2. To thoroughly study the subject, rather than the sermon.
3. To make myself thoroughly familiar with the analysis of the subject, and then talk about it, without relying upon memory as to language.
Relying on memory has been the cause of ten thousand failures, and has taken all the "snap" out of ten thousand more, that were considered a success. The intellect never leaps and bounds with vivacity when it is chained by verbal memory.
I selected for my text Matt. xvi. 24: "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." I went into the pulpit alone, "introduced," as the saying is, for myself, and then spoke for forty minutes. While I felt embarrassed by a sense of responsibility, there was no confusion of thought in regard to the subject; hence no difficulty in its presentation. As it was my first sermon, the analysis of it may be of some interest.
I called attention, first, to the universal offer of salvation: "If any man." Second, to the freedom of the will: "If any man will." Third, personal responsibility involved in the foregoing. Fourth, self-denial as a condition of eternal life. Fifth, the nature and necessity of cross-bearing. Sixth, examples of self-denial and cross-bearing on the part of Christ and the apostles.
The church in which I preached my first sermon was the same in which I made the confession, and near which I was reared. For it I did my first regular monthly preaching, while in college, and in it held a number of successful protracted meetings, one annually, during the early years of my ministry. The old church is dear to me yet; its old members are my devoted friends, and I delight to visit them when Providence permits.
Immediately after obeying the Saviour I bought a family Bible and a pocket Testament; not that we had none before, but they were not such as suited my convenience. At home and abroad, in the city or the country, in the store or on the road, I had my Testament. As I drove all day along the highway, I would look at it occasionally to see how a certain passage read, and then study its meaning. I have never read the Bible largely, as some do, but I have studied it every day since I knew the way of life, unless I was too sick to have anything in mind. I have studied, doubtless, a hundred times as much without the book in my hands as with it. The idea that one can study the Bible only as he has opportunity to sit down with the book in his hands, is a great mistake. Hence many people complain of having no time to study the Bible, when the fact is they have nearly all their time, if they only knew it. I early learned to study the Bible at any time or under any circumstances, and the advantages of this to me have been beyond estimation.
As soon as I got my family Bible, I wrote on a flyleaf a few simple
RULES OF LIFE.
1. To study this book carefully and prayerfully every day.