The objections which may be made to the practice I have sought to recommend, I must leave to be considered in another place. I am desirous, in concluding this chapter, to add the favorable testimony of a writer, who expressly disapproves the practice in general, but who allows its excellence when accompanied by that preparation which I would every where imply.
“You are accustomed,” says Dinouart,[7] “to the careful study and imitation of nature. You have used yourself to writing and speaking with care on different subjects, and have well stored your memory by reading. You thus have provided resources for speaking, which are always at hand. The best authors and the best thoughts are familiar to you; you can readily quote the scriptures, you express yourself easily and gracefully, you have a sound and correct judgment on which you can depend, method and precision in the arrangement of proofs; you can readily connect each part by natural transitions, and are able to say all that belongs, and precisely what belongs to the subject. You may then take only a day, or only an hour, to reflect on your subject, to arrange your topics, to consult your memory, to choose and to prepare your illustrations,—and then, appear in public. I am perfectly willing that you should. The common expressions which go to make up the body of the discourse, will present themselves spontaneously. Your periods, perhaps, will be less harmonious, your transitions less ingenious, an ill placed word will sometimes escape you; but all this is pardonable. The animation of your delivery will compensate for these blemishes, and you will be master of your own feelings, and those of your hearers. There will, perhaps, be apparent throughout a certain disorder, but it will not prevent your pleasing and affecting me; your action as well as your words will appear to me the more natural.”
CHAPTER II.
Against what has been advanced in the preceding pages, many objections will be urged, and the evils of the practice I recommend be declared more than sufficient to counterbalance its advantages. Of these it is necessary that I should now take notice, and obviate them as well as I may.
It should be first of all remarked, that the force of the objections commonly made, lies against the exclusive use of extempore preaching, and not against its partial and occasional use. It is of consequence that this should be considered. There can be no doubt, that he would preach very wretchedly, who should always be haranguing without the corrective discipline of writing. The habit of writing is essential. Many of the objections which are currently made to this mode of address, fall to the ground when this statement is made.
Other objections have been founded on the idea, that by extemporaneous is meant, unpremeditated. Whereas there is a plain and important distinction between them, the latter word being applied to the thoughts, and the former to the language only. To preach without premeditation, is altogether unjustifiable; although there is no doubt that a man of habitual readiness of mind, may express himself to the greatest advantage on a subject with which he is familiar, after very little meditation.
Many writers on the art of preaching, as well as on eloquence in general, have given a decided judgment unfavorable to extempore speaking. There can be no fairer way of answering their objections, than by examining what they have advanced, and opposing their authority by that of equal names on the other side.
Gerard, in his Treatise on the Pastoral Charge, has the following passage on this subject.
“He will run into trite, common-place topics; his compositions will be loose and unconnected; his language often coarse and confused; and diffidence, or care to recollect his subject, will destroy the management of his voice.” At the same time, however, he admits that “it is very proper that a man should be able to preach in this way, when it is necessary;—but no man ought always to preach in this way.” To which decision I have certainly nothing to object.