THE PULPIT MANNER
CHARACTERISTIC GESTURES OF GREAT PREACHERS.
By F. M. Holmes.
First let us look at Dr. Joseph Parker. His sermons are constantly attended by ministers of all denominations, including clergymen of the Church of England; and no stronger testimony, we take it, could be given to a man's extraordinary preaching power than that year after year he continually attracts other preachers.
Dr. Parker, it is almost needless to explain, is the eminent Congregational minister of the City Temple in London, and he occupies the unique position of having maintained for thirty years a noonday service every Thursday in addition to his usual Sunday services. To this Thursday service come persons from the ends of the earth, and ministers and laymen of various religious persuasions. On one occasion the sittings of a conference belonging to one of the minor Methodist bodies seemed seriously imperilled because so many of the delegates desired to go and hear Dr. Parker.
What is the secret of his widely attractive power? The answer comes in a word—he is intensely dramatic. We do not mean theatrical. He chooses a clear message to deliver, and that message—that paramount thought—is driven home to his hearers in a manner that forces itself upon every mind, no matter how reluctant. He uses short, pithy sentences, and heightens and emphasises their effect by suitable modulations of voice, by deliberate or rapid utterance as the words may require, and by vigorous and appropriate gesture. He speaks only the very pith and point of what he has to say, and then says it in the clearest and most suitably effective manner that he can possibly command. It is the thing itself we hear, rather than talk or argument all round and about it.
DR. PARKER.
Thus, on one occasion, his theme was found in the text, "Jesus in the midst." "Where is the midst?" he asked in a clear and striking, sonorous voice that commanded attention at once. These were his opening words, and after a pause he proceeded in the same manner and in similar short, striking sentences to point to different ideas of "the midst," and to declare that Christ was, or should be, in the midst of the literature, science, philosophy, and business of the day. Unless ministers preached Christ, said he, they had better be silent.