END OF THE LECTURE.
Such are some specimens of a Saturday morning's talk in our library. They are taken, just as they come, from notes constructed after the study of a set of some twenty sermons, written, and then commented upon, without the slightest thought that any public or permanent use would be made of the materials thus given. But perhaps the remarks may be in point to some of my readers all the more because of the unstudied nature of the materials.
Let me say, before I quite leave this part of my subject, that adverse criticism was by no means my only work this morning in the lecture-room. It was my happiness, on the other hand, to commend thankfully many a clear setting of living truth, and many a sentence of forcible point and of true beauty, happy omens for future years, in which, if it please God, "the torch shall be carried on," bright and clear, when we elders shall be heard no more.[34]
[34] Ungracious as it may seem, I must betray one less pleasant confidence of such occasions. Sometimes I have had to note in sermon MSS. a strange neglect of punctuation, and, here and there, a little aberration from received usages of spelling! No Clergyman ought to think such matters beneath his notice. His people, some, if not many of them, will from time to time receive letters or other written messages from him; these ought to be unmistakably the writing of the educated gentleman. Is it too much to say also that the handwriting ought to be clear and easy? It is distressing, certainly to one who has many letters to read daily, to see how rare such handwriting is now.
"MY CASES OF OLD SERMONS."
But now let me return from this discursive report of a sermon-lecture to some more central thoughts about the Preaching of the Word. Sacred, solemn theme! I was made to realize its character in a peculiar way quite lately, when reading a heart-searching and most instructive essay, by the Rev. R. Glover, Vicar of St Luke's, West Holloway, entitled, My Cases of Old Sermons.[35] The essay was simply an experienced preacher's review of many years of pulpit labour, in the light of the collected and ordered manuscripts which silently represented it. The writer had much to say, to my great profit, about his methods of preparation and delivery, and about the pains taken to distribute the choice of texts widely and impartially over the field of Scripture. Then he went on to speak of the ascertained spiritual history of some of those many sermons; the messages to souls which in this or that instance they had carried; the savour of life unto life, or perhaps, alas, of death unto death, which had to his knowledge breathed from them. The impressions left on my mind were, above all others, two; first, the call to thorough diligence in preparation, if the preacher is to give his account with joy; and then, the indescribable solemnity and greatness of the work of a true pastor-preacher.
[35] In The Churchman of August, 1891.
*BE A PREACHER INDEED.
I may seem to reiterate too much, but I must say again, with new emphasis, to my younger Brother, resolve to be a preacher indeed, by the grace of God. Do not let secondary things, however good, distort your attention from that supremely sacred commission, "Preach the Word; be instant, in season, out of season[36] [2 Tim. iv. 2.]; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. For," the Apostle significantly proceeds, "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine." Therefore, an age impatient of thorough Scriptural preaching is the very age in which to seek, in wisdom and courage, to make much of it. Do not let organization spoil your preaching-work. Do not let current events spoil it. Do not let elaboration of ritual spoil it. Do not let organist and choir rule over you, and claim for music the precious moments called for by the Word.
[36] That is, irrespective of your own convenience.