is the power to bring from the depths the things that are hidden from the bodily eye. A ministry enriched by this noble faculty will not and cannot wear out, and the preacher's people will never be tired of listening to him. Did you ever hear anybody say that spring has been worn out ? It has been coming for thousands of years, and it is just as sweet, just as welcome, and just as new, as if the birds sang for the first time ; and so it will be for a thousand years to come. These great processes of nature that are continuall}^ recurring cannot weary us. But discussions of the systems of theology will. Men get accustomed to repetitions of the same thoughts ; but there is something in the love of God and Jesus Christ, and in the application of these things to the human soul, that will give an ever-varying freshness to a ministry which occupies itself with the contemplation and teaching of this law of love, and applying the knowledge to all the varying wants and shifting phases of the congregation. Even though you are forty years in one parish, you will never have finished your preach- ing, and you will not tire your people. LECTUKES ON PREACHING. EMOTION. The next element that I shall mention is the power of Feeling. There is a great deal of natural emotion in New-Engianders, but much of it is suppressed. It is not the habit of people in our Eastern States to show feeling nearly as much as in the South, nor as much as in the West. The New Testament, however, is Oriental, and the Orientals always had, and showed, a great deal of emotion. The style of the Apostles' procedure shows that they had a great deal of fervency, which is only another term for emotional outplay. If a man undertake to minister to the wants of his congregation purely by the power of feeling, without adequate force in the intellect, there are valid objec- tions to that ; but every man who means to be in affinity with his congregation must have feeling. It cannot be lielped. A minister without feeling is no better than a book. You might just as well put a book, printed in large type, on the desk where all could read it, and have a man turn over the leaves as you read, as to have a man stand up, and clearly and coldly recite the precise truth through which he has gone by a logical course of reasoning. It has to melt some- where. Somewhere there must be that power by which the man speaking and the men hearing are unified ; and that is the power of emotion. It will vary indefinitely in different persons. Som^ will have much emotion, and some but very little. It is a thing to be striven for. Where there is relatively a deficiency, men can educate themselves and acquire this power. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 119 Now one of the great hindrances to the exhibition of true Christian feeling in the pulpit is tliat which I hear called the dignity of the pulpit." Men have been afraid to lay that aside, and bring themselves under the conditions necessary for the display of emo- tion. Now and then they will have a sublime, religious tone of feeling at a revival. But, after all, there is a vast amount of feeling playing in every man's mind, which is a very able element in preaching. It may be intense, earnest, pathetic, or cheerful, mirthful, and gratifying, and is the result of love to God and God's creatures. If a man desires to preach with power, he must have this element coming and going between him and his hearers ; he must believe what he is saying, and what he says must be out of himself,* and not out of his manuscript merely. If a man cannot be free to speak as he feels, but is thinking all the time about the sacredness of the place, it will shut him up. He will grow critical. I think the best rule for a man in society — and it is good for the pulpit too — is to have right aims, do the best things by the best means you can find, and then let yourself alone. Do not be a spy on yourself. A man who goes down the street thinking of himself all the time, with critical analysis, whether he is doing this, that, or the other thing, — turning himself over as if he were a goose on a spit before a fire, and basting himself with good resolutions, — is simply belittling himself. This course is bad also in the closet. There is a large knowledge of one's self that every man should have. But a constant study of one's own morbid anatomy is very discouraging and harmful. It . 120 LECTURES ON PREACHING. is the power of being free and independent in their opinions that men want, and they must get it in some way or other. Having right aims, be manly ; know that you mean right, that you will do right by the right way ; then let go, and do not be thinking of yourself, if you can help it, from sunrise to sunset. A man must go into the pulpit with this spirit. Let him know what he w^ants, and let him be able to say, " God knows what sends me here to-day." Let his heart be right with God. When he is working for men and among them, if it is best for him to write, let him write ; but it is better, for the most successful work, that he should not stand up and recite merely. You know what you can do only Avhen the sacred fire is upon you. You have no time then for analyzing the effect upon yourself in any minute way. Many men go into the pulpit fresh from the mirror, cravatted and in perfect toilet, with the sanctity of the place weighing upon them, and everything complete and proper. They know if there is the slightest aberration ; and under all this there is a profound self-conscious- ness. They are shocked if any man, in such a place, does that which creates the slightest discord with their awful solemnity, or breaks the sanctity of the pulpit. Now, according to my own principles, when a man is a » messenger of God, and knows that men are in danger, and believes that he is sent to rescue them, he must be lost in the enthusiasm of that work. Do you suppose he can stop his feelings from being manifested by any system of pulpit routine ? If he is naturally correct and makes no mistakes, so much the better, for I do not think that mistakes are desirable; but there may THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 121 be a "propriety" in his preaching that will damn half his congregation, or there may occasionally be almost an "impropriety" that v/ill Imrt nobody, and, accom- panied with the right manner, will save multitudes of men. If it is for anything, it is to save men that you are going into the ministry. If you do not go for that, you would better stay out. Men often think that excitements are dangerous. Yes ; everything is dangerous in this world. From the time that a man is born into the world until he leaves it, it is always possible that there might be danger coupled with everything he does. There is a danger that your feeling may be too boisterous, or of too coarse a nature, or that it will not be adapted to the wants of the conoTC^^ation ; all these things are to be taken into consideration. But there is no danger from excitemenT^ that is half so fearful as the danger of not feeling and. not caring. The want of feeling is a hundred times more dangerous than any excitement that you can bring { to bear upon a community. ENTHUSIASM. ^ There is another force which I desire to speak of, and that is the element of Enthusiasm. This is not feelino^, because pure emotion may or may not be accompanied by enthusiasm. There is in all enthusiasm a certain outburst and glow. You may have enthusiasm and feeling ; or, it may be, enthusiasm and imagination ; or, it may be, enthusiasm and reason. In almost all com-" munities enthusiasm stands before everything else in [ moving popular assemblies. A preacher who is enthu- siastic in everything he does, in all that he believes^ 6 122 LECTURES ON PREACHING. and in all the movements of his ministry, will generally carry the people with him. He may do this without enthusiasm, but it will be a slow process, and the work will be much more laborious. If you have the power / [)f speech and the skill of presenting the truth, and / are enthusiastic, the people will become enthusiastic. ♦ People will take your views, because your enthusiasm V has inoculated them. Very often you will see a man Vof great learning go into a community and accomplish nothing at all ; and a whipster will go after him with not as much in his whole body as his predecessor had in his little finger, yet he will revolutionize everytliing. You may say that a community aroused by enthu- siasm alone will just as quickly relapse into their former state. Yes ; but I do not counsel enthusiasm alone. The mistake is in permitting any such relapse. It is the same as though you ploughed a field and then left it for the rain to level again. You must not only plough it, but sow seed, harrow, and till it. Yet it is essential that the field should be ploughed. So it is with a community. Mere enthusiasm will do nothing permanent ; but its work must be followed up by con- tinual and fervent preaching, and by indoctrination of the truths of the gospel. I repeat, therefore, that enthusiasm is an indispensable element in a minister's work among men, to bring them to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. FAITH. The other element that I wish to discuss is Faith, in the sense of belief. I do not mean now by faith what^^ I did in the other instance, namely, the realization of THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 123 the invisible, but the believing spirit which you must have, — tlie conviction of what you teach. A man who does not believe what he is preaching will very seldom make his people believe it ; and, therefore, I say if your minds are much in doubt in respect to the grounds or the great truths of Christianity, and if you are thinking about that all the time, you will never be preachers. You must get rid of that feeling. You can get over it by bringing yourselves to deal with the* wants of men, and accustoming yourselves to practical life. There is no study like mixing with men, and helping them. There is hothing that will make you believe in God so much as trying to be like God your- selves to your fellow-men, nor anything that will bring Christ so near to you as trying to do what Christ did, by giving up your will for your people, and conforming yourself to their dispositions, and presenting to them everything you have realized in respect to the great doctrines of Christianity. I do not understand how men can preach these doctrines who are occupied all the week in raising questions of doubt. There is abroad a habit of mind which is .called constructive criticism " by philosophers, w^hich is now prevalent in Germany, and somewhat so in England, and is even throwing its shadow upon our own land, and exciting men's minds. A man under that influence is, as it were, congealed, and loses his electrical power, by which only a man preaches with any effect. There was some- thing almost omnipotent and altogether triumphant in the expression, ''I know in w^hom I believe." A man who is the very embodiment of conviction, and who pours it out upon people so that they can see it and 124 LECTURES ON PREACHING. feel it, can preach. He can make men believe things that are true, and even those that are not true, such as that ordinances are indispensable which are not indis- pensable. He can do almost everything with people, for he really believes his own doctrine. See Eoman Catholic priests go into a community, — and there are many of them that might be our exemplars in piety and self-denial, — and with that intense faith and zeal which have made them martyrs among savages, see them labor among the people, and lead them into the fold of the Eoman Church. That is largely the result of the Faith-power. If you are going to preach, do not take things about which you are in doubt to lay before your people. Do not prove things too much. A man who goes into his J pulpit every Sunday to prove things gives occasion for ^ people to say, " Well, that is not half so certain as I thought it was." You will, by this course, raise up a generation of chronic doubters, and will keep them so by a little drilling in the nice refinement of doctrinal criticism. You can drive back from the heart the great surges of faith with that kind of specious argument, and even the true witness of the Spirit of God in men may be killed in your congregation by such doubting logic. Do not employ arguments any more than is T necessary, and then only for the sake of answering / objections and killing the enemies of the truth ; but in f so far as truth itself is concerned, preach it to the con- [ sciousness of men. If you have not spoiled your peo- ple, you have them on your side already. The Word of God and the laws of truth are all conformable to rea- son and to the course of things that now are ; and, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 125 certainly, everything that is required in a Christian life — repentance for sin and turning from it, the taking hold of a higher manhood, the nobility and disinterest- edness of man — goes with God's Word and laws natu- rally. Assume your position, therefore ; and if a man says to you, " How is it you are so successful while using so little argument ? " tell him that is the very reason of your success. Take things for granted, and men w^ill not think to dispute them, but will admit ^ them, and go on with you and become better men than if they had been treated to a logical process of argu- ment, which aroused in them an argumentative spirit of doubt and opposition. Eemember, then. Imagination, Emotion, Enthusiasm, and Conviction are the four foundation-stones of an./ effective and successful ministry. / Q. Suppose a man does not have the enthusiasm of which you have spoken, wiiat is he to do ? Mr. Beecher. — Do the best he can, and stop. I think it would be a very wholesome thing in a man's parish life, if once in a while, upon finding that he was not making much of a sermon, he should frankly con- fess it, and say, " Brethren, we will sing." Q. Suppose a man tries to work himself up to a feehng of enthusiasm by action and increased emphasis, can he be success- Mr. Beecher. — In regard to that, I will mention a circumstance that occurred to my father. I recollect his coming home in Boston one Sunday, when I was QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. ful? 126 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. quite a small boy, saying how glad he was to get home, away from the church ; and he added, It seems to me I never made a worse sermon than I did this morning." 1/ " Why, father/' said I, I never heard you preach so loud in all my life." " That is the way," said he, I always holloa wlien I have n't anything to say ! " But how far a man may assume the language of feeling — and he may sometimes, in order to its pro- duction — is a fair question, though one I do not now wish to discuss. There is some difference in the ques- tions put by gray hairs and those put by young men, I notice. [The questioner was an elderly man.] I am sure of one thing, and that is, where a man is naturally cold he is not as well adapted to the office of preaching as an enthusiastic man. I would say to such a man, "Put yourself in that situation in which sympathy naturally flows ; then provide a mold for it, and it will fit the mould first or last." It is just like the culti- vation of right feeling in any direction. One of my parishioners will say to me, I have no benevolence, but you preach that I ought to give, — what shall I do ? " I say to him, Give, as a matter of duty, until you feel a pleasure in doing it, and the right feeling will come of itself" So, in addressing a congregation, a man may use the language of a feeling for the sake of getting and propagating the feeling. Indeed, when it comes to preaching, I think it would be a great deal better to act as though you had the feeling, even if you had not, for its effect in carrying your audience whither you wish to carry them. Q. Do you approve of the appointment of professional re- vivalists ? THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORKING-ELEMENTS. 127 Mr. Beecher. — Yes, if I employ them. If they use me, I do not like it. The term professional re\dvalist " is a fortunate one. I have known a great many of these persons, and a great many that did not do much good. Others I have known who have done a great deal of good. I do not see why, if a man has received from God the gifts of arousing people, and bringing them to see and acknowledge the great moral truths of Christianity, he should not be employed as a revivalist, under judicious administration. He should be employed by others, always, so as to work into the hands of the pastors, so as to unite the church, and not to divide it. There are difficulties in the " evangelist system," but there are benefits in it also, and in many cases, and in many parts of the country, it would seem almost indispensable to the growth of the churches. In churches that maintain a regular organization, and are alive and active, I do not see the need of profes- sional revivalists ; but where they are run down, and in scattered neighborhoods, I would certainly advise the use of such instrumentalities. VI. EHETOEICAL DEILL AND GENEEAL TEAINING. February 21, 1872. HEEE is, in certain quarters, a prejudice existing against personal training for preaching, in so far as it is affected by posture, gestures, and the like. There is a feeling abroad in regard to it, as though it would make a dramatic art out of that which should be a sacred inspiration. Men exclaim, "Think of Paul taking lessons in posturing and gesticulation, or of St. John considering beforehand about his robes and the various positions that he should assume ! They say, " Let a man who is called of God go into his closet, if he would prepare ; let him be filled with his subject and with the Holy Ghost, and he need not think of anything else." But suppose a man should stutter, and you should tell him to go into his closet and be filled with the Holy Ghost, would it cure his stuttering ? Suppose a clergyman is a great, awkward, sprawling fellow, do you suppose he can pray himself into physical grace ? You do not think that the call of the Divine Spirit is a RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 129 substitute for study and for intellectual preparation. You know that a man needs academical or professional education in order to preach his best. But the same considerations that make it wise for you to pass through a liberal education, make it also wise for you to pass through a liberal drill and training in all that pertains to oratory. THE VOICE. It is, however, a matter of very great importance what end you seek by such training. If a man is attempting to make himself simply a great orator, if his thought of preaching is how to present the most admirable "presence before the people, and how to have tones that shall be most ravishing and melting, and if he consider the gesture that is appropriate to this and that sentence, — in short, if he studies as an actor studies, and as an actor properly studies, too, — he will make a great mistake ; for what are the actor's ends are but the preacher's means. On the other hand, as a man's voice is that instrument by which the preacher has to perform his whole work, its efficiency is well worthy of study. For instance, the voice must be elastic, so that it can be used for long periods of time without fatigue ; and the habitual speaker should learn to derive from it the power of unconscious force. There is just as much reason for a preliminary system- atic and scientific drill of the voice as there is for the training of the muscles of the body for any athletic exercise. A man often has, when he begins to preach,"^ a low and feeble voice , each one of his sentences seems like a poor scared mouse running for its hole, 6* I ' 130 LECTURES ON PREACHINC^. and everybody sympathizes with the man as he is hurrying through his discourse in this way, rattling one word into the other. A little judicious drill would have helped him out of that. If his attention can be called to it before he begins his ministry, is it not worth his while to form a better liahit 1 A great many men commence preaching under a nervous excitement. They very speedily rise to a sharp and hard monotone ; and then they go on through their whole sermon as fast as they can, never letting their voices go above or below their false pitch, but always sticking to that, until everybody gets tired out, and they among the rest. VARIOUS VOCAL ELEMENTS. If a man can be taught in the beginning of his ministry something about suppleness of voice and the method of using it, it is very much to his advantage. For example, I have known scores of preachers who had not the slightest knowledge of the explosive tones of the voice. Now and then a man falls into it by nature," as it is said ; that is, he stumbles into it acci- dentally. But the acquired power of raising the voice at will in its ordinary range, then explosively, and again in its higher keys, ^nd the knowledge of its possibilities under these different phases, will be very helpful. It will help the preacher to spare both him- self and his people. It will help him to accomplish results almost unconsciously, when it has become a habit, that could not be gained in any other way. There are a great many effects in public speaking that you must fall into the conversational tone to make. RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 131 Every man ought to know the charm there is in that tone, and especially when using the vernacular or idiomatic English phrases. ■ I have known a great many most admirable preachers who lost almost all real sympathetic hold upon their congregations be- cause they were too literary, too periphrastic, and too scholastic in their diction. They always preferred to i use large language, rather than good Saxon English. But let me tell you, there is a subtle charm in the use of plain language that pleases people, they scarcely know why. It gives bell-notes which ring out sugges- tions to the popular heart. There are words that men have heard wdien boys at home, around the hearth and the table, words that are full of father and of mother, and full of common and domestic life. Those are the words that afterward, when brought into your discourse, will produce a strong influence on your auditors, giving an element of success ; words which will have an effect that your hearers themselves cannot understand. For, after all, simple language is loaded down and stained through with the best testimonies and memories of life. Now, being sure that your theme is one of interest, and worked out with thought, if you take language of that kind, and use it in colloquial or familiar phrases, you must adapt to it a quiet and natural inflection of voice, — for almost all the sympathetic part of the voice is in the lower tones and in a conversational strain, — and you will evoke a power that is triumphant in reaching the heart, and in making your labors successful among the multitudes. But there is a great deal besides that. Where you are not enforcing anything, but are persuading or en- 132 LECTURES ON PREACHING. couraging men, you will find your work very difficult if you speak in a loud tone of voice. You may fire an. audience with a loud voice, but if you wish to draw^ them into sympathy and to win them by persuasion, and are near enough for them to feel your magnet- ism and see your eye, so that you need not liave to strain your voice, you must talk to them as a father would talk to his child. You will draw them, and will gain their assent to your propositions, when: you could do it in no other way, and certainly not by shouting. On the other hand, where you are in eager exhorta- tion, or speaking on public topics, where your theme calls you to denunciation, to invective, or anything of that kind, the sharp and ringing tones that belong to the upper register are sometimes well-nigh omnipotent. There are cases in which by a single explosive tone a man will drive home a thought as a hammer drives a nail ; and there is no escape from it. I recollect, on one occasion, to have heard Dr. Humphrey, President of Amherst College, who certainly was not a rhetorician, speaking in respect to the treatment of the Indians. He used one of the most provincial of provincialisms, yet it came with an explosive tone that fastened it in my memory ; and not only that, but it gave an impulse to my whole life, I might say, and affected me in my whole course and labor as a reformer. It was the effect of but a single w^ord. He had been describing the shameful manner in which our government had broken treaties with the Indians in Florida and Georgia, under the influence of Southern statesmanship. He went on saying what was just and what was right, and RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 133 came to the discussion of some critical point of policy which had been proposed, when he suddenly ceased his argument, and exclaimed, " The voice of the people will be lifted up, and they shall say to the gwernment, YOU SHA'NT!" Now ^^sha'n't" is not very good English, but it is provincial, colloquial, and very fa- miliar to every boy. It carried a home feeling with it, and we all knew what it meant. He let it out like a bullet, and the whole chapel was hushed for the mo- ment, and then the rustle followed which showed that the shot had struck. It has remained in my memory ever since. NECESSITY OF DRILL. All these various modes of drilling the voice are very important. They give the power to use it on a long strain without tiring it ; to use it from top to bottom, so as to have all the various effects, and to know what they are ; and to make it flexible, so that you have a ready instrument at your will. These are very important elements to a man who is going to be a preacher. You say, " Yes, I suppose a man ought to take some lessons in regard to these things, but he need not make it a study." I beg your pardon, gen- tlemen, don't touch it unless you are going to make thorough work of it. No knowledge is really knowU edge until you can use it without knowing it. You do not understand the truth of anything until it has so far sunk into you that you have almost forgotten where you got it. No man knows how to play a piano who stops and says, Let me see, that is B, and that IS D," and so on. When a man has learned and mas- 134 LECTtJRES ON t^REACHlNG. (ered his instrument thoroughly, he does not stop to think which keys he must strike, but his fingers glide from one to the other mechanically, automatically, al- most involuntarily. This subtle power comes out only when he has subdued his instrument and forgotten himself, conscious of nothing but the ideas and har- monies which he wishes to express. If you desire to have your voice at its best, and to make the best use of it, you must go into a drill which will become so familiar that it ceases to be a matter of thought, and the voice takes care of itself. This ought to be done under the best in- structors, if you have the opportunity ; if not, then study the best books and faithfully practice their direc- tions. It was my good fortune, in early academical life, to fall into the hands of your estimable fellow- citizen. Professor Lovell, now of New Haven, and for a period of three years I was drilled incessantly (you might not suspect it, but I was) in posturing, gesture, and voice-culture. His manner, however, he very^ properly did not communicate to me. And manner is a thing wliich, let me here remark, should, never be communicated or imitated. It was the skill of that gentleman that he never left a manner with anybody. He simply gave his pupils the knowledge of what they had in themselves. Afterward, when going to the seminary, I carried the method of his in- structions with me, as did others. We practiced a great deal on what was called " Dr. Barber's System," which was then in vogue, and particularly in develop- ing the voice in its lower register, and also upon the explosive tones. There was a large grove lying be- RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 135 tween the seminary and my father's house, and it was the habit of my brother Charles and myself, and one or two others, to make the night, and even the day, hideous with our voices, as w^e passed backward and forward through the wood, exploding all the A^owels, from the bottom to the very top of our voices. I found it to be a very manifest benefit, and one that has remained with me all my life long. The drill that I underwent produced, not a rhetorical manner, but a flexible instrument, that accommodated itself readily to every kind of thought and every shape of feeling, and obeyed the inward will in the outward realization of the results of rules and regulations. HEALTH OF THE VOICE. In respect to the preservation of the voice there is but little to be said, except this, that a good, healthy man, who maintains wholesome habits, keeps his neck tough, treats his head and chest daily with cold affu- sions, and does not exhaust himself unnecessarily in overstrained speech, should not find it difficult to maintain his voice in a healthy condition, and that through life. I will not go into that obscure subject of ministers' bronchitis. I never had it, and therefore know nothing of it, for which I thank God. If you have it, or are threatened with it, it is rather for your physician than for an unskilled person to give you directions about it. But, generally, a healthy body and a careful prudence in the exercise of the voice will, I think, go far to make you sound speakers dur- ing the whole of your lives, 136 LECTURES ON PREACHING. BODILY CARRIAGE — - POSTURE. It is not necessary that a man should stand awk- wardly because it is natural. It is not necessary that a man, because he may not be able to stand like the statue of Apollo, should stand ungracefully. He loses, unconsciously, a certain power ; for, although he does not need a very fine physical figure (which is rather y a hindrance, I think), yet he should be pleasing in his bearing and gestures. A man who is very beauti- ful and superlatively graceful sets people to admiring him ; they make a kind of monkey god of him, and it stands in the way of his usefulness. From this temp- tation most of us have been mercifully delivered. On the other hand, what we call naturalness, fitness, good \^ taste, and propriety are to be sought. You like to see a man come into your parlor with, at least, ordinary good manners and some sense of propriety, and what you require in your parlor you certainly have a right to expect in church. One of the reasons why I con- demn these churns called pulpits is that they teach . a man bad habits ; he is heedless of his posture, and learns bad tricks behind these bulwarks. He thinks that people will not see them. GESTURE. So with gestures. There are certain people who will never make many gestures, but they should see to it that what they do make shall be graceful and appropri- ate. There are others who are impulsive, and so full of feeling that they throw it out in every direction, and it is, therefore, all the more important that their action KHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 137 shall be shorn of awkwardness and constrained man- nerism. Now and' then a man is absolutely dramatic, as, for instance, John B. Gough, who could not speak otherwise. It is unconscious with. him. It is inherent in all natural orators ; they put themselves at once, unconsciously, in sympathy with the things they are describing. In any of these situations, whether you are inclined to but little action or a great deal, or even to dramatic forms of action, it is very desirable that you should drill yourselves and . practice incessantly, so that your gestures shall not offend good taste. This, too, is a very different thing from practicing before a mirror, and it is a very different thing from making actors of yourselves. It is an education that ought to take place early, and which ought to be incorporated into your very being. SEMINARY TRAINING. I will pass on now to some suggestions in respect to your seminary course. I know very well how impa- tient and eager many students are to get rid of the two or three years' training which is required in the seminary. A man who is naturally a scholar loves to procure knowledge, because it is a luxury for him to study. He will probably be an over-studious man, and will need to be checked rather than stimulated to greater activity. But those who are impatient of study, and are longing to go into the field, and who want to pray and converse with impenitent sinners and bring tliem into the Kingdom, will often say, What do you suppose Latin and Greek have got to do with that ; can't we begin the work without any such labori- 138 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. ous preparation as this ? " I know what the feeling is ; I have seen it displayed very often. If you will read the familiar correspondence of Gen- eral Sherman during the war, which was published by the War Department, you will see that, months and months before his great march, he was studying the country through which he was about to go, its resources, its power of sustaining armies, its populousness, the habits of the people, in short, everything that be- longed to it, in every relation, and all the questions that could possibly arise in regard to it. He had dis- cussed them on both sides and on two or three hypoth- eses, so that when he started upon his famous march he had really gone o.ver the country in advance, and made himself the military master of its features and character. He was possessed of all the knowledge necessary to enable him to grajjple with any event that might take place. He was prepared for any of two or three different lines of action. Now, you have a campaign that is a great deal longer than his, and an enemy that is a great deal harder to fight ; and you must make diligent preparation. You must Jay up all the knowledge you can, now, and form habits of earnest study that shall make your whole after-life's work comparatively easy. You will have enough di- rect action when you get into the field ; and it be- hooves you now to do whatever you can to abbreviate your future labors. STUDY OF THE BIBLE. In the first place, the whole science of interpreta- tion, the whole study of the Word of God and all the RHETORICAL iDRlLL AND GENERAL TRAINING. l39 developments that are either based upon it or nearly touch it, will be a world of advantage to you. I had the good fortune to be under Professor Stowe in my theological training. Those who have gone through a course with him need not be told how much knowledge lie has, nor his keen and crystalline way of putting that knowledge. The advantages which I derived from his teaching, his way of taking bold of Scripture, the knowledge I got of the book as a whole, are inesti- mable to me. These I got while pursuing my studies in the seminary. In looking over my old note-books, which I filled independently of my course there, but which were partly in consequence of it and partly from teaching in the Bible class, I found I had gone then very nearly through tlie New Testament with close and careful study, and had formed an intimate acquaint- ance with it, before I began to preach regularly. In the early years of my ministry I engaged in a great amount of exegetical study and interpretation of the Word of God, having one service every week which was mainly devoted to that work. Now, the prelimi- nary acquisition of the power to do that will abbreviate your after-work more tlian you can tell. Do not believe that your enthusiasm will be a light always burning. You must have oil in your lamps. Study and patient labor are indispensable even to genius. God may have given you genius, but unless he has also given you industry, the genius will leak away, unused, wasted, without profit. Inspiration, intuition, and all the efflorescence of genius, are Divine gifts ; yet there must be some material for them to work upon. You cannot have a flame unless there is something that will 140 LECTURES ON PREACHING. feed combustion ; you cannot study too much while in the seminary, preparing for the field of your future labors. It will neither cumber you nor hinder you. It will facilitate your work at every step. THEOLOGY. In respect to systematic theology the same is true. It is very desirable, I think, that every preacher should have not merely gone through a system, but that he should have studied comparative theology. He ought to study that system on which he expects to base his ministry ; and it is also desirable that he should take cross-views of differing systems of theology, — for a variety of reasons. You may think you are going to preach some particular system, — but most of you will not, even if you try. You may take your teachers' views of theology and preach them for a w^hile, but they will not suit you long. Every man who is fit to preach w^ill, before many years, begin to have an out- line of his own theology very distinctively marked out. But it is always necessary to know what other men have thought, to practice close thinking, to be drilled in sharp and nice discrimination, and to have a mind that is not slatternly and loose, but which know^s how to work philosophically. You are to meet men who know how to think, if you do not. You may be called to take a parish in which the lawyer, the doctor, and two or three retired gentlemen w^ill know a great deal more than you do, and will turn np their noses whenever you undertake to preach a sermon. You cannot afford to have a man in your parish accuse you of being a boy in the pulpit. Every man who preaches from year RHETOEICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 141 r to year has a system. He may not have the current one. It may not be Calvin after the manner of Ed- wards, nor Calvin according to Dwight, nor Calvin as it is taught at Princeton, nor yet Arniinianism. It may be this, that, or the other, of the various shades, — or a new shade of his own. So that you must form the mental habit of looking at all presentations of truth. You will observe that it is not necessary for a minister to give lectures in theology to his people, however much he may know, — though there might be worse things than that. You might have an occasional familiar lecture on special points of theology, and in- doctrinate your people with them. But your sermons must be philosophical in principle and thoroughly thought out. You must acquire the habit of thinking, of looking at truth, not in isolated and fragmentary forms, but in all its relations ; and of using it con- stantly as an instrument of producing good. You see I do believe in the science of theology, though I may not give my faith to any particular school of it, in all points. But no school can dispense with a habit of thinking according to the laws of cause and effect, for that is absolutely necessary. A SMALL PARISH AT FIRST, In your first settlement, young gentlemen, remember the parable. When you are invited to a feast, take not the highest seat, but take rather the lowest place, so that it shall be said to you, " Friend, go up higher." When a young man is just going out, and is begin- ning to preach, and men find great hopes in him, one of the worst things that can befall him is to think 142 LECTURES ON PREACHING. himself an uncommon man, a man of prospects ; and to have it whispered here and there, 0, he will shake the world yet ! " These things are very mischievous to a young man, especially if they lead him to start at a faster pace than he can well maintain. One of the most common mistakes a young man makes is in thinking that he must have a place large enough for his talents ; he does not know where to bestow his goods ! If there is an opportunity to take a small country place he will take it "just temporarily," but he has his eye on four or five calls, which he thinks are very likely to come to him. This conceit is very dele- terious. When you enter upon the work of the min- istry it is very desirable that you should take a small and humble sphere, even if you afterward are called to a large one. You should begin at the bottom. In the first place, you cannot develop so well in any other way the needful creative and administrative faculties. If I were Pope in America, besides a hun- dred other things that would be done, I would send every young man that was anxious to preach into the extreme West, and I would make him think that he was never coming back again. He should work there for ten years ; then I think he might begin to be ready for a larger place, or an older church. I would not let him know my future plans for liim, but he should think he was going to remain there, and do his work. One especial advantage of a small parish is that you are obliged to do your work by knowing every person in the community, studying every one of them, and knowing how to impress and manage them by your personal influence and the power of the gospel. feHETOmCAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. Every young minister, too, ought to have a parish where he shall have some time to study, where he shall not be hurried and worried with extra meetings, with excitements and with various distractions. When you first begin to preach, you have a raw, untrained nervous system, which cannot bear so much as it can afterward. A man's brain gets tough by exercise. I can now go through an amount of brain-work that would have killed me outright in the first years of my ministerial life. I can trace the gradually accumulating power of endurance of brain excitement. AN EARLY EXPERIENCE IN THE WEST. It was my lot at first to be placed in a village with a mere handful of inhabitants in one of the Western States. I conceive it to be one of the kindnesses of Providence that I was sent to so small a place. I had but one male member in the church, and I wished him out all the time I was there. (Let me illustrate by personal allusions, if you please ; for I do not know why you ask ministers from active parishes to advise you, unless they should tell you something of their experience.) I practiced public speaking from the time of my sophomore year in college. I was addicted to going out and making temperance speeches, and holding confer- rence meetings, so that I acquired considerable confi- dence, being naturally very diffident. When I went to the seminary I still kept up that habit, practicing whenever I had the opportunity. At tlie end of my three years' seminary course — six months of which, however, were diverted to editorial work, a loss of time 144 LECTURES ON PREACHING. to my studies which was afterwards made up — I went to a small town in Indiana, the last one in the State towards Cincinnati, on the Ohio Eiver. It had perhaps five or six hundred inhabitants. It had in it a Meth- odist, a Baptist, and this Presbyterian Church to which I went. The church would hold, perhaps, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred people. It had no lamps and no hymn-books. It had nineteen female members ; and the whole congregation could hardly raise from $200 to $250 as salary. I took that field and went to work in it. Among the earliest things I did was to beg money from Cincinnati to buy side-lamps to hang up in the church, so that we could have night service. After be- ing there a month or two I went to Cincinnati again, and collected money enough to buy hymn-books. I distributed them in the seats. Before this the hymns had been lined out. I recollect one of the first strokes of management I ever attempted in that parish w^as in regard to these hymn-books. Instead of asking the people if they were willing to have them, I just put the books into the pews ; for there are ten men that will fight a change about which they are consulted, to one that will fight it when it has taken place. I simply made the change for them. There was a little looking up and looking around, but nothing was said. So after that we sang out of books. Then there was n6body in the church to light the lamps, and they could not afford to get a sexton. Such a thing was unknown in the primitive simplicity of that Hoosier time. Well, I unanimously elected myself to be the sexton. I swept out the church, trimmed the lamps and lighted them. RHETOBICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 145 I was, literally, the light of that church. I did n't stop to groan about it, or moan about it, but I did it. At first, the men-folk thereabout seemed to think it was chaff to catch them with, or something of that kind ; but I went steadily on doing the work. After a month or so two young men, who were clerks in a store there, suggested to me that they would help me. I did n't think I wanted any help ; it was only what one man could do." Then they suggested three or four of us taking one month each, and in that way they were worked in. It was the best thing that ever happened to them. Having something to do in the church was a means of grace to them. It drew them to me and me to them. None of them were Christian young men ; but I con- sulted them about various things, and by and by I brought a case to them. I said, Here is a young man who is in great danger of going the wrong way and losing his soul. What do you think is the best means of getting at him ? " It made them rather sober and thoughtful to be talking about the salvation of that young man's soul, and the upshot was that they saved their own. They very soon afterward came into the Spirit, and were converted, and became good Christian men. Now, while I was there, I preached the best sermons I knew how to get up. I remember distinctly that every Sunday night I had a headache. I went to bed every Sunday night with a vow registered that I would buy a farm and quit the ministry. If I have said it once, I have said it five hundred times, that I spoilt a good farmer to make a poor minister. 146 LECTURES ON PREACHING. I said a great many extravagant things in my pul- pit, and preached with a great deal of crudeness. I preached a great many sermons, which, after six months, I would not have preached again. I frequently did as many young men do, shaped into a general truth that which was truth only under certain circumstances, and with a particular class of people. I was a great reader of the old sermonizers. I read old Eobert South through and through ; I saturated myself with South ; I formed much of my style and my handling of texts on his methods. I obtained a vast amount of instruction and assistance from others of those old sermonizers, who w^ere as familiar to me as my own name. I read Barrow, Howe, Sherlock, Butler, and Edwards particularly. I preached a great many sermons while reading these old men, and upon their discourses I often founded the framework of my own. After I had preached them, I said to myself, " That will never do ; I would n't preach that again for all the world." But I was learning, and nobody ever tripped me up. I had no Board of Elders ready to bring me back to orthodoxy. I had time to sow all my minis- terial wild oats, and without damage to my people, for they knew too little to know whether I was orthodox or not. And it was, generally, greatly to their advan- tage, because people are very much like fishes. Whales take vast quantities of water into their mouths for the sake of the animalculse it contains, and then blow out the water, while keeping in the food. People do pretty much the same. They don't believe half that you say: The part that is nutritious they keep, and the rest they let alone. This early ministerial training does not hurt RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 147 them, but it is invaluable to a young man who is get- ting the bearings of his new station, and learning how to handle the ship that God has given him to sail. GENERAL HINTS After faithful and constant practice in such a place as this, you will after a yery little time begin to make fewer and fewer mistakes, and you will be able to bear more and more work. You will be able to do more creative work after this preparation, and to make the most of your resources. You will also learn how to handle men and things, and you will be determined upon success in your work ; in other words, it will make a man of you. Let me tell you one secret : that a strong country church is a position of very much more influence than nineteen out of twenty city churches. City churches are more nearly like, wells than anything else. They |/ have their own little circle, and outside of that nothing. Country churches are like rivers. They are collected from far-distant regions, and run a great way. Then again, in a city, three or four churches only are con- spicuous and popular, and the rest are comparatively unknown. Keep out of the city as long as you can. Do not aspire to so-called great churches and great places. Go into rural neighborhoods. Begin your ministry with the common people. Get seasoned with the humanity and sympatliies which belong to men ; mix with farmers, mechanics, and laboring men ; eat with them, sleep with them ; for, after all, there is the great substance of humanity. You will get it in its purest and simplest forms there. You will have time 148 LECTURES ON PREACHING. to grow and strengthen yourselves. Your bodies will grow wholesome. Your brains will grow strong. Your nervous systems will get tough, so that if ever God opens the door and calls you to a more difficult sphere, you can fill it, and do twice as much work with more certainty and with more success than if called to the larger place in the beginning of your ministry. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. How about living in those little places that don't pay enough to live upon ? Mr. Beecher. — Live within your income. There was a Mr. Bushnell, quite as famous in his way, in Ohio, as Horace Bushnell was in Connecticut, although of different make. He was a man like Paul, insignificant in presence, small, and weak-eyed, and I believe, now, is blind entirely. He was a man who, be- sides having a heart consecrated to God and humanity, was also fearless, brave, and enterprising. There was a little settlement below Cincinnati, called Cleves. The people there had driven out every minister they had had. The Methodists tried it, and if they cannot stick, you may say it is a tough place. They had to abandon that neighborhood. Bushnell determined that the gos- pel should be preached there, and thither he went; and it was at a time, too, when it was enough to burn a man to have it known that he was an abolitionist. Bush- nell went tliere and preached, and took no pains to hide the fact in the neighborhood that he was an abolitionist, although he was so near Kentucky, which was just over the river. He could not get a man in that region RHETORICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 149 who would take him to board. Finally, he found an old cabin that was abandoned by some negroes. He daubed it over with mud, and fixed it up so that it would shelter him. He went into the place, lived in it, cooked for himself, took care of himself, and preached to this people. At first they would n't go to hear him. He started out after them. He went into the fields and talked with them. He said, Now I will tell you, you may just as well come to church ; if you won't come where I preach, I shall go to you." They began to admire the man's pluck. He is a little fellow," they said, but he is so courageous ! " They had threatened him with everything; but they finally began to listen to him. The first man that came was an infidel. He had been made an infidel by the teachings of Christian churches and ministers that the Eible justified slavery. He was a man of great benevolence and great justice, and he said, " If Chris- tianity teaches that, I will never be a Christian." When he heard of a minister who denounced slavery, and proved from the Bible that it was unjust, he said, I want to hear that man." "When he found what manner of man he was, he joined himself to the new-comer. He was converted, and became an active Christian man. The result was, that Bushnell very soon gathered up a little church, and they had prayer-meetings and other Christian gatherings in the neighborhood, which effec- tively began the work of regenerating it. Now I want to know what success Bushnell would have met witli if he had put on a broadcloth coat, and had questioned and paltered with the people, saying. 150 LECTURES ON PREACHING. How much salary will you give ine ? " or if he had asked himself, Is it my duty to settle down there ? " I believe that the Word of Christ is the best charter of every Christian minister. Seek ye first the king- dom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." There is nothing that makes salary so fast as not to care for it, and to put your whole life and soul into the work of God's min- istry, so that men feel to the bottom of their hearts that there is a man who has got hold of them. No man will starve. I do not mean by that tliat there is to be no consideration for the future, but I mean to say tliat a generous trust in the people and an earnest devotion to work will insure a man all the support that he needs. Q. Would you advise a young man to settle immediately upon leaving the seminary, especially in going West ? Yes ; the quicker you get to work after you are through your studies the better. People sometimes say, " Do you think it would be better for me to go to Edinburgh and take a course there ? " or, " How would it be if I should go to Germany ? " Well, if you are going to be a critical student, a professor, or if you are going to compile a dictionary or take a chair in a theo- logical seminary ; if your life is going to be a scholar's life, in contradistinction from a preacher's life, — I should say that a post-seminary course is advisable. But, if you are going to be working among men, do not delay your work one unnecessary moment after getting through your seminary course. An academical educa- tion is somewhat exclusive in its character, and tends to foster a class-spirit. You are separated from tlie RHETOKICAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 151 people, and are kept out of the ordinary run of human hfe ; you are, as it were, made monks of. If you are fit for your work, the sooner you get into real business in the field, the better for you. Q. Would you have a man preach while he is in the seminary ? I should say. Yes. The habit of bringing your minds to bear on other people, in a moral point of view, ought to be kept up all the way through, from beginning to end. A habit of thinking of other peo- ple's welfare, laboring for it, and accumulating the material by which you will accomplish it, carrying your heart warm all tlie time, is a good thing for a man who is going to preach and to be a minister of Christ. Q. Are not these little mean places very unfavorable for the culture of grace, etc. ? Mr. Beecher. — They are not mean. Q. I think your first settlement, Lawrenceburg, was mean. Mr. Beecher. — No ; it was not. It was a good place to train a young minister. We are all sinful. My church was sinful, and its pastor was. There were various degrees of sinners all the way through. But that little town had one woman in it that redeemed the place, and if I had the making of a Catholic calendar I would enroll her as a saint. Old Mother Eice taught me more practical godliness than any one else, except my owm father. She was a laboring- woman, the wife of an old, drunken, retired sea-captain. They were so poor that they had to live above a cooper's shop, with loose planks for a floor, which wabbled as you walked over them, and through which you could see the men at work below^ Her husband would abuse her and 152 LEGTUKES ON PREACHING. swear at her. But there was never any person in dis- tress in the town that Mother Kice did not visit. No case of sickness occurred that she did not consecrate the chamber with her presence. There was nobody who was discouraged and needed comfort that did not ex- perience her kind oflices. She was one of the sweetest, gentlest, and serenest of women. This place was like the mud and rubbish brought up by the diver, which yet contains a beautiful pearl. This woman would have redeemed that town from being mean, even if it had had no other good thing in it. You can always find goodness and nobility by looking for it. A Student. — I know something about the Bushnell of whom you have spoken, and, although he is a man whom everybody regards with respect, yet he is not a man who conies up to your idea of what a minister should be. Mr. Beecher. — I only mentioned his name to illus- trate how a man will succeed by going into the lowest and most hardened community with a consecrated spirit, with courage, and witli a determination to suc- ceed. I do not hold him up as a model minister throughout his whole ministerial life, by any means. The same Student. — I simply brought up his name in this con- nection to show the difficulty there is connected with going West, into these little places, in regard to culture. You hold that we ought to have a certain grace and ease of bearing. It seems to me that that kind of a place is very undesirable for such training. Mr. Beecher. — Then carry it there. That should be part of a minister's influence out there. The theory that lies behind every other is that a minister is a little Christ, that he teaches men about Christ by acting the life of Christ over again right before them, with the KHETOKIGAL DRILL AND GENERAL TRAINING. 153 same humiliation, self-denial, and self-sacrifice that Jesus Christ displayed when on earth among men. Now this, as -a model, is so high that we shall all fall short of it ; but it is an ideal that will do you a great deal of good to keep in your mind, if you are going to set yourself up before your fellow-men as teachers and preachers of the life that is reserved for God's people. You must be to them what Christ was, in his time, to those around him. Did you ever read Parkman's History of the Jesu- its, in relation to their missions in Canada among the Northern Indians ? That book ought to be read by every Protestant clergyman, and especially by those who think there is no piety in the Catholic Church. No matter how erroneous their teaching may be, they displayed some of the sweetest and noblest traits of self-devotion ever recorded in the pages of history, in their missionary work among the Indians. They went among them in their rudest estate, lived in their smoky huts, were derided, hooted at, and contemned, year after year. They were men of culture and refinement, and men who had earned at home a world-wide reputation ; yet they lived in these wigwams without a single con- vert, and were willing to live forty years there, faithful in labor, and then die without a sign of success. They rebuke us in our missionary work. Q. May it not be desirable to spend a year in an Eastern parish before going West ? Mr. Beecher. — No, sir ! You will never go West if you do. If you go West and endure hardships like a good soldier, you will gradually become worthy to occupy an easier post when you shall be called to one, 7* VII. EHETOEICAL ILLUSTEATIONS. BELIEVE it was Locke who inveighed against Illustrations as the enemies of truth, as leading men astray by latent or supposed analogies ; and yet I apprehend that the strictest and most formal processes of logical reasoning have led just as many men astray as ever illustrations did. You can perplex people, and you can, with great facility, make ingenious issues with illustrations ; but so you can with everything else. They are liable to misuse, but no more than any other instrument of per- ^. suasion. If a man knows truth and loves it, if he is earnest in the inculcation of it, and if he never allows liimself to state for truth that which he does not thoroughly believe to be true, the processes which he employs, whether analogies, causal reasoning, or illustrations the most poetical, will participate in the honesty, of the man ; and there is little risk that any \^one part will be mistaken more than any other. THE NATURE OF ILLUSTRATION. We have the best example of the use of illustration in the history of the education of the world from time immemorial. Experience has taught that not only are RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 155 persons pleased by being instructed through illustra- tion, but that they are more readily instructed thus, be- cause, substantially, the mode in which we learn a new thing is by its being likened to something w^hich we already know. This is the principle underlying all true^ illustrations. They are a kind of covert analogy, or likening of one thing to another, so that obscure things become plain, being represented pictorially or other- wise by things that are not obscure and that we are familiar with. So, then, the groundwork of all illus- tration is the familiarity of your audience with the thing on which the illustration stands. Now and then it will be proper to lay down and explain with partic- ularity the fact out of which an illustration is to grow, and then to make the fact illustrate the truth to be made clear. The speaker will, for instance, undertake to explain the- isochronism of a watch, and having done this so that the audience will understand it, he may employ the watch in that regard as an illustration. But, generally, the subject-matter of an illustration should be that which is familiar to the minds of those to whom you are speaking. It is not my province to go into the theoretical na- ture of the different kinds of illustration, of metaphors, similes, and what not ; that you have learned in another department, both in your academical and collegiate courses. But I hope to give you some practical hints as to the manner of usino* these thinR's. REASONS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING, The purpose that we have in view in employing an illustration is to help people to understand more easily 156 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the things that we are teaching them. You ought to drive an audience as a good horseman drives a horse on a journey, not with a supreme regard for himself, but in a way that will enable the horse to achieve his work in the easiest way. An audience has a long and sometimes an arduous journey when you are preaching. Occasionally the way is pretty steep and rough ; and it is the minister's business, not so much to take care of himself, as, by all the means in his power, to ease the way for his audience and facilitate their understanding. An illustration is one of the means by which the truth that you teach to men is made so facile that they re- ceive it without effort. I know that some men — amon^: whom, I think, was Coleridge — justify the obscurities of their style, saying that it is a good practice for men to be obliged to dig for the ideas which they get. But I submit to you that working on Sunday is not proper for ordinary people in church, and obliging your parish- ioners to dig and delve for ideas in your sermons is making them do the very work you are paid a salary to do for them. Your office is to do the chief part of the thinking and to arrange the truth, while their part is to experience the motive-power, and take the incitement toward a better life. In this work, whatever can make your speech touch various parts of the mind in turn will be of great advantage to your audience, and will enable them to perform their rugged journey with less fatigue and wdth more pleasure. An illustration is never to be a mere ornament, although its being orna- mental is no objection to it. If a man's sermon is like a boiled ham, and the illustrations are like cloves stuck in it afterward to make it look a little better, or like a RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 157 bit of celery or other garnish laid around on the edge for the mere delectation of the eye, it is contemptible. But if you have a real and good use for an illustration, that has a real and direct relation to the end you are seeking, then it may be ornamental, and no fault should be found with it for that.* THEY ASSIST ARGUMENT. Look a little at the result to be accomplished by facile and skillful illustrations. In the first place, they are helpful in all that part of preaching which is natu- rally based upon pure reasoning, and which is some- what obscure to minds not trained in philosophical thought. There ought to be in every sermon something that shall task your audience somewhat as it tasked you; otherwise you will not compass some of the noblest themes that lie in the sphere of your duty. But pure ratiocination addresses itself to but a very small class of the community. There are very few men who can follow a close argument from beginning to end ; and those who can are trained to it, it being an artificial habit, though, of course, some minds are more apt for it than others. But the theme must be very familiar, and the argument must be largely a statement of facts, for most audiences to understand it. If you go one step beyond this, into philosophy or meta- physics, so called, as you must do sometimes, you will be in danger of leaving half your audience behind you. Illustrations, while they make it easier for all, are absolutely the only means by which a large part of , your audience will be able to understand at all the 158 LECTURES ON PREACHING. abstruse processes of reasoning. For a good, compact argument, without illustrations, is very much like the old-fashioned towers that used to be built before artil- lery was invented ; they were built strong, of stone, all the way up above a ladder's reach without a door or a wdndow-slit. The first apartment was so liigh that it was safe from scaling, and then came a few windows, and very narrow ones at that. Sucli were good places for beleaguered men, but they were very poor places to bring up a family in, where tliere were no windows to let in the light. Now an illustration is a window in an argument, and lets in light. You may reason without an illustra- X' tion ; but where you are employing a process of pure reasoning and have arrived at a conclusion, if you can then by an illustration flash back light upon what you have said, you will bring into the minds of your au- dience a realization of your argument that they cannot \^get in any other way. I have seen an audience, time and again, follow an argument, doubtfully, laboriously, almost suspiciously, and look at one another, as much as to say, " Is he going right ? " — until the place is arrived at, where the speaker says, "It is like — " and then they listen eagerly for what it is like ; and when some apt illustration is thrown out before them, there is a sense of relief, as though they said, ''Yes, he is right." If you have cheated them, so much the worse for you ; but if your illustrations are as true as your argument, and your argument true as the truth itself, then you have helped them a great deal. So that, as a mere matter of help to reason, illustrations are of vast utility in speaking to an audience. KHETOKICAL ILLUSTKATIONS. 159 THEY HELP HEARERS TO REMEMBER. Then they are a very great help in carrying away and remembering the things your audience have heard from you ; because it is true from childhood up (and woe be to that man out of whom the child has died entirely ! ) that we remember pictures and parables and fables and stories. Now, if in your discourses, w^hen taking a comprehensive view of truth, you illustrate each step by an appropriate picture, you will find that the plain people of your congregation wiR go away, remembering every one of your illustrations. If they are asked, "Well, what was tlie illustration for?" they will stop and consider : What was he saying then ? " They will fish for it, and will generally get the sub- stance of it. 0, it was this ; he was proA'ing so and so, and then he illustrated it by this." They will remember the picture ; and, if they are questioned, the picture will bring back the truth to them ; and after that they will remember both together. Whereas all except the few logically trained minds w^ould very soon have forgotten what you had discoursed upon, if you had not thus suitably seasoned it. Your illustrations will be the salt that will preserve your teachings, and men will remember them. THEY STIMULATE IMAGINATION. The effect of illustrations upon ideality is very great. They bring into play the imaginative faculty, which is only another name for ideality. The sense of the in- visible and of the beautiful ai'c combined in ideality. Now all great truth is beautiful. It carries in it ele- 160 LECTURES ON PREACHING. ments of taste and fitness. The beauty of holiness we find spoken of in the Word of God, and this is a beauty that does not belong to anything material. God is transcendently a lover of beauty, and all the issues of the Divine Soul are, if we could see them as he sees them, beautiful, just as self-denial and love are beautiful, and as purity and truth and all good things are beautiful. It is not, therefore, in the interest of truth that a man should sift it down to the merest bare nuggets of statement that it is susceptible of ; and this is not best for an audience. It is best that a truth should have argument to substantiate it, and analysis and close reasoning ; yet when you come to give it to an audi- ence you should clothe it with flesh, so that it shall be ^^fit for their understandings. In no other way can you so stir up that side of the mind to grasp your state- ments and arguments easily, and prepare it to remember them. You cannot help your audience in any other way so well as by keeping alive in them the sense of the imagination, and making the truth palpable to them, because it is appealing to the taste, to the sense of the beautiful in imagery as well as to the sense of truth. THE ART OF RESTING AUDIENCES. It is a great art to know how to preach as long as you want to, or have to, and yet not tire your audience, especially where you have been preaching many years in the same place. For my own part I do not think that a very long sermon is adapted to edification ; but a man ought to be able to preach an hour, and to hold RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 161 ^ his audience too. He cannot do it, however, if his sermon is a monotone, either in voice or thought. He cannot do it unless he is interesting. He cannot possibly hold his people unwearied, when they have become accustomed to his voice, his manner, and his thoughts, unless he moves through a very considerable ^ scale, up and down, resting them ; in other words, changing the faculties that he is addressing. For inA^ stance, you are at one time, by statements of fact, engaging the perceptive reason, as a phrenologist would say. You soon pass, by a natural transition, to the * relations that exist between facts and statements, and you are then addressing another audience, namely, the reflective faculties of your people. And when you have concluded an argument upon that, and have flashed an illustration that touches and wakes up their fancy and imagination, you are bringing in still another audience, — the ideal or imaginative one. And now, if out of these you express a sweet wine that goes to the emotions and arouses their feelings, so that one and another in the congregation wipes his eyes, and the proud man, that does not want to cry, blows his nose, — what have you done ? You have relieved the weari- ness of your congregation by enabling them to listen with different parts of their minds to what you have ^ been saying. * If I were to stand here on one leg for ten minutes, I should be very grateful if I were permitted to stand on the other a little while. If I stood on both of them, perfectly erect, I should be glad to have the opportu- nity of resting more heavily on one, and taking an easy position. In other words, there is nothing that tires a 162 LECTURES ON PREACHING. man so much as standing in one posture, stock still. By preaching to different parts of the minds of your audience, one part rests the others ; and persons not^ wearied out will listen to long sermons and think them very short. It is a good thing for a man to preach an hour, and Iiave his people say, Why, you ought not to have stopped for an hour yet." That is a compli- ment that you will not get every day, and you ought to be very grateful when you do get it. ILLUSTRATIONS PROVIDE FOR VARIOUS HEARERS. Tlie relation of illustrations to a mixed audience is another point which deserves careful consideration. I have known ministers wlio always unconsciously sifted their audience, and preached to nothing but the bolted wheat. Now, you have got a little fine flour in your congregation, and more poor flour ; then you have the Graham flour, which is the wheat ground up husk and all ; and then you have all the unground wheat, and all the straw, and all the stubble. You are just as nmch bound to take care of the bottom as you are of the top. True, it is easier, after you have fallen into the habit of doing it, to preach to those people who appreciate your better efforts. It is easier for you to preach so that the household of cultured and refined people will love to sit down and talk with you on this subtle feeling, and about that wonderfi^l idea you got from the German poet, and so on. But ftiat is self-in- dulgence, half the time, on the part of a pastor. He follows the path that he likes, the one in which he ex- cels, and he is not thinking of providing for the great masses that are under his care. RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 163 You are bound to see that everybody gets something every ti7ne. There ought not to be a five-year-old child that shall go home without something that pleases and instructs him. How are you going to do that ? I know of no othep way than by illustration. I have around my pulpit, and sometimes crowding upon the platform, a good many of the boys and girls of the congregation. I notice that, during the gcMeral statements of the sermon and the exegetical parts of it, introducing the main discourse, the children are playing with each other. One will push a hymn-book or a hat toward the otlier, and they will set each other laughing. That which ought not to be done is, with children, very funny and amusing. By and by I have occasion to use an illustration, and I happen to turn round and look at the children, and not one of them is playing, but they are all looking up with interest de- picted on their faces. I did not think of them in making it, perhaps, but I saw, when the food fell out in that way, that even the children were fed too. You will observe that the children in the congregation will usually know perfectly well whether there is anything in the sermon for them or not. There always ought to be, and there is no way in which you can prepare a sermon for the delectation of the plain people, and the uncultured, and little children, better than by making it attractive and instructive with illustrations. It is al- ways the best method to adopt with a mixed audience. And that is the kind of audience for whicli you must prepare yourselves, too. It is only now and then that a man preaches in a college chapel, where all are students. 164 LECTURES ON PREACHING. You are going into parishes where there are old and young and middle-aged people, where there are work- ing men and men of leisure, dull men and sharp men, practiced worldlings, and spiritual and guileless men ; in fact, all sorts of people. And you are to preach so that every man shall have his portion in due season, and that portion ought to be in every sermon, more or less. You will scarcely be able to do it in any other way than by illustration. If God has not given you the gift by original endowment, strive to attain it by cultivation. MODES OF PRESENTING ARGUMENT. Then there is another thing. You are to carry the thoughts in your sermon as the air or theme is carried in some musical compositions. Certain of the finest chorals will have the air carried throughout, sometimes by the soprano, sometimes by the contralto, sometimes by the tenor, and sometimes by the bass. So with your argument ; it must be borne by different parts of your sermon. Sometimes it must be put forward by an illustration, sometimes by an appeal to the feelings, sometimes by a process of reasoning, and sometimes by the imagination. Your argument is not to be all one stereotyped expression of thought. Frequently a speaker will make a statement, and then laboriously lay out the track from that statement clear over to the next point, thus using up precious time. But there is such a thing as striking at once to a man's conscience by bounding over the whole logical process, abbreviating both space and time, and gaining conviction. RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 165 What do you want ? You do not want an argumentV^ for the sake of an argument. You do not want a ser- ^ mon that is as perfect a machine as a machine can be, J unless it does something. You want the people ; and the shortest and surest way to get them is the best way./^ AVhen you are preaching a sermon which has been pre- pared with a great deal of care, and are laying down the truth with forcible arguments, you will often find that you are losing your hold on the attention of your people by continuing in that direction. But coming to a fortunate point, strike out an illustration which arouses and interests them, — leave the track of your argument, and never mind what becomes of your elab- orate sermon, and you will see the heavy and uninter- ested eyes lighting up again. "But," you say, "that ^ will make my sermon unsymmetrical." Well, were you called to preach for the sake of the salvation of sermons ? J ust follow the stream, and use the bait they are biting at, and take no heed of your sermon. You will fi'nd it almost impossible to carry forward the demonstration of a truth in one straight course and yet make it real to a general audience. You must vary\ your method constantly, and at the same time through it all you can carry the burden of your discourse so that it shall be made clear to the whole of your audience. An argument may as well go forward by illustration as by abstract statement; sometimes it/ will go better. ILLUSTRATIONS BRIDGE DIFFICULT PLACES. Then there is another element for you to consider. Illustrations are invisible tactics. A minister often 166 LECTURES OK PREACHING. Iiovers between the " ought to do," and the how to do." He knows there is a subject that ought to be preached about ; and yet, if he should deliberately preach on that topic, everybody would turn around and look at Mr. A., who is the very embodiment of that special vice or fault or excellence. There are many very important themes which a min- ister may not desire to preach openly upon, for various reasons, especially if he wish to remain in the parish. But there are times when you can attain your object by an illustration pointed at the topic, without indicat- ing whom you are hitting, but continuing your sermon as though you were utterly unconscious of the effect of your blow. When I was settled at Indianapolis, nobody was al- lowed to say a word on the subject of slavery. They were all red-hot out there then ; and one of the Elders said, " If an abolitionist comes here, I will head a mob to put him down.*' I was a young preacher. I had some pluck ; and I felt, and it grew in me, that that was a subject that ought to be preached upon ; but I knew that just as sure as I preached an abolition ser- mon they would blow me up sky high, and my useful- ness in that parish would be gone. Yet I was deter- mined they should hear it, first or last. The question was, " How shall I do it ? " I recollect one of the ear- liest efforts I made in that direction was in a sermon on some general topic. It was necessary to illustrate a point, and I did it by picturing a father ransoming his son from capti^dty among the Algerines, and glorying in his love of liberty and his fight against bondage. They all thought I was going to apply it to slavery, but RHETOKIGAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 167 I did not. I applied it to my subject, and it passed off ; and tliey all drew a long breath. It was not long before I had another illustration from that quarter. And so, before I had been there a year, I had gone over all the sore spots of slavery, in illustrating the subjects of Christian experience and doctrine. It broke the ice. You may say that that was not the most honorable way, and that it was a weakness. It may have been so ; but I conquered them by that very weakness. If you find that it is necessary to do a thing, make up your mind to do it. If you cannot accomplish it in the very best way, do it by the next best, and so on ; but see to it that it is clone by the best means at your command. Go to the bottom of it, and work at it until you attain the desired result. Thus, in using an illustration pointed at a certain fault or weakness among your people, as I have done a thousand times (and I speak within bounds), never let it be known that you are aiming at any particular individual. Sometimes a person will say to me, " Tliere is great distress in such a family, and they will be in your church ; can't you say something that will be useful to them ? " If I were to bring that case right before the congregation, in all its personal details, it would scandalize the church, and repel the very people whom I wanted to help. But suppose, while I am preaching, I imagine a case of difference between husband and wife, who are, perhaps, hard, suspicious, and unforgiving tow^ard each other, and I take the subject of God's forgiveness, and illustrate it by the conduct of two couples, one of which stands on a high 168 LECTURES ON PREACHING. and noble plane, and the other on a low, selfish plane. They do not suppose that I know anything about their difficulty, because, when I am hitting a man with an illustration, I never look at him. But such a man or woman will go home, and say, Why, if somebody had been telling him of my case, he could not have hit it more exactly." They take it to heart, and it is blessed unto them. I have seen multitudes of such cases. You may go down to the brook under the willows and angle for the trout that everybody has been trying to catch, but in vain. You go splashing and tearing along, throwing in your pole, line and all. Do you think you can catch him that way ? No, indeed ; you must begin afar off and quietly; if need be, drawing yourself along on the grass, and perhaps even on your belly, until you come where through the quivering leaves you see the flash of the sun, and then slowly and gently you throw your line around, so that the fly on its end falls as light as a gossamer upon the placid surface of the brook. The trout will think, "That is not a bait thrown to catch me; there is nobody there," and he rises to the fly, takes it, and you take him. So there are thousands of persons in the world that you will take if they do not know that you are after them, but whom you could not touch if they suspected your purpose. Illustrations are invaluable for this kind of work, and there is nothing half so effective. THEY EDUCATE THE PEOPLE. I notice that in a prayer-meeting which has grown up under a minister who illustrates, all the members of RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 169 the church illustrate too. They all begin to see visions, and to catch likenesses and resemblances. This becomes a habit, and it is to them a pathfinder or a starfinder, as it were. It leads men to. look at truth, not only in one aspect, but in all its bearings, and to make analo- gies and illustrations for themselves, and thus brings them into the truth. By this means you bring up your congregation to understand the truth more easily than you would by any other method. NECESSITY OF VARIETY. But to continue illustrations for any considerable time you must draw them from various sources. To do this you must study the natural world, the different phases of human society, and the life of the household, in moral colors. These are inexhaustible sources from which to draw the needful instruction. If you are preaching to pedants, you may properly enough illustrate by the ancient classics ; but if you are preaching to common people you must not confine yourself to that coarse, although it is allowable, once in a while, to use some illustration drawn from the heroes of ancient history and mythology. But what may be called scholarly illustrations are not generally good for the common people. They may serve to im- press the more ignorant with a sense of your knowl- edge, but that is not what you are called to preach foT. That would be a poor business. In the development of this faculty of illustration it is necessary to know the philosophy of it. All illus- trations, to be apt, should touch your people where their level is. I do not know that this art can be learned ; 170 LECTURES ON PREACHING. but I may suggest that it is a good thing, in looking over an audience, to cultivate the habit of seeing illus- . trations in them. If I see a seaman sitting among my audience, I do not say " I will use him as a figure," and apply it personally ; but out of him jumps an illus- tration from the sea, and it conies to seek me out. If there be a watchmaker present that I happen to recog- nize, my next illustration will very likely be from horology; though he will be utterly unconscious of the use I have made of liim. Tlien I see a school-mistress, and my next illustration will be out of scliool-teaching. Thus, where your audience is known to you, the illus- tration ought not simply to meet your wants as a speaker, but it should meet the wants of your congrega- tion, it should be a help to them. HOMELY ILLUSTRATIONS. You must not be afraid to illustrate truths in an un- dignified manner. Young gentlemen, where you can- not help yourselves, you have a right to be dignified ; but this cant and talk about dignity is the most shabby and miserable pretense of pride and of an artificial culture. There is nothing so dignified as a man in^--^ earnest. It is that which approves itself to the moral consciousness of every hearer. If, besides that, you are naturally graceful and handsome, and your thoughts flow in* a certain high order, so much the better ; but if they do not, and you assume the pretense of it, and put on the mask of these things without having the inward soul, you are base. Now, in respect to truth, do not be ashamed to ex- plain it by homely illustrations. Do not be ashamed RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 171 to talk to the miller about his mill, or to the plowman about his plow, and about the grubs that are under it, and about every part of it. If you are going to be a master in your business, you must know about all these things yourself. Having eyes, you must see ; having ears, you must hear; and having a heart, you must understand. A minister ought to be the best informed man on the face of the earth. He ought to see every- thing, inquire about everything, and be interested in everything. You may ask, " Shall I treasure up illus- trations ? " Yes ; if that is your way, you may do so ; ,if not, you will very soon find it out. You must know what is the best method for yourself. You cannot pattern on anybody else. Imitations are always poor stuff. You must find out tlie thing meant for you, and then do the best you can. You must be faithful in the place where God put you, and for which you are equipped. A minister is not a man to know books alone. He must know books, and study them pro- foundly. You must be conversant with the thoughts^ and deeds of the noble minds of every age of the world. There is much for you in history and in libra- ries, in the discourse of your equals, in the conversa- tion of scholarly men. But this fact ought you not to overlook nor to neglect, that you are God's shepherds, for the sheep and for the lambs as w^ell. You ought to know about the woman's spinning-w^heel, about the weaver's loom and every part of it. You ought to know about the gardener's thoughts, his ambitions and feelings. You ought to know what is done in the barn, in the cellar, in the vineyard, and everywhere. You ought to know and understand a naturalist's enthusiasm 172 LECTURES ON PREACHING. when he finds a new flower or a new bug, — that ecstasy is almost like a heaven of heavens to the apocalyptic John! You must study men, women, and children, their weaknesses and their strong sides. You must live among men, and be sentient and conscious of what they are, and what they think about. And when you come to preach, it is for you to draw an illustration in the range where your hearers live, whether it be high or low; and you must change them continually, pro- viding now for some, and now for others. But they must always be on a level with your audience, so that they will surge back and draw your hearers to you. , You must bring people to yourself, and not wait for them to come. As well might a new bucket of white oak, newly hooped, — the very best bucket to be had, — expect that water shall come up from the well to its level, while it simply hangs over the well-curb ; it must go down to the water and bring it up. You must go down to your people. There must be a place where your yarn is joined on to their yarn, and it must be joined in one common thread. ILLUSTRATIONS MUST BE APT. Let me say to you, that, in using illustrations, you must be sure to make them always apposite. If you should undertake to " work ship " in an audience where there is a good old sea-captain, and you should make a mistake, and speak as though you thought the taffrail w^as the rudder, he would feel contempt for you. If I should hear a politician say that Job said, " Every tub must stand upon its own bottom," I should laugh at RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 173 him, and his illustration and quotation would not do me much good. When you are talking about matters that men know about, you must know just as much as they do. Never let a man in your congregation detect you in an inaccuracy if you can help it. If you speak about making wine, be sure you know about making it. (To do that, it is not necessary that you should know how to drink it, however !) Therefore, always be learning. HOW TO GET INFORMATION. There are two points about learning. In the first place, never ask a question, if you can help it ; and secondly, never let a thing go unknown for the lack of asking a question, if you cannot help it. Think it out first. Dig it out, study it, go around it, question yourself, and get it out. If you really cannot, then turn and ask somebody. See everything, and see it right, and use it as you go along. A man's study should be everywhere, — in the house, in the street, in the fields, and in the busy haunts of men. You see a bevy of children in the window, and you can form them into a picture in your mind. You may see the nurse, and the way she is dressed. You try to describe it. You look again, and make your- self master of the details. By and by it will come up to you again itself, and you will be able to make an accurate picture of it, having made your observation accurate. Little by little, this habit will grow, until by and by, in later life, you will find that you command respect by your illustrations just as much as by argu- ments and analogies. 174 LECTURES ON PREACHING. ILLUSTRATIONS MUST BE PROMPT. Then, again, while elaborate allegories and fables are very good things, and may be used with discretion, illustrations, so called, ought always to be clean, accu- rate, and qidck. Do not let them dawdle on your hands. There is nothing that tires an audience so much as when they have to think faster than you do. You have got to keep ahead of them. Do you know what it is to walk behind slow people and tread on their heels ? How it tires and vexes one ! You know how people are vexed with a preacher who is slow and dilatory, and does not get along. He tires people out, for though he may have only six or seven words of his sentence completed, they know the whole of it ; and what is the use, then, of his uttering the rest? With illustrations, there should be energy and vigor in their delivery. Let them come with a crack, as w^hen a driver would stir up his team. The horse does not know anything about it until the crack of the whip comes. So with an illustration. Make it sharp. Throw it out. Let it come better and better, and the best at the last, and then be done wdth it. THE HABIT OF ILLUSTRATING. In regard to the gift of illustrating, and the educa- tion of it, it is the same as with all other things. Some men are born mathematicians ; and whatever they do, that will be the strongest impulse in their intellectual natures. Other men are a little less endowed in that direction, and others still less; but almost everybody has enough of the arithmetical faculty on which to RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 175 build an education. It is so also in poetry and in music. You are educable. In regard to illustration, you will find persons who are instinctively given to it. Many of you will find it natural to you. But do not be discouraged, even when it is natural, if you do not at once succeed. Why should you succeed before you learn the rudiments of your art ? Why should you be able to run before you can walk ? Practice by yourselves to imaginary audi- ences ; make illustrations and use them ; train your- selves to it. If once or twice on every Sabbath day you can make a fitting illustration and see that you have gained ground by it, take courage, and you will improve day by day and year by year. I can say, for your encouragement, that while illus- trations are as natural to me as breathing, I use fifty now to one in the early years of my ministry. For the first six or eight years, perhaps, they were com- paratively few and far apart. But I developed a ten- dency that was latent in me, and educated myself in that respect ; and that, too, by study and practice, by hard thought, and by a great many trials, both with the pen, and extemporaneously by myself, when I was walking here and there. Whatever I have gained in that direction is largely the result of education. You need not, therefore, be discouraged if it does not come to you immediately. You cannot be men at once in these things. This world is God's anvil, and whatever is fit for the battle has been beaten out on that anvil, and it has felt the fire before it has felt the blow. So that whatever you would get in this world that is worth having, you must work for. Do not be cast 176 LECTURES ON PREACHING. down. Be brave, industrious, disinterested, simple, and true-hearted. Whatever God means to give you for your usefulness will certainly come to you. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. Do you think the use of these encyclopaedias of illustra- tions is honest? Mr. Beecher. — Why not ? Student. — Because one ought to make his illustrations him- self, I should say. Mr. Beecher. — That is purely a question with your- self. If a man says he would rather take the pains and time to work out his illustrations himself, he has a perfect right to do so. It is just the same question that comes up in everything else. "Do you think a man ought to copy pictures, or to study from nature ? " One school will tell you one thing, and another school another thing. It is simply a matter of preference. I should not borrow my illustrations a great while if I could help it; but if you find that you accomplish your designs in preaching, and at the same time improve yourself by practicing in that way, it is allowable. Q. Is it best to give your illustrations extemporaneously, even when the sermon is written ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes, and no. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. Some of your carefully written- out illustrations would die between your attempting to remember and attempting to originate. There is nothing worse than to get into the place where those two processes meet. You will hear a person say, " I MEtOHlCAL ILLUSTKATiONS. 177 have either to read my sermons or else make brief notes and not read at all." The difficulty is that if you have your notes well written out and then look up from them and undertake to extemporize, you will be extemporizing, as it were, with one eye, and thinking of what is in your notes with the other ; so that you will really rest on neither, but go down between the two processes. No man can extemporize until he cuts the cord that holds him to his sermon. You cannot extemporize while you are thinking of anything other than the impulse which is carrying you on. Q. Would you advocate special services for children, at times? Mr. Beecher. — Yes. It is a very excellent plan indeed. I think every parish should have a periodical service for children. Dr. Storrs has had a regular series of discourses for his children, and it has been one of the most excellent features of his ministry in Brooklyn. Q. About how much poetry is necessary to spice a sermon ? Mr. Beecher. — Of quotations I should say, gener- ally none. Of poetical treatment and illustration, it " depends." Poetry, you know, is not a thing that you can measure and put in by quantity. If your theme suggests illustrations which are poetical, take and use them ; but to determine that you will have a definite quantity of them will kill inspiration in the very egg. Q. Is there not danger of getting into a loose way of sermon- izing, by not preparing your illustrations beforehand, but just taking them as they strike you in the pulpit ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes ; and there is danger of getting into too seve»^e a habit, if you prepare in the other way. 8^ I. 178 LECTUKP]S ON PREACHING. There is danger any way. You cannot prepare in any way so that you can say to yourself, " Now I am sure of success ; I need not give myself any further respon- sibility." For, if there is a working-man on earth, it is the man who undertakes to preach continually and steadily to an ordinary congregation. Let me say to you, gentlemen, never be frightened because you have preached a bad sermon ; but, at the same time, never, under any circumstances whatever, preach a bad sermon on purpose, or by negligence or carelessness. If you are not in a good condition for work, if you are sick, never apologize, but do the best you can, even though knowing you are doing it very j)oorly. That is not a pleasant experience, as I can bear witness. Preach the best you can, under the circumstances, without apology. If you are preaching to but six people, do the best thing you can do. Do it always and everywhere. Q. Is it a proper thing to make an audience laugh by an illus- tration ? Mr. Beecher. — Never turn aside from a laugh any more than you would from a cry. Go ahead on your Master's business, and do it well. And remember this, that every faculty in you was placed there by the dear Lord God for his service. Never try to raise a laugh for a laugh's sake, or to make men merry as a piece of sensationalism, when you are preaching on solemn things. That is allowable at a picnic, but not in a pulpit where you are preaching to men in regard to God and their own destiny. But if mirth comes up naturally, do not stifle it ; strike that chord, and par- ticularly if you want to make an audience cry. If I RHETORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 179 can make them laugh, I do not thank anybody for the next move ; I will make them cry. Did you ever s^e a woman carrying a pan of milk quite full, and it slops over on one side, that it did not immediately slop over on the other also ? Q. If a man "slops over" on some occasions, is he not liable to " slop over " continually ? Mr. Beecher. — Not long in one place, if he does it continually. If you take the liberty, however, from what I have said, to quote stale jokes ; if you make queer turns because they will make people laugh, and to show you have power over the congregation, you will prove yourselves contemptible fellows. But if, when yorf are arguing any question, the thing comes upon you so that you see a point in a ludicrous light, you can sometimes flash it at your audience, and accomplish at a stroke what you were seeking to do by a long train of argument, and that is entirely allowable. In such a case do not attempt to suppress laughter. It is a part of the nature that God gave us, and which we can use in his service. When you are fighting the Devil, shoot him with anything. Q. Would not a man, under such circumstances, be in danger of overturning just what he was trying to accomplish ? Mr. Beecher. — No ; unless he accompanies it very poorly. If a minister is earnest and honest, and a man of God, if he bears about him the savor of the heavenly world and the benevolence of this life, his people will know it. If you know the difference between a man who is in earnest and one who is merely playing, do 180 LECTURES ON PREACHING. you suppose the people will respond to the superficial and lower qualities, and not to the greater and nobler ones in a true preacher ? Q. How long would you advise a young man to preach ? Mr. Beecher. — As long as he can make his people take his sermon. That is very much like asking how long a coat you should have made for people, in general. VIII. HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. HERE has been, in recent times, a great deal more information diffused among tlie common people on the subject of health than formerly, and men live more whole- somely, and all the processes of society are in better accordance with the laws of life. Men have more in- telligent ideas of what to avoid and what to seek. There is one relation, however, to which I shall more particularly confine myself to-day, which has been largely left out of the popular consideration, and that is the relation of health to brain-work. If you take a full stem of wheat in harvest-time, and sliake out all the kernels of wheat, what is left is chaff and straw. So, if you take from a nmn his brain- power, all that is left of him is chaff and straw ; that is, it is nothing but animal. All there is of a man lies in the nerve and brain power; and while the business of life is to take care of the bone and muscle, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, and the lieart, that is only because this is the way to take care of that which is, after all, the sovereign, and for which all these other 182 LECTURES ON PREACHING. things are merely servants and messengers and purveyors. It is the brain-power, or the mental power as expressed through the brain, that causes man to surpass the lower creations around liim. Now, it is not very difficult for a man to live in the enjoyment of good health who is born with a good constitution, which he has not in youth drained and sapped, and who has come into a noble and virtuous maidiood, and into a profession that will keep him within proper bounds of exertion. But you must re- member that you are going to be under fire. Let a man be in the midst of a desperate naval engagement, where the shot and shell are filling the air, and the splinters flying thick as hail, he will find it is not so easy to pass unscathed. Let a man. be in the midst of an awakened community, where all the members of two hundred families have a right to go to his fire and light their torches ; where he is obliged to preach Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and tw^ice on Sunday ; where he is visited by all ; where he must preside at prayer- meetings and social gatherings ; and where he has to be a perpetual fountain, out of which so many different liydrants are drawing their supplies, — then to keep one's health is a very different thing. There are few men in the ministry who live at one half their competency or power. They do not know how to make their machines work at a high rate of speed, with great executive energy, without damage to themselves. It is an art to be healthy at all ; but to be healthy when you are run at the top of your speed all the time is a great art indeed. HEALTH, AS KELATED TO PKEACHING. 183 WHAT IS HEALTH? Let me tell you that when I speak of health, I do not mean merely not being sick. I divide people into, first, the sick folk ; secondly, the not-sick folk ; thirdly, the almost-healthy folk; and fourthly — and they are the elect — the folk that are healthy. What I mean by "health" is such a feeling or tone in every part of a man's body or system that he has the natural language of health. What is the natural language of health ? Look at four-months-old puppies, and see. Look at kittens, and see. Look at children, from the time they are three or four or five years old. Look at young men, when tliey are at school and at the academy. They cannot eat enough, nor holloa enough, nor run enough, nor wrestle enough. They are just full. It is buoyancy. It is the insatiable desire of play and of exertion. The nature of the human constitution, in a state of health, is to be a creative instrument or agent ; and the necessity in a man to be creating outside of himself is one of the noblest tokens of health. When one has been kept at work and under the yoke, he has played off his surplus energy in the various channels of his business activities. We do not expect a man to bound and caper about, for the simple reason that he has other legitimate channels to work off his steam in. But let him get a vacation. He goes to the White Mountains. He has three or four days of uncaring rest and nights of long sleep, and then he awakes to the stimulus of the mountains. " Well," he says, " I feel like a boy again," which is only another way of saying, I feel my health." 184 LECTURES ON PREACHING. His system is not perverted. He is rested in all hi? parts, and that vast amount of energy and vitality which he generates, but which in the city was worked off in professional labors and social relations, is now being collected again; the measure of the instrument is filled and it pours over. A man in health is a fountain, and he flows over at the eye, at the lip, and all the time, by every species of action and demonstra- tion. I have often seen what are called over-shot wheels, where they have a very small and weak stream. They get a wheel of large diameter, and the buckets are made in a peculiar form, sloping from the mouth up. Then comes a little trickling stream which pours down into the big buckets its slow accumulation of water- weight, and it begins to turn the wheel very moderately and gradually, and so it goes. That is about the con- dition in which average men are working, with just enough power to turn an over-shot wheel. But if you have a great, full, strong stream, the mere impact of which on the wheel is enough to turn it, then the wheel is made under-shot, and the water comes dashing against the breast and bottom of it, and around it goes, promptly and rapidly. The miller says, " What do I care ? I have got the whole stream. There is no use in economizing my water ; I will let it flow," and the water runs all the time. There are very few men that can afford to run on an under-shot wheel. Almost all men are economists of their resources, because they have not this real high health* HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 185 HEALTH AND THOUGHT. As to the direct bearing of this bodily condition on your coming duties, let me say, first, men in a high state of health invariably see more sharply the truth that they are after. They see its relations and its fit- ness. They have a sense of direction, combination, and of the power of relations of truth to emotion. The old-fashioned way of preparing a sermon was where a man sat down with his pipe, and smoked and "thought," as he called it, and after one or two or three hours, — his wife saying to everybody in the mean time, " Dear man, he is up stairs studying ; he has to study so hard ! " — in which he has been in a muggy, fumbling state of mind, he at last comes out with the product of it for the pulpit. It is like unleavened bread, doughy, dumpy, and heavy, — hard to eat, and harder to digest. There has been nothing put in it to vitalize it. But w^hen a man is in a perfect state of health, no matter where he goes, he is sensitive to social influence and to social wants. He discovers men's necessities instinctively. He is very quick to choose the instrument by which to minister to those neces- sities, so that when he goes to his study he has some- thing to do, and he knoivs what it is. He is accurate in his thinking. Is there no difference in the varying moods of the draughtsman ? Take him with a bilious headache. Do you suppose he can make his strokes so that every line of his drawing shall express thought ? Some people say, " Why, there are times when I can do more in a day than in a week at other times," which is true, because at those periods the 186 LECTURES ON PREACHING. system is in a perfect condition of health. Suppose you could have that condition always, what workers you would be ! How it would sharpen your compre- hension of the various relations of truth, and with what ease could you see and handle them ! For all these things are largely dependent upon health. You cannot drudge them out. Men are said to have genius. What is genius but a condition of fiber, and a condition of health in fiber ? It is nothing in the world but automatic thinking. And what is automatic thinking ? It is thought that thinks itself, instead of being run up or worried up to think. Whoever thinks without thinking is in fact a genius. In music, it is said that it "makes it- self." In arithmetic or mechanics, the demonstration "comes" to you. You do not think it out, except automatically. Eeal thinking ought to be automatic action, and almost unconscious. Under such circum- stances, your intuitions and your sudden automatic thinking, nine times out of ten, will be true ; and when you send slow -footed Logic afterward to meas- ure the footsteps and the way over which your thoughts have traveled. Logic will come back and report, "Well, I did not believe it, but he was right, after all." So, then, for sharpness and accuracy and com- plexity of thinking, in which much of your. life ought to lie, you require the best conditions of health in the system by which you think. HEALTH IN SPEAKING. The next step is where you come to speak what you have thought. You know how beautifully some men • HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 187 write, and how poorly they deliver; how well they prepare their materials, and yet their materials when prepared are of no force whatever. They are beautiful arrows, — arrows of silver ; golden-tipped are they, and winged with the feathers of the very bird of paradise. But there is no bow to draw the arrows to the head and shoot them strongly home, and so they all fall out of the sheath down in front of the pulpit or platform. People say, "Those sermons are fit to be printed," — and they are fit for nothing else. They are essays. They are sections of books. But what the preacher w^ants is the power of having something that is worth saying, and then the power of saying it. He is to hold the light up so that a blind man cannot help feeling that it is falling on his orbs. He needs to put the truth in such a way that if a man were asleep it would wake him up ; and if he were dead, it would give him resurrection for the hour. A man that breaks his backbone every time he explodes a vowel, — how^ can he do it ? POPULAR ORATORS. Who are the speakers that move the crowd, — men after the pattern of Whitefield, what are they ? They are almost always men of very large physical develop- ment, men of very strong digestive powers, and whose lungs have great aerating capacity. They are men of great vitality and recuperative force. They are men who, while they have a sufficient thought-power to create all the material needed, have pre-eminently the explosive power by which they can thrust their mate- rials out at men. They are catapults, and men go 188 LECTURES ON PKEACHING. down before them. Of course you will find men now and then, thin and shrill-voiced, w^ho are popular speak- ers. Sometimes men are organized with a compact ner- vous temperament and are slender framed, while they have a certain concentrated earnestness, and in narrow lines they move with great intensity. John Eandolph was such a man. THRUST-POWER. I desire to call your attention to this force-giving power, that which lends impetuosity, that which gives what I might call lunge to a man's preaching. Why should you waste your time every Sunday morning and night, without being conscious of having done anything ? You can afford to do it occasionally, as there is wastage in all systems ; but a man who goes on preaching when there is no evidence of accomplish- ment is like a windmill that the boys put on the top of a house ; it goes around and around, but it grinds nothing below. Preaching is business, young gentle- men. It means the hardest kind of work. There is nothing else in this world that requires so many resources, so much thought, so much sagacity, so much constant application, so much freshness, such intensity of conception within, and such power of exe- cution without, as genuine preaching. Ministers some- times think they do their duty by resting chiefly on their faithful pastoral labors, but they do not half bring out the preaching-power, when they rely on the indirect and social influences that are connected with it. One should help the other. You are to bring out the preaching-element, if it is in you; for, in this age, HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. preaching is almost everything. This is pre-eminently the talking age. A preacher must be a good talker, and must have something in him that is worth talking about. People say, Show me a man of deeds, and not of words." You might as well say, " Show me a field of corn ; I don't care about clouds and rain." Talking makes thought and feeling, and thought and feeling make action. Show me a man of words who knows how to incite noble deeds ! HEALTH AS A CHEERING INFLUENCE. But, once more, it is impossible for a man who is an invalid to sustain a cheerful and hopeful ministry among his people. An invalid looks with a sad eye upon human life. He may be sympathetic, but it is almost always with the shadows that are in the world. He will give out moaning and drowsy hynms. He will make prayers that are almost all piteous. It may not be a minister's fault if he be afflicted and ill, and ad- ministers his duties in mourning and sadness, but it is a vast misfortune for his people. If there is anything in this world that is the product of wholesome, healthy souls, it is the hope-giving and joyful comforter. If there was ever a system of joy and hope in the world, prefigured by the prophets, and afterward characterized by the Sun of Eighteousness, it is that ardent and hope-inspiring gospel that you are to preach. You are not sent out to tell of the dun- geon and the pit, the shackle and the yoke, — except as redeemed by the power of Jesus Christ into rest and peace. And the very product of the gospel which you are to carry to mankind is hope and cheer. It is good news. 190 LECTURES ON PREACHING. You find men struggling with cares. They stand where a dozen ways meet, in utter perplexity, and they want the best advice you can give. Your Sunday ought to bring this witness from your flock every single month of your ministry : " If it had not been for the refreshment that I got on Sundays I never could liave carried my burdens." Tlie sweetest praises that minis- ters can ever have are from the house of trouble, from men in bankruptcy, from men hunted by perverse for- tune almost to the bounds of suicide. They come to you, and say, Sir, it was the cheer and comfort of your preaching that helped me through, or I never could have endured it." That will be better than any guer- don and any compliment. We are sent to men that are cheerless, men in distress, men who are burdened ; and we have no business to have any other ministry than that which is based on the sweet teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must learn ardor and fervor from St. Paul's interpretation of them. We must tell of love, hope, courage, and the cheering prospect of a blessed immortality. What business have you to turn all this into a minor symphony ? But you cannot do otherwise, unless you keep yourselves healthy, cheerful, hopeful, and buoyant. You must call in to your assist- ance all the help you can derive from the highest conditions of bodily health. HEALTHFUL VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY. Then there is a relation of this question in another direction. I think the minister of a parish, who has been there for five years, ought to impress upon the young people of his parish the practical idea, that tb HEALTH, AS KELATED TO PREACHING. 191 be a Christian is to be the happiest person in the world. Men say, "Let us have our enjoyment here, and have a good time ; then, when we have had it, and tasted what there is to be tasted, we had better be pious." That is about the idea of it. It is a gloomy and dismal thing ; but, to a certain extent, we are to blame for this false notion. Now it seems to me that we ought to make known what is unquestionably the truth, namely, that Chris- tianity aims only at a nobler style of manhood, and at a better and happier style of living. Christianity means friendship carried up into a sphere where by the natural man you could never elevate it. It means the purest enjoyments of earth as well as heaven. It means that life shall blossom like Aaron's rod. And every man who is a true Christian is one who has lived up to the measure of his competency, in a bright and joyful life, compared with which all other lives are low^ and ignoble. The Apostle Paul, after going through a long line of exhortations to virtue, finally wound up by saying, Whatever is lovely and of good report, think on these things." A true minister, in order to inspire his congregation with this noble conception of a Christian character and a Christian life, must have something in him. He can- not go around with lead in his shoes, nor yet in his head. He cannot drudge and complain. A man of God ought to strike men among whom he moves as being more manly than anybody else ; certainly, never less. You should bear in mind that you are twice or- dained, — once, when your mother laid her hand in love upon your just-born head, after giving you your organi- 192 LiECTURES ON PREACHiNCj. zation and nature ; and, again, by the Holy Ghost, later in life, to give you a fuller development. If you are not a man, what business have you in the ministry ? You have mistaken your vocation. You may do to make some other things, but you will not be a maker of men. It takes a 7nan to refashion men. You can- not do it unless you have some sort of vigor, vitality, versatility, moral impulse, and social power in you. And if you have these things, how they will win ! How men will want to come to you ! They tell me that the pulpit is losing its power, that religion is going under, and that science is to rule. I will put genuine manly religion against all the science in the world. HEALTH AS A SWEETENER OF WORK. I have seen a great deal of life, and on all of its sides. I have seen the depths of poverty, and I have seen competency. I have seen the extremity of solitari- ness, and the crowds of a city, both at home and abroad. I have seen what art has done, and whatever is to be seen in the wilderness. I have had youth and middle age, and now I am an old man. I have seen it all, and I bear witness that, while there are single moments of joy in other matters that, perhaps, carry a man up to the summit of feeling, yet for steadfast and repetitious experience there is no pleasure in this world compara- ble to that which a man has who habitually stands before an audience with an errand of truth, which he feels in every corner of his soul and in every fiber of his body, and to whom the Lord has given liberty of utterance, so that he is pouring out the whole manhood HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 193 in him upon his congregation. Nothing in the world is comparable to that. It goes echoing on in you after you get through. Once in a while I preach sermons that leave me in such a delightful state of mind that I do not get over it for two days ; and I wonder that I am not a better man. I feel it all day Sunday and Monday, and there is not an organ in the world that makes music so grand to me as I feel in such supreme hours and moments. But I am conscious how largely the physical element of healthfulness enters into this experience. When I am depressed in body and heavy in mind I do not get it. You cannot expect either these exceptional, higher consummations, or tlie strong, steady flow of a joyful relish for your work, unless you cultivate a robust and healthful manhood. PRACTICAL HINTS. I will now suggest to you some practical directions, which are very largely the result of my personal ex- perience, and which may be profitable to you. You must excuse any egotism T may exhibit. As I under- stand it, these lectures are nothing but a branch of the regular chair of Pastoral Theology, and I am to explain here in its practical form that which, in its philosophical form. Professor Hoppin gives you in his instructions at other times. Experience is always ego- tism, and that is whccu I am here to give you. To begin with, I will say that I had this advantage, that my father was a dyspeptic. From my earliest childhood I noticed the great watchfulness and skill with which he took care of himself, and now and then he dropped words of advice. When I went into the 9 M 194 LECTURES ON PREACHING. ministry, I remembered some of his maxims and some of his incidental utterances. They led me to think about caring for my own health ; I did not know much about it, but I thought about it. I " watched " it, as the engineers say on the road. A good engineer watches both the engine and the road. And now, as the result of between thirty and forty years of inces- sant preaching, I give you these hints in regard to the care of your health. MUSCULAR STRENGTH NOT ENOUGH. When I first began, I had an impression that if I had good bone and muscle I should be all right. I very soon learned that it was possible for a man to take too much exercise, and that a man could be built up phys- ically at the expense of his brain. You are sufficiently acquainted with aquatic and other sports to know that you may over-train a man, so that he is carried beyond his highest power. Now, if you undertake, as scholars, very violent exercise, according to the exaggerated idea of muscular Christianity, you will very soon use up all the vitality of your system in the bone-and-muscle development, and it will leave you, not better, but less fitted for intellectual exertion. Yet there must be enough care given to bone and muscle to furnish a good platform, on which your artillery is to stand. THE ART OF EATING, Next comes the stomach. In regard to that, every- body feels that he must not be a glutton nor a gor- mand, but there is very little discrimination and very HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 195 little observation as to the quantity and quality and the times and seasons of eating. Preachers may be divided into two great classes : the sanguineous class, who cannot eat much if they are going to think or speak; and the class who have the extreme nervous temperament, who cannot speak or w^ork unless they do eat. On Sunday morning, when I wake, my first thought is that it is Sunday morning, and the very idea of it takes away my appetite. I go down, drink a cup of coffee, and eat an egg and half a slice of toast. That is all I can eat. There is just enough to sustain my system. Then I preach, and, if I have not done very well, I am hungry ; but if I have done very well, I cannot eat much dinner. That is because there is a reaction of the nervous influence of the system. The whole system is working so much by the brain and the nerves that the stomach does not crave anything. Just as great grief, or fear, or any other extreme passion, takes away appetite, so does active preaching. Ordi- narily, I take but a moderate dinner on Sunday. Sup- per with me is at five o'clock in the afternoon, and I usually take a cup of tea and a small piece of cracker. That is all I can take. Then I go to my evening work, and when I get through, I sometimes am satisfied to take nothing but an orange, which I eat to give my stomach something to do until morning, and to keep it from craving, — for often a fit of craving will give one a nightmare as quickly as overfeeding will. At other times I feel a strong appetite, and then I eat. Perhaps once out of five Sundays I eat more just after preaching, morning or evening, than I do all the rest of the day put together. The system indicates it, and 196 LECTURES ON PREACHING. therefore I am not harmed by it. It does not disturb my sleep, and digestion goes on perfectly. Now the point I take is, not that you shall follow this, but that you shall find out, accurately, in regard to your own eating, what obstructs and what does not obstruct your mental operations. If you go to your study after a hearty breakfast, and you find it takes you from eight o'clock to eleven before you really get into your work, you may be pretty sure that you have overloaded your stomach, and that the energies of your system have been so busy in the work of digestion that you could not call them off to do brain-work. But if you get up from the table after a comparatively light meal, which requires but little digestion, and when you go into your study find that you can apply yourself at once to your labor, it is because you have eaten in due proportion to the needs of your system. Eating is to the work of the human body just what the firing up of an engine is to traveling. Eating is a means to an end. It is not a habit nor a social custom merely. It is not a question of luxury. Do men eat stupidly, and simply because they are hungry ? You eat to make working force ; and as the engineer keeps his eye all the time on the steam-gauge to know the number of pounds of pressure, and to regulate it to the various conditions of going up or down grade or on a level, and to the number of passengers he is carrying, so does a man eat, or so ought he to eat, all the time gauging himself. You have, in fact, to eat much or little, ac- cording to the work you have to do. When you come back from a journey, you must be careful not to over- work yourself, and not to eat too much. If you are in HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 197 regular harness and are working, you ought to know what you shall eat. Your business is to eat so that you can think and work, and not for self-indulgence only. QUANTITY OF SLEEP. The same holds good in respect to sleep. Many men, going into the ministry, have broken down from want of sleep. I will say a few things on that point. In the first place, sleep, that was reckoned involuntary, like many other involuntary things, can to a certain extent be brought under the dominion of habit and the will. There is no doubt but that the human will is the strongest power in this world, next to death. A man who says, By the grace of God I WILL," and who feels it in his bones, in his muscles, and in his whole being, can do almost anything. Now it may seem a little singular, but it is true, that if you are possessed of a very nervous organization you will need less sleep than if you are of a phlegmatic temperament. If a man is dull, lethargic, and slow, eight or nine hours of sleep is necessary for him. But, if he is nervous, lithe, thin, quick, vividly sensitive, so that he is all the time letting out sparks somewhere, he will require but from five to seven hours' sleep. That seems very strange, but it is just as simple as anything can be. Sleep is an active operation, during which the process of assimi- lation goes on. Now, the nervous man eats quickly, works quickly, and sleeps quickly. He does just as much work while he is sleeping six hours as the lethar- gic man does in seven or eight. A man who is slow and plethoric, who takes a breath before every word, and m LECTURES ON PREACHING. who never has a quick motion, can never sleep quickly. He will be an hour in doing up as much work in his sleep as another man will do in forty minutes. The temperament acts throughout. Never gauge the dura- tion of your sleep by the time any one else sleeps. Some men will tell you that John Wesley had only so much sleep, Hunter, the great physiologist, so much, and Napoleon so much sleep. When the Lord made you, as a general thing, he did not make Napoleons. Every man carries within himself a Mount Sinai, a revealed law, written for himself separately. You must admin- ister sleep to yourselves according to your tempera- ment, your constitution, and your wants. Something you may know presumptively, but principally you must learn by experience. Sometimes, when men get into hard work, they are apt to sleep too much. Others, again, are inclined to sleep too little. Let me say to you here, that of all dire mistakes among young gentlemen, night study is the greatest. There may be some of you that can carry that out well. Some men are so tough that nothing will seem to affect them detrimentally. But I think that more than eighty per cent of ministers who in- dulge in night study abbreviate their lives, weaken their tone, and take away from themselves the fullness of their power. It is bad to do it. BADLY REGULATED WORK. It is especially bad for a preacher to prepare his ser- mons on Saturday night. It is bad for a man to keep his brain at the top of its power from early on Satur- day to late at night, so that he sleeps in a fiery dream of HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 199 sermon. For then, he preaches on Sunday ; and there are two days in which the brain is unintermittingly impleted and stimulated. It is hot and feverish. Then, worse than all, comes what is called " black Monday," a day upon which the minister throws off everything, and thus completely unstrings the bow. You must give yourselves intervals of rest and play- time. But never let an excitement have such a rest that you run clear down. The way to cure an excite- ment is to meet it with another one. If you have preached all the week, and are keyed up very high, and you say to yourself, " Now I must rest," and you rest a day, but still the nervous excitement continues ; and Sunday you call again upon your brain, which gives the response, you will, perhaps, be carried over Monday; but by Tuesday you begin to come down, and you think the earth is not so bright as it formerly seemed. You begin to think that you have mistaken your vocation, and that you will turn farmer. Then you have gone down as far as you ought. Some begin to see the blue devils at that point. You must meet fire with fire. A new excitement, brought in from another quarter, however, and of a different nature, will meet the old one, and on the ashes of the past you will build up a new flame. I have sometimes had a whole month of undertone, because I let go and ran clear down, not knowing then how to meet one excitement with another, and thus carry myself along healthily. For the Sabbath day, it seems to me that while it is important that you should train for thought and matter, it is only second in importance that you should train 200 LECTURES ON PREACHING. also for condition. Now, no man who studies daring the last part of the w^eek so that he comes to Sunday with only the refuse of w^hat he has in him, making it his weakest day, can come up to the requirements of his duty. He is kept in a continual state of ex- citement, passing from one strain to another without in- terval. No man is wise who does it. Saturday should be a play-day. I make it a day, not of laziness, but of genial, social, pleasurable exhilaration. I go up street and see pleasant people. I go and look at pic- tures. I have a great many sources of enjoyment that many of you could not enjoy. I love to see horses. I like to go on the street and see the different teams go by. I like to stand on the ferry-boat and see the splendid horses come on with their great loads. I like a Dexter. I like all fine horses, but I like the dray-horses, too. There is such a sense of might and power with them. They are almost as interesting as a locomotive engine — the finest thing man ever cre- ated, unless it be a watch. I like to go to Tiffany's. I ask, " What are your men doing to-day ? " " Well," says Tiffany, " we will go down and see." We go down to the ateliers ^ watch the workmen silver-plating and engraving, and talk with them. It is a good thing for you to live close to common people, plain folks and working-men. It keeps you near to humanity as distinguished from artificiality and conventionalism. After I get home I enjoy myself quietly in the evening, and when Sunday comes I am impleted. I have fresh blood ; and without training for condition, I have it. I feel like a race-horse. Sometimes I cannot wait for the time to come for me to go into the pulpit. I long HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 201 to speak. But this result cannot be attained by study- ing yourselves up, and coming into church on Sunday quite dry and desiccated. SLEEP AFTER WORK. People have often asked me how I managed to sleep after preaching. Generally, I do not have any difficulty in getting to sleep. I can always sleep after a good ser- mon, and even bad ones do not keep me awake long ! You must remember that the reason why a man cannot sleep after excitement is because his brain is gorged with blood. The blood is the stimulus which' works the brain, and the brain draws to itself all the blood it can get. I always know whether my brain has been doing its work well or not. If I find my hands and feet warm, I say generally that the product of my thought is not worth much ; and I begin to think there has been a waste of brain-material. But if my hands and feet grow chilly, and I have to wrap up all over, on account of the blood, which is the working force, being drawn away from the extremities to the brain, T know that the thinking power has been busy, — has probably worked to some effect. You must deal with yourselves on this theory ; whatever will distribute the blood to every part of your system will relieve the brain, and you will be able to go to sleep. In the first place, do not talk after preaching on Sunday nights. Do not go home and have a good time over what you have seen and heard. Many a minister uses himself up more by the after-piece than he does by the main performance. It is sweet to talk when you are in such fine condition ! Everybody is there pouring out compliments upon you. 9* 202 LECTURES ON PREACHING. But they are wasting you. You are like the cocoon of a silkworm, which they are unwinding, and in so doing they take the life out of you. You never get through your work. I owe what I know of horticulture to the study I gave it at short intervals, when I was preaching every day for two years, and twice on Sunday, besides doing revival and other work. I got out of the State Library of Indiana four or five volumes of Loudon's works on agriculture and horticulture. I read them. There was a charm in reading even the names of the plants in the catalogues, although there was nothing very stimulating in it. It was like Webster's Dictionary, where the connection is broken at every word, and yet it is intensely interesting to read. In that way I let myself down quietly, and then I could go to sleep. But suppose I cannot go to sleep ? I get up from bed, and walk about the room without dressing myself That is, I take an air-bath, and, if need be, I throw up the window, and keep on walking, not until I am chilled, but until I am pretty nearly chilled. The moment that any part of the human body is attacked, the vital forces rush to tliat part to repair any loss that may have taken place. If you take cold, the vital forces instantly at- tempt to establish the equilibrium. Bring cold to bear upon your body, and the vital forces instantly send out the blood to the part where the cold is, to restore the warmth, and that relieves the system. The blood ceases to be dammed up in the brain and in the large vessels. But suppose I cannot sleep tlien ; what is to be done ? I say to myself, " Now, you have got to go to sleep ; and the sooner you give up, the better it will be." So I walk into the bath-room, and turn on a little water, just HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 203 enough to put my feet and ankles into ; and it is very rare indeed that the obstinacy of my system resists that. This operation brings the blood down to the feet, and I can almost always get to sleep. If I cannot, I turn on a little more water and sit down in it. All this is treating one's self physiologically, medi- cally, so to speak, without medicine. It is treating one's self according to correct principles for the sake of procuring sleep. If you do not sleep, first or last, your audience will ; and therefore it is necessary that you should sleep for them, that they may keep awake to hear what you may have to say. More than that, when a man has gone through the paroxysm of the week, which is Sunday, it is necessary that he should, as soon as possible, be put into a state to go to work again. Therefore you should eat as you would fire an en- gine ; and sleep, remembering that out of sleep comes the whole force of wakefulness, with the power you have in it. There are many other points that I had in mind, but I have already taken so much of your time that I will not detain you longer, but will merely await your ques- tions. QUESTION'S AND ANSWERS. Q. Will you say a word as to the number of hours a man should spend in his study ? How many hours a day, at the maximum ? Mr. Beecher. — Tliere is no absolute rule that can be given in all cases. I should think, however, that, at the maximum, a man can do as much in four hours' 204 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. work during the day as he needs to do. But it must be work. You can sometimes collect materials for your work, although you do not feel like working. You can ascertain the negative, if you cannot create the positive. Sometimes a man will study a whole day to find out that he cannot do a thing that he was counting on. But I do not think that any man can originate matter, and pursue a course of severe fruitful study, for more than four hours a day. I do not believe that he can average that. I think that ministers often attempt to study too much. If they would concentrate their power, and use it regularly, they would get out much more than by spreading it over so much ground. Q. Should one do much in the way of preparing a sermon on Monday ? Mr. Beecher. — No; unless he is going to preach on Monday night. Saturday and Monday ought to be inclined planes, the former a very inclined plane up to Sunday, and the latter an inclined plane away from it. There are a great many things that a man can do on Monday, which are necessary to be done, but he should not gorge his brain on that day. Q. Ought a man to prepare his sermons on Sunday morning, and make a practice of it? Mr. Beecher. — If the Lord showed him that that was the best way of doing it, he should. I do not know whether you mean to be personal or not, but that is my habit. When I went to LaAvrenceburg, I went thinking that I would do the best I could. I had the vague general instru^.tion^ that are given, to lay deep foun- HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. 205 dations, to study thoroughly, and to bring," as old Dr. Humphrey used to say, nothing but the beaten oil in- to the sanctuary." I felt that this was connected with regular and incessant study during all the week. I tried to study so. I succeeded in studying, but I could not succeed in using what I had. On Sunday T could not do anything with what I had so laboriously dug out during the week. Of course, I increased my gen- eral stock of knowledge. Sometimes I would find that after working a subject up all the week, something else would take possession of me on Saturday, and I would have to preach it on Sunday to get rid of it. I felt ashamed and mortified, and began to fear I was on the way to superficiality. I made many promises, that, if God would help me, I would make my sermons a long time beforehand. I kept on making promises and breaking them, and the older I grew the worse I grew ; and finally, in spite of prayers and resolutions, I had to give it up and prepare my sermons mostly on Sun- day morning and Sunday afternoon. But then you must recollect that this was accompanied by another liabit, — that of regular study and continual observa- tion. I do not believe that I ever met a man on the * street that I did not get from him some element for a sermon. I never see anything in nature which does not work toward that for which I m ve the strencrth of o o my life. The material for my sermons is all the time following me and swarming up around me. I am tracing out analogies, which I afterward take pains to verify, to see whether my views of certain truths were correct. I follow them out in my study, and see how such things are taught by others. 206 LECTURES ON PREACHING. These things I do not always at the time formulate for use, but it is a process of accumulation. Now, by the peculiar temperament given to me, I am able, out of this material, when Sunday comes and I know what I want to do with my congregation, to bring up some instrument to do it with, some view of truth that will include in it a <>reat many of the results reached lons^ before by the practice I have been describing, and which are crystallized ready for use. In that way I make my sermons. Another man begins his on Tues- day, and he would be untrue to himself if he followed any other plan. Every man must find out the way lie is to work. I would advise no young man to follow my method. It happens to be my way, but it is very likely not to be yours. You can find out, by trying, which is the best way for you to work. IX. SERMON-MAKING. OTHING could well be more unlike the preaching of the apostolic times than that which exists in the regular and organized churches of the modern days in Christendom. I often wonder that there has been no sect formed upon the basis of preaching. The Church has been divided in reference to baptism, seeking a literal imita- tion of the primitive practice. It is organized and re- organized on the question of organization. The world has been full of contending sects upon matters of exact interpretation of doctrine. Almost the only possible point on which a sect could be built, that has been left unoccupied, is the sermon. Why have we not had sects declaring tliat we must preach sermons precisely after the patterns of the apostolic sermons ? THE DISCOURSES OF JESUS. The discourses of our Lord were in form, method, and genius, eminently Jewish. He was regarded by the common people as a superior Eabbi. He certainly adopted methods that were then current, of teaching, 208 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. and illustrating his teaching by parables, questioning the multitude, and receiving questions in return, moving from place to place, gathering his audience as he went, ' — in short, doing as his countrymen did, and differing from them only in the superior manner of doing it. MODE OF THE APOSTLES. The early preaching of the Apostles was confined to a very narrow circle. They were Jews. They were preaching to Jews. The point to which everything tended was, that Jesus Christ was to stand in the place of the old Mosaic law. Their arguments were scrip- tural and national. We have but little evidence that they preached in any such systematic manner as has grown up in churches since their time. Already they found a system of morality, a system of public worship, and a general development of public truth. It was their business to concentrate all these elements around the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, in him to estab- lish a new centre of influence, and from him to derive a living force such as could not proceed from the dry fonnulas of the law. CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN PREACHING. The pulpit, as it has come down to us, has had an extraordinary history. For one reason and another it has, in many periods of time, been almost the exclusive source of knowledge among the common people. Before books were either plenty or cheap ; before the era of the newspaper, the magaz.ine^ or the tract ; before knowledge was poured in, as now, from a hundred quarters, — an era almost flooded with it, the people SERMON-MAKING. 209 im]3ibing it, so to speak, through the very pores of their skin, — the pulpit was the school, the legislative hall, the court of law ; in short, the university of the com- mon people. By change of circumstances, many ele- ments of success in one age cease to be operative in an- other. Preaching will be proper or improper, wise or successful, in proportion as it adapts itself to the special want of the different peoples and the different classes of people in any one time. It may be said, in general, that the length and breadth of topics will be in inverse ratio to the civilization and refinement of the people ; that is to say, the pulpit in rude r^eigl' borhood, where the knowledge of the people will mainly be derived from it, must cover a broader ground, and must instruct the people in a hundred different things which in civ- ilized and refined communities they learn from other sources. As refinement increases, however, the tax laid upon a minister's resources augments immeasurably. In order to maintain authority and influence, he must not be behind his own auditory. If knowledge is increas- ing among his people, every year will require him to develop new resources. I do not think there is any pro- fession that demands so much of a man as that of the Christian ministry. Besides the doulle oration on Sunday, the prayer meeting, the conference meeting, and various other forms of neighborhood meetings, are draw- ing incessantly upon him. He is the Toot and trunk through which a thousand leaves are drawing sap. LABORIOUSNESS OF THE MINISTRY. The lawyer has the facts of his case made up and brought to him. He is aroused by direct antagonisms 210 LECTURES ON PREACHING. He is striving for an end which may be gained or lost in the compass of a few hours or a few days. Every- thing is real, visible, near, and stimulating to him. But the Christian minister, from week to week, and through years, if his ministry be long in the same place, must discourse on themes high, recondite, and infinite in va- riety, and find his incitement either in the general affection which he has for his people, or in the special fascination of the truths which he preaches. His mind derives stimulation wholly from internal sources, and he gets but little help from externals. In the silence of his study, or in his solitary walks, he devises his own plans ; and although his sermons are aimed at certain external conditions, at particular classes of men, or special wants, yet in the course of years it becomes dif- ficult, week after week, to educate the same people in the s^me general direction, without repetition of one's self, without growing formal, or falling into dull di- dactics. When I consider the steady pull which the pulpit makes upon the Christian minister, I marvel not that sermons are so poor, but that they are so good; and I think that neither the pulpit nor the ministry have anything to fear from a just comparison of their results with those of any other learned profession in society. This necessity of preparing every week fresh matter becomes, to unfruitful minds, an excessive taxation, and drives men to all manner of devices ; and, even at the best, it is no small burden for a man to carry through the year his pack of sermons, born or unborn. While men are stimulated in the seminary to the higher con- ceptions of the duty of preaching, while newspapers SERMON-MAKING. 211 are criticising, and hungry and fastidious audiences grow more and more exacting in their demands, few there are who consider or sympathize kindly with the necessities that are laid upon young men and upon old men, to bring forth an amount of fresh and instructive matter, such as is produced in no other profession under the sun. We do not desire to have preacliing made less thorough or less instructive, but it is desirable that it should be less burdensome. Many and many a min- ister is a prisoner all the week to his two sermons. Into them he has poured his whole life, and when they are done there is little of him left for pastoral labors and social life. Few men there are who are upborne and carried forward by their sermons. Few men as- cend, as the prophet did, in a chariot of fire. The majority of preachers are consciously harnessed, and draw heavily and long at the sermon, which tugs behind them. In every way, then, it is desirable that preach- ing should be made more easy, that men should learn to take advantage of their own temperament, and that they should learn the best plans and methods. PREPARATION OF THE SERMON. And first let me speak of written and unwritten dis- courses. No man can speak well, the substance oflj whose sermons has not been prepared beforehand/^ Men talk of extemporaneous preaching," but the only part that can properly be extemporaneous is the exter- nal form. Sometimes, indeed, one may be called to preach off-hand, — ex tempore, — and may do it with great success ; but all such sermons will really be the results of previous study. The matter must be the 212 LECTURES ON PREACHING. outgrowth of research, of experience, and of thought. Most preachers have mtuitional moments, — are, so to speak, at times inspired ; but such moments are not usual, and no true inspiration is based upon ignorance. It is not, therefore, a question whether men shall depend upon the inspiration of the moment for their matter, since all w^ho ever speak well must, in some way, have prepared for it ; but whether, having some- thing to teach, tliey shall reduce their instruction to writing, or give it forth unwritten. ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF WRITTEN SERMONS. Many considerations have been urged for and against written and unwritten sermons ; and there are advan- tages in both kinds, and both have their disadvantages ; so that a true system would seem to require sometimes one mode, and sometimes the other. My own experi- ence teaches me that my sermons should sometimes be written, but more often unwritten. A written sermon will be more likely to be orderly. It can contain a greater variety of material than one will be apt to carry in his memory, or to introduce with skill in an extemporaneous discourse. It may abound with finer lines of thought, employ a more skillful analysis, and deal wdth more subtle elements. It may be made more compact, move in straighter lines, and with cleaner execution. But, on the other hand, it is liable to be uttered with stale fervor. It is likely to be devoid of freshness, to lack naturalness, by the substi- tution of purely literary forms, and to be deficient in flow and power. This will be especially true of the sermons of mercurial; versatile men, whose feelings and SERMON-MAKING. 213 thoughts, endlessly changing, cannot long fit them- selves to the mold of the sermon in which they have been expressed, so that, whatever may have been the inspiration of the composing hour, the delivery will be artificial. Cautious natures — men who think slowly and express themselves with a sort of fastidious con- scientiousness — will find the written form of sermon adapted to their nature. The responsibility of preaching is very much alleviated, in tender and sensitive minds, by the consciousness that the sermon is all prepared, and that little or nothing is left to the contingencies of the hour of speaking. ADVANTAGES OF UNWRITTEN DISCOURSE. On the other hand, men of fruitfulness in thought, of ardor in feeling, courageous men, who are helped by a sense of difficulty and danger, will be roused by the necessity of exertion, and find their best powers of elo- quence developed by their face-to-face dealing with an audience. If a minister tarries long in the same place, and would carry his people over a broad field of instruction, it would be almost impossible but that he should either write his important sermons, or prepare careful briefs, which will demand scarcely less labor. Yet unwritten sermons are undoubtedly better adapted to the ten thou- sand varying wants of the community than are written ones. There are certain states of mind of transcendent importance in preaching, which never come to a preacher except when he stands at the focal point of his audience and feels their concentrated sympathy. No man who is tied up to written lines can, in any emergency, throw 214 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the whole power of his manhood upon an audience. There is a freedom, a swiftness, a versatility, and a spiritual rush which comes to no man but him whose thoughts are free from trammels, and who, like the eagle, far above thicket and forest, and in the full sunlight, has the whole wide air in which to make his flight. The essential necessity is, that every preacher should be able to speak, whether with or without notes. Christ " spake.'" Peter, on the day of Pentecost, did not put on his specs and read ; nor did any other Apostle when called on to preach. One's message to his hearers should be so delivered as to bring his personality to bear upon them ; he should be in free communion with his audience, and receive from them as well as give to them. There are a thousand shades of thought reflected from the faces of people. Tliere are a thousand slight modifications of statement which one will make as he proceeds, after seeing and feeling the effect of what he has already said. There are points of application which cannot be imagined until lie stands before his people. p A sermon should be carefully arranged, and the material thoroughly digested. But, as in a great battle elaborately planned a hundred contingencies will change the detail of its execution, or even the whole plan of it, so, in a sermon, a man should be prepared for all the (^ emergencies which may occur. For, in every sermon, the preacher should propose to himself definite ends to be gained. A sermon is not like a Chinese fire-cracker, to be fired off for the noise which it makes. It is the hunter's gun, and at every discharge he should look to see his game fall. The power is wasted if nothing be SERMON-MAKING. 215 hit. There are a thousand situations where a written sermon would be impossible. There are multitudes in every congregation to whom the more elaborate style of the written sermon is uncongenial. A written sermon is apt to reach out to people like a gloved hand. An unwritten sermon reaches out the warm and glowing palm, bared to the touch. At funerals, at conference meetings, and in neighbor- hood gatherings, where there are a thousand incidental points to which a minister is called upon to speak, noth- ing will answer but unwritten discourse. Who could go into a rude neighborhood of turbulent spirits and hope to gain and hold their attention by reading from a manuscript ? Who can preach the gospel to the unlet- tered and the stupid, when the point of the pen has been substituted for the living fire ? A physician would be ashamed to sit at the bedside of his patient, carrying his library of books with him. His knowledge must be such, and his use of it so facile, that he can, out of the stores of his own mind, readily adapt himself to every varying phase of w^ant. Tlie preacher is a physician of the soul. With thousand-fold reason should he be able, with adaptable skill, to vary to every form of disposition the resources of Divine truth. Besides, the difference between the ease and fruitful- ness of a minister trained to preach without writing, and of one who is bound to his notes, is incalcula- ble. Tlie task of writing two sermons a week leaves a conscientious man time and strength for but little else; whereas a man trained to think on his feet, to gather materials while he walks and talks with men, will be likely to have a far greater liberty. 216 LECTURES ON PREACHING. POINTS TO BE GUARDED IN EXTEMPORE PREACHING. In considering the relative merits of written and unwritten sermons, we ought not to make ourselves partisans, and select all the good points of one system and put them over against all the weak points of the other. It should be admitted that some men of a given temperament will do better by writing, although better yet might have been done by the unwritten ser- mon if they had, or had trained in themselves, the abil- ity to execute it. Written sermons undoubtedly tend to repress the power of many native speakers. Most men can be trained to think upon their feet, but by disuse many lose the power God has given them. And for such, or for those who in any way miss the right education, the written sermon will be the best. The temptation to slovenliness in workmanship, to careless and inaccurate statements, to repetition, to violation of good taste, in unwritten sermons, are only arguments for a more conscientious preparation beforehand. No man can preach well, except out of an abundance of well- wrought material. Some sermons seem to start up sud- denly, soul and body, but in fact they are the product of years of experience. Sermons may flash upon men who are called in great emergencies to utter testimony, and the word may grow in their hand, and, their hearts kindling, their imagination taking fire, the product may be something that shall create wonder and amazement among all that hear. It is only the form, like the occasion, that is extemporaneous. No man preaches except out of the stores that have been gathered in him. As it is possible for a written sermon to be SERMON-MAKING. 217 utterly unstudied, unscholarly, repetitious, and inane ; so, on the other hand, it is possible for an unwritten sermon to be ripe, condensed, methodical, logical, swift- moving from premise to conclusion, and entirely con- sonant with good taste. But such sermons never pro- ceed from raw, unthinking men ; they are never born of ignorance. And let me say here, that, while noth- ing is more admirable than what may be called in- tuitions, nothing more effective than sudden outbursts of impassioned oratory, these can never be expected from mere nature. Though a man be born to gen- ius, a natural orator and a natural reasoner, these endowments give him but. the outlines of himself. The filling up demands incessant, painstaking, steady work. Natural genius is but the soil, which, let alone, runs to weeds. If it is to bear fruit and harvests worth the reaping, no matter how good the soil is, it must be ploughed and tilled with incessant care. All must work. To some it is laborious and dull like an ox's tread ; to others it is life, like the winged passage of the bird through the air; but each, in his way, must labor. The life of a successful minister may be cheer- ful, yea, buoyant. His work may seem the highest exercise of liberty. It may be impassioned, facile, and fruitful, remunerating him as it goes on ; nevertheless, there must be incessant work. That is not alone work which brings sweat to the brow. Work may be light, unburdensome, as full of song as the merry brook that turns the miller's wheel ; but no wheel is ever turned without the rush and the weight of the stream upon it 10 218 LECTURES ON PREACHING. IDEAL SERMONIZING. It is not, then, a question between prepared and un- prepared sermons. It is a question, simply, whether it is best to prepare your sermons by writing, or so to pre- pare them that tliey are held in solution in your own mind. Which is the better of these will depend largely upon your own position in society, upon the special work it is appointed you to perform, upon your own temperaments and attainments. But, considered ideally, he who preaches unwritten sermons is tlie true preach- er ; however much you may write, the tendency of all such mechanical preparation should be towards the ideal of the unwritten sermon ; and throughout your early training and your after labor, you should reach out after that higher and broader form of preaching. GENERAL VARIETY OF SERMON PLANS. Now for the next important point. Much of the effectiveness of a discourse, as well as the ease and pleas- ure of delivering it, depends upon the plan. Let me earnestly caution you against the sterile, conventional, regulation plans, that are laid down in the books, and are frequently taught in the seminaries. There is no one proper plan. You are not like a bullet-mold made to run bullets of the one unvarying shape. It is quietly assumed by the teachers of formal sermon- izing that a sermon is to be unfolded from the interior, or from the nature of the truth with which it deals. That this is one element, and often the chief element, that determines the form of the sermon, is true ; but it also is true, that the object to be gained by preaching a SERMON-MAKING. 219 sermon at all will have as much influence in giving it proper plan as will the nature of the truth handled, — perhaps even more. Nay, if but one or the other could be adopted, that habit of working which shapes one's sermons from the necessities of the minds to which it is addressed is the more natural, the safer, and the more effective. - Consider how various are the methods by which men receive truths. Most men are feeble in logical power. So far from being benefited by an exact concatenated development of truth, they are in general utterly un- able to follow it. At the second or third step they lose the clew. The greatest number of men, particularly uncultivated people, receive their truth by facts placed in juxtaposition rather than in philosophical sequence. Thus, a line of fact or a series of parables will be better adapted to most audiences than a regular unfolding of a train of thought from the germinal point to the fruitful end. The more select portion of an intelligent congregation, on the other hand, sympathize with truth delivered in its highest philosophic forms. There is a distinct pleasure to them in the evolution of an argu- ment. They rejoice to see a structure built up, tier upon tier, and story upon story. They glow with de- light as the long chain is welded, link by link. And if the preacher himself be of this mind, and if he receive the commendations of the most thoughtful and cultured of his people, it is quite natural that he should fall w^hoUy under the influence of this style of sermoniz- ing ; so he will feed one mouth, and starve a hundred. In this way it is, and especially in large cities, that congregations are sifted by a certain process of elective 220 LECTURES ON PREACHING. affinity. Those will come to the church who like the style of the sermon, and those will drop out who have no sympathy with it ; and thus we have churches of emotion, churches of taste, and churches of philosophi- cal theology ; whereas each pulpit should give some- L^what of everything. The emotions of some men are roused through the inspiration of the intellect mainly ; but there are others whose intellect, although it may be the channel through which the incitement flows, is not itself roused to its fullest activity until the feelings come to inspire it. We hear much of preaching to the understanding and of preaching to the feelings, and it is discussed which is the better way ; but in some men you cannot reach the understanding until you have reached the feelings, and in others you cannot reach the feelings until you have taken possession of the understanding. A minute study of the habits of men's minds will teach the preacher how to plan his sermon so as to gain entrance. As it is, sermons are too often cast in one mold. Week after week, month after month, year after year, when the text is announced, every child in the congre- gation almost, as well as the minister himself, can tell that it will be divided into " First," Second," and " Third," together with, " Then certain practical obser- vations." But what would be thought of one who should seek to enter every house upon a street or in a city with a single key, fitted to but one kind of lock ? The minister is the strong man," armed in a better sense than that of the parable, and it is his business to enter every house, to bind the man of sin, and to despoil SERMON-MAKING. 221 him. But every door must be entered by a key that fits that door. The minister is a universal, spiritual burg- lar. He enters, not to despoil good, but evil. He enters, not to take possession, but to dispossess evil. He enters, not to deprive men of their valuable effects, but to restore to them that wliich their Father left for their inheritance, and which has been withheld from them by the Adversary. He must seek entrance, in every case, where God has put the door. In some men there is a broad and double open door, standing in the front and inviting entrance. The familiar path in other cases is seen to wind around to the side door. There be those industrious drudges who never live out of their kitchens, and if one would find them in ordi- nary hours, he must e'en go around to the back door. If one lives in the cellar, he must be sought through the cellar. It is this necessity of adaptation to the innumerable phases of human nature that reacts upon the sermon, and determines the form which it shall take. If it were possible, never have two plans alike. It may be well, to-day, to preach an intellectual theme by an analytic process ; but that is a reason why, on the following Sunday, an intellectual theme should be treated by a synthetic process. If you have preached the truth jy the ways of statement and proof, you have then a reason for following it with a sermon that as- sumes the truth', and appeals directly to the moral con- sciousness. A didactic sermon is all the stronger if it follows in strong contrast with a sermon to the feel- ings. If you have preached to-day to the heart through the imagination, to-morrow you are to preach 222 LECTURES ON PREACHING. to the heart through the reason ; and so the sermon, like the flowers of tlie field, is to take on innumerable forms of blossoming. When you have finished your sermon, not a man of your congregation should be unable to tell you, distinctly, what you have done ; but when you begin a sermon, no man in the congregation ought to be able to tell you what you are going to do. All these cast-iron frames, these stereotyped plans of sermons, are the devices of the Devil, and of those most mischievous devils of the pulpit, formality and stupidity. THE NATURAL METHOD. It is a good thing to select your text and unfold pre- cisely its meaning and its context, and then to deduce from it certain natural lines of thought. But this is only one way. A descriptive sermon, an argumentative sermon, a poetical sermon, and a sermon of sentiment, have, severally, their own genius of form. I need not tell. you that variety is, in the best sense of that term, the " natural " method. In nature, a few elements, by various permutations and combinations, produce infi- nite varieties, endless contrasts, and constant changes. Nature is always fresh, and never stales ilpon the taste. Besides all this, every preacher will find that some- thing is to be allowed for the way in which his own mind works. A man naturally inclined to mysticism has his whole tem23erament arrayed against the anatom- ical method of sermonizing. The man of a dry intel- lectual nature, who sees all things cold, clear, and color- less, cannot imitate the man whose mind lives under an arch of perpetual rainbows. So then, because the SERMON-MAKING. 223 plans of sermons must be affected both by the nature of the truth itself, by the nature of the man himself, and, above all, by tlie ends sought in the sermon and the nature of the people to whom the sermon is addressed, you will perceive the absurdity of attempt- ing any one method of laying out a sermon, and the wisdom of seeking endless diversity of method as well as of subject. SUGGESTIVE PREACHING. A respectable source of failure is conscientious thor- oughness. . It is true that it is the office of the preacher to furnish thought for his hearers, but it is no less his duty to excite thought. Thus we give thought to breed thought. If, then, a preacher elaborates his theme until it is utterly exhausted, leav- ing nothing to the imagination and intellect of his hearers, he fails to produce that lively activity in their minds which is one of the best effects of right preach- ing; they are merely recipients. But under a true preaching, the pulpit and the audience should be car- rying on tlie subject together, one in outline, and the other with subtle and rapid activity, filling it up by imagination, suggestion, and emotion. Don't make" your sermons too good. That sermon, then, has been overwrought and overdone wliich leaves nothing for the mind of the hearer to do. A sermon in outline is often far more effective tlian a sermon fully thought out and delivered as a completed thing. Painters often catch the likeness of their subject when they have sketched in the picture only, and paint it out when they are finishing it ; and many and many a sermon, if 224 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. it had been but sketched upon the minds of men, would have conveyed a much better idea of the truth than is produced by its elaborate painting and filling up. This is the secret of what is called suggestive preaching," and it is also the secret of those sermons which are called good, but heavy." There are no more thorough sermons in the English language, and none more hard to read, than those of Barrow, who was called an unfair preacher, because he left nothing for those to say that came after him. You must be careful not to surfeit people ; leave room for their imagination and spirit to work. Don't treat them as sacks to be filled from a funnel. Aim to make them spiritually active, — self- helpful. V EXPOSITORY PREACHING. Without unfolding and commenting upon the ordi- nary modes of sermonizing, I pass on to say that a much larger use should be made of expository preaching than has been customary in our churches. It is an admira- ble way of familiarizing the people with the very text of Scripture. There is an authority, which every audi- ence recognizes, in the word of God as delivered in the Sacred Scripture, which does not belong to ordinary human teaching. Above all, the Bible is the best ex- ample in literature of the admirable mingling of fact, illustration, appeal, argument, poetry, and emotion, not in their artificial forms, but conformably to nature. The Bible is sometimes spoken of as a " revelation " in contra- distinction to nature ; but this is done by those who degrade nature, and regard it as something low and imperfect. I regard the Bible as the noblest book of SERMON-MAKING. 225 nature that has ever existed in life. Its very power is in that it is an exposition of nature, wider and deeper than any that philosophy has attained to ; that is one reason why the Bible is found, as philosophy progres- sively ascertains the truths of nature, to conform to them with singular adaptation ; and that is a reason, too, why the Bible becomes more and more powerful as it is better interpreted and its innermost meaning is made clear by the discoveries of men in the great field of natural science. The Bible is 'like a field in which is hidden gold. Men who have ploughed over and over the surface and raised perishable crops therefrom have failed to find and secure that very precious ore which is its chief value. It will surprise one to see what wealth and diversity of topics will come up for illustration in discussion, by means of expository preaching. A thousand subtle suggestions and a thousand minute points of human experience, not large enough for the elaborate discus- sion of a sermon, and yet like the little screws in a watch, indispensable to the right action of the machin- ery of life, can be touched and turned to advantage in expository preaching. There are many topics which, " |. from the excitement of the times and from the preju- dice of the people, it would be difficult to discuss topically in the pulpit, yet, taken in the order in which they are found in Sacred Writ, they can be handled with profit, and without danger. The Bible touches all sides of human life and experience, and scriptural exposition gives endless opportunities of hitting folks who need hitting. The squire can hardly stamp out of church for a Thus saith the Lord." 10* o 226 LECTURES ON PREACHING. While exegetical and expository preaching have ele- ments in them which attract and satisfy the scholar and the thinker, they, at the same time, by a strange harmony in diversity, have just that disconnectedness and variety of topic in juxtaposition which seem best suited to the wants of uncultivated minds. I know an eminent pastor in Ohio, who, probably, never in his life preached any other sermon than an expository one. The Bible in his hands, Sunday after Sunday, was his only sermon. Duriilg a long pastorate, he went through the Book from beginning to end, and often, and the fruit of his ministry justified his method. It was proverbial that no people were more thoroughly fur- nished with knowledge, witli habits of discrimination in tliought, or were more rich in spiritual feeling. GREAT SERMONS. There is one temptation of which I have spoken to you before, but I must be allowed to give you a special and earnest caution on the subject of " great " sermons. The themes you will handle are often of transcendent greatness. There will be times continually recurring, in which you will feel earnestly the need of great power ; but the ambition of constructing great sermons is guilty and foolish in no ordinary degree. I do not believe that any man ever made a great sermon who set out to do that thing. Sermons that are truly great come of themselves. They spring from sources deeper than vanity or ambition. When the hand of the Lord is laid upon the heart, and its energies are aroused under a Divine inspiration, there may then be given forth mighty thoughts in burning words, and from the SERMON-MAKING. 227 formative power of this inward truth the outward form may be generated, perfect, as is the language of a poem. Perhaps I should have saids hoiv sermons, rather than great sermons, — sermons adapted to create surprise, admiration, and praise, sermons as full of curiosities as a peddler's pack, which the proud owners are accustomed to take in all their exchanges and travelings as their especial delight and reliance. Often they are baptized with fanciful names. There is the ''Dew^ upon tlie Grass" sermon, and the ''Trumpet" sermon, and the sermon of the " Fleece," and the " Dove and Eagle " sermon, and so on. Such discourses are relied upon to give men their reputation. To construct such sermons, men oftentimes labor night and day, and gather into them all the scraps, ingenuities, .and glittering illus- trations of a lifetime. Tliey are the pride and the joy of the preacher's lieart ; but they bear the same relation to a truly great sermon as a kaleidoscope, full of glitter- ing bits of glass, bears to the telescope, which unveils the glory of the stellar universe. These are the Nebu- chadnezzar sermons, over which the vain preacher stands, saying, " Is not this great Babylon that I have builded for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty ? " Would to God that these preachers, like Nebuchadnezzar, might go to grass for a time, if, like him, they would return sane and humble ! A sermon is a weapon of war. Not the tracery en- ameled upon its blade, not the jewelry that is set within its hilt, not the name that is stamped upon it, but its power in the day of battle, must be the test of its merits. No matter how unbalanced, how irregular 228 LECTURES ON PREACHING. and rude, that is a great sermon which has power to do great things with the hearts of men. No matter how methodical, philosophic, exquisite in illustration, or faultless in style, that is a poor and weak sermon that has no power to deliver men from evil and to exalt them in goodness. STYLE. Style is only the outside form which thoughts take on when embodied in language. Style, then, must always conform to the nature of the man who employs it ; as the saying goes, " Style is the man." In general, it may be said, that is the best style which is the least obtrusive, which lets through the truth most nearly in its absolute purity. The truths of religion, in a sim- ple and transparent style, shine as the sunlight on the fields and mountains, revealing all things in their proper forms and natural colors ; but an artificial and gorgeous style, like, a cathedral window, may let in some light, yet in blotches of purple and blue that spot the audience, and produce grotesqueness and unnatural effects. It is desirable that the preacher should have a copious vocabulary, and a facility in the selection and use of words ; and to this end he should read much, giving close attention to the words and phrases used by the best authors, not for servile copying and memorizing, but that these elements may become assimilated with his own mind, as a part of it, ready for use when the need comes. He should also have an ear for strong and terse, but rhythmical sentences, which flow without jolt SERMON-MAKING. 229 and jar. Above all other men, the preacher should avoid what may be called a literary style, as distin- guished from a natural one ; and by a literary style," technically so called, I understand one in which abound these two elements, — the artificial structure of sentences, and the use of words and phrases peculiar to literature alone, and not to common life. Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth. Never be grandilo- quent when you want to drive home a searching truth. --►Don't whip with a switch that has the leaves on, if you want to tingle. A good fireman will send the water through as short and straight hose as he can. No man in his senses would desire to have the stream flow through coil after coil, winding about. It loses force by length and complexity. Many a sermon has its sentences curled over it like locks of hair upon a beauty's head. I have known men whose style was magnificent when they were once thoroughly mad. Temper straightened out all the curls, and made their sentences straight as a lance. It is a foolish and unwise ambition to introduce periphrastic or purely literary terms where they can possibly be avoided. Go right ahead. Don't run round for your meaning. Long sentences may be good, but not tivisting ones. Many otherwise good sermons are useless because they don't get on. They go round, and round, and round, and always keep coming back to the same place. There is a charm in some styles, an unwearying freshness and sweetness, which men find it difficult to account for. I think, upon analysis, it may be found 230 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. that such styles are based upon vernacular words and home-bred idioms. At Pentecost every man heard in his own tongue wherein he was born. Use homely words, — those which people are used to, and which suggest many things to them. The words that we heard in our childhood store up in themselves sweetness and flavor that make them precious all our life long afterwards. Words borrowed from foreign languages, and words that belong especially to science and learning and literature, have very little suggestion in them to the common people. But home-bred words, when they strike the imagination, awaken ineffable and tremulous memories, obscure, subtle, and yet most powerful. AVords register up in themselves the sum of man's life and experience. The words which) from the cradle to the grave, have been the vehicles of love, trust, praise, hope, joy, anger, and hate, are not simply words, but, like paper, are what they are by virtue of the thing written on them. He who uses mainly the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, giving preference to the idioms and phrases which are homely, will have a power which cannot be derived from any other use of human language. Such language is an echo in the experience of men ; and as a phrase in a mountainous country, when roundly uttered, goes on repeating itself from peak to peak, running in alternate reverberations through the whole valley, so a truth runs through all the ranges of memory in the mind of the hearer, not the less real because so extremely rapid and subtle as to defy analysis. The words themselves, full of secret suggestions and echoes, multiply the meaning in the minds of men, and make it even more in the recipient than it was in the speaker. Words are to the SERMON-MAKING. 231 thought what musical notes are to the melodies. As an instance of contrasted style, let one read the immortal allegory of John Bunyan in contrast wifli the grandiose essays of Dr. Johnson. Bunyan is to-day like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in season ; his leaf shall not wither. Johnson, with all his glory, lies like an Egyptian king, buried and forgotten in the pyramid of his fame. GENERAL HINTS — PROFESSIONAL MANNERS. There are a few cautions which may he;wr5Tth con- sidering. Avoid a professional manner There is no reason why a clergyman should be anything but an earnest Christian gentleman. I shall not quarrel with the preacher who employs a symbolic dress for some special religious reason, but no man should dress him- self simply for the purpose of saying, I am a preacher." The highest character in which a preacher can stand is that of simple Christian manhood. It is not the things in which he differs from lus fellow-men by which he will gain power. It is by the things in which he will be in sympathy with them. There is great significance in that sentence, " It behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, in things pertaining to God." It is not a man's business, then, to separate himself, by dress or by manner, from the common people. It is his humanity, and his sympathy with their humanity, it is his sameness with them, l)oth in weaknesses and in sins, in aspirations and partial attainment, that give him his power. The power of a preacher is the power of a brother among his brethren. It always seems 232 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. to me, therefore, that the putting on of a professional dress is the hiding of one's power. Walk into your pulpit as you would enter an ordinary room. Don't go there thinking of yourself, your coat, your hair, your step. Don't go there as a " man of God." Never be a puppet, — most of all, a religious puppet. I abhor the formal, stately, and solemn entrance of a man whose whole appearance seems to call upon all to see how holy he is, and how intensely he is a minister of the gospel. Nor can I avoid a feeling of displeasure akin to that which Christ felt when he condemned prayers at the street corners, when I see a man bow down him- self in the pulpit to say his prayers, on first entering. Many men sacrifice the best part of themselves for what is called the dignity of the pulpit. They are afraid to speak of common things. They are afraid to introduce home matters ; things of which men think and speak, and in which, every day, a part of their lives consist, are thought not to be of enough dignity for the pulpit. And so the interests of men are sacrificed to an idol. For when the pulpit is of more importance than the joys and the sorrows, the hopes and the fears, the mi- nute temptations and frets of daily life, it has become an idol, and, to feed its dignity, bread is taken from the mouths of the children and of the common people. There are few things that have power to make men good or bad, happy or unhappy, that it is not the duty of the pulpit to handle. This superstition of dignity has gone far to make the pulpit a mere skeleton. Men hear plenty from the pulpit about everythmg except the stubborn facts of their every-day life, and the real relatiou of these immediate things to the vast themes SERMON-MAKING. 233 of the future. There is much about the divine life, but very little about human life. There is much about the future victory, but very little about the present battles There is a great deal about divine government, but there is very little about the human governments under which men are living, and the duties which arise under those governments for every Christian man. There is a great deal about immortality and about the immortal soul, but very little about these mortal bodies, that go so far to influence the destiny of the immortal souls. A sermon, like a probe, must follow the wound into all its intricate passages. Nothing is too minute for the surgeon or for the physician ; nothing should be too common or too familiar for the preacher. PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION. Beware of an exclusive association with your kind. It is a good thing for ministers to meet together to cheer and instruct each other, but there is danger that they will fall into such exclusive professional sym- pathy that they will see everything from a ministerial stand-point. It would be of great value to ministers if they saw all the themes that they discuss with the eyes of common m.en, — of the wicked and the abandoned, of the weak and the strong, of the learned and the unlearned, of working-men, of meditative women, and of little children. On every theme which the preacher handles is turned the thought of ten thousand men in the community around him. It were worth his while to reap their harvest-fields as well as his own. But, chiefly, this universal sympathy with humanity is valuable becai\se it produces a larger sympathy and 234 LECTURES ON PREACHING. a more generous manhood, and reinvigorates those ele- ments in the preacher which ally him to his kind, and from which he is to derive one great element of success. LENGTH OF SERMONS. One word as to the length of sermons. That never should be determined by the clock, but upon broader considerations, — short sermons for small subjects, and long sermons for large subjects. It does not require that sermons should be of any uniform length.. Let one be short, and the next long, and the next intermediate. It is true that it is bad policy to fatigue men, but short- ness is not the only remedy for that. The true way to shorten a sermon is to make it more interesting. The object of preaching is not to let men out of church at a given time. The length and quality of a sermon must be determined by the objects which it has in view. Now you cannot discuss great themes in a sliort compass, nor can you by driblets — by sermons of ten or twenty minutes — train an audience to a broad con- sideration of high themes. There is a medium. A minister ought to be able to hold an audience for an hour in the discussion of great themes ; and the habit of ample time and ample discussion, even if occasionally it carries with it the incidental evil of weariness, will, in .the long run, produce a nobler class of minds and a higher type of education than can possibly belong to the school of dwarfed sermonizers. TRUST YOUR AUDIENCES. Do not undervalue the capacity of the common peo- ple. Children, even, will follow discussions with interest SERMON-MAKING. 235 which seem to be far above their heads. Before I was ten years old, I remember that discussions on the subject of fore-ordination, free-will , and decrees, held me with a perfect fascination. The Bible was made for common people, and the themes that are in it are comprehensible by common people ; and those sermons which cannot be understood with profit by the common people of your congregation will probably be of little profit to any- body, not even to yourself. While there is a principle of adaptation to be observed and applied, it should be remembered that the great bulk of a minister s work does not consist in the unfolding of abstruse problems or mysteries, but the themes which he mainly handles are those which appeal to tlie great moral instincts and to that fundamental common sense belonging to all men. You need not fear to carry an elaborate argument down to the common people. You need not fear to address a sermon of emotion and homely application to the most cultivated audience. Let a man preach in the city as he would in the country. Let a man preach in the country as he would in the city. Preach before a cultivated audience as you would before an audience of farmers, and preach before a congregation of farmers as you would before a congregation of students. It is true that, as I have already explained, you must vary your discourses from week to week for purposes of adaptation ; but the great subject-matter is common to all men. SUMMARY. The most effective sermonizing, then, and that which is to be aimed at in general, is the unwritten, rather than 236 LECTURES ON PREACHlKG. the written ; the plans must be of constant variety as adapted to the truth preached, the end to be gained, the audience to be affected, and the temperament of the preacher ; the sermon should be rather suggestive than exhaustive in treatment, exposition of the Bible holding a large place in your scheme, and show-sermons utterly avoided ; simplicity of style, both in language and man- ner, is the shortest road to success ; and the earlier the preacher learns by association and sympathy with his people to interest them in him and his work, and to give them always the best that he can do, the sooner will he get upon them the hold by which he shall draw them toward God and the higher life. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. What would you suggest as to the proportion of written and unwritten sermons to be preached through one's ministry ? Mr. Beecher. — No general rule can be given. About one third written to two thirds unwritten. But be sure that you know how to preach. Q. What do you think of the benefit of using books of sermon- plans ? Mr. Beecher. — They will help you when you know how to use them ; that is, when you don't need them. Before that time don't smother yourself with them. Q. What do you think of the propriety or advisability of what is called sensational preaching ? Mr. Beecher. — I am for it, or against it, according to what you mean by it. If it aims at a low, temporary success by mere trickery, I don't believe in it ; but if you SERMON-MAKING. 237 mean preaching whicli produces a sensation, I do. The legitimate use of real truth is all right, no matter how much people get stirred up ; the more the better. In this matter you will not err if you are up to par in manliness, neither above it nor below. LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE CHEISTIAN MINLSTRY. KNOW of no single passage of Scripture that gives, with so much detail, the Apostle's idea of the ends and instrumentalities of the Christian minister, as that contained in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, a few verses of which I will read to you, because there is one sentence there that will contain the thought of to-day. ''And he gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan- gelists ; and some, pastors and- teachers ; for the perfect- ing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ : that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- ceive ; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joined together and LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELExMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 239 compacted by that which every joint supplieth, accord- ing to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." I purpose, tliis afternoon, to speak to you on the love-principle as the central power in the work of a Christian minister. Speaking the truth in love " is the expression, and it is still stronger in the original than in our version, because we have no word signify- ing " to truth." We say to speak the truth." Lit- erally, it is tritthing it in love. No one, it seems to me, can have read attentively the teachings of the Apostle, and entered into the spirit in which he worked, without having seen under all his feelings and experiences the influence of this immense love- princif)le. In him it took on a more enthusiastic form than it did in the Saviour. It was, as one might say, more a novelty with him. It was the eternal state of the Saviour, widely diffused and developed, and like a native atmosphere, such as envelops the whole earth. In the Apostle it seems more like an intense or concen- trated inspiration. It was news to him, indeed, and good news. It inspired evidently and vividly every part of his life. WHAT IS LOVE? I think it is extremely difficult to give any definition of it. We may point to some men and say they come nearer to it, as exemplars, than others. It is not so much a faculty, or power, as it is a certain condition of the whole spirit, made up of the contribution of several different elements of the mind, having relations to 240 LECTUKES OK PREACHING. things superior and to things inferior. It is the reli- gious principle, which, when you have it as the ground and root of your ministry, includes, primarily, love to God. And by the term God " we understand whatever is conceived of as superhuman in excellence and in wisdom. God is infinite. No man can crystallize God. If he does, his God becomes an idol not bigger than the man. God is infinite and formless. When he is really thought of, it is by the contribution of some of the highest and best of human qualities, out of which and over which something flames up before the imagi- nation that is higher than the reach of human expe- rience. The germ may have been derived from ob- servation or experience, but we recompose these nobler attributes of the soul, clothe them with form, and call that God, — knowing all the time that we cannot measure him, but that this process of thought and feeling reveals and inspires in us some sense of that quality which we mean when we speak of the Divine attributes. But the true sense of God does not stop there. It includes the feeling of love towards this Divine being which is spoken of in the New Testa- ment, and the most glorious choral and symphony of which lies in the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corin- thians. Such a love embraces all that is human, — all creatures who have the power of being happy or miser- able, and it has a yearning sympathy and desire for their good. It includes, also, a nearness, a sweetness, and a desire towards men, not so much that tliey should love us, for that is confined more nearly to the re- ciprocating passions of men, — friendship, for instance, which is a specialty under this generic head, and is a LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 24:1 part of it, though essentially it involves an element of self. But the charity, or love, of the New Testament is the going out of thought, of feeling, and of sympathy towards others, and towards whatever can receive ben- efit from us. It is the state of the Creator, and I suppose that it is the state of those most like him, who dwell close to him. It is the wish tliat whatever we are thinking of, or saying, or doing, may make some one better and Happier. It is genial. It ought to be full of cheer, courage, hope, and it is full of bounty and blessings. It means happiness, and as happiness is greater in proportion as it rises from the lower range of susceptibilities to tlie higher moral qualities, those who desire to confer happiness intelligently will do so by making men capable of being happy, that is, by enriching and developing their higher nature. LOVE, THE CENTRAL POWER OF THE MINISTRY. You will find all the way through the letters of the Apostle Paul how much he relied upon the inspira- tion of love, how much it was the w^orking power of his ministry. It seems to me that this is the dis- tinctive quality that ought to belong to every Chris- tian minister. It is the underlying force by which all his special faculties should be inspired. Where this exists in great power, it will give a peculiar color and quality to every attribute of the mind. Even the most formal acts of reasoning will have a certain glow im- parted to them. The sharpest discriminations made by conscience, the requisitions of the most fastidious taste, the impulses of fear, the stress of indignation and of anger itself, will all receive a tone and quality from 11 p 242 LECTURES ON PREACHING. love which will make them doubly powerful and doubly beneficent. I do not believe that any otlier temper tlian that of love will carry a minister through his whole work with so little wear and tear, with so much inward satisfaction. Indeed, it is the element by which he interprets at once God and man. It is only wlien we put ourselves, according to the measure of our power, into the same relations towards man that God sustains, that we are susceptible of intuitions of Divine mercy and pity, or can form any conception of how the amazing power of God may act beneficently, through the atmosphere of Divine love, towards things mean, selfish, and hateful. There is only one pass-key that will open every door, and that is the golden key^//^ of love. You can touch every side of the human heart and its every want, that is, if you can touch it at all ; and if you have tlie power to bestow anything, love gives facility of access, the power of drawing near to men, the power of enriching thought, of weakening their hungry desires and appetites, the power to thaw out the winter of their souls and to prepare the soil for the seed and grow^th of the better life. A minister wlio has pure intellection only to offer to Jy^ his people is like one who would in winter drag a plow over tlie frozen ground. He marks it, but he does not furrow it. He who has to make the seed of truth grow in living men into living forms must have power to bring summer to men's hearts, — light and heat ; and then culture, whether it be by the plow or the harrow, by the hoe or the spade, will do some good. It is this summer-power of love, first, middle, and last, that every teacher and Christian preacher ought to seek. LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 243 It is this that you ought to seek in the closet, in medi- tation, and in intercourse one with another. You must have a heart so alive and full of genial, sympathizing love that you feel yourself related to everything on the globe that lives and has the power of enjoyment. How this noble conception has been felt by the old ministers of New England ! No man can read the writings of Jonathan Edwards, of Hopkins, and others of that school, without seeing how they were filled with this sense of doing for others, and the desire to confer blessings upon universal sentient being. Their system was, in many respects, very imperfect, but, after all, the ideal was in their mind. They had a true conception of the all-pervading power of love in the hearts of men, which ought to be the very center, out of which the whole ministry is to grow. LOVE, NOT MERE GOOD-NATURE. A great many persons, when you say such things as these, feel, at once, " That is my doctrine. I do not be- lieve in these always dry, metaphysical men, arguing and arguing and arguing." Another man says, " That is my idea about it. I do not like these men who are always combative. I like a mild, meek, and lowly man." But I do not mean any such thing as that. I do not mean these lazy, sunshiny, good-natured men, who have no particular opinions, and who would about as soon have things go one way as another; who are without sharp and discriminating thought, have no preferences, no indignation, no conscience, no fire. I do not be- lieve in any such men. I like to see a man who has 244 LECTURES ON PREACHING. got snap in every part of him, who knows how to think and to speak, and to put on the screw, if that is his par- ticular mode of w^orking. This sweet and beneficent heart-quality that I am speaking of is the atmospliere in which every other fac- ulty works, and w^hich is generic to them all. It is Christian sympathy, benevolence, and love. Do you not suppose that love has anger ? There is no such anger as that which a mother's love furnishes. Do you suppose that when she sees the child that is both herself and him whom she loves better than herself, the child in whom her hope is bound up, the child that is God's glass through which she sees immortality, the child that is more to her than her own life, doing a detestable meanness, that she is not angry and indignant, and that the child does not feel the smart of physical advice ? Do you not suppose that the child knows what anger is ? I tell you there is no such indignation possible as the indignation that means rescue, help, hope, and bet- terment. You might as well say that a summer shower has no thunder as to say that love has no anger. It is full of it, or may be. Has love no specialty or discrimination in removing error, nor any continuing, intense regard for specific and exact truth ? God has it, and we are like him. We are his children, and know it by that. Love is simply that which overliangs all these powers, which gives them quality and direction, and gives to us a larger power through these lower instruments. And so a man who is purely intellectual, without any special sympathy or love, cannot deal rightly in moral truth. He may in physical truth, because that is not LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 245 at all a question of influence ; but all moral truth — and with that you have mainly to deal — is truth that springs out of experience. Unless you have love, youV cannot go right by pure intellect ; while the intellect working in an atmosphere of love can rarely go wrongy in moral things. ^ You cannot long go right where it is the sense of beauty alone that you are appealing to. He who preaches mainly to taste and the sense of the beauti- ful, he who sees God especially in forms and colors and sounds, and all the sweet elements of grace in the world, has one portion of the truth, but he is apt to run out, through feebleness, into sentimentality. He lacks that strength, that power, and that continuity which come from the real Divine love-temperament. LOVE OF THE WORK. l^ow it is to the use of this principle in a few direc- tions that I shall ask your attention this afternoon. First, for your own souls' sake, you cannot afford to be ministers if your work is not love-work, if it is a bur- den to you, if your parishes are to you what a bound boy is to the farmer, — a nuisance, rather than a help, and, on general principles of humanity, to be got along with in the best way possible. If you are carrying your work in that way, you liave no business where you are. He wlio takes tlie wants of a community into his keeping, he who undertakes to teach the young, to comfort the old in the midst of their earthly sorrow^s, and to solve all those endless problems that are coming up day by day, must love his w^ork and his people, and be conscious that his heart goes out to them and 246 LECTURES ON PREACHING. yearns for them, as, in the last days of winter, we yearn to hear the singing of the birds, and watch for the trees to put forth their odorous buds, and spread their fra- grance through the air. How we do long for spring and summer, and for their sweetness ! The preacher ought to stand to his work all the time longing for the development of men as we do for flowers, and as the vintner does for the time of the grape. AVhen you have this love, how patient it will make you, and how easy it will make the hard tasks of your ministry ! How full of suggestion it will be ! How it will bring sermons out of people, and how it will multiply the occasions of bounty ! What a discernment of clear inter- pretation there is through the medium of sympathy and benevolence, and how it carries its own reward with it ! Some men work from a sense of duty, — and better that than nothing ; others work from various motives ; but the best motive of all is love of the work. Having that, you cannot help working. Why do birds sing ? . Because the song is in thetn, and if they did not let it forth tliey would split ; it must come out. It is the spontaneity and the urgency of this feeling in them that impels tlieir utterance. Why should men work, or visit, or preach ? Because their hearts want some out- let, some vent, to give expression to the feeling of earnest sympathy that "is in them. Where a man has this strong and large benevolence, he will always be busy, and pleasantly busy. THE HEALTHFULNESS OF BENEVOLENCE. And more than that, let me tell yon, there is nothing that enables a man to last so long as the qualities which LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTKY. 247 naturally are trained into this spirit of true, sympathetic beneficence. All the acerb feelings grind the enamel off. All men who work under a sense of responsibility, men who hear the crack of Conscience's whip all the time, and all those who are inspired by the Protean forms of fear, easily wear out. The kindly feelings of man's nature have nourishment in them. They are not stimulants alone. They carry nutriment, and a man who is working good-naturedly, with the sweet- ness of hope and wdth the facility of courage all the time, can work weeks and months without breaking down ; nay, he grows fat on work. I hold that there is nothing so wholesome or so medicinal as brain-work, rightly directed. While a man may exhaust his ner- vous system by excessive brain-work, a moderate and reasonable practice of it is beneficial. You all know that ministers are the longest livers. I do not men- tion that to prove that they are the greatest brain- workers ; but a man wdio works under a high form of positive benevolence, which brings cheer and hope, can work longer and with less fatigue, and he can con- tinue under intense excitement longer and with less wear and tear, than under any other stimulus. I have often been asked by what secret I retain health and vigor under labors multiform and continuous. I owe much to a good constitution inherited from my parents, not spoiled by youthful excesses or weak- ened by over-study ; much also to an early acquired knowledge of how to take care of myself, to secure invariably a full measure of sleep, to regard food as an engineer does fuel (to be employed economically, and entirely with reference to the work to be done by the 248 LECTURES ON PREACHING. machine) ; much to the habit of economizing social forces, and not wasting in needless conversation and pleasurable hilarities the spirit that would carry me through man)^ days of necessary work ; but, above all, to the possession of a hopeful disposition and natural courage, to sympathy with men, and to an unfailing trust in God; so that I have always worked for the love of working. I have cast out the grinding sense of responsibility as uncongenial to the faith and trust which belong to a Christian life. I have studiously refused to entertain anxieties. I have put in all the forces which I possessed, as a farmer puts in his labor and his seed ; and I have left the germination, and the weather, and the future harvest, to the providence of God. In general, I have never performed my work but once ; whereas many others perform theirs three times, — first, by anticipation ; then, in realization ; and after- wards, by rumination. In general, however, it may be said that a hopeful, trusting, and loving disposition carries health, and restores men from fatigue, more rapidly than any other. The acerb feelings are cor- rosive. The saccharine emotions are nourishing and enduring. LOVE, A POWER-GIVING ELEMENT. But there are other things. No one can deal with the hearts of men as he ought, unless he has the sym- pathy which is given by love. I have always been struck with the Apostle's notion as to quality and quantity of feeling. If he charges you to be hopeful, it is to be very hopeful. It is not enough for you to be right. You must be very largely right ; each par- LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 249 ticular good must be carried up to its ideal form. Thus, we are not only to be fruitful, but we must abound in fruitfulness, as a vine, bearing so much that clusters have to be cut away to make room for those that remain. We do not know what Christian quali- ties are until we see them in their larger forms. Suppose we knew nothing about apples except as we had seen them grown in Siberia, what could we say about pound pippins ? Suppose you only see those poor, mean, and barren qualities that often are called Christian experiences, what would you know about the depths, the beauty, the freshness, and the power that are in a true man, who is built after the model of Jesus Christ, who is conscious of his strength, who is free, who is profuse, generous, and abundant? God is in him ; and men see God more nearly than they can by their own meditation, when they see a man like that. You may have benevolence as a pale stream of moon- beams shining into your study window, and you may sit and write your thin sermons in the light of that pale, speculative benevolence, but it will not do. When our Master was approaching the last part of his life, when the cloud threatening the future was already over him, when he stood near to the grave, he said to his disciples, in that moment of preternatural anguish, " Peace I leave with you, — my peace I give unto you." It always filled me with admiration that Christ not only had peace for himself, but enough to share, with his disciples, — ''My peace I give unto you." Brethren, every quality that goes to make manhood you must have in excess, as the brooks have their treasures, mak- ing haste to empty themselves, to give room for that 250 LECTURES ON PREACHING. which is coming on behind. You must have enough benevolence, not only for yourselves, but for your con- gregation also, to pervade and to fill them. This is what you ought to live for, and this is what is meant by living a godly life, producing not ideas alone, not arguments only, but living, loving manhood, — doctrine in living forms. It is what men ought to seek for in their closet and in their daily conversation. I feel provoked when I see liow young Christians often try to build themselves up into a Christian life by social meetings, so called. They get into an un- comfortable room : they sit stiff and dumb. Some one opens a Bible, and reads a chapter ; then somebody turns around, kneels down, and makes a prayer ; then another chapter, and then they sing. They all have an awful responsibility, and all wish they felt .something. They get up, look solemn, and go out. They move off regularly, methodically, and mechanically to their sev- eral businesses : and that is trying to grow in grace ! You might just as well expect to make a shady forest in your garden with the beanpoles you had cut and set out in the spring, as to make a Christian man by such a course as that. It lacks juice, and its juice lacks sugar. There is no grace, tliere is no reality to it. There is nothing in it that God loves, and certainly you do not like it. AVhen the power of the Holy Ghost comes down upon men, they grow up into such experiences as those which ring so grandly through the cathedral of the Bible. You are called to liberty, to a larger life. You are called to more manliness, to love, to fervor, to joy ! What you need, to make your ministry successful in LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 251 dealing with men, is that wonderful power which a true large, and fruitful benevolence gives. Here is a little penurious whipster of a man, — as it were, made up of that which was left, a mere biscuit after the loaf. You hear the neighbors say he is the smallest specimen of a man in this neighborhood." But if you, a minister of Christ's gospel, look upon him, there is that in him which ought to make your heart yearn and swell towards him. Christ died for him, and eternity has registered his name. Simple as he is, poor as he is, thin as he is, unsatisfactory as he is, though he were but a sand-bank among rich soils, it is for you to find a way of culture that shall bring forth some beauty out of the very barrenness of his nature. Your heart should sympathize with him in such a way that you can say, " I will add to him what he lacks ; I will shine into him and warm him, I will brood over him and will help him. T will do it myself." Lay down your life for him. Give him something of your life. Then, again, there is a suspicious man, who is always seeing people's faults. He rejoices in iniquity, and car- ries it as a peddler does his pack. He likes to sit down in the corners and retail it. Nothing is so spicy to him. He smacks his lips over it. He comes to you and says, You have heard about the old deacon up there," and so on. He goes around the village. He is a turkey- buzzard among men, picking up carrion and feeding on it. Everybody despises him and hates him, — except the man who loves. He feels like a physician going into a hospital and finding a patient there who is a mass of disease. If he were searching for a painter's model, he would not look at such a man. But, going 252 LECTURES ON PREACHING. there as a healer, he will try what he can do to relieve the sick man. You can manage these morally diseased men if you only love them. It is your busi- ness to strike such warmth into a bad man as to make him believe that you are working for his good. You must make him '' cotton " to you and be glad to see you, so that he will lay aside his deviltry when you go near him. Probably he will not believe in you at first, and may suspect there is some deceit in it all. He will watch you, and will " summer and winter " you. But, follow him up, and by and by there will be a chance when there can be no mistake as to your motives. I had a man in my parish in Indiana, who was a very ugly fellow. He had a wife and daughter who were awakened during the revival which was then work- ing, and, while visiting others who needed instruction, I went to see and talk with them. He heard that I had been in his house, and shortly afterwards I passed down the street in which he lived. He was sitting on the fence ; and of all the filth that was ever emptied on a young minister's head, I received my share. He threw it out, right and left, up and down, and said every- thing that was calculated to harrow my pride. I was very wholesomely indignant for a young man. I said to myself, " Look here, I will be revenged on you yet." He told me I should never darken his door again, to which I responded that I never would until I had his invitation to do so. Things went on for some time. I met him on the street, bowed to him, spoke well of him, and never repeated his treatment of me to any one. We constantly crossed each other's paths, and often vis- ited the same people. I always spoke kindly of him. LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 253 Very soon he ran for the office of sheriff, and then I went out into the field and worked for him. I can- vassed for votes ; I used my personal infiuence. It was a pretty close election, but he was elected. When he knew I was working for him, I never saw a man so utterly perplexed as he was. He did not know wdiat to make of it. He came to me one day, awkward and stumbling, and undertook to " make up," as the saying is. He said he would be very glad to have me call and see him. T congratulated him on his election, and of course accepted his overtures ; and from that time forth I never had a faster friend in the' world than he was. Now I might have thrown stones at him from the top- most cliffs of Mount Sinai, and hit him every time, but that would not have done him any good. Kindness killed him. I won his confidence. THE SUSTAINING POWER OF LOVE. Now, your congregation will be full of sluggish peo- ple. Somebody must bear with those dull and stupid ones. You .will find, what is a great deal worse, people who know everything, and yet know nothing, You cannot teach them anything. They are conceited snips of men, who are rushing up to you, and taking on airs in your presence, and you feel like smacking them, as you would a black fly or a mosquito. But somebody has to bear with them. If Christ died for the world, he died for a great many ordinary folks ; and if we are Christ's we must do the same thing. I defy you to do this on a plan, or a purpose, or " on speculation," if I might say so. You have to do it because there is that in your heart which makes you 254 LECTURES ON PREACHING. brother to such men. You have to say, " He is worth bearing with. I would better suffer in his place than let him suffer. He must be enlarged. He must be aug- mented, and made more a man in Christ Jesus." Then, again, you have obstinate men whom you can- not start, men who are unreasonable. There is nothing in the long run that can withstand a wise tenderness, a gentle benevolence, and a sympathy that melts the heart by a genial fervor, and which is continued in season and out of season, in sickness and in health, year in and year out. Nothing can withstand that. How is the soil disintegrated ? First, the ground is broken down by the grinding of the frost, then come the warmth of spring, the mellow rains, and then the after-sunshine. In such ways must a minister work, — first by attrition, and then by the geniality of his own soul. You can make soil out of almost any- thing, if you will only give your time to it.* LOVE, THE KEY-NOTE OF PULPIT-WORK. There are, also, some specialties in this true Christian love and sympathy that bear upon the pulpit. In the first place, the whole cast of your thought and the sub- jects with which you deal are to bear the impress of * * ' But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherislieth her children : so being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail : for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children." — 1 Thess. ii. 7 - 11. LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 255 this good news, — that God is Love, and that God so loved the world that he gave his son to die for it ; and that Christ so loves the Avorld, that, having died for it, he now sits at the right hand of God, a risen Saviour, to live for it. If you preach justice alone, you will murder the gos- pel. If you preach conscientiously, as it is called ; if you sympathize with law and with righteousness as in- terpreted by the narrow rule of a straight line ; if you preach, especially, with a sense of vindictive retribution, — I do not care who the criminals are, — you Vv^ill fail of your whole duty. There must be justice, and punitive justice, of course ; but, after all, " Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord. It is a quality so dangerous to handle that only Infinite Love is safe in administering it. No mortal man should dare to touch it, for it is a terrible instrument. You are to administer all the great truths, the most rugged truths, in the spirit of the truest sym- pathy, benevolence, and love. LOVE MAKES A FREE PREACHER. When you kindle to a full sympathy with God and man, you can preach anything you please. You can say anything you please ; if it goes with a reason- able degree of wisdom and a great degree of sympa- thetic love, it will be warmly received. Recollect the Apostle's manner. When he wanted to rebuke the Ephesian Church, he bethought him of all the good things he could, for encouragement. " Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee," adds he ; and then he brought in his rebuke, having prepared the way for it. .256 LECTURES ON PREACHIN(^. Some ministers seem to feel that men are totally depraved, and that it is the duty of every preacher to secure the evidence of it by stirring men up to bit- terness and resistance. Your business is to tone that down, and to prepare men's hearts by skillful address that shall put to sleep these repellent forces in them, so that they will hear your message and accept your influence upon the nobler side of their minds. When you are like a wise teacher or an affectionate parent, and prepare your congregation' for what you wish, you can say almost anything to them. Young gentlemen, the great art of managing a con- gregation lies in this, — I am supposing now that a man has a good substance of thought and common sense, and I am speaking of the qualifications that reside in the heart alone, — be good-natured yourself, and keep them good-natured, and then they will not need any managing. It is the most difficult thing in the world to control a great audience, when they are irritable and fault-finding and peevish ; and they will be apt to be so, if the minister's own gifts lie in that direction, and his service is irritating and arrogant. On the other hand, if the ministration of the pulpit is a balm to them, not by keeping down their moral sensibilities, but by keeping the sweeter and nobler part of their nature uppermost, you can reprove and rebuke, with all long- suffering, and they will accept it at your hands. It is out of this spirit, too, that you can deal with topics that otherwise would not be allow^ed. Ministers often think they cannot preach what they feel they ought to preach. There is a reformation going on, and it will affect vested interests, and there are men in the LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 257 congregation, involved in these matters, on whom one's influence very largely depends, and it would be danger- ous to irritate them. One man is a factory-owner, and the whole church turns on that pivot; and yet it be- comes necessary to preach on the duties of employers to laboring men, and their sympathies with working- men. Capital is largely represented, and it is suspicious and watchful. Now, you cannot afford to let this topic alone ; and you have sold yourself to any man fear of whom makes you silent. Yet you can discuss any topic if you only love men enough ; your heart will tell you how to approach it. In a neighborhood you can preach stringent temperance, though there are many in your church who are interested in the preva- lence of drinking-usages. Slavery can be preached against, and so it could in the olden times. Of course there are some who will take offence, but, in the main, you will hold your own and save others. It is to be done by being perfectly sweet-tempered and perfectly fearless. A congregation knows when a minister is afraid of them just as well as a horse knows that his driver is afraid of him. * If you want to stay in a place, be willing to leave it. He that would save his life must be willing to lose it, and he that will lose his life shall save it. If you are willing to go out of any parish just as soon as they want you to go, and are perfectly willing to lay down your work to-morrow if they say so, they will know it. If you want to stay very much, they will know that too, and will take advantage of it. Stand fearless, speaking the truth in love, — and in a good deal of love, — in love multiplied just in proportion as the theme Q 258 LECTURES ON PREACHING. is critical and dangerous. Be willing to take the re- sponsibility of saying it, when they attack you out of the pulpit, bearing in mind that your business is to take care not only of yourself, but of all men. If one of your parishioners beliaves badly, you must tax your- self with his bad beliavior, and say it is partly your fault, and not altogether his. If you take the stand indicated by such instances as I have alluded to, there is no reason w^hy your pastorate should not be long, and there is no reason why you may not preach upon any subject you choose. I recollect one thing, which I may have told you before, but if I have, you will have a chance, as I have heard Gough say, to see whetlier I am capable of tell- ing the same thing twice alike. It is in reference to what Calvin Fletcher, a wise old lawyer in Indianap- olis, said to me on one occasion, and which has been a help to me all my life since. He said, " If I do business with any man and he gets angry at me, or does not act right, it is my fault. My business is to see that every- body with whom I do business shall do right ; I charge myself with that responsibility." Now you must charge yourselves, in the same wa}^ with the respon- sibility of your parish. If, after the lapse of some con- siderable time, people get angry and act wrongly, it is in part your fault, and not theirs alone. If people want to hear the truth with freshness and new life, do not go clucking around the country, and say, " I was ousted from my nest, where I was brooding, because the peo- ple have itching ears and want novelties." If people are discontented with you, they have a right to be so. In closing, then, I urge you to see that you are com- LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 259 petent for all things, by study, by the weight of your thought, and by the skill of your administration of the truth to men ; but, above all, and beyond all, have in you the propelling power of that genial, yearning love which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things." For " whether there be prophecies " — doctrines, teachings — " they shall fail ; whether there be knowledge" — such partial and incomplete systems of thought as men work out — " it shall vanish away." There is but one thing that stands. "Love never FAILETH." QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. Would you have us preach on the subject of the heart being *' desperately wicked " ? Mr. Beecher. — 0 yes. There are some texts in the Bible that I think it would be difficult to preach from, but that is not one of them. On the contrary, only last Sunday morning I preached on a branch of that theme, namely, the deceitfulness of riches." I showed what deceit men practiced on themselves in proposing to themselves to get rich, in trying to get rich, and then in taking care of the riches when acquired. I did not notice that any of my rich men took it to themselves, either. Q. WovtM you preach " He that beHeveth not shall be damned " ? Mr. Beecher. — Would I ? Student. — Yes, sir. Mr. Beecher. — Yes, sir, assuredly. T always preach with a shadow. There is always an alternative. But I do not need, you know, to have a whip right up over 260 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the kitchen fireplace, where the boy can see it all the time. If you have given him one good whipping, he will remember it, and then,, when you say " John ! " that is enough. There are a dozen whippings in that. These questions that you are propounding all come on the supposition that to preach in a spirit of love means that there is to be no punishment. It does not mean any such thing. The spirit of love carries every- thing with it. It carries punishment with it, but in a qualified form, even as love carries it ; though not as fear does, nor as conscience does, nor as pure intellect does. Q. Where is the spring from which a man is to obtain the love and sympathy you speak of ? Mr. Beecher. — If a man knows what he wants and what he is aiming at in his every-day life, he must get it just as he would seek any other educational develop- ment. If you desire a musical education, what do you do ? You practice for that. If you wish to attain knowledge of Art, what do you do ? You put your- self under a master, and work for form and color. If you want devotion in the sense of rapt meditation, then you seek that. If you want it in the sense of exhilaration and of bounding joyousness, you will seek that. But if you want religion in a sense of genial sympathy with men, you will seek it by being with men. And when you can bring yourself to lay aside things that you very mucii wish to do, things that are naturally strong in you, for the sake of doing some- thing that you do not want to do, or being some- thing that you do not want to be, on account of other persons, who are neither very agreeable nor very re- LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 261 warding, and who, perhaps, will never know of your sacrifice, then you will have shown yourself fit for your work, and can say, " I lay down a part of my life for that man." That is the way we must minister to our congregations. Christ says, "I am the way.'* Make a road for men's feet upon yourself. Pave it with your most precious things. Do it a few times, and I do not think you will have to ask me any other questions as to the way to cultivate that spirit. Practice loving men if you want to have the power of love. Q. Do you think that a man who is by nature very cold and unsympathetic should preach, or go into the ministry 1 Mr. Beecher. — No ; you might as well take an icicle to warm an invalid's bed with. Q. Was not Jonathan Edwards, when preaching the justice of God, moved by love ] Great as Edwards truly was, and far in advance of his age in many respects, he yet was unconsciously un- der the grossly materializing theological habits of the mediseval schools. The monarchial figures of govern- ment in the Bible, and the figures of material punish- ment, are full terrible enough. But to employ the imagination, as Edwards did, in inventing new horrors for hell, above all, in attempting to picture the Divine Heart as so in love with justice that it rejoices in the merited sufferings of the wicked, was a sad perversion of the functions of imagination. In some respects Edward's terrific sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," may be ranked with Dante's Inferno or Michael Angelo's painting of the " General Judgment." 262 LECTURES ON PREACHING. But who can look upon the detestable representations of the painter, or the hideous scenes of the Florentine poet, without a shudder of wonder that they should have ever come from such tender and noble hearts ? They were dreams of dark days. The doom of wickedness is dreadful enough, without the hideous materialism and the horrible buffoonery of justice which prevailed in a former day. Q. Is there not something analogous to Divine judgment in the punishment of criminals by capital and other punishment ? Punishments follow the violations of natural law. But Nature is blind. It makes no discriminations. It takes no account of motives. It has no palliations and no pity. When a father punishes, he takes account of the age, inexperience, temptations, and motives of the child, and grades his penalties, or wholly pardons, as will best effect his end, the child's good. Governments under- take to do the same. But magistrates are hampered. Their knowledge is imperfect. The law fixes arbitrary processes of procedure. Punishments are often too lenient or too severe. They are determined full as much by the weakness of government as by the desert of the victim. Governments are but clumsy machines, and public justice is but a poor imitation of Divine justice. We should be cautious in employing the analogies derived from material laws, or from human civil governments, in interpreting the method of One who knows perfectly all things, who is unlimited in power, and who is not impelled by sheer weakness to' 8uch expedients as are resorted to by human tribunals. LOVE, THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 263 I think that the analogies of parental government, in a human household, in which penalties are administered in the spirit of love, and for the child's good, are far nearer the truth than those derived from the example of civil governments or artificial tribunals. LECTURES ON PREACHmG. SECOND SERIES. SOCIAL AND RELiaiOtrS MACHINERY op the CHURCH. OOITTEKTS. Lecture Page I. Choosing the Field . 1 The Foundation Principle 3 Parish or Mission ....... 4 Ideas versus Folks . . . . . . . 4 Pleas for Soft Places ....... 5 The Secret of Success 7 Building in a new Field 8 What is a Church ? . . . . . . 10 The First Step 11 The Preacher's Personality . . . . . 11 Reflex Influence and Education . . . . .13 Elements of Power gained — Creativeness — Reality . 14 Individuality . . . . . . . .15 Work from the Bottom upward . . . . 16 An Apostolic Exemplar 17 The Power of Christian Heroism . . . . 19 The Need of To-day 20 Mission-Work the best Training .... 21 Questions and Answers ...... 21 II. Prayer 25 Changed Position of the Church . . . . .26 Growth of other Professions in Learning ... 26 The Spread of Letters 27 The Church one Force among many .... 29 iv CONTENTS. The Function of the Pulpit 31 The Minister's Power 32 Spiritual Perspective . . . . . . .33 Prayer as an Element of Preaching . . . . 35 What is Prayer ? ....... 37 Teaching Men to pray 38 The Elements of Prayer 42 Making Prayer attractive 43 Liberty in Prayer . . . . , . .44 Exaltation in Prayer ...... 45 Personal Habit and Public Duty 47 Prayer the Secret of Strength 49 Questions and Answers . . . . . .50 III. The Prayer-Meeting : its Methods and Benefits . 53 The Democratic Theory ...... 54 Power of Individual Experiences . . . . 55 The Voice of the Chm-ch . . . . . .57 The Prayer-Meeting promotes Fellowship ... 59 It discourages Censorious Judgment . . . .60 It cherishes Mutual Helpfulness . . . . 61 It discovers Mutual Needs ...... 62 It develops Power in the Congregation ... 64 It discloses Gifts and Graces . . . . .65 Women to take Part 66 The Prayer-Meeting makes Truth Personal . . .69 It attracts Outsiders 71 ' The Effect on Spectators 72 Questions and Answers . . . . . . 75 IV. The Prayer-Meeting : its Helps and Hindrances . 81 Hard Work for the Minister 81 Difficulty of gathering the People . . . .83 The Folly of Scolding 83 How to start Prayer-Meetings 84 Poverty of Material 86 Need of wise Leadership . ... . . .87 Stale Speakers and Speeches 87 CONTENTS. V The Minister to train himself 90 Let every Meeting take its own Shape . . • 91 Feeling cannot be forced ...... 92 How Feeling is developed . . . . . 95 Uselessness of mere Exhortation . . . . .95 Flies in the Ointment 96 Do not be Fastidious ....... 99 The Need of Catholicity . . . . . . 100 Begin and end promptly 102 Cultivate the Social Element 103 Small Rooms the Best 104 Let there be Variety ' . 105 Importance of Singing 105 Summing up ....... 106 Questions and Answers . . . . . .107 "V> Relations of Music to Worship .... 114 The Minister's Duty 115 Music the Preacher's Prime Minister . . . 116 Church Music, — the Organ 117 Function of the Organ, — the Opening , . . 120 The Hymn Accompaniment . . . . .121 The closing Voluntary 123 Organists . . . . . . . . .124 True Organ Music 125 The Choir 126 Congregational Singing 128 Plymouth Church 130 How to promote general Singing . . . . . 131 Fellowship and Song help each other . . . .133 The Choice of Hymns . . . . . . 134 Prayer-Meeting Music 137 Questions and Answers . . . . . . 139 VL Development of Social Elements .... 146 Pastoral Visiting ....... 146 Modern Reasons for it . . . . . .147 Importance of knowing the People . . . 149 vi CONTENTS. Freedom from Class Influences ..... 149 Gaining the Confidence of People . . . . 150 Two Special Conditions for Visiting . . . .151 Hard Fields 152 Heart- Work instead of Head- Work . . , .154 General Social Amenity among Church-Members . 155 Imperfect Kinds . . . . . . .156 The True Practical Plane 158 Provision for Social Gatherings . . . . .159 Picnics ........ 160 The Church should be a Household . . . .161 The right Use of Theology 162 The Supremacy of Spiritual Qualities . . . .163 Sunday-Schools ....... 164 How Children should be taught . . . .165 Make Religion Joyful to Children . . . . 167 Questions and Answers . . , . . .170 VII. Bible-Classes — Mission Schools — Lay Work . 179 Importance of Bible-Classes . . . . .181 Studying the Bible as a Whole . . . . 182 Various Methods of Bible Study . . . .183 Advantage of Personal Teaching . . . . 184 Cause of the Prosperity of Plymouth Church . .190 Mission Schools 191 Where to establish Missions 191 The School not to become a Church . . . 192 Benefit to Teachers 198 Church Selfishness ...... 194 Lay Preaching 197 Work in one's own Field 199 Young Men's Christian Associations . . . .201 Questions and Answers 203 VIII. The Philosophy or Revivals 210 Two Extremes of Opinion 210 The Historic View . . . . . . .211 The Revival Element in Judaism . . . . 211 Revivals in Christ's Ministry 213 CONTENTS. vii Eevivals in Modern Time 214 The Psychological Explanation . . . . .215 Accepting Nature's Laws . . . . . 219 Regular Institutions Inadequate ..... 220 Churches themselves need reviving . . . 221 Needs of those without the Church .... 222 Fanaticism : how prevented . . . . . 222 Life better than Death 223 Religious Excitement not Dangerous . . . 225 High Feeling and Clear Seeing 228 Religious Insanity 228 Revivals raise the Tone of Church Piety , . . 229 Questions and Answers ...... 231 IX- Revivals subject to Law 240 The Divine Spirit not Capricious .... 244 Revivals under Ihe Law of Cause and Elfect . . 248 What is Nature ? 249 Physical Natui-e not Ignoble . . . * . . 250 The Science of Religion 254 Dependence on God not given up . . . .255 What is a Revival ?...... 256 The Awakening of Conscience 257 The Sense of Danger 258 The Struggle 259 The Victory 260 How to produce these Results . . . . .261 Questions and Answers 264 X. The Conduct of Revivals 273 Effect of Revivals within the Church . . . 274 Born again .275 Where to begin Revival Work . . . . 277 Preparation in the Preacher 279 Si)ecial Kind of Preaching required . . . 282 Frequency of Services 283 Courage gives Strength 285 Do not work by Authority 288 viii CONTENTS. Variety of Methods . . • . . . . 289 Protracted Meetings 290 Inquiry -Meetings ....... 293 Camp-Meetings 293 Evangelists , . 294 Questions and Answers . . . . .296 KI. Bringing Men to Christ 302 Tlie Old and the New Practice .... 303 Diverse Personal Elements 306 Degrees of Intensity 307 Practical Influences to be used ..... 309 The Apostolic Theory 311 Change of Life the real Aim 312 Differences of Disposition . . . . . 313 Conviction only a Means to Conversion , . .314 Present Christ as the Standard . . . . 316 Help Men to actively choose . . , . .316 Be Specific, not Vague 317 The two Elements of Action . . . . .318 The Ideal Manhood 321 Varied Experiences . . . . . . .322 After Conversion 326 Lectures oi^ PEEACHma I. CHOOSING THE FIELD. IST returning, young gentlemen, after a year's ab- sence, it would hardly be possible that I should not, in some parts of the several lectures which I shall give, have occasion to touch again many of the topics which came up incidentally during the first course of lectures. And yet it will be iDy effort to pass over an entirely different field. And, without rigidly restricting myself to it, I propgse to consider the auxiliary influences which are requisite to the preacher's life ; those institutions and various in- struments in the church and out of the church by which he will prepare himself as a preacher, or reap and secure the fruit of his preaching. I purpose in this introductory lecture to consider the influence upon a man's preaching of his primary choice of a place. That will involve more than seems upon the mere statement. I apprehend that when the mind is called to the choice of a profession, it acts usually under influences VOL. II. 1 A 2 LECTURES ON PREACHING. that are more sentimental — more, in the proper sense of that term, romantic — more purely spiritual, than when it comes afterwards to act upon the choice of a place in which to exercise the profession. A man perhaps considers the various avenues of life, asks himself into which of them he shall throw his life- forces. A great variety of influences act upon him ; but if he is in the early stage of religious enthusiasm, or if he has been bred in a household where all the anticipations of father and mother have pointed in one way, then, when he determines to be a minister, it is oftentimes the mere ratification of a sort of vague and general expectation. Or, if he be late brought into ttie kingdom of spiritual realities, there is a glow and an enthusiasm upon him, under which he determines to become a preacher of the gospel of Christ. Now, one of the incidental evils that unfortunately attend a laborious preparation for the ministerial work is the toning down of that generous and enthusiastic religious feeling ; so that when one has studied assidu- ously for two or three years, though he may know a great deal more, and in some respects his Christian character may have rounded out and become more symmetrical, he is very apt . to have more consideration of secular things. He thinks more of things as they are, and gains or loses by the process, according to the mode in which it is carried out. For when a man asks himself, now near the end of his course of study, " What shall I do ? Where shall I go ? Where shall I settle ? " there begin to arise a multitude of con- siderations which did not at all affect his mind when he chose the profession of preaching ; and considera- CHOOSING THE FIELD. 3 tions, too, which, while they are not formally objec- tionable, often do very great mischief. THE FOUNDATION PRINCIPLE. The presumption, I think, in every case, — it will have its exceptions, but ordinarily the presumption in the case of every young man about entering the field for preaching is that he should go luhere preaching is needed most, and not where he himself will be best off. He who follows the example of Christ and the Apostles most nearly, — not in the letter but in the sub-" stance, in the spirit, — surely cannot be far from right. If there be any example which is ascertained, it is that " He who was ricli for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich." If there was any one point that Paul emphasized, it was that he would not boast of what had been done by the Spirit of God through other men's labors, — how the gospel had been preached around through extensive regions, — but would glory in that which he himself had been permitted to do, laying his own foundations, and not building on those of other men. He gloried in going where none had been before him, where the world was new, where the hardships were apparent, where other men perhaps would shrink from bearing the burdens that he had the power and the spirit to bear. And he who goes where men need him most, follows closely the example and the spirit of his Master. That is the spirit of the gospel of Christ : to take care first of those that most need care, and to do the most for them that lack the most ; to care, not for those that are already well helped, but for those that are despised and ready to perish. 4 LECTURES ON PREACHING. PARISH OR MISSION. So that the presumption is, if the spirit of the Mas- ter is to be the guide, that men should go either into fields at home that are low down and require hard work, or into the remoter regions that may be called mission-fields. And the question may be summed up in these two words : Will you choose a parish, or a mission ? And when I say " mission," I do not mean a foreign mission, necessarily. Will you take work that is fresh to your hand, where you will have to be creative, or will you take that which requires simple superintendence and already has its course, which you have to supervise merely, as an engineer runs an en- gine already built ? IDEAS versus folks. A great many considerations >vou]d incline one to go into the mission-field. But, after all, there are, I think, nine men who go to parishes where there is one that goes to a new and open field. For when a man has finished his studies he is full of ideas, — full of new ideas. " Well, ought he not to be ? " Yes ; but he loves his ideas. " Well, ought he not to love his ideas ? " Yes, but he loves ideas more than he does folks ; — and that is heresy, — flat ! He has got a system, and he wants to try it. He has got some ser- mons, — he wants to see how they will fly ! He goes out with the feeling of the theologian ; but the feeling that should send every man into the field to work, is sympathy with man. That is the whole of the gospel, in a word. Divine purity, divine knowledge, divine power, have a compassion for imperfect, sinful, lost. CHOOSING THE FIELD. 5 wretched men ; and he is the true minister who has that compassionate sympathy, and subordinates every- thing else as the instrument of it. But when young men first come out of the seminary, they are very apt to be more in sympathy with ideas than with people, and so they want to go where their ideas will have a free course. " What could I do with all my sermons, if I were to go out into the backwoods where they won't let me read a sermon ? What could I do with all my arguments, my statements, my nicely put questions and answers, among a people absolutely uncultivated ? " PLEAS FOR SOFT PLACES. And next comes in this thought, which is the thought of ambition : I have taken three years to prepare myself for college, and have worked hard ; I have been four years in college, — that is seven ; and three years in the theological school, — that makes ten years that I have spent. I have improved my time ; and now am I going to bestow myself upon a field that is not big enough to hold the half of me ? Is it duty ? Ought not a man to put himself in a field where all his powers and all his stores of knowledge will have an opportunity of being developed ? And why should he tuck himself away in a corner ? Why should he go into a field where there will be but one part in ten that he can make any use of?" And so the man deceives himself under the plea of conscience, — that he is bound to bestow his goods in a larger barn than he would get if lie went into a poor and needy place. Then comes in also very seductively the vanity of friends, which so easily finds a nest in our own vanity 6 LECTUKES ON PKEACHING. wherein to lay its eggs. " Father has been poor, and he has 'scrimped' himself and the whole family to get me through my course." And the father himself feels it. He says, " I have sacrificed everything for this boy, and he has had a hard time. He has lived close to the bone ; now he has got through. Every one says he is one of the most promising young men that ever went from this county ; he has seen hard times enough. It is time he should have an easier place. He has felt so much of poverty, he would better go up to such or such a church, where he can have a good salary." They want to take a turn and find a larger place, where the boy can do good and enjoy himself If, on the other hand, the father be rich, he says, " But my son has been brought up as a gentleman's son, and he is not used to these things ; it is becoming that he should have a place in accordance with his social surround- ings." Whether he is rich or whether he is poor, eacli one wants to get a good parish. Then again comes in with still greater force the thought, I have been more blest, probably, than any man ever was in the world, in that she has consented ; I have now the prospect of possessing the fairest, dearest woman that ever was created, and I don't propose to take her into one of these rugged fields : a man ought to have some foresight ; I mean to go into a place where I can support her." And so Love pleads for a home parish with a good income. And then — and I think it probably the best plea of the whole — the young man says, " I liave, in spite of economy and suffering, run myself very deeply in debt for my education, and if I go now into a barren field, CHOOSING THE FIELD. 7 how can I pay my debt V To which my reply would be : Keep school till you can pay, and then go to preaching. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. I think that the question of the first field for his preaching is the transcendent question of a young min- ister's life. And why ? Because I believe that on that, very largely, turns his disposition ; and that on his moral disposition turns his success as a preacher. If you go into the field with self-seeking, and more or less under the influence of vanity or ambition, you vitiate the power of your preaching in its very source. It is not by wisdom or philosophy ,4t is not by rheto- ric, though these may incidentally contribute to a man's success ; it is by that secret, subtle, invisible, and al- most incredible power which a man derives from the Holy Ghost that he succeeds. And that power works in man with what is most generous, most disinterested, most sincere, most self-sacrificing, in him. Now, in the determination of your life, you turn the rudder when you select your field. If you say to your- self, — however much you may veil it or c ver it, — ''I will go where much prosperity shall attend my life," you make one of those great, generic choices that mark out the future, and insidiously, but all your life through, it will be a hindrance to you and a limitation of your power. If you go into your work with heroism ; if you sacri- fice yourself for it, without knowing that it is a sacri- fice, if you give your soul and body to the work of God among his poorest and neediest, so that you are thrown upon the necessity of living by faith, — you will find in 8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. it ample reward, you will thrive by it, and rejoice in it. Thus you will start your ministerial character upon a plane out of which will come all the influences that you need, the mightiest influences that are known in this world. Not by might will you become a mighty laborer, not by power, not by genius, but by that disposition in you and in your sermons that likens you to the Lord Jesus Christ, — that royalty of self-sacrifice, that glory of pitying love, that intense and entire sympathy with other men rather than with yourself, that spirit of per- sonal plasticity by which you may wrap yourself around circumstances, and glorify base things, and seek out low and little things to give them all your power, and be to men what Christ is to you, — wisdom, sanctification, jus- tification, all ! This, then, I say, is the reason why the determination which a man makes in respect to his sphere is likely to have a life-long influence upon his disposition, and so upon that which is more potent in the matter of preach- ing than any other thing. For I still insist that, how- ever needful and appropriate are intellectual equipment and all the accessories of personal bearing, culture, and refinement, the prime condition of right preaching is heart and soul ; and that to make these right is to keep them in accord always with the bounteous, loving, all- sacrificing, self-denying spirit that was manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ. BUILDING IN A NEW FIELD. What, then, if a man acts under these influences and goes out into the poor fields ; into fields where, for in- stance, there are no churches ; or where, if there are, CHOOSING THE FIELD. 9 there had better be none, — that is, where it would be better to dissolve them and crystallize again. Let us see some of the methods by which a man should build up under such circumstances, and what would be the relation of this kind of work to the office of preaching. In the first place, no man can go into a new field and not learn very speedily — I know it to be so — how helpless one is that has been brought up in the midst of a highly organized society and is suddenly drawn out of it where society is inchoate; where it is in a forming process ; where nobody loves anybody ; where a man has to be pope, cardinal, bishop, parish, — every- thing in himself. When a man goes into a new neighborhood, — and consider, gentlemen, consider ; don't think of Connecti- cut while I am talking to you, for, important as the State is, it is not the continent ! — consider not even the States upon the Atlantic slope ; once they were something, but they have ceased to be, comparatively speaking. Consider that great three-thousand-miles stretch from ocean to ocean. Consider the great waves of population that are rolling in. Consider how, from North to South, from East to West, the whole land is now one vast missionary ground. Consider what a host of African people there is to be educated, to be built up into the Lord Jesus Christ ; the vast masses of foreigners that are mingling with our people. Con- sider what a work there is for the Christian heart to do in all the length and breadth of the land ; in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West, in every State, in every section, but particularly in the great, new em- pires that are growing up in our midst ! The question 1 ^ 10 LECTURES ON PREACHING. that is seriously asked by every thoughtful Christian mind is : How shall we supply the gospel to these vast, needy masses ? WHAT IS A CHURCH ? Now, in going out among such populations you will find, drifting in the mass, here and there, single families, single individuals, of trained intelligence and moral worth; but society itself, at large, is not yet formed, and certainly its institutions are not formed. One of the first experiences that a young preacher has, in going into new fields, is the necessity of gathering and form- ing a church. The first question that comes up, then, is this : Have you learned anything in the seminary which will enable you to gather and form a church ? What is your idea of a church ? Suppose you were thrown down to-day in the midst of three thousand or five thousand people, along some of the new railroads, that have been gathered there in one or two months, — have you any aptitudes ? Have you any thoughts or plans ? Do you know what you would do ? You have heard the churches discussed as Protestant and Catho- lic ; that is all very well. The notes of the church have probably been sounded in your ears through all your studies. All very fine are these theories of the churches and their claims, but they are very different things from the practical church which you have got to use when you get among poor, common people. Here, then, is the root of the church : I hold it to be simply the development of social infiitences around a central spiritual element^ to keep it warm, to keep it alive. I hold that it is impossible, in respect to the CHOOSING THE FIELD. 11 mass of men, to develop the spiritual element except by the active and the reactive influence of the domes- tic and social feelings. Indeed, the church itself is founded upon this philosophical principle, namely, that the higher spiritual elements in men are so weak as to need the auxiliary influence of the more common social feelings. Thus the very root idea of a church is to get men together in their religious life, that they may help themselves and each other by their social rela- tions. THE FIRST STEP. Therefore, in going into any field, your first work will be to find out, Is there one man ? If there is, are there two, three ? Can I find six persons in this community, whom I can get together to meet me, and who will talk on the subject of religion together, and let one another know their wants, their hopes, their feelings ? Take a stick of pine and put it down here, another there, and another yonder, and set them on fire ; they will all go out. If you take those different sticks and put them together, they will all burn throughout to ashes. You can keep up an inflammation when you put them together, but you cannot if you separate them and let each one burn by itself. Now, churches are made like fires, and not as the light of single candles ; therefore, when a person goes into a new community, the first problem is how to draw together those that are begin- ning to feel the dawning of the Divine life. THE preacher's PERSONALITY. You will probably find, in nine cases out of ten, that there is no strength, or available material, in the 12 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. church that is any great help to you. Have you in yourself the power to be the fountain ? Have you the passion by which you can take those five, six, ten, fif- teen or twenty persons, and, grouping them together, breathe into them a common life, a sympathy, a love of friendship and sociality ? Though that is to be inspired and carried up as far as possible, yet that is only the beginning; for through that and by that you must breathe into them a church life and reli^^ious feelinc:. That is the first work. , I have seen a great many men in my forjner life in the West, who came out from New England well equipped and well intentioned. Usually they spent the first year of their life in bemoaning a want of Eastern institutions. The second year was better, but their action was awkward and ineffectual. It was about the third year before they fell into the spirit of their mission, so that they could improve all their time, and begin the work that is to be done in new fields by gathering people together. But w^hen you go into such a field to preach, you may lay up all your wTitten sermons on the shelf People won't come to hear them. In the first instance, you w^ill have to take your Bible in your hand and go to them, go to them in their fields, their cabins, or their houses. Preaching does not mean pulpit, thank God ! Preaching means making known the unsearchable riches of Christ, to one, to forty, or to a hundred, as the case may be. He who is a teacher, and who pours the inspired, Divine truth into the hearts and consciences of men, is preaching. That is preaching; not yet in the largest development of it, but in its elements, in its seed-forms. A man, therefore, who goes, I w^on't say to ring the bell. CHOOSING THE FIELD. 13 because there will be none ; I won't say to call the people to church, because there will be no church build- ing ; but who goes as a minister into a county where are scattered, we will say, five thousand people, goes to hunt up the lost sheep, to talk with them, man by man, household by household, to pray in their families, to make himself literally a shepherd, seeking a scat- tered flock, — that man is a true preacher of the Word, in the highest and best sense of the term. KEFLEX INFLUENCE AND EDUCATION. And what will be the reflex influence upon you, — you that have to go out after men ? If your heart is in it, if you love the work because you love God, and because you really yearn for men, it will become so delightful to you that you could scarcely be induced to leave it. There is a pleasure in the sense of having given up everything for Christ. There is a deep en- joyment in having devoted yourself, soul and body, to the welfare of your fellow-men, so that you have no thought and no care but for them. There is a pleasure in that, which is never touched by any ordinary expe- riences in human life. It is the highest. If it be sohtary, so much the worse. If it be occasional, so much the worse. But there is in it a pleasure, I think, next allied to the raptures of heaven. And a man who has but his Bible and knows that; who goes searching out in these new places those that need the truth, and proclaims it to them, and then, as one and another heart is opened to him, gathers them together, organizes them into a society ; calls it a church, or an assembly of God's people ; begins then to fan the social feeling, bringing 14 LECTURES ON PREACHING. them more and more into friendly relations with one another, teaching them, administering the ordinances, being himself minister (that is, servant, slave of all, doing all work) — that man, I think, will have more joy in the ministry than any other. At any rate, I look back to my own missionary days as being transcendently the happiest period of my life. I look back to the childhood of my ministry as most of you look back to the childhood of your life. The sweet- est pleasures I have ever known are not those that 1 have now, but those that I remember, when I was un- known, in an unknown land, among a scattered people, mostly poor, and to whom I had to go and preach the gospel, man by man, house by house, gathering them on Sundays, a few, — twenty, fifty, or a hundred, as the case might be, — an'3 preaching the gospel more formally to them, as they were able to bear it. ELEMENTS OF POWER GAINED — CREATIVENESS — REALITY. Creativeness, then, is one of the elements that will be developed in you by this earnest striving of all your powers to inspire men, to draw them together, to organ- ize them into a living, growing church. There will also be developed the element of reality in preaching. A large amount of preaching has come to be upon ques- tions that have been spun and run out by philosophical consideration into nice but not very useful discrimi- nations — questions of theology, questions of evidence, —a thousand intellectual and moral distinctions, which are not unadapted to the higher forms of civilization, but which have no relation to the great mass of the people. CHOOSING THE FIELD. 15 But he who goes into a new field to work, goes where everything is to be done for a purpose, and with men as they are. There is a reality about everything he does, which does not belong to older parishes ; and this will make him intensely practical, intensely real. Going into a new field in this way, one has, if I may say so, an emancipation, a liberty, which the conven- tions of older society would scarcely allow him. INDIVIDUALITY. The exercise of his own primary personal humanity is invaluable to him in the whole course and career of his life. It gives him a certain strong individuality. Men in new countries walk singly, men in old countries walk in platoons, in companies, and in regiments. We do what others do. We want to know what is the custom ; and that has the force of law. And so men are gradu- ally conformed. They smooth off all individual ex- crescences, and adapt themselves to the notions and manners of others. Nothing of this kind can exist in new States and settlements. The consequence is, that men who are there formed have intense individuality, which gives a great deal of force. I have seen many men in older communities, who, I think, have wasted their lives by repressing the things which are peculiar to them, and in which there would have been a signal power. They have repressed them in deference to the customs of the community ; and those things in them which w^ould otherwise have been salient and powerful die within them unknown and unused. 16 LECTURES ON PREACHING. WORK FROM THE BOTTOM UPWARD. In making your selection of a field, then, when you are about to go out from study to practical work, the principle, it seems to me, on which you should choose, should be, not " What is best for me ? " but " What is best for the cause of God among men ? " Not " Where can I be settled among refined and affectionate people ? " — though I do not consider that an offence, or a crime ; — not "Where can I have a stipend that shall amply support all reasonable wants ? " — though I do not con- sider that a vicious desire ; — not " Where shall I have an appreciative audience in which my peculiar kind of talent, my refinement, my poetical tendencies, or my subtle philosophical nature, would have a fair, agreeable opportunity ? " Although there may be cases (God knows ; we don't, always) where a man would better settle in an old community on these very accounts, — I do not debar men from regular churches, — yet, unless a case can be made out specially, it seems to me the pre- sumption is that every young man should go into work at the bottom. And this may be either in the open field, as it were, or in the cities. If you go into the open-field work, as I have already said to you, you will have your special difficulties, such as belong to a sparse population ; but, generally speaking, you will be com- paratively free from dealing with men of vicious habits. Not that there are not rougher neighborhoods among the new lands, where men are coarse and animal, but that the special "criminal classes" hardly exist there. In cities, on the other hand, men undertaking untilled fields of labor usually find themselves in sinks of bad- CHOOSING THE FIELD. 17 ness, more or less ; and, under such circumstances, this choice implies' even more self-denial than comes with the attempt to create churches in the newer settle- ments of the West and the South, because it necessitates dealing with natures far more perverted than the aver- age of men who have the hardy vigor and independence to settle a new country. Therefore, in the formation of schools, mission-schools, or little praying circles, which are nascent churches, in the cities, you have still more to deal with the personal principle. You have to bring to bear on men still more directly the power of your own direct, personal influence. You are to be yourself the channel through which the Spirit of God works upon the hearts of these men ; and you must do for them, in your measure, what the Spirit of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you. You must carry their sorrows. You must take, in one sense, the pun- ishment of their sins. You must suffer with them. You must abase yourself, and go down to their condition. AN APOSTOLIC EXEMPLAR. We hear a great deal about the cogency of argu- mentative preaching, about the eloquence of preaching. When shall we hear about the power that comes from self-abnegation in preachers, — the losing of self ? Do you know how many hundred, how many thousand, ministers there are in the United States to-day who have no charges, nothing to do ? Do you know how many thousand churches there are that are vacant to- day in the United States; churches already formed, but without anybody to minister to them ? Here are a thousand ministers ; nobody wants them. Here are a B 18 LECTURES ON PREACHING. thousand churches ; nobody wants them, — empty, hol- low. Never such a time, never such an opening, never such a need in the world as to-day ; and yet thousands of men there are — not drafted into other departments, not carrying on a part of the great collateral work — who are destitute of that peculiar spirit which should lead them to " spend and be spent," as the Apostle was willing to do and to be. Let me read you a paragraph : " Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be bur- densome to you ; for I seek not yours, but you. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you ; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved." Now, there are a great many splendid things that Paul has said ; but, judging them in the moral sphere, I do not think he ever said another thing that so drank up into itself the very quintessential spirit of the gos- pel as that last, — that he was willing to spend and be spent for them, even though the more intensely he loved them and sacrificed himself for them, the less he should be loved of them. We love loveliness. We love them that love us. But Paul knew he was a strong man, and has told us so on divers occasions ; he knew he had power second to none ; but he gave it to these people who were very dear to him, saying, " I am willing to give more ; I am willing to be utterly ransacked and used up for you ; I am willing to do it, though I were to find a decrease in your affection and esteem for me in the proportion in which I love you more and more." This loving CHOOSING THE FIELD. 19 against all obstacles, this all-surrendering power of love, — this is what is wanted in Christian ministers. THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN HEROISM. There are no difficulties to-day that are not surmount- able. The gospel has not lost a particle of its power. I hear a great deal said about Christianity passing away. When Christianity has passed away out of this globe, my friends, there will be nothing of the earth left. Christianity is not the technic of theology ; it is not the organ or the ordinances of the church ; it is the development of Divine power, truth, equity, and love in the most noble of all conceivable forms. And the intrinsic power of such developments will never weaken or fail. It is the type of the Divine nature made manifest by Christ, and, by the Apostles, afterwards, brought as an active force into life and applied to men. Do you believe that the heroism of love, that the am- plitude of a cheerful and a heroic self-denial, that tears for others and joy in others, have lost their power in this world ? A man in Christ Jesus to-day is just as noble and as powerful as he ever was, and becomes more and more so, with the refinements and exalta- tions of life. The trouble is that ministers have be- come professional, have become class-men. They work for single strata in society ; they work for the higher ranges of life. They are lifted above the necessity of emptying themselves. They can hardly be said to fol- low Him, the delineation of whose life is a perpetual lesson to us. " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. He, being in the form of God, thought it not 20 LECTLTRES ON PREACHING. robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; and, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obe- dient unto death, even the death of the cross." There was no obstacle to stop him. It was the holy, impetu- ous downward plunging of love till it should reach the very bottom below, where there was no sentient life. That is the example of Christ ; there is the divinity of Christ ; there is the example and the type which the Christian minister is to follow. THE NEED OF TO-DAY. So, if he go into his place of labor and preach without fruits, it is not that the gospel has lost its power ; it is that he has lost his power. If men seek to do good, and find that they are so restricted and limited in our day, it is simply because they are not clothed with those moral impulses and that moral power from which origi- nally the gospel took its impetus, and which are still just as competent to the production of like effects as they ever were. When we have a generation of men that are otherwise as amply equipped as they are in knowledge and in aptitude for using knowledge ; who are willing to make themselves a little lower than the least, willing to take the humblest places, willing to abide there so long as they are needed and till they are called by the unequivocal voice of God's providence away from those spheres, — as soon as we see such a generation of ministers, just so soon shall we see more than the old Pentecostal glories upon the earth ! We have need of such ministers. CHOOSIMG THE FIELD. 21 You cannot lift up the ignorance in our land, you cannot go into the squalor and poverty that begrime our cities, you cannot preach the gospel to every crea- ture, unless you are baptized into this higher Christian spirit, and are willing to spend and be spent, — loved or unloved, as the case may be, — and to continue the work of God in the salvation of souls. MISSION-WORK THE BEST TRAINING. And when one has wrought patiently and with the expectation, perhaps, of spending his life in such a sphere as this (and, if God so wills, he will gladly continue to serve Christ there), if afterwards he should be brouglit by God's providence into a higher sphere, he will be as much better qualified for that higher sphere as the work which he has gone through is a higher education than any mere intellectual training. He never will lose that love for men, he never will lose tliat close sympathy with them, he never will lose that earnestness, he never will lose that practicalness, which this early training gives. His sermons will glow, they will be full of power, and he will have and will exercise among men that subtle influence which comes from this development of a great Christian humanity by work under circumstances of self-denial and toil among his fellow- men. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. Is not the young minister choosing his place a little like a young lady choosing her husband ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes, sir ; T think it is a thing that is done on both sides. I think as many young ladies choose as gentlemen, only it is done in a little more delicate manner, and. indirectly. 22 LECTURES ON PREACHING. Q. How often, should you judge, has a young minister occasion to choose any more than, as you stated at the start, between a foreign or home mission on the one hand, and leaving himself at the disposal of the providence of God and the church on the other 1 Can he pick out a parish for himself honestly or hon- orably ? Mr. Beecher. — I think there may be circumstances in which a young man will say, " I am shut up, in my own judgment and in the judgment of wise friends, to just so much of a career. I am at liberty to do only just such things " ; and where that is honestly the case, I think he is to act as fearlessly and with as little self-condemnation as in any other circumstances. What I wanted to impress upon you was, that with a class of students brought up in an old community, and surrounded by worthy and excellent churches, the gen- eral tendency will be to make themselves the carriers- on of other men's work ; and that, for the purpose of gaining a higher discipline and education, it is worth every man's while to go into new fields, where he has to begin the work, a creator himself, and become the minister of an older church at a later period, with an ampler education and experience. The gentleman who asked the preceding questions [the Rev. Dr. Bacon] then said : " I asked that question, not as imply- ing any mistake on the part of the lecturer, for I feel most heartily thankful for the whole current of thought in this lecture, and for the very vivid and desirable impression which I believe it has produced upon all our minds, but for the sake of inten- sifying this idea : that it does not become a young minister or a candidate for the ministry to be on the lookout for a place where he can get introduced ; and that he should leave himself in the hands of God's providence and of the church. And, if he is not CHOOSING THE FIELD. 23 satisfied with that, let him put himself under the care of the Methodist Conference, — there are those here who are able to give him advice in that respect, — and let them dispose of him." Mr. Beecher. — Well, gentlemen, you may laugli at that matter, but in the West I lived right alongside of Methodists, where I was in the minority and they were in the majority, as is overwhelmingly the case in In- diana ; and T saw a great deal of the working of that system. Of course it is not perfect, nor is any other system perfect ; but I do not believe there is any other system on earth in which you can take men at the state in which they take them there, with as few aptitudes, and then work up as good ministers out of them by training, as they do. And I attribute their success to this simple fact, that they put the Bible into a man's hand and send him out among the people. It is the grinding of a man upon other men that makes him sharp. Of course, if you have men that are educated to begin with, it will be still better. But the Methodist brethren take men, literally, right from the plow, from the flail, who cannot even speak good English. I knew good " Old Sorrel," as we used to call him, of Indiana; now a sound, well-educated, cultivated man, a man of great influence and power. But when he first went on the circuit in the Whitewater valley, he did n't know enough to tell the number of the verse of the text. He had to count off from the beginning, " one, two, three, four," in order to announce " the fourth chapter and the sixteenth verse." They take just such men, in the West, and put them into a field and set them at work ; and they grow all the time. They are reading as they ride ; their library is in their saddle- 24 LECTURES ON rilEACllING. bags ; they are reading in their cabins. They unfold slowly, but the beauty of it is, that they are all the time bringing what knowledge they have, to bear upon other men. This working of men on men is the way to make men, and workers. II. PEAYER ANY an enthusiast, when he begins his ca- reer as preacher, is subject to a disenchant- ment of the rudest kind. He has been brought up to think of the Christian minis- try as the noblest profession which can occupy and task the human mind. He has looked at it in its ideal per- fection, he has thought of it as springing from the will of God through Jesus Christ, and as standing, therefore, upon the highest place of sanctity. And he loves — perhaps not altogether from selfish reasons — to surround it in his thought with Divine authority, with pre-emi- nence, with all that shall give him the right to stand, as the representative of the Lord in the community, to make known the law of God, and to enforce that law. But no man will go into the field to-day and not find himself in practical experience stripped of much of this expected power. He will find the pulpit sub- ject to the same law which acts in other institutions. The strong will be strong, the weak will be weak, the poor will be poor, the spiritually rich will be rich ; and there is many a man who expected to walk in the high VOL. II, 2 26 LECTUKES ON PREACHING. places of the earth that goes pitapat, pitapat, down behind the hill, and hides himself in great disappoint- ment. And it is worth our while to take into considera- tion, not how Christianity stands, but how the Chris- tian ministry and the Christian church stand to-day, and what is their relation to the community. CHANGED POSITION OF THE CHURCH. Certainly the position of God's kingdom in the world is not such as it was in the beginning, before the Christian church was born, while it was carried in the loins of the Jewish church. Still less is it as it was in those ages in which the Christian church was the rival of the State itself, and dominated nations and held the universal conscience in awe and fear. That is past. It will never probably come again on earth. Few places yet remain with such ancient notions that children, looking out of the door and seeing the minister walking with all the dignity of the institution upon him, run back, afraid of him. With the old staff, and with the old buckles, and with the old three-cornered hat, has gone a great deal besides the habiliments. GROWTH OF OTHER PROFESSIONS IN LEARNING. There are other people in the community that have ranged up beside, in many respects overtopped, the Christian ministry. For, once the church was the main repository of learning, and the ministry were on the whole in advance of the community in solid learn- ing. The Christian ministry still, in, I think, almost every land, may be said to be soundly educated, and to compare favorably with any of the learned profes- PRAYER. 27 sions ; but it has lost the distinction of pre-eminence in this regard. It is no more looked up to as the cus- todian of knowledge. Not that it has lost any ; not that it has not gained ; but that other professions, through a larger and more liberal method of education, have also gained in knowledge, and the whole commu- nity has grown, both in intelligence and knowledge. The distance between the top and the bottom of society is growing less and less. Not so much because the top does not grow, but because the bottom is growing up all the time. The relative distance, therefore, between the preacher and the hearer is lessened continually, and will doubtless go on to be lessened. THE SPREAD OF LETTERS. Nor are we to forget that the pulpit, to-day, is not what it was a hundred years ago, certainly not what it was anterior to that date, as a vehicle for communica- ting knowledge. It was not only the encych^pedia, but it was the literature, almost. It had the function of making known to the great body of peasants, to the yeomen, to the great middle class, to the ordinary households of the community, everything they learned above the usual level of their own lives. It was from the pulpit, either on the Sabbath or by the pre- lections of the week, that the most knowledge was gained. The schoolmaster did well, but the minister was the teacher-in-chief. But, to-day, there is no such thing possible. We speak once in seven days ; there are newspapers with fifty thousand tongues, that speak seven times in seven days. We speak what little we can weave into our 28 LECTURES ON PREACHING. periodical sermonizings, but books are flying every- where ; magazines of every dimension and every de- scription are penetrating the nooks and corners of so- ciety. Tlie carman that sits down to eat his nooning meal reads as he eats. Men that travel are stuffed with pamphlets, with books, with printed matter of - every sort. Science is cheap, literature is cheap, all fictions are cheap, and are serving everything from the highest to the lowest interests of society, from the most sacred to the meanest and wickedest. The pulpit cannot in celerity, certainly not in versatility and abundance, come into comparison with them. In the work of the dispersion of thought and knowl- edge over the world, the machinery of general society has been augmented almost beyond conception, and the pulpit has been left far behind. It neither stands ahead of the other professions in general learning, nor does it compare, as a means of diffusing knowledge, with the other enginery which is at play all over the globe. And therefore men say, " The pulpit has had its day." I say its day has just begun. I say that all this busi- ness of taking out the ore of knowdedge and smelting it, and manufacturing it, and carrying it commercially to the nations of the earth, which has been so long per- formed by the ministerial profession, has been in some sense an encumbrance to them. It has not been alto- gether a power. It has given a distinction to the min- istry and an authority to the church ; it has wrought out pride and vanity and unwarrantable claims^ which the church is better without than with. PRAYEK. 29 THE CHURCH ONE FORCE AMONG MANY. It seems to me, however, that men do not take into consideration the fact, that, in any community, the church is now only one of the potentially organized influences or forces that are at work. The numerous industrial vocations of society, and the commercial vo- cations (for they may still be classed generically with the industrial), so widely extended and calling to their service such able men and so many of them, — these forces that thunder at the bottom of society are tremen- dous, and are not to be despised because they are nor- mal. And if they follow the line of the Divine intent, they are working at fundamental morals, working in the direction of a true manhood. But they are organ- ized, they are necessary, they are going forward with vast power. If one abstracts them, and in his imagina- tion considers what is the force of the hammer and of the saw and of the plane, what is the power of the en- gine, and of the very many men that manipulate them in society, it would seem as if the globe itself had become one vast smithy, and there were more than human forces working in the shop and upon the anvil. And the pulpit has got to operate in communities that are already possessed by these intense industrial forces. Nay, tliere are also all the trades and avocations of every kind, the liberal professions, as they are called, and, be- sides these, the whole swarm of special organizations, — what may be called the skirmishers of civilization, the lyceum, the masonic lodge, the literary association, the benevolent and reformatory and temperance societies, and what not, — hundreds, multiplying with astonish- 30 LECTURES ON PREACHING. ing fecundity every year ; all these influences are at work, together with the organized forces of government itself. And when the young man goes into what is called a public-spirited town, he goes into a church that stands in the midst of what may be called a dozen other churches, only secular instead of religious, —organized forces in society. They belong to the Divine Provi- dence, and they are workers together with the church, if a man is wise to understand and use them. If a man thinks they are antagonistic, if he looks upon them with jealousy and calls them a part of the world, he separates himself by just so much from the Divine Providence and from the understanding of God's will revealed in the events of his day. For all these great forces have in them a certain law, that of custom ; a cer- tain ethic, an ethic that relates to a man's transactions in so far as the business of any given circle or profes- sion is concerned. They are all operating upon the minds of men. So when the Sabbath day comes, and I get into my pulpit, do you suppose I go there now with these people fresh before me, all virgin silver, all nn wrought metal, thinking that I am the first man that has had hold of them and the last that will liave hold of them, in re- spect to affairs ? I tell you these men have been exer- cised in intellect more than I can exercise them, — these men that have driving behind them forces which impel them to complex, discriminating thought, to all manner of critical inspection and judgment, to a thousand men- tal processes which I cannot by mere speaking equal, — these men have all of them been touched in their sympathies. They have been driven by a certain PRAYER. 31 law-conscience in custom; they have all been law- finders or law-breakers, — for to find and to break are almost synonymous in human life. These men are operated upon by a hundred living forces before I get a chance at them. These forces are not rhetorical, they are not merely enthusiastic ; they are influences that are a part of life, that belong to the cradle, the table, the fireside, and the shop. They belong to that life which is like a stream from which, when a man is once cast into it, he cannot escape ; he goes with it easily, or, if he resists it, it rolls him on in spite of himself. THE FUNCTION OF THE PULPIT. The pulpit, then, stands up in the midst of a great organized State, with industrial forces organized and under the supervision of the Divine Providence ; and it is one force among many. Now, the question is : shall the pulpit attempt to appropriate to itself the business of all these ? Why, it were worse than folly. Shall the pulpit undertake to put itself into antagonism with these ? That is, as I have already said, to go into an- tagonism to God in his providence. What is the great duty of the ministry, in reference to these organized forces of society ? It is to spiritualize them, to inspire them, to give a soul to the great working, thinking, throbbing world. It is to open to it and let down upon it the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the fire of the in- visible world, that higher and nobler consciousness of humanity which is struggling blindly, mutely, down below, but which gets emancipation on the Sabbath day, when men come to know what are the meanings of all those things, dimly seen or rudely felt, which they have 32 LECTURES ON fUEACHlNG. met during the week. And the minister stands there to touch actual experiences, manly experiences, noble ex- periences ; to touch them as the sun touches the cloud- storm that is retiring from the field, when all colors spring out and the glory of God rests upon it. In this light, we shall go to our pieaching work un- der very different auspices from those which we should be likely to have if we took a dilettante view of the sacredness of the Christian ministry, and of the great authority of the men on whom the hands have been placed, and who have the right to say, " Do this and do that," and Be thou here and be thou there." All that power is stripped away ; that is all gone. You cannot bring it back by tears, nor by invocations, — thank God ! It is very easy for you to stop the eagle before the egg is hatched, but no art was ever able to put the eagle back into his e^sf after he had been hatched. Society is a part of God's great plan, of which the church is the servant and the minister. And society, under Divine influence, has developed these very things; and we ought to recognize that these are part of the fruits of Christianity itself, — of Christianity which is infinitely flexible and susceptible of development, so that it constantly meets the new phases and new as- pects of affairs. THE minister's POWER. You will not, therefore, in going out into your work, disesteem intellectual preparation, as though it were a thing not necessary. Yet, remember, you are not going to dominate in the community because you are so pow- erful m intellect. You are going to meet on eacli side 33 of you men that are fully your equals. You ought not to lose that enthusiasm for truth which, if carried a little too far, becomes authority, which takes on the " airs " of right and of rulership. Every man should have such a sense of what is becoming to truth, to vir- tue, to piety, and to God, as to be filled with a sacred fire of championship, with an enthusiasm for it. But, after all, you are not going to stand in this w^orld as the old priests stood. That place is gone. Men are not going to reverence you striplings just because you are called " ministers." Boys are you now, young gentle- men. May you never forget to be boys as long as you live ! But putting a Eeverend " before your name is not going to change your nature or your function. You are to stand in society according to a great allotment, a Divine allotment and reason. It is not fear of you, it is not reverence for you, it is not awe for tlie sanctu- ary, for the day, or for the usage, that is going to be the secret of your power, if you have any. It must be yours to impart to all the other great organisms of society spiritual tendencies and spiritual directions. Your ge- nius, your consecrated intellect, all your acquirements, all your knowledge and your practical skill, will be vain, unless you succeed in opening in the hearts of your hearers individually, and in the community where you dwell, a higher conception of what life means, a higher thought of w^hat manhood is ; unless you are able to bring down the invisible life, and give it as the atmos- phere of the visible. SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE. The old pre-Eaphaelite painters — if you have ever 34 LECTURES ON PREACHING. cried and laughed over their pictures — for they touch the fountain both of admiration and of tears — painted with exquisite coloring and profound sensibility ; but their pictures were flat, without any background, with- out perspective, without foreshortening, without effect of distance, or true form, or atmosphere. So the world is, without religion. The business of the pulpit is to give an atmosphere to this world, and to put things into their relative places and due proportions ; to spread out that which the sun brings over the great globe, when it rises with healing in its beams. Your busi- ness is to accept the world, to accept mankind, the great brotherhood, and to love them, and to have such sacred commerce with the other life that you become a channel, conducting the Divine grace to men. I be- lieve, too, that ordinances are channels through which Divine grace comes. One thinks that baptism is one of the channels, and others think that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is another of the channels. I believe that there are these side channels, but the main conduit is the soul of man that loves God and loves his neighbor. That is the one compendious ordi- nance of God, and that is the artery through which God mingles his grace and his power, to be felt among men. And the work of the Christian minister is so to know God, and Jesus whom he sent, so to realize them in his own heart, that he shall be able to com- municate them by sympathy, as well as by teaching, to the collective body, to the individual. Yea, they are to feed, in their distributive functions, not only the per- sons but all the households, all the associations, all the industries, everything that belongs to the community PRAYER, 35 where they are placed, — thus not simply indoctrinat- ing, which is excellent, which is a very good base from which to depart, but really imparting a Divine inspira- tion to all those organized forces by which society is developing itself The church, therefore, stands, in my thought, as one among many. Is it the highest ? It may be, ought to be. It is in its real nature the highest ; it is not al- ways practically so. There is many and many a house- hold in town a thousand times nearer heaven than the church with its minister and all its elders and deacons put together. There is many a single praying soul, there are poor women in obscurity and in poverty, that God's angels dwell with more abundantly than they do with those that stand in conspicuity of exhibitive holi- ness. The higher life is very low. " He that would be chief among you, let him be your slave, let him be min- ister of all." PRAYER AS AN ELEMENT OF PREACHING. Now, I have spoken already, in former lectures, of those elements that are personal to you in this wark. And I shall, this year, with some latitude of treatment, speak of those auxiliary elements which are made up partly of your personality and partly of things that are not you, that are exterior to you. And I purpose, this after- noon, in order to come by and by to the subject of the prayer-meeting in the church, to speak of prayer as one of the main auxiliaries by which the minister is to perform the work for which the church is ordained among men. I do not propose to discuss the question from a philosophical stand-point. If a man should 36 LECTURES ON rREACHING. tell me that physiologists had been all wrong in the matter of hunger and digestion, and that it had been demonstrated now that hunger was an imaginary feel- ing, and that coffee and bread and butter acted more througli the imagination than any ether way ; that it was very w^ell to go through the forms of taking them, but that their effects were really through the imagina- tion, and not through any organic relation, — I don't think he would go far to convince me. I hardly think I should be satisfied with any such reasoning as that. If a man should say to me, " It has been sliown now^ that we have no real knowledge of external things, vce have knowledge only of subjective states, the light streaming from things giving some idea of form and color and so on ; and therefore, if a man would deal with himself honestly, he could sit down in a wilder- ness of sticks and call it a garden ; it is merely sub- jective, and depends very much on the man himself and his states," — I don't think that would change my feel- ing in respect to flowers, or fruits, or anything else. Now, I know there is in prayer a great deal more than question or answer. I know there is something beside simply those questions about which philosophers are pottering. If prayer w^ere a mere order sent to mar- ket, expected to bring back so much in a basket every time, I then might enter into accounts and have com- mercial dealing on that subject. The barrenness of prayer is, I am afraid, somewhat exposed by the low state in which it too often exists. I do not purpose, either, to enter into that other ques- tion, so profoundly interesting and exciting to thou- sands of men, " Is there any answer to the prayer of PRAYER. 37 faith ? " I regard it as one of the questions of the future. It :*eems to me, if there be anything that is sure, it is that Jesus believed there was a realm of power, into which the human mind could rise up, which gave to man not only control over himself and his own spirit, but such a participation in the Divine nature as that his will would positively have control over physical laws and forces. There are powers repeatedly promised or hinted at in the sayings of tlie Saviour. There is an exalta- tion, — not perhaps to every person, because all gifts are not to all, — but to certain natures there are exalta- tions that carry with them the nascent power of Divin- ity itself, as I believe. And the province of answer to prayer — or the question whether men have compelling power with God — is one of transcendent importance. I do not intend to discuss that now, but to look at prayer simply in its more generic features, and as one of the inspirational elements by which the church is to develop in the community its higher life and humanity. WHAT IS PRAYER ? And, looked at in this largest view, what is praying ? Dropping out, as we may say, the lower elements of it, what is prayer but the conscious lifting of a man's soul into the invisible realm, into the presence of the invisi- ble Father ? What is it but shutting out for the mo- ment, with the closing of the eye, all conscious sensu- ousness and secularity, and rising by the effort of the soul, through silence, up into the region where God sits, and dwelling — though but for a moment — out of the body, in the presence of the Eternal God ? You may say, when once there, He doth thus and thus and 38 LECTURES ON PREACHING. thus " ; but all the details come back into this generic element, that it is taking men out of conscious sensu- ousness, and lifting them up into an actual spirituality. It is bringing them out of time and standing them upon the threshold of the eternal world. The habit of prayer, looked at in this way, elevates the individual, elevates any household ; it civilizes, spiritualizes, etherealizes, the community itself And you cannot pray so poorly — if your prayer be sincere in that one single thing, if it be the real thought that is going up, and you have the conception of God in your heart — but that the mere soul-bath one gets in things unseen, the mere lifting of the wings in the great beyond, is itself worth all that anybody ever claimed for prayer. And one of the very first things that the Christian Church and Ministry should do is, as the Saviour did, teach the disciples how to pray. I shall treat, then, to-day, first of personal prayer, and second of ministerial prayer ; and, to-morrow after- noon, of social prayer, or the prayer-meeting. TEACHING MEN TO PRAY. Inspiration of Desire. — As regards the work of the Christian ministry in teaching or inspiring men to pray, I have to say, in the first place, that one of the secret arts, — if you use the term " art " in the sense of wis- dom, — one of the subtle, secret arts of the ministry is, not didactically or demonstratively to make men pray, but, by a wise knowledge of how to teach them the thought, the feeling, to inspire them with a desire for some such higher utterance. If a man preaches, there- fore, hard matters of fact, if he all the time secularizes PRAYER. 39 his sermons, if they are ethicalized to death, if they lack the savor of the something better, the something higher, the something nobler, that is for man in his communion with God, men will scarcely learn to pray except as they learn to perform any other duty. But the secret of praying is, to want to pray. The secret of wanting to pray is, to have excited in our souls certain aspira- tions, certain yearnings, certain desires. The conscience hungers and thirsts, the imagination yearns and longs, the affections rise above all the bounds of ordinary experience in life. Prayerful Preaching, — There is the sense of wings, I think, in every soul that is touched with the least ideality, and it is desirable to so preach to men that they shall have an upward yearning. Break up base content. Infuse into men a glorious discontent with things as they are. So idealize everything, so preach it, that the necessary things, common things, — all of them, — shall have a halo about them, a suggestion of something higher and nobler, till the soul is in an ex- halant state, till it shall tend to pray always, — that is to say, to have a subtle uplifting and going up of the thoughts, out of the physical and material, and the near and present, into the invisible and holy. Much of this spirit of prayer can be thus infused, while you are not actually praying, through your way of dealing with men. It is whether you are aiming at the base of their brain, where lies the great workshop of life ; or whether you are aiming at the middle of their brain, where the great household and social affinities are playing; or whether you take the top, where is the holy spirit, where we touch God, if we toucli him at 40 LECTURES ON PREACHING. all, in our thought and inward life. Now, sermons that are constantly working upward into that, tending toward that, although they may never discuss prayer, are all the time tending to spiritualize men, to give activity to that side of their nature whose expression must neces- sarily be invocation and ejaculation. But let me say that, while we are laying the founda- tion for instruction in this way, I have felt in my own ministry the constant need of doing a great many other things. To tell the truth, it was a good while after I had come into the church that I was like the deacon who was asked to pray by his minister and refused ; and who, on being told that he had the gift and ought to pray, said he knew he could do it, but he always hated to. To tell you the truth, I hated to pray ; it used to be a most disagreeable, enforced duty, partly from one reason and partly from another, which it is not necessary now to specify. I remember that it was a long time before I could get back to the habit of my childhood, and kneel down and pray with any comfort. The moment I bent my knee, I also lost my thread ; and the mechanicalism of attempting to pray morning, noon, and night would ruin my soul, I think. If I had to pray by the clock, if I had to have a mechan- ical order, it would derange all my spiritual tendencies. I could not do it. Little by little, I came to the feeling of wanting to commune with my Father ; and thus I learned, after a while, that we had to go into our con- gregation just as the Lord did. His disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray." Unlearning Wrong Ideas. — Generally, the first step towards teaching men to pray is to get them to unlearn PRAYER. 41 their prayers. Insensibly they have formed their idea of what prayer is. It is the way that the minister prays, it is the way that their mother prayed, it is the way that holy men have prayed whose prayers are recorded. To attempt to pray in that way is worse than to at- tempt to wear another man's clothes, without any regard to size. It is worse than the attempt of a little child to walk with a stride as long as the" father's, whose hand he holds. For, if there be anything in this world that must be personal and absolutely genuine to you, it is the aspiration. Suppose, when I courted my wife, I had got down one of the letters preserved in the family, — one of my father's to my mother, — and I had sat down and read that to her as a letter of courtship ! It was a very good one, in its time. But I think prayer is like the powder that a huntsman uses ; he never can use it but once. I am speaking now of my own views, and not of the views of everybody. There are prayers that are like stairs, — you begin at one spot and you always land at another spot ; and persons say that they were like the stairs that Jacob saw in his vision, on which angels ascended and descended, and that it takes them up to heaven. Such prayers are perfectly right for those who want them and can use them. But to my thought prayer is wings, and a man must go, not where the stairs are put, but just where his own will wants to go, — to the east, to the west, to the north, to the south, higher, lower, with many or few strokes, anywhere, as birds fly in the summer heavens above us. And you never can fulfill the Apostle's injunctions, " Pray al- ways," " Be instant in prayer," " Pray in season and out 42 LECTURES ON PREACHING. of season/' — those things cannot be done, if prayer is a set act, instead of an evolution of feeling or a holy ejac- ulation. THE ELEMENTS OF PRAYER. The sources of prayer are like the beginnings of the Ohio Eiver, — a thousand musical springs, separate one from the other, none of them more than a handful, first pouring out from the rocksides, and by and by joining together to make the great river below, on which boats and great steamers will float. And we have the river Prayers, the channel for accustomed usages ; but the beginning of prayer, that which is to make the great after-channel full always, and full of good and genuine prayer, is this solitary thought, that prayerful emotion, this impulse of the heart. The devout soul, in all its ten thousand moments, is of such a nature that it is all the time exhaling heavenward in poetry, in rhapsody, in narration, in reverie, or in speech. For prayer is not asking for something. I have noth- ing to ask for, since I have known what God's Father- hood means. I have but one petition, and that is, " Thy will be done." It is not for me to wake the sun. It is not for me to call the summer. It is not for me to ask for colors in the heavens. All these things are abun- dantly provided. The earth is the Lord's, and the full- ness thereof ; and I am God's beloved. He died for me by his son Jesus Christ. He thinks of me. Do I ever forget my children ? Shall a mother forget her babe, cradled in her arms, by day or by night ? And shall God forget us, in that great rolling sea of his thoughts, in that everlasting fecundity of his love, in the infinite PRAYER. 43 bound of the Divine tenderness and mercy for man ? Is there anything left to ask for ? When I am tired, I carry my weariness there and lay it down. If I am in sorrow, I am glad when I think of the Sorrowing One. The God of all comfort is my God. When my burden is heavy, it is not so heavy as was His cross. When the world seems circumscribed and barren, and I a stranger and a pilgrim, the world like a coach is swinging on its road, and soon I shall hear the horn that tells of its arrival. Ten thousand thoughts of this kind, that spring from every side of human experience and touch human life in every part, — these are elements of prayer. So that when I pray, I rejoice ; or, as the Apostle would say, " giving thanks in prayer." Prayer is cheerful to me. Prayer is sweet to me ; it is not ascetic. I know that I am wicked ; I know that I grieve God ; I know that there are times when it is sweet to say, " God be mer- ciful to me a sinner ! " So there are times for the maj- esty of storms in summer ; — but thunder-storms do nor march in procession all the way across the bosom of the summer. There is more brightness than darkness ; more tranquil fruitfulness than agitation and thunder. MAKING PRAYER ATTRACTIVE. And now, if you are going to make the gate of prayer strait, solemn, awe-inspiring, for the sake of making people reverent, coming thus through their sensuousness, and trying that kind of empirical method to excite devotion in them, — if you attempt that, what do you do ? You make prayer unwelcome, unlovely. You make the soul not want it. But if prayer is communion, if 44 LECTURES ON PREACHING. it is the sweetest of all converse, if it includes in it everything of your experiences, high and low ; if the children in school or in the household can kneel down with you and love to look upon your face ; if you can make them rise up from a scene of prayer feeling that, after all, it is "as good as a play," that is, that there is no force, nothing that is angular, nothing that re- strains in it, but all that is sweet and attractive and joy-breeding, — if you can do that, you make prayer lovely, you make men want it. LIBERTY IN PRAYER. It is not necessary that men should pray a great deal ; it is not necessary that they should pray a great while. I think this is ordinarily one of the faults of prayer. It is one of the faults, as I shall show to- morrow, of social and of public prayer. Prayers are of such a kind that I do not wonder prayer-meetings are the lumber-rooms of the church, that all the things that are good for nothing else are stowed away there ! We must broaden, then, and enrich our conception of what praying is, of the liberty of it, and of the nat- uralness that there should be in it, and of the right of every man to make his own prayer. " What if I cannot make one ? May I not use the forms ? " Yes, just as sick men use crutches, — not to supersede and supplant their legs, but to strengthen them, till they are strong enough to walk without crutches. But suppose a man is unfruitful? Well, your own slender fruitfulness of prayer is better for you than an ample fruitfulness that is somebody else's. There is a great deal of prayer that is something like the orna- PRAYER. 45 ments I see in parties, where they bring in, in a tub, a tree to which are tied oranges and orange blossoms ; for a night it looks as though it were an orange-tree in full blossom and full fruit, but to-morrow morning you will see that they were all tied on overnight. They answered a moment's purpose ; but one orange were better, if it actually grew there, than a bushel under such circumstances. But in helping your infirmity — I would not be strait- laced in that matter. Help yourself by any means, but never forego liberty, personal liberty, — never fold your wings. Never pray by proxy, when you can pray by silence in your own thoughts. Now, to inspire this spirit of prayer, to make men enjoy it, is a supreme art. I had almost said that when a minister has the power to inspire gradually in his church a desire for praying, an enjoyment in prayer, his work is comprehensively done in the world, and he could almost say " Let me die." Because I think that out of this spirit of communion with God, out of this spirit of nearness to heaven, out of this spirit of an upper manhood, out of this spirit of the gloriousness, the joy, and the beauty, and the bounty, of the heavenly land that just overhangs us, — out of this comes almost everything in the church that has moral force in it. EXALTATION IN PRAYER. So much for the attempt to teach your people and to inspire them with the spirit of prayer. The other point, a^nd the only other one that I shall deal with, this afternoon, is your own praying among your people. It is very difficult to speak on this subject, because it is 46 LECTURES ON PREACHING. SO much a matter of constitution ; so much in the way men are organized, so much in temperament, so much in education. I think I may say that no part of min- isterial preparation is more neglected than that of sing- ing and praying. We are indoctrinated very thoroughly, we are taught in the history of the church, we are drilled in the order and discipline ; but how much in- struction do we need on the subject of prayer ! I do not know that I can give you any instruction about it except this, that I think the most sacred function of the Christian ministry is praying. I can bear this wit- ness, that never in the study, in the most absorbed moments ; never on the street, in those chance inspira- tions that everybody is subject to, when I am lifted up highest ; never in any company, where friends are the sweetest and dearest, — never in any circumstances in life is there anything that is to me so touching as when I stand, in ordinary good health, before my great congre- gation to pray for them. Hundreds and hundreds of times, as I rose to pray and glanced at the congrega-* tion, I could not keep back the tears. There came to my mind such a sense of their wants, there were so many hidden sorrows, there were so many weights and burdens, there were so many doubts, there were so many states of weakness, there were so many dangers, so many perils, there were such histories, — not world histories, but eternal-world histories, — I had such a sense of compassion for them, my soul so longed for them, that it seemed to me as if I could scarcely open my mouth to speak for them. And when I take my people and carry them before God to plead for them; I never plead for myself as I do for them, — PRAYER. 47 I never could. Indeed, I sometimes, as I have said, hardly feel as if I had anything to ask ; but oh, when I know what is going on in the heart of my people, arid I am permitted to stand to lead them, to inspire their thought and feeling, and go into the presence of God, there is no time that Jesus is so crowned with glory as tlien ! There is no time that I ever get so far into heaven. I can see my mother there ; I see again my little children; I walk again, arm in arm, with those who have been my companions and co-workers. I forget the body, I live in the spirit ; and it seems as if God permitted me to lay my hand on the very Tree of Life, and to shake down from it both leaves and fruit for the healing of my people ! And it is better than a sermon, it is better than any exhortation. He that knows how to pray for his people, I had almost said, need not trouble himself to preach for them or to them ; though that is an exaggeration, of course. PERSONAL HABIT AND PUBLIC DUTY. And now, my young friends, without dwelling longer upon this matter of ministerial prayer, for my hour has expired, I have only this to say, — that I think it grows principally out of the habit of prayer in your own souls. Some people have asked me, " Do you ever write your prayers ? " Why, I had rather undertake to ma.ke a dia- gram for every particle of my blood, what it should do all day, than to attempt to sketch out a prayer. Prayers are as flowers that scatter themselves all the hillsides over, and all the valleys through, according to the will of the shining sun that draws them up tow^ard it. Prayer must be spontaneous, voluntary, effluent as the 48 LECTURES ON ^REACHING. atmosphere itself. It comes to those wlio pray much, — I do not mean those that spend a great deal of time in the closet, because you can while away a great many pleasant hours over dull books with interjectional prayers ; but those who have thoughts that rise spon- taneously up to God, — for that is prayer. I have friends who are so dear to me that I hardly ever go a whole day unconscious of them. And sometimes, for hours together, T couple very much of my personal his- tory with theirs. Have you never had friends that were so dear to you that, though they were a thousand miles away, you talked with them in the room, and, if you had a picture, there were two pairs of eyes looking at it, not one ? Have you ever carried on this kind of double existence with friends ? Well, it seems to me that is the attitude of the soul that loves God, — that knows itself to be his, that expects to dwell with God, that does not think of him as a great judge, or as a des- pot, but as the sweetest, most genial, most affable, the nearest, the noblest, the most beautiful, the most to be desired, the altogether lovely ; the one that made the sense of beauty in me, and is infinitely more fond of beauty than I am ; the one that touched in me the fountain of poetic feeling, and is himself transcendently more poetic than all that ever sung on earth ; the one who is the fountain out of which sprang everything that we love, or revere, or desire here ! If such be our thought of God, and our life is hid with Christ in God every day, it is out of that fountain that comes pulpit prayer. PRAYER. 49 PRAYER THE SECRET OF STRENGTH. And if you pray in the pulpit, and are dry, do not be discouraged. All streams run small at first, but grow better, grow deeper. Take more care of the inward man. Be nobler. Oh, you have to be good men, you have to be noble men, more generous, more disinter- ested than anybody else about you ! Sermons will not do ; it is life God wants to bless, and it is your life, if you are settled in any parish, that God will make the means of grace to men. And you have to * live lives of holiness, not after the Madame Guyon sort, or any particular sort, but after your sort, which is the purity of heart and the simplicity of faith and the freedom of will, ascending toward God. Live in that, grow in that, deepen in that, and people will begin to say, Our minister's prayers, it seems to me, are more nourishing than they used to be." Then, when men vex you and trouble you, instead of getting angry, pray. Then, when troubles come, instead of feeling tliat you have too much trouble, pray and pray. When you find that talebearers in the community are after you, and you are annoyed and vexed in your parish, and there is scandal going around you here and there, pray, pray ! It is the best way to head off little troubles. It is the best way to lighten great burdens. Pray always, be instant in prayer. Pray deep, deep as your soul goes, high as your thoughts can rise, and then you need not take much more trouble about your pulpit prayers, — they will come. And when I hear a parish say, " Our minister may not preach as well as others, but oh, it is a balm and a refreshment to hear him pray!" I TOL. II. 3 » 5b LECTURES ON PREACHING. congratulate them, they are not far from the gate of heaven. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. Would it not be well for the congregation to be made to feel that they are expected to join in the prayer ? Mr. Beecher. — I suppose that when a man stands before his congregation he feels joined to them. I am conscious of that myself. I seem almost to pass into my congregation. I feel as if we were all one, as if my utterance were the utterance and the voice of all the sympathetic souls in the congregation. A great many say, " Let us pray," I suppose, because they have got to open the door somehow, and that is the way it has been customary to open it. Q. May a person be eloquent in prayer without a vivid imagi- nation ? Mr. Beecher. — I think that all prayer has imagina- tion in it. I think that faith is spiritualized imagi- nation. Faith that works by love is ideality, or the imagination joined with affection and working in a spiritual direction ; so that all sense of God, all sense of invisible things, means imagination. But the imagina- tion, like every other thing, may exist in different degrees. It may be strong enough simply to be recip- ient, or it may be strong enough to be both recipient and in a small degree creative, or it may be positively creative, or efflorescent. The last form gives the high- est development of it, carries one into the very borders of what we call genius in that matter. I think there is a genius of prayer just as much as of poetry. I knew a woman so illiterate that she could not talk better PRAYER. 51 than a common negro. She came from the South, though she was a white woman, and lived in one of the southern counties of Ohio. When she began to pray, after a very little her spirit came to her ; she seemed to drop the mortal part, and she fell into the language of the Old Testament. I heard Judge Fishback, now gone, say that he had heard all the able men in the West, but he never heard a human being who had such power, who affected him as that poor ignorant woman did, when she got into those higher moods, and brought to her second or higher nature the use of all that sub- lime language of the Old Testament that seemed to be the channel to her spiritual feeling. I have heard old negroes in Indianapolis pray so as to make me wish I was in their place. There is a genius for prayer ; but then it is just as it is with the element of beauty. The highest development of beauty makes you an artist ; then you go along down until you come to that devel- opment in men which makes them decorators ; and then lower down, to the great average mass of men who simply have a sense of what is tasteful or beautiful. A sense of beauty is distributed from the top to the bottom, though in different degrees ; and the power of prayer follows the line of the gift. The gift is great in some ; it belongs to all, but in varying degrees ; and is suscep- tible, like all otlier gifts, of development by use. Q. Some men do not have the power of expression, — of word expression. Now, what do you think of that yearning that there is in the Congregational Church — I do not say whether it is right or wrong — for something like a liturgy ? Mr. Beecher. — I should say that that ought to be met by hymns. I shall come to that in my lecture on 52 LECTURES ON PREACHING. music. There are no such prayers on earth put into form in liturgies as those that . have been put into hymns. The trouble is that nobody thinks a hymn is a prayer. When a prayer is being made in the form of a hymn, — in which the music gives it wings indeed, — people think that is the time to scratch their head, the time to stand up and look about, or to sit still and take it easy, the time to hoist the window and get a little more air, the time to look after their hat, the time for the sexton to go with a whisper around the house. The desecration of prayer in hymns is something perfectly shocking ! The Congregational Liturgy is in the Hymn -Book, I think. Where fifty men want a liturgy, there is no law that I know of in heaven or on earth to prevent their having one. It is the liberty of the Congregational Church. But I believe there is one already made. It is said that liturgies must grow, they cannot be built ; and this liturgy has grown. From the time of David to the time of Wesley, and on down to our day, God has been inspiring men ; and they have given forth their divine utterances in psalms and hymns and sacred songs. A wise use of the Hymn-Book will develop more liturgical effect, I think, than can be got in any other possible way. III. THE PEAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. SUPPOSE there is hardly any other part of church service that is regarded with so little estimation in the community at large as the prayer-meeting. And I think facts will bear me out in saying that this feeling is participated in by the church, on the part of the greatest number of its members, nine out of ten of whom look upon it as perhaps a duty, but almost never a pleasure. It is a " means of grace " ; and they feel about it as I did when I was a boy about being washed in the morning and having my hair combed. It was better than going in- decent ; but it was an exercise that I never enjoyed, and I was heartily glad when it was over. In most churches I think that is^ the feeling in regard to the prayer-meet- ing ; that it is dull ; that it is for the most part without edification ; that in some mysterious way it may be blessed to the soul's good, — but how they do not know. Persons resort to it when they cannot very well help it. Now and then the meeting blazes up ; there is a revival ; there is some novelty ; something has transpired that 54 LECTURES ON PREACHING. excites a momentary interest ; but perhaps ten months in the year, on an average, the prayer-meeting is es- chewed by the great body of the church, and by the community wholly. There is another bad side to it, — children do not like it ; and anything that children dislike in religious service, habitually and universally, has reason to sus- pect itself. There is an element in true religion that follows the example of Christ, — the children wanted to come, and the Saviour called them and put his arms around them, took them upon his knee, and laid his hands on them and blessed them. And, from that day to this, I think that where service is delivered in the true Christ-spirit it will be found that in one place or another, there is something for children ; and the chil- dren will find it out. Where the minister does not inter- est the children, where the meetings of the church have nothing for the children, something ought to be changed or added. Eevision is needed. THE DEMOCRATIC THEORY. Now, it is notorious that the prayer-meeting is " belov/ par," and therefore it may be the more striking to say that, for my part, I regard it as the very center and heart of church life, — not necessarily of preaching ; al- though its reaction upon preaching may be made to be vory great. We have thrown off hierarchical methods of worship ; we have advanced — I mean the Presby- terian and Congregational Churches and their confreres hcwe advanced — the theory of the equality of the church in its members ; the idea that it is a family and body of believers ; that it has in itself inherently the gifte THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 55 of divination ; that it does not derive its graces through any ministerial channel except reason and the ordinary methods of communication. This is our theory. And it behooves, therefore, all those that believe in such a constitution of the church, to see to it that the church does develop some fruit that shall sustain the theory. If, therefore, the church life is barren, if it is meager in development, we lay ourselves under a just lia- bility of being thought to disprove, by our life, that which we attempt to prove by our philosophy or by our reasoning. POWER OF INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES. If there is anything in the world that ought to de- velop church life, it is the gathering together of the whole body of the brotherhood, the men and the women in the church, for mutual edification. Do you not be- lieve that there is a constant communication of the Holy Ghost with every heart that is striving God- ward, — yea, and every one that is not ? Do you not believe that every heart that has been made willing in the day of God's power, that is in a recipient state, is receiving from day to day a realization of the Divine presence, an inspiration in duties ? Is there not a life going on in the hearts of God's own people, under all the varied conditions in which they are living, that is worth some record, some interpretation ? And is it possible that one man, no matter how studious, no matter how gifted, — is it conformable to our idea of the constitution of the church that one man, standing in the pulpit, shall be able, simply because he devotes himself to instruction, to pour out upon a congregation such knowledge of 56 LECTURES ON PREACHING. experimental truth as inheres in the life of the congre- gation itself ? If there were any process by which we could look inside of men's lives, their unconscious as well as their conscious religious life ; if we could fol- low the mother in all her moode and musings and prayers and anxieties, and all the methods by which she is lifted out of and over, and carried victorious through, any discouragements and trials in the rearing of her little church, the household ; if we could go with those that are discouraged and downhearted and not naturally hopeful, whom all the world seems to beat against and to crush, and see how their feebleness and weakness is from day to day helped and sustained ; if we could gather out all that wliich the young feel in their weary moments ; if we could see how men strive under temptations, against pride; how men that are borne in upon in the business of life strive against avarice ; what battle is going on in the shop, in the street, and wherever men are ; what the whole round of real, practical godliness is, in its weakness, its over- throw and defeat, in its matched battle or in its vic- tories, — if we could gather out all these things and bring them into some form and lay them open, do you believe there is a single man on earth, though he were a prophet or an apostle, or both, that could equal the revelation of the truth of God as thus given in the lives and history of all the members of the church ? The great and wonderful work going on in the lowest and the least is more stupendous in its re- lations to the Godhead and the eternal estate of the blest than the external greatness of any kingdom in the world ! And it is all the time stimulated and de- THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 57 veloped. Here is the growth of passions ; here is the growth of moral emotions ; here is the dawn of love, waxing stronger and stronger unto the perfect day ; here are the joys, the sorrows, the upliftings, the downcastings, — all the ten thousand things which not only teach us to pray, but which pray in us and through us, with groanings which cannot be uttered." Is there any voice for these things, except as we gather up here and there a scrap from the congregation and make it known ? Now, the ideal prayer is this voice of the church, telling what it has learned of God in its daily conflict, bringing out the whole of that great range of Christian work that is going on in any com- munity where there is a true church of Christ. For, as the Apostles were called to testify that they had seen Jesus, and that he was raised from the dead, so the Church should testify that Christ is raised in them from the dead, and tell what he is doing by his work in them. THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH. Now, I hold, in the first place, that, according to our idea of it, there can hardly be a prayer-meeting in a hierarchical church ; because there can be no such thing, as we understand it, Vhere one man is the chan- nel through which the church worships, and through which alone God speaks to the church. But the prayer- meeting is the voice of the church and of all its members. It belongs to our peculiar organization, and it can scarcely be in any other system. Instead of developing or encouraging it, many of our churches are asking, " Can't we help our leanness and our barren- ness with a liturgy?" I do not object to a liturgy 3* 58 LECTURES ON PREACHING. more than I do to banners on a house, if it pleases men ; but I would not regard it as the indispensable method, not as something that we need, until we have exhausted tliat which belongs to us, namely, the power that inheres in the very radical idea of a church among us, that God communicates with every heart, not me- diatorially, — by earthly mediation, — but by direct im- pact, by direct soul-piercing ; that he thinks into men, and that their thoughts are the rebound of his ; that he pierces them with divine emotion ; and as, when the sun pierces the earth, up spring flowers and out burst fruits, so, when the soul feels the Divine inshining, all that is noble in it rises efflorescent and victorious. And when you shall have developed that in the church, if still you complain of leanness, and want of interest, and barrenness, then bring in a liturgy, then bring in some otlier thing ; though I think the com- bination of a liturgy with Congregationalism is the mingling of foreign elements that do not go well to- gether. It is a patch on the old garment ; one or the other tears, — and it does n't make any difference which ; there is a hole. This being the general idea of a prayer-meeting, you will not have to go far to see what are some of its advantages and what are some of its hindrances. Of these things I shall speak to you plainly. And mostly I speak from my own observation and experience. The ideal of the prayer-meeting, then, is a family meet- ing, — a household coming together and telling, all of them from time to time, what God hath done for them ; helped to do it by the discriminating leadership of whoever presides in the meeting, by questions, by vari- THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 59 ous methods, calling attention to things that otherwise escape the notice of brethren, and bringing out the full record of the dealings of God with his household, that church. THE PRAYER-MEETING PROMOTES FELLOWSHIP. In the first place, it produces, or tends to produce, the almost unknown quality of which so much is said in the New Testament and so little known in the church, — fellowship ; a sort of joyful inspiration at the sense of a " fellow " by your side, that kind of relation one to another which persons have who are met as on Thanksgiving day, or on Christmas, when a family comes together. Everybody is glad, and nobody can tell why, except that It is my brother, it is my sister, it is my father or my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my grandfather. It is that feeling of heart-exultation, that overflow of gladness ; and persons run around and laugh. Why do you laugh ? " " Well, because I feel so happy ! " Now, gather a church together ; bring them into such relations with each other that they all feel that yearning, that fraternal feeling, that gladness, that exultation in each other. Ah ! you never can do this as long as you seat people apart in pews, set them up straight, and make it a sin for them to look at one another, telling them to think with awe about holiness, driving them up out of the sphere of ordinary feeling. They may come in very properly, put their hats down very properly, sit properly, and nobody speak above a whisper, but you cannot pro- duce the feeling of fellowship so. But there is a genial and social element, a loving element, if men 60 lecturp:s on preaching. know each other, — as they will come to do, — out of which fellowship will grow. IT DISCOURAGES CENSORIOUS JUDGMENT. And after a little while this kills uncharitableness. There is not a man living, with any grace in his soul, who does not feel a yearning toward another that has done wrong, and owns it, and endeavors to get over it. Do you know why it is that we feel so toward that old church- member, forty years a member, and still so stingy and so proud, — why we all look askance at him ? It is because he does not feel that he is sinful ; it is because he does not feel that he is proud or avaricious. But if he had come into the house of God among his brethren, and with the sim- plicity of a child said, " Brethren, you know my weakness, but you do not know how I have struggled against it"; and if you had heard him in his prayers ask that God would deliver him from avarice ; and if he had talked with the young people in the church, saying, Now look at my example ; I am trying to fight against it, but don't you get into any such course as that," — you would feel a sympathy for him. Your fellow-feeling for him would soften your judgment of him. Another man is naturally a peacock, who spreads himself, and who is full of the glistening reflections of other people's brilliance ; he is laughed at, and people pick him to pieces, — for there is a vast amount of joy- ous cannibalism in a right Christian church, — and they are all pulling the feathers out of him ! But suppose that man in the gathering household, not ostentatiously, not going around as a professional experience - teller, THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 6i should at his proper time and place, and with evident sincerity of feeling, confess, " This is my disposition ; my brethren have spoken to me about it, but they do not need to ; I know it ; it has been revealed to me in a thousand ways ; and I do not like it, I strive against it," — you that are meek should help to restore such a one. Suppose you think, " That man knows it just as well as we do." Did you ever see a brother tliat would point at his younger brother and say, " That fellow, you know, has got a club-foot " ? We never ridicule the infirmities of our brothers and sis- ters, and certainly not those of our children. They ap- peal to our compassion, as should the constitutional moral peculiarities of men, especially if they have been developed and exaggerated in the world. What we want more than anything else in this world is, that men who would go to the stake for the doctrine of total depravity shall admit that they have some of it themselves, and that they are making a brave fight to overcome it. It is wonderful what a grace there is in sympathy. God blesses it in a great many ways. And if in the church there were such a thing, if you could by judicious ministration here, or by gifts there, or by both, bring brethren really to speak of that which is going on in their own lives, it would be a great help to them and to others ; it would create and foster the true feeling of fellowship in the church house- hold, and allay harsh judgments and uncharitableness. IT CHERISHES MUTUAL HELPFULNESS. Now, when we are saying that there are a thousand sweets while we are on the journey to Canaan, we are 62 LECTURES ON PREACHING. always thinking of poetical sweets. But the journey lies in men ; it lies in your pride, your laziness, your envy, your jealousy, your passions ; in one or another form of human weakness, — there is where the jour- ney is, and where the work of God is going on. Why should not men be trained to make with sufficient frankness, not indelicate disclosures, but a proper and just reference to these things among brethren for one another's sympathy and helpfulness ? If you had rea- son to think that your brethren were manfully striv- ing to overcome their faults, I do not believe you would ever meet them without wanting to put your arms about them. I know persons whom I never go past without feeling that I would like to lay my hand on their head and bless them. Yet they are some of them wretchedly imperfect. But they are genuine, they are sincere and earnest in their Christian en- deavors. IT DISCOVERS MUTUAL NEEDS. Fellowship can hardly be developed by any fanci- ful measures, — fellowship of men as Christians. You can fellowship ; oh yes. If ye salute those that salute you, what thank have ye ? If ye do good to those who do good to you, what do ye more than the publicans or the Pharisees ? If you like folks that are likahle, why not ? That is all down hill. You like this one because he is a clean, round, splendid fellow, and interests. you. That is all well enough ; of course you like him. But how is it with the scrawny folks ? How is it about the people that do not interest you ? Do you like them ? Don't you go about picking up elective affinities or spir- THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 63 itual affinities, getting your companionship here and there ? Don't you go to the table and take everything that has sugar on it, letting all the plain things go ? Get hold of men because they need you. You should fellowship with men, not because they have intellectual treasure and genius, and make the hours so golden for you, but because, like you, they are sons of God, and fight, like you, in the same battle. Soldiers in the field have what they call battle-companions, — pledged to mu- tual helpfulness and ministration ; if one is wounded or falls, the other assists him or cares for him. They go into the fight with these understandings. Have we any such thing in the church ? Yet there never was a severer battle than that which is going on all the time in the church, where the heart is touched with Divine aspiration, and is struggling against the temptations of the world. The church should be trained to the disclos- ure of individual needs and trials in the prayer-meeting, so that those needs maybe met. It is part of the min- ister's business to so train it. There are a great many books which you never have read, and, luckily, never will read ; but there are other books that are written by the Holy Spirit, page after page ; there are books, the reading of which would make you a thousand-fold wiser than books written by the greatest human authors, — what God is doing in silent souls. You ought to find it out, and I think the prayer-meeting is the place to find it.* Xo man will answer the true ideal of a minis- ter, who, having a church, does not have a prayer-meet- ing, and who, in the prayer-meeting, does not try to find out what is going on with his people by this kind disclosure. 64 LECTURES ON PREACHING. IT DEVELOPS POWER IN THE CONGREGATION. This serves as a counterpart and a counterbalance to the pulpit itself. In most churches, the pulpit is apt to be a lectureship. The minister goes there, and what does he do ? He gives out a hymn ; it is sung by the choir, and the congregation hear it. He reads the Bible, and they hear it. He leads in prayer, and they hear it. He preaches, and they hear it, — those of them that are awake. He gives out another hymn, and they hear it and go home, and that is the end of it. What liave they done ? They have been recipients ; everything has been done for them, upon them, to them. They have done nothing. There ought to be a counterbal- ance to this. This is putting all the power into the pulpit. But one of the things that should measure the power of the pulpit is the magnitude of the living power which it develops among the congregation. If a min- ister goes into a church which is all pulpit, and stays ten or twenty years, and goes out of it and it is all pul- pit still, while he may have done a good many things, there is one which he has not done, — to his discredit ! He has not developed the church power as distinguished from the pulpit power, — the brotherhood. It is a good thing to have a noble father and mother ; but one of the things that noble fathers and mothers must do is to bring up their children so that, as they come one after another up to manhood and are turned off, they too are noble. And it -is through these minor meetings, where you get close to men, and convention- alities are broken down, and intimacies are established upon other grounds than those that rule in social life. THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 65 that this work is to be done, if it is to be done any- where. IT DISCLOSES GIFTS AND GRACES. Then, the prayer-meeting does another thing ; it de- velops tlie gifts that are in the church. There are gifts that lie hidden, — the possessors themselves don't know of their existence. There are men who have received no culture, and yet have great good sense. There are men who have had no opportunity for learn- ing the art of expression, who, nevertheless, have that discrimination, that balance, that insight, which consti- tute tact. They have comprehensive judgments of men and things. They are able to manage their fellow-men out of doors, to control business and carry it on, under a thousand inequalities, successfully to an end. But they are not supposed to have any gifts in the church, be- cause they never volunteer, they do not say anything. The idea largely prevails, that, if men speak in meeting, they must speak expositorily, or hortatorily, both of which things I think to be hindrances in prayer-meet- ings. Of hortatoriness, I shall speak in a moment. It is the lete noire of prayer-meetings ; it is the devil that ought to be exorcised to begin with. But men say, " T have nothing to say," thinking that if a man speaks he ought in some sense to imitate a minister; that speak- ing in a prayer-meeting ought in some way or other to be ministerial, and that the speaker should discuss a point, unfold a doctrinal truth, state some discrimina- tion ; that some catechetical matter should be explained. Now, if you get rid of that idea, there are a great many men who have a great deal to say. As, for instance, 66 LECTURES ON PREACHING. the value of patience is up, and I say, Mr. , what has been your experience in respect to that ? You had a family of four boys ; they all died drunkards, did n t they ? " He rises very slowly ; he is very broken in his language ; he says, " Yes, they inherited that ten- dency from my ancestors." " Did you find it very easy to bear with them ? " " Oh ! when my first boy came home, it seemed as though I would burn the house down over my head ; it seemed as though I would give up everything ; it seemed as though 1 was all on fire ; my brain and everything was upset." He goes on and gives the way in which his feelings were changed. You question him, you help him, you bring him out. " How was it when the second one came in ? " And that man will unfold the history of a father-heart striving and moaning after faith and hope in God, and holding on to those boys that are bringing disgrace on them- selves and wretchedness on the household. There he has been for, to my certain knowledge, twenty years, carrying four boys, clinging to them, losing his own life almost literally for their sake. There is a grand epic of patience, wrought out in a Christian man's heart! Cannot I develop that by a few questions? And when the Spirit is working, and when men are thus speaking, you will not make grammar an essential grace. It is in this way that you develop gifts. WOMEN TO TAKE PART. I believe in women speaking and praying in meet- ings, as well as preaching and lecturing and voting, — not voting in meeting, but Voting. I feel that the church has lost one half of its best power in the exclu- THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 67 sion of the sisterhood from speaking in our meetings. But revivals know no law, and the consequence is, that when we have revivals and morning meetings, even the stififest churches allow mothers to get up and ask prayers for their children. And, once get them on their feet, with a very little dexterity you can catch some very nice silver and gold fish out of them. When they open their mouths, throw in a question. In that way, I have frequently done what I could not do in any other. It is said, Open your meetings to women, and you will get only the chaff. Only the scatter-brains will speak, and all those who are considerate and modest will be silent." Why should they not, when you sit glowering there ; and, though you throw the noose, they know you don't want to catch them ? There is no encouragement, no help, no temptation, nothing ; and only those speak that don't care for you or your desires. And what hope or courage is there, under such circumstances, for any- body that is self-respecting ? But presently prayers are being asked for children, and one father gets up and says, I have a son at sea, and I ask prayers for him " ; and another one gets up and says, I have a son of whom I have heard that he is lying sick of a dangerous fever, and I ask prayers of the brethren for him." ''Are there any other requests to be made ? " An elderly woman, rising, says, " My son and daughter are dead, and I have five of their children to take care of, and I strive with poverty, according to my best endeavors ; I ask the sympathy and the prayers of the brethren for these five." " How many are there, madam, did you say ? " " Five." " How old are they ? " Well, the oldest is now seventeen, and he is the strongest one among us, and 68 LECTURES ON PREACHING. then — " What are the ages of the others, madam ? What is the disposition of this eldest son, and has he e\'er shown any inclination toward religious things ? " " Yes, sir; he has, at times, shown a good deal of feeling." I can get a good speech out of her before she knows it, and you know it will be substance, every bit of it ; it will be meat. And so you can get a well-regulated woman talking in prayer-meeting, without anybody being shocked or hurt. In that sly way, young gentle- men, you can circumvent the old fogies and have the women talk in meeting without offence. If I have any remembrance of my own mother ; if I have a remembrance of the other, the second mother, that brought me up ; if I have any remembrance of my sisters and of those aunts that were more than Virgin Marys to me, and who dedicated themselves to virgin- ity that they might give their lives to charity ; if I re- member the prayers that they uttered over us little children, the instruction they gave us out of the Word of God, the conversations that they held, — I know that I have derived the deepest, the sweetest, and the truest religious impressions of my life from the utterances of woman. And if woman has these gifts, and can speak to children in the household, I say that she has no right to put her light under the bushel of the family, but that she should set it on a candlestick, where it shall light all that are in the house. And the church has a right to the gifts of these women, — the mothers and the sisters that are doing the great work of life. It is gold too precious to be lost, and we are dying for want of just such material ; and yet, on a mere quid- dity, on a mere punctilio, we are excluding from the THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 69 church elements that would make us incomparably rich. And so we have our beanpoles of propriety, but not a morning-glory twining round about them and blossom- ing to the glory of God. I will not in this indirect way attempt to make a lecture on women's rights. I simply bring this in as an illustration, — and it will also suggest a way in which you can bring in unpalatable subjects merely as illustrations. (I was speaking about the way in which the prayer- meeting develops the gifts of the members of the church, and all these remarks, therefore, you will set down under that head.) THE PRAYER-MEETING MAKES TRUTH PERSONAL. Then, meetings for prayer, properly managed, take truth from its generic condition and bring it home to men as a personal thing. It becomes casuistry. You develop cases of conscience ; you develop grades of disposition ; you develop truth in its relations, as you cannot in any other way. One of the troubles which every minister of any stand- ing and experience has found, has been how to fashion sermons so that a great truth could, after all, be made to branch till it reached out and touched all the indi- vidual cases. He has had the feeling come over him, " Well, they are simply infinite !" And a sermon may begin like the handle of a splint broom, but it will end with as many different points as there are in the end of the broom. So you feel that you cannot do it. True, you cannot so well do it in the pulpit. But, if you have a living church, — and it depends upon yourself whether 70 LECTURES ON PREACHING. you have or not, — if you make your prayer-meetings so social, so genial, so elastic, so open-mouthed and open-hearted, that you can ask anybody questions and they are not ashamed to talk, and talk goes backward and forward among them, — and almost every man sees things a little differently from his neighbor, — and one and another asks, " What shall I do in such and such a case ? " — you will find that a truth which you state generically instantly becomes specific, — that it is mul- titudinous. I ain continually struck with this, that when I introduce a topic in prayer-meeting, and open it as it runs in my mind, I hardly get through presenting it — I am hopeful, I look at things in the light of courage and hope — • before a brother on my left hand, who always lias a kind of melancholy caution, brings me up with, " Don't you think. Brother Beecher, that if persons were to follow that out in such and such relations it would be liable to such and such perversions ? " " Oh yes, I never thought to stop up that hole " ; so then I give it a little plaster in that direction. And so it goes all around, and men look at the subject from some ex- perience of their own, from some habitude of their own minds, from some new, different philosophy of their own. They put questions which result in the end in bringing this truth home, from its generic state, to a personal truth, to black and white, to each particular person. He gets it as he wants it. So truth, when you bring it into a congregation, is like a roll of cloth, which may be cut and fitted to all the different sizes of men. It comes in cloth, it goes out garments. When you come to see how truth stands in its relations to the individual man ; the infinity of THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 71 it, the universality of it, the multitiidinousness of it, the richness, the wonderful power in it, — this is one of the most convincing evidences of its divinity. The truth, when you come to study it in relation to men's wants, is like nature itself, when you come to study it in all its infinite diversities and minute dif- ferences. This is the work of the prayer-meeting. Don't you begin to feel ashamed that you have done so little with the prayer-meeting ? Don't you begin to think that the prayer-meeting is the long-lost art, and that the church ought, more than on anything else, to pivot on that ? I think a church is more likely to live a great while that pivots on the prayer- meeting, than those are that pivot on the pulpit. IT ATTRACTS OUTSIDERS. There is also in this matter an application of the prayer-meeting to which I wish to call your attention, — the effect which a prayer-meeting of this kind has, from time to time, upon outsiders, upon spectators. In the first place, the freshness, the liveliness, and the reality of it bring men to it. Your meeting will be crow^ded in a little while. It will grow ; and by and by you will make chords vibrate in men's hearts, as you bring out the power that is wTOught by the Holy Ghost in the personal experience of individuals, — filling the whole air with a new sense of Providence and Divinity, sending men home enlightened and strengthened in the midst of their struggles, and enriched by the conscious pres- ence of God in a thousand ways. People will come to the meeting ; and you cannot get a room big enough to hold them under such circumstances. 72 LECTURES ON PREACHING. THE EFFECT ON SPECTATORS. I call your attention to the effect which it produces upon spectators who are not Christians. Take them into an ordinary prayer-meeting, and it is the most dangerous place you can bring them to. It produces on them very much a sense of imprisonment. It is galley-work, and they don't like it. The idea of going to the trouble of being convicted and converted in order to get into a prayer-meeting is rather discouraging to them ; and I must say I don't blame them. But let a man going by step into a real prayer-meeting. He hears singing in there, and rousing good singing too. He rather likes hymns, and he slips inside of the door and sits down. A man gets up, after the meeting has advanced, and says, " Brethren, our pastor has been opening up the subject of Sincerity, and it came pretty near to me. I try to be sincere, but I must confess that in conducting my business I slide sometimes, before I think. Now, yesterday I went into a transac- tion something like this," — and he gives an account of an affair in which he had been a little too quick for the other man, and rather got the best end of the bargain ; and he says, " Well, I did n't feel particularly happy all the way back to the store. My conscience rather accused me, and I made up my mind that I should go and rectify that thing." The man who slipped in is the very man with whom he had that dealing, and who had said of him, Damn him ! he is a member of the church." That is what he said imme- diately after the business transaction, but what does he say now ? Bless his heart I The old fellow has some THE PKAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 73 feeling, has n't he ? " Now, any man that can change a "damn" into a ''bless" is doing a good work. But here is a man who judges men by no charitable stand- ard, who sees things as they are in business. He comes in and sees a man who had all his life had faults. He finds out that that man knows them, and is trying to get over them. He knows that that man tried sharp practice over him, and sees that he feels sorry for it. He is speaking about it, though in an impersonal way. " Really," says the new-comer, I guess there is some sincerity, after all, in religion." When he goes home, he says to his wife, " Where do you suppose I have been ? " " Well, I don't know. I suppose around to Fox's, to see Humpty Dunipty." "No, guess again. W^here do you suppose I have been ? " " Well, I don't know. Some theater." " No, guess once more." " I give it up." I have been around to the prayer-meet- ing." That is a surprise to her. Says he, " I tell you what ; it was really a good meeting, I positively enjoyed it." He has to tell it all. When the time for the next meeting comes round, he says, " Put on your shawl, my dear, and let us go around to the prayer- meeting and see what we will get." They go around, and find that it is fresh, and means business. He may not believe all he hears there, but, after all, there are many truths. Men come together, and they take hold of the very roots of subjects and discuss them. They try to be honest. That man cannot help himself. He is already convicted. He has not a Mount Sinai con- viction, perhaps, but he may have a little haycock conviction. He has got a consciousness of faults. He has got the preliminary tentative states that, under vol.. II. 4 74 LECTURES ON PREACHING. ordinary, suitable, fair instruction, will develop in him. Manly sympathy, really humane feeling toward him, will bring that man right along. Ask him, " Don't you think you have faults ? Don't you commit sins ? Are you not guilty of derelictions both to God and man ? Is n't it time for you to begin to think about this thing ? " Other men come in there. They are exhilarated, they are lifted up. Don't let a prayer-meeting know that there is anybody there but the " brethren." Don't say a word to ''sinners." I would shut up a man's mouth who began to talk in that way, as quick as I would turn the faucet of a wine-cask if the wine were leaking away. It is the actual sight of what we mean by piety, it is the sight of imperfection, it is the hear- ing of groans, it is the sight of tears, it is the recital of joys, it is faith, it is hope, it is love, it is fellowship, it is helpfulness, — not in any of their grander poetical forms, but as they exist in actual men and women, — it is the battle of life going on before men's eyes, that make the most imperative and impersonal of all w^ays of preaching the truth to many men. There is many a man that can stand the great fifteen-inch gun of the pulpit, that cannot stand this mitrailleuse, this multitudinous fire of the whole church. I have been accustomed in times of revivals of re- ligion to say to persons awakened and coming slowly along in their steps toward the light, " Come to the morning prayer-meeting." The most converting agency I have known in my whole ministry has been the morn- ing prayer-meeting, when I could keep the hounds off of men, so that they should not be exhorting them and THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 75 telling them how sinful they were. Let them alone ; let them see what the grace of God is in the brother- hood. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Q. How would you stop those exhorters ? Mr. Beecher. — Well, you cannot always stop them. You have got to drive prayer-meetings just as you do horses. You cannot keep flies from biting them, nor them from whisking their tails, in a summer's day. You have got to make the best of your annoyances. The absurd saints that I have had, the ridiculous crea- tures that have come in, the interruptions that we have had ! Meetings brought to a blessed point, — like a cow that has given a good bucket of milk only to put her foot in it, — to be entirely ruined ! There is a kind of spiritual hummers that run around to prayer-meet- ings. I will tell you more about that, however, next week. Q. What about the length of prayers in prayer-meetings ? Mr. Beecher. — Short, generally, but long when you can't help it. I would n't want the Ohio to overflow its banks, or the Miami to run over, but once a year. We used to let them when the snows melted on the mountains, — we could n't help ourselves. Down came the torrents ; and I have seen the biggest boats navi- gating the streets of Lawrenceburg. I liked once a year to have a good freshet ; but I did n't want any more. That matter, I think, may almost always be controlled with a very little drill. 76 LECTURES OK PREACHING. Q. I would like to hear a word further, if you are not going to take it up hereafter, as to how the leader of the meeting shall open the subject. There is danger of his so opening it that peo- ple will say, " Well, I can't say anything after that ! '' What is the way in which a leader shall open a meeting so that everybody shall feel free to speak after it ? Mr. Beecher. — Yes, that is a very important con- sideration. One of the things that every minister ought to have implanted in him is, that he is not going to do well every time, and that he is not going to do well at first, always, and that he has got to take up his cross and to carry it in just such things as these. He has got to learn his trade while he is practicing it for a living. In opening a prayer-meeting, very likely no directions can be given. Practice will teach. With any considerable gumption to begin with, you will very soon see when you make your opening too good. Avoid making too good speeches at the beginning of a meet- ing; do not say all that you have to say on a sub- ject. On the other hand, avoid any such magisterial manner, any such jealousy of the cloth, that nobody will feel disposed to come forward. Then, if they will not come up when you have opened a subject, question them, call them up. " Mr. , what do you think of that idea ? " Well, Mr. has to say something, and the moment he does, you tackle him, because he won't say much unless you dispute him, and you will have a little bit of an argument. But, the moment anybody begins to talk, somebody else puts in a word, and you ask some other one for his views. Then it will go around. There are a thousand arts of that kind that are perfectly innocent and allowable, which a man must learn. THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 77 Why, young gentlemen, being a minister means being busy, I can tell you, from one end to the other of your life ; either busy in your study, busy on the street, or busy in your meetings. If anybody has got to be observant, fruitful, wise, full of tact and inspira- tion, it is the man that undertakes to lead a congrega- tion in prayer-meetings. I may still further answer to that question, that a wise pastor, who is conducting meetings, will be con- ducting meetings all the Week long. There will be an undei'tone in his mind. All manner of feelings and thoughts are running through your mind, and you may just as well have something which will be of value to you. You see a man. You say to yourself, " I wonder how I can get at that man ; I wonder how^ his sensibilities are." You will survey him, and look at him, as an engineer looks at a fort. You say, " How can I attack that man ? " General Sherman never rides through a country, I believe, without looking at the topography of it. He says, There is a good place for a battery ; how finely my flanks would be protected over there ! " He is engaged in noting the military advanta- ges of the country. A minister has got to be busy all the while. When- ever you see a man, eat him. Whenever you see a man, dissect him. Think how you w^ould approach this one ; how you w^ould get at his conscience, whether by going down through the scuttle of pride and vanity, whether by coming up through the cellar of shame and fear. You see children doing things ; you see bees, — a thou- sand things that are full of analogies. Ifneedbe, put them down in your note-book. But keep collecting them all the while, — let your thighs be yellow. 78 LECTURES ON PREACHING. Q. What is the value of the young people's prayer-meeting ? Mr. Beecher. — I think it to be very great. It is, of course, subject to all those infelicities that belong to youth, wliich young people do not' believe in, but old people do. It is subject to a great many crudenesses, but the average result is admirable. It brings out and gives form in young Christians to obscure feelings. It gives them courage and definiteness of commitment. It teaches them how to use their implements in a Chris- tian warfare at an early period. It knits them together, one to another. In a thousand ways it is beneficial. Q. What would you say about the long prayer, so called, before the sermon ? Old Dr. Ely, of Munson, used to pray thirty and forty minutes. Is such a prayer a means of grace? Mr. Beecher. — I should say it was. A man brought up under such circumstances, who was not patient, might think his was a hopeless case. So of long family prayers. A man entering a house after the prayer was begun, and waiting a long time, asked a boy how long before his father would be done. The boy replied, " Has he come to the Jews yet ? " " No," was the an- swer. "Then it will be half an hour more." Of course, such stories are to be taken with allowance ; they are exaggerations. But exaggerations are in rhetoric what magnifying a flower or a beetle is in natural history. We cannot see them so well unless we do magnify them. Long prayers are, as a general rule, nuisances. It is not often that a man is so wound up in feeling that nature compels the feeling to iterate and reiterate it- self. A great loss or bereavement, if it does not put THE PRAYEK-MEETING : ITS METHODS AND BENEFITS. 79 one to silence, leads one in few words to repeat, and re- peat, and repeat. I have seen mothers that, like the King of Israel, walked about the room moaning, " My son ! my son ! my son ! my son ! " a hundred times. Others I have heard say, " 0 my God ! 0 my God ! 0 my God ! " It was mute prayer, — ejaculatory prayer, runnino- on as loim as the wounded heart had blood to bleed. But for men in cold blood to come into a meet- ing and, without any great feeling in themselves or any great feeling round about them, to open up Euphrates or the Mississippi, — it is abominable! And if they should do it a few times in my meeting, I would stop them, or I would cut them in two. Q. Do you not think the objection of formality can be brought against asking a blessing at table three times a day ? What can you say about the origin and desirableness of this custom 1 Mr. Beecher. — Well, I can say that there is no ob- ligation in the custom, and its formality depends entirely on who does it and how he does it. I dined with an English clergyman in London, and we had got about through the main dinner and were coming to the fruit, — Dr. Eaymond and I were sitting mi opposite sides of the table. We were in the full tide of conversa- tion, and there was no other company except the cler- gyman and his wife. After the cloth had been re- moved, — I was in the midst of a story, I think, — they both rose, and I heard, " Blb-lb-lb-lb ! " and they sat down again. What, sir ? " said I. I found out, afterwards, that he had said, Lord, make us thankful for these blessings !" Well, now, I consider any such thing as that absurd, — worse than useless. But to 80 LECTURES ON PREACHING. see the children gathered at the table, the old father, venerable and sincere, and the raotlier, reverend and matronly, sweet-hearted as a saint, the children all in their places, hungry but yet waiting ; and to see the old man bow his head and recognize the hand of God in all those bounties, in a short and appropriate thanks- giving, — I don't know how that is to others, but it makes my bread sweet. I like it ! If anybody don't, he is perfectly at liberty to let it alone. Q. Is there any more objection to that kind of formalism than there is to the shaking of bands when you meet 1 Mr. Beecher. — Or saying good bye ; which is, God be with you." Nobody thinks of it, but it expresses this, — good-will. Even my English friend, I suppose, regarded his returning thanks as being a general indi- cation that he had yet remaining a sense of the Divine favor in his dinner. If they are formal, the remedy does not seem to me to consist in abolishing them, but in making them sincere. IV. THE PRAYER-MEETING: ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. SHALL resume the subject of prayer-meet- ings under the general head of its Helps and Hindrances. Let me premise that you may be in danger, from the variety of statements and from the incitements to the ideal of the power and admirableness of the prayer-meeting which I con- tinually attempt to develop, of going to your work in such a state of mind that when you do not succeed at once, or well, you will be thrown back in discouragement. HARD WORK FOR THE MINISTER. There are two very important and very difficult things to do, namely, to maintain a lofty ideal, and yet not be disgusted with ill success under it ; to keep on trying ; not to content yourself with poor results, but not to give over because you cannot reach the mark which you have in your mind. This will be particu- larly true of your ministerial life. And it may be some comfort to you by and by, though of course you will not feel it now, to know that the most difficult 4* F 82 LECTURES ON PREACHING. thing that you will have to do in your ministry is to maintain a live prayer-meeting. It is about the hard- est work you will ever know. It will tax your inge- nuity the most ; it will tax yon,r resources, your power over men and over yourself, your administrative facul- ty. He who can take a parish and develop in it a good prayer-meeting, carry it on through years and still have it fruitful, various, spiritual, — he is a general. It may be that he will not excel in the pulpit ; the prayer- meeting, under such circumstances, is his pulpit. If you go into your work, therefore, witti some dis- couragement, ^remember what I tell you, that as " he that bridleth his tongue is perfect," — that is, he who has grace enough to do that has grace enough to do any- thing, — so the minister who knows how to make a good prayer-meeting is perfect, in a sense. It is true that there will be many times when the meeting will develop itself like a geyser, with vast volume and stones up- springing and filling the air as well as shaking the earth under your feet ; but, like the geyser, it will gurgle back again, and leave mud and smoke behind. It is not difficult in times of revival, in times when the whole community are developed in the direction of moral ex- citement, to arouse feeling; it is difficult then to keep it down, to give it anything like moderation. The meeting then takes the bits into its mouth and runs away with you. But when there is no general excitement, in summer months, in winter months ; when there is no feeling anywhere; to maintain the heart of the church which beats in the prayer-meeting, warm, genial, crescent, — in this is labor, I may say in this is genius, if you succeed. THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 83 DIFFICULTY OF GATHERING THE PEOPLE. It is very difficult, in some places, to draw the people together for a weekly prayer-meeting. There is that hindrance to overcome, and every man must overcome it in the particular way indicated by the circumstances of the field in which he is working, — for it is impossi- ble to give a general rule. Then, where the population is large, there is an indifference to contend with. I have already alluded to the fact that prayer-meetings are the least popular of all meetings in the church, whether with the members of the congregation or the members of the church itself. And it is for a very good reason, — they are generally the driest of meetings. So that you will often find, when you come into a large congregation, that the weakest place in it, the leanest part of the service, will be the prayer-meeting. You are to hold yourself in the main responsible for this state of things, after you are well established in your work. THE FOLLY OF SCOLDING. Above all things, do not scold your people because they do not attend. I do not believe that any amount of whips or of skill could drive a swarm of bees into a field where there were not a dozen flowers. They won't go. And to get them into a field where there are a thousand flowers, there is no need of whips or of driv- ing. Xow, it is for you to kindle such an interest there as will draw men. Generally, in your ministry, do as Paul did ; encourage, praise, never blame until you have with consummate enginery prepared the way 84 LECTURES ON PREACHING. to blame. When Paul wished to rebuke people, he first stated all the good he knew about them, and all the pleasant things he had heard about them, and how near and dear they were to him. " Nevertheless, brethren," he would say, I have somewhat — " and then comes in the other thing ! In general, to scold your people because they do not come to church on Sunday is to hit those that do come and miss those that do not. To scold or to blame your people in any way because tliey do not come to meeting, or because they have no feeling, is not wise. It is your business to produce the feeling that will make their attendance voluntary and cheerful, that will make it impossible for them to keep away. HOW TO START PRAYER-MEETINGS. In the beginning of a prayer-meeting of this kind, there are both physical and moral elements that enter into it. I have here a question as to the best way to start a prayer-meeting in a place where there is none. Well, the wa}^ to start a prayer-meeting is the way you would start a. fire. If it is an old church, it is like a fire- place where there has been something raked up over- night ; in the morning, there is not a coal there as big as a thimble. But you get together the few that there are. You never think of bringing in a whole armful of wood and whanging it all down into the embers. You lay the wood aside, selecting the driest pieces you can find, and whittle up shavings ; and, having gathered the few littie coals, you put a few shavings upon them ; then you blow the little pile gently at first, and up springs a light blaze. Then you lay on a few more shavings, dealing with it all the time as carefully and tenderly as a mother THE PKAYER-MEETiNG : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. ' 85 does with a baby ; then, by and by, you put on a dry .tick, picking out the fittest and the best, and soon the flame will get power ; and at last, when the whole fire is kindled, you can put on what you please, green wood or dry, it will consume the strongest and toughest materials. In the beginning, remember that the prayer-meeting turns on this fact : it is the development of the social element in the religious direction. Suppose, in an old church, in a great state of deadness, one or two brethren feel that they cannot live so, and there are two ways proposed. One is, to get the minister to preach a big sermon on that subject, and then to ring the bell, and call everybody to come down into the conference-room or lecture-room, and try to have a prayer-meeting. That will fail, nine times in ten. Suppose, instead of that, you look around to find some one who feels as you feel. Ask him to come to your house for prayer. Both of you look around for a third who shall be con- genial, susceptible, warm. Get three together. Three are very powerful on the fourth, and four on the fifth. When you have got a praying center that begins to whirl with some degree of power, it will suck in ma- terials just as fast as you ought to have them come. Begin at the bottom, begin low, begin and work the principle of affiliation, — of the moral affinities. Work it patiently, and in faith that there is a principle there, and you will succeed. And you will not be apt to succeed in any other way. So, then, the first step in a prayer-meeting where the interest has died out is to go back to the very first elements ; make it perfectly simple, perfectly natural, 86 LECTURES ON PREACHING. be yourself fervent ; and fervency creates fervor, as sparks lead to sparks. POVERTY OF MATERIAL. Another of the hindrances which we find in our prayer-meetings arises from the poverty of the ma- terial which is developed in them. My observation teaches me that there are very few men who think enough to have anything to spare for their neighbors. In books, meditation abounds. There is a good deal of talk about it, but I have never seen much of it that people had to hand out for small change on occasions. There is a great deal of philosophy in the world, but it expends itself mostly and is absorbed in practical things. And when you take men who have always been accustomed to work out all that they have in them toward the concrete, toward visible things, and bring them together in a meeting, and expect them to rise up in their places and develop that w^hich their whole life has been a training not to develop (namely, abstract meditation or anything of that kind), you will find very soon, that, whether it be devotion or medi- tation, there is but very little of it grown, and much less brought to market. So, then, you will find a great poverty in the materials which you w^ork. There will be good Christian men and women, and yet it will be very hard to make much out of them in a prayer-meeting. Eemember this ; don't let your expectations be too high. Keep your expectations down and your will up. Determine that you will have meetings, first or last, if it takes years. Don't be impatient on the way. You are working at THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 87 tough material. You are doing the best work that can be done, but it is necessarily low. Then, the worst of all difficulties is not that people are barren ; it is that they are blind, and naked, and sick, and do not know it. NEED OF WISE LEADERSHIP. Prayer-meetings usually fall into the hands of a few hackneyed leaders, if the pastor is not himself present. Now, deacons and elders may be excellent men as elders and as deacons, and yet not be gifted either in spiritual fervor for devotional purposes, or in the tact that is requisite to lead a meeting. I have seen deacon-smothered churches and elder-smothered prayer- meetings, any number of them, where men went into the leadership of the meeting who made everybody afraid. The young people did n't dare to speak, nobody dared to speak. There was a sort of ''order'' in the meeting. To be sure, worship is something, edification is something, freedom is something, but oh " Order ! order ! order ! Let everything be doiie decently and in order." And so they were as orderly as a pyramid of mummies. STALE SPEAKERS AND SPEECHES. Then, too, you have the hackneyed speeches and hackneyed prayers. There is one man in every prayer- meeting who has to get up and confess that he don't live up to his privileges and to his light, and he tells you that every week, or it may be every month, through the whole year. He never gets a great way beyond that. There is another man who is always confessing his sins, and confessing and confessing, in a 88 LECTURES ON PREACHING. general way, — never the special sins that his neighbors see in him, but always the doctrine of sin, and not the practice. So a few men of this kind run riglit around in that same barren path^ the regulation address and remarks. Worst of all, come the exhorters, or men who are always urging folks up to their duty. This I shall speak about a little farther on. But these hackneyed speakers in prayer-meetings take the life out of them. Frequently they are the best men in the community in other respects, but they are not adapted to that place. Young men, how are you going to get along with these old gray-heads ? Well, you cannot at first ; but there is a good deal that can be done by good sense and patience, and real kind, humble feeling. Many of these men have in them better springs than have yet been tapped. There are many of them that can do a great deal better than they think they can, and you can help a good deal out of them. They are to be revered, if they are venerable ; they are to be respected for their work, if they have been useful ; they are to be treated as fathers, and not with contempt. They are to be treated, especially by a young pastor, with the greatest affection and kindness. Nevertheless, it is always fair to have a design on a man for his own good ; and it is always fair for a pastor, seeing these men in the way, to do two things, — first, to attempt to get more out of them, to talk with them, to lead their thoughts to other things, to get them to express other things when they speak, and to shorten their prayers when they pray ; secondly, to develop another center. Bring in uew material ; get hold of the young, and put new life, THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 89 new blood, into the meeting. This is a kind of co- operative antagonism. It is taking the meeting gradually out of the hands of those who have ridden it to death, and putting it into the hands of those that have come up under better auspices. The change will be gradual, little by little. An old church is very much like an old building. You have the quarrels, which may be represented by the rats and mice in the walls. You have all the difficulties, which are the leaks, the weather-boarding and shingles off here and there. You have the smoky chimneys, the squeaking doors, the ill-adjusted steps, — a hundred things that are to be remedied. You begin to patch in here and there, — to revamp ; working on the house little by little, till, by and by, you get into a state that is whole- some and comfortable again. An old church has to be worked very much in this way. I have sometimes thought it would not be bad to disband old churches. Dr. Payson used to say that if he could liave his own way he would scatter his church entirely ; and then all that wanted to come back he would n't take in, and all that did n't want to come back he would draw to- gether; indicating that the forward ones were the spiritually conceited, and that the retiring ones were the modest and the humble. And although this is, of course, an extravagance, it marks a thought. The difficulty of combating in churches the old heredi- tary troubles, coming out in meetings and other social relations, oftentimes occupies the mind of the young pastor fully as much as all the rest of his work put together. Old churches will go down from generation to generation and have something very noble, even 90 LECTURES ON PREACHING. grand, in them ; and, except in special cases, you are not to think of getting rid of the difficulties as you might burn a barn to get rid of the rats. But you have got a work of this kind to do, when you take a church, tliat will require your patience, your assiduity, your tact, your knowledge of human nature, your grace, the con- trol of your own temper, the richness and depth of your spiritual feelings. THE MINISTER TO TRAIN HIMSELF. There is another element of which I would speak, — the estimate which you yourself, and those of your members who are under your influence, put upon tlie prayer-meeting. If you prepare your sermon labori- ously, if you make Sunday your idol, and spend all your available force in that direction, and count your little social meetings during the week as " only prayer-meet- ings, — nothing to do to-day but my prayer-meeting," — if you put that kind of emphasis on it, you certainly will not make much out of it. Although training for the pulpit is one thing, and training for the prayer-meeting is another, I think that the man who is to excel in prayer-meetings must train more for them, though dif- ferently, than for the pulpit. I should be very sorry to be forced into the conduct of a prayer-meeting with- out having anticipated it during the day ; not so much that I might think what I was going to say, but, as it were, to heat up my nature, to get into a higher mood, to rise into a thought more of the Infinite ; to get some such relation to men as I think God has, of sympathy, pity, tenderness, and sweetness ; to get my heart all right, so that everything in me should work sympatheti- THE PRAYER-MKETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 91 cally toward certain devotional ends. Get yourself trained. Never, therefore, regret your prayer-meetings; the harder they are, the more you need to be strong in them, the more you need to feel responsible for their right conduct, to have fuU-heartedness in going into them. Train for them, then ; not so much by prepar- ing the way for what you shall say, — though that at times may be wise and useful, — as by having the right moral forces, the right sympathies, in yourself LET EVERY MEETING TAKE ITS OWN SHAPE. In conducting prayer-meetings, I have noticed one mistake which is constantly and naturally made, and that is, when you have had one good one, to have the next a very poor one. Just as young ministers, when they have preached one good sermon, think, " There, now I will preach another next Sunday that will just be the mate to this." And when on the next Sun- day they come to preach it, it is stale, it " all flats out " in their hands, and they do not know what the difficulty is. My father once said to me, " Henry, never try to run a race with yourself" If you have preached a good sermon, do not try to preach another just like it ; do not try to fill up the same measure that you have filled. The probability is, that while there may have been much labor and preparation for that good sermon, there was also much of that volunteer force, much of that native, that unexpected help, which you cannot get again by mere volition. Time and again I have seen a prayer-meeting that rose and culminated, full of sweetness, of freshness, • of Divine spirit, full of 92 LECTURES ON PREACHlNC. the best fruit of the Spirit in man. Everybody went away edified, happy, and joyful. And when they came together the next time, they came saying, Now let us have just such another." There never was and never will be just such another. You may turn a kaleido- scope a million times, and the rays never will fall twice alike. And so meetings, since they spring not from prescribed forms and definite rules, but are the unfold- ing of the voluntary conditions of feeling in hundreds of persons, can never be just alike. Therefore, in the conduct of a prayer-meeting, while you may have some theme or topic, while you may have in your mind some idea how it shall shape itself and run, always be vigilant to see if there is not a germ in the meeting itself, and be sagacious to discern and catch it. Frequently you will go thinking, I will spend to-night on the subject of prayer," and you make some attempt on that subject. But some one will get up and bring in another theme, and he will feel it so much that you will find everybody else feels it. Seize that ; do not go back to the old topic, you have got the real meeting there. And with a little nourishing, blow- ing, catching all the sparks and bringing them together, you will very soon have a meeting that opens up in nobleness and beauty. Let every meeting develop the vitality that is in its own core ; let it unfold its own germ. There is a germ, if men only know how to de- velop it. FEELING CANNOT BE FORCED. Let me say a word on the subject of attempting to force feeling. It is true that feeling begets feeling by THE PRAYER-MEETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 93 Ryiiipathy, but it is also true that persons may be so much beyond their neighbors in any given direction of feehng that the chasm between them cannot be filled up. Then, feeling acts just the other way. I recall scenes in the West. I recollect being at a city on the Ohio Kiver, and a brother who had been laboring for nearly four weeks in camp-meeting revivals was sent over in advance of Synod, which was to meet there, to prepare the church for it. He went with all the nervous fervor that there was in the labor he liad just been going througli, and commenced pour- ing himself out upon the church, bringing them to- gether, telling them of their dead condition, setting their sins in order before them. But he was in sucli a state of excitement, so far above them, that nobody caught the spirit. They rather took his exhortations as tlie negro slaves across the river in Kentucky took kicks, — they only crouched and looked sullen, and w^ent on. And when Synod came together, that was the state of the church. They had been on the an\'il, and with small hammer and trip-hammer they had been pounded unmercifully. I recall very w^ell one Sunday night. Brother Snead had had the general care of the meetings, and I was appointed to preach on Sunday evening. That was a sermon born out of the extremity of desire. I had preached several times, and with no special effect ; but there was one person whose conversion had lingered, and for w^hom my whole soul had gone out. And in the strong desire that I had, I struck out a plain and quiet sermon on the parable of the Prodigal Son. I went with that sermon into the pulpit on that Sunday 94 LECTURES ON PREACHING. night, and began preaching it. It was of the love of God, and the way in which he looked upon sinners, — his yearning. And, without any attempt to produce feeling, I drew picture after picUire and scene after scene, until about the middle of the sermon the audience broke down, and it was like a rain on the mountains. It was the beginning of a great and glorious revival of religion there. When I came out of the pulpit, Brother Snead said, ''My dear brother, you have given them sugar when you ought to have given them tartar ! " Now, this attempting to enforce the strong feeling of conviction and dread of the wrath to come might have been wise under some circumstances ; but here was a case in which it was manifestly unwise, and was defeat- ing itself, and where a much lower tone of feeling stood connected with the production of that which was needed. As an illustration, take the old-fashioned way of lighting a candle. If you have a coal of fire and blow gently, there will always come a little flame on the coal, and you can light your candle with it; but if a man should take the coal and give a sudden and violent puff, he would blow out the light of the coal and the candle too. Gentle feeling will often stand more nearly connected with the inception of deep emotion than more intense and overpowering agitation will. Another thing : You can never make people feel by scolding them because they don't feel. You can never move anybody by saying, "Feel!" Feeling is just as much a product of cause as anything else in the world. I could sit down before a piano and say, " A, come forth " ; and it won't. But if I put my finger on THE PlIAYER-MEETING : ITS HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 95 the key it will, and that is the only way to make it. The human soul is like a harp ; one has but to put his hand to a chord and it will vibrate to his touch, accord- ing as he knows how. It is the knowing how that you are to acquire. It is the very business that you are going out into the world for; it is to understand human nature so that you can touch the chords of feeling. HOW FEELING IS DEVELOPED. In general, feeling results from the presentation of some fact or truth that has a relation to the particular feeling you wish to produce. If I w^anted to make you weep, I would not tell you an amusing story ; I would, if I wanted to make you laugh, and that story Imd a relation to laughing. If I wished to make you weep, I would tell you some pathetic incident, the truth embodied in which had some sympathetic rela- tion to feeling. Charge yourself with this : " If these people are to feel, I, as the minister of the Holy Ghost, am to be the cause of it by applying to their minds such treatment, such thoughts, as stand con- nected with the production of feeling." If they do not feel, it is because you do not play well. If they do feel, it is because you are a master of your business, — quoad hoc. USELESSNESS OF MERE EXHORTATION. So, then, here is where you come to the folly of ex- hortation, — men exhorting each other day after day, continually, to "feeling," to "duty," without present- ing any new expression, without filling the mind or the imagination, without laying in fuel which is to kindle 96 LECTURES ON I*REACHtNa. into light and warmth. Mere exhortation is as if a man should go down the street saying, " 0 money, money, money, come to me, come to me ! " No, it will not come to him thus. Or as if a man should oo to his studies and invoke mathematics ; that does not come by invocation. As you gain other things hy playing the keys that produce the desired effects, so you must do with every step that you gain in a meeting. Men are so many instruments, and you are a skillful player ; and you will have success just as the Spirit of God dwelling in you kindles your soul to that power, to that perception of truth, to that sympathy with it, to that knowledge of men ; for the sense of God brings the sense of human nature. They both lie in the same plane, and he that has one will be very apt to have the other. They train together. And if you have the power of producing the sympathetic feeling, it will be simply by applying the known causes of that effect. Nothing is so barren, nothing so unprofitable, as iiryimj men to feel, when the shorter way is to make them feel. FLIES IN THE OINTMENT. Among the hindrances, I must mention the moths and millers that will be sure to fly around your candle just as soon as you have it lighted. It is almost im- possible that a meeting should have any life or power in it, or any degree of freedom, without producing some very disagreeable results. I have had my cross to bear in this matter. It seemed as though I never was to be left without a thorn in tlie flesh, without somebody to disturb almost every prayer-meeting. Well, I don't know why a prayer-meeting should be an excep- The pkayer-meeting : Its helps and hindrances. 97 tion to every other part of life. Perfection does n't belong here. Everything is mixed. Everything sweet has its bitter, every rose its thorn, and every prayer- meeting its " bummer." And you must make up your mind to it. You must not be too fastidious, or too easily thrown off your guard. To give you a biographical sketch of all the illustrious persons who have spoiled prayer-meetings for me would keep you here till midnight. I have one now in my mind who used occasionally to utter as brilliant and apposite sentences as I ever heard, and yet I never heard him make an address in the world that he did not mar and injure the meeting. It was the occasional flash that was good, but the ordinary statements that he made were inconceivably bad. I recollect once a meeting seemed almost spoiled, — if anything could spoil it ; a good meeting you never can spoil, when it has real heart and stamina to it. But I recollect one of my sons of vexation, when a meeting had turned on the love of Christ, and especially the sympathy of Christ with those that are feeble and strivin^x to come to a higher life under manifold difficulties, and upon the great con- solation and encouragement there is in • persevering, in the knowledge that the whole atmosphere above you is sympathetic in Christ Jesus. Just at the end, after I had taken my hymn-book to give out the closing hymn, thinking 1 had got that meeting safe out of the reach of everybody, — this man gets up and says, " Why, breth- ren," — he had very red hair, — ''I sometimes feel that I could put even my red head in Jesus' bosom !" Well, what could you do ? Nobody after that could take up the thread of discourse, and you could not go back and mold the meeting over again, — what could you do 1 VOL. II. 5 G 98 LECTURES ON PREACHING. By the grace of God, nothing ; a very patient, a very meek nothing. It is a good idea, therefore, to build your meetings out of such manful stuff, and to have such a spirit of courage inspired in your people that they won't be thrown off their guard by infelicities of this kind ; to have your meetings so tough that they won't be hurt by any such little infliction as that. I had an old white- headed man, — I never knew his name, nor cared to, — but whenever there was a little fervor he came in. I remember a horse which my father bought, and which ran away the first day he was put in the chaise. The next day he was sold to a stage-company, and I rode behind him down to Bethlehem the first time he was put on the wheel. He carried the whole stage that day ; he carried it out of the road once in a while, and from one side to the other, with such a burst that it seemed as though he would sweep everything before him. He carried the stage all the way down. This white-haired old man was like that horse ; he would take the meeting in his teeth, and rush away with it in this direction and in that direction, and you never knew where you were ! He had fervor, and his prayers had a perfect Gulf Stream in them both for speed and heat. For a few meetin^fs I thou