[24] See Ewald's Introduction to The Prophets.
[25] "Bonorum ingeniorum insignis est indoles, in verbis verum amare, non verba. Quid enim prodest clavis aurea, si aperire quod volumus non potest? Aut quid obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil quærimus, nisi parere quod clausum est? Sed quoniam inter se habent nonnullam similitudinem vescentes atque discentes, propter fastidia plurimorum etiam ipsa sine quibus vivi non potest alimenta condienda sunt."—St. Augustine.
[26] See the excellent chapter on Isaiah's style in Driver's Isaiah.
[27] The same idea has long been helpful to me in a third form—in the following lines of Platen—
"Was stets und aller Orten
Sich ewig jung erweist
Ist, in gebundenen Worten
Ein ungebundener Geist."
[28] "Into Ezekiel's hand there was put a roll written within and without with lamentation and mourning and woe, an objective revelation which he himself had not written; but, before he could deliver it to others, he had to eat it: all that was written on it had to become a part of himself, had to be taken into his inmost experience and be digested by him, and become his own very life's blood."—Marcus Dods, D.D.
[29] This is what our Lord chiefly meant by a teacher's "treasure"—"Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of God bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." How much the treasures of different preachers differ in magnitude! It is worthy of note that the Saviour calls the preachers of the New Testament "scribes." In spite of the evil associations of the name He retained it, because it emphasizes the fact that the Christian preacher is to be a student and an expounder of Scripture.
[30] Some preachers keep an interleaved Bible, in which references to passages in their reading are entered opposite the texts which they illustrate—an excellent device.
[31] "The strongest part of all great sermons is the close. More depends on the last two minutes than on the first ten."—From a choice little tract on Preaching, by "Prediger."
[32] He is quoting Cicero. Dixit ergo quidam eloquens, et verum dixit, ita dicere debere eloquentem, ut doceat, ut delectet, ut flectat. Deinde addidit: Docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere victoriae.... Oportet igitur eloquentem ecclesiasticum, quando suadet aliquid quod agendum est, non solum docere ut instruat, et delectare ut teneat, verum etiam flectere ut vincat.—De Doctrina Christiana, IV. 13.