"Then you believe, sir, the influence of the pulpit depends on the preacher?"
"Yes. If there is a good intelligent man in the pulpit, there will be good intelligent men in the pews."
"Then you would have only highly-cultured, up-to-date men in the pulpit?"
"I would not have men in the pulpit whom no one would think of listening to, out of the pulpit. The people want sermons that bring the pulpit near to the hearth, the table, and the counter; sermons of homely fertility, local allusions, and personal application, such as Christ gave them. Remember for a moment His everyday similes and parables: the lighting of a candle, the seeking of a piece of lost silver, the search for the lost sheep. That is one kind of sermon that always draws hearers. There is another kind that is irresistible to a very large number—sermons full of the spirit of Paul, reaching out to the Heavenly Church with its invisible rites and the splendor and music in the soul of the saints."
There was a silence, for the preacher was pursuing his thoughts, leaning forward with a burning look, drinking in the joy of his own spiritual vision.
Robert broke the pause by saying: "We Scots are used to logical and argumentative discourses," but he spoke in a much lower tone than was usual to him.
"Then your preachers must talk to their congregations in the pulpit, as they never would think of talking to them out of it."
"Well, we are not in favor of mingling sacred and material things; we believe it might have a tendency to bring preaching into contempt."
"Mr. Campbell," said Newton, "preaching is a great example of the survival of the fittest. If it could have been killed by contempt, or inefficiency, or ignorance, or too much book learning, or by any other cause, the imbecile sermons preached every Sunday through the length and breadth of the land would have killed it long ago."
"Do you then consider oratorical power a necessity to preaching, sir?"