Love is the mightiest of all forces, and Jesus was revealed to draw unto himself the love of the universe. Let the minister learn of him, and he will be able to speak as he never spoke before. He will strike the key-note of that song whose solemn music has rolled down through the centuries, and will wax louder and clearer until time shall be no more.
The story of the Cross, with all that depends upon it, forms principal part of the Christian orator’s theme. But he has other duties. His work is broad as human life. He stands by the bed of sickness; he weeps with the mourners when the last flutter of life is stilled, and strives to lift their eyes to the victor over death; he warns the impenitent of coming woe. It is his to deal with the highest and holiest emotions of the heart. And how can he touch these delicate chords gently, but firmly—not shrinking from the infliction of necessary pain, yet never causing a tear to flow “in the mere wantonness of grief”—unless he has passed through sorrow’s deep waters? He must have unfeigned sympathy for all, and be able to express it plainly and tenderly.
This power, both of feeling and expression, may be greatly increased by exercise. If the preacher will enter the abodes of rich and poor alike, and take a friendly interest in their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, he will find his heart drawn out toward them, and when he addresses them in public, it will be with far more intense anxiety for their good than if they were strangers. It will be comparatively easy for him to throw his heart into all he says.
There are two methods of cultivating genuine emotion that we would cordially recommend to all desirous of swaying the hearts of the people. The first is prayer. We need not enlarge on its general benefits, but will notice its effect on sacred oratory. The man who often addresses God in prayer is in the very best school of eloquence. It brings us close to Him, and in the awful light of His purity, we more clearly see anything that is bad in our hearts and strive to cast it out. As we pray for others, and spread their needs before him, we cannot fail to be inspired with a stronger desire for their welfare. Then, too, religion becomes something more than a mere form of words, and our hearts burn with a stronger flame. We speak now of prayer as it should be—a warm, pure, fervent outpouring of the heart to God. This is more difficult in the public congregation, for then many disturbing elements are brought to bear on the person praying. The listening people are apt to be in the preacher’s thoughts, and prevent him from enjoying simple and direct communion with heaven. It is the prayer “when none but God is nigh,” that will stir his heart to its profoundest depths and put his mind in the right frame for delivering his sermons. Let any one pray earnestly for help from above all the time his sermons are in course of preparation, and he will be surprised to find how much of the coldness and deadness supposed to belong to this species of composition will be swept away, and how beautifully over all will be spread the vivid charm of real experience. Yet we must not restrict our prayers to this time, for God may not meet us in loving friendship if we only approach him when we have a favor to ask. To reap the full benefit of prayer, it should be a habit woven into our life, and continued on every occasion. This will rebuke sinful ambition and moderate that sensitiveness which has reference to the opinions of our fellow-beings. Thus armed, the preacher will come as the messenger of God, rather than the caterer to men’s fancies. And from the mere operation of natural causes, he will speak with a boldness and earnestness that will draw the hearts of men as the magnet does the steel.
But prayer is far more than the means of cultivating emotion. There is a direct influence that comes from God to man. The power of the Holy Spirit is no fable. A heavenly anointing is sent down—an unction that gives sweetness and power even to the most commonplace words. It is not bestowed unasked, for God desires that we should feel the need of His high gifts before they are granted. But when humbly implored, there is often breathed an influence from above, mighty to sustain the faithful minister in his task. What an encouraging but awful thought! God himself stands by us in the time of our weakness and gives us His strength. If the minister would always go to the pulpit with this assurance, he would not fear the mass of upturned faces, but calmly view them with a heart stayed on the Master whose work he has to do.
The Spirit’s presence will not in the least absolve us from the need of complete preparation. In nothing is it more true that God helps those who help themselves. All that we contend for is such an influence as will cause the words uttered to penetrate the souls of those for whom they were spoken, remove the fear of man from the preacher’s heart, and make him bold in speaking the truth. It may be that clearer knowledge will be given, and the most fitting selection of words suggested, but this can only be hoped for after all preparation is made. God does not duplicate his work, and that which he gives man faculties to discover, he will not afterward bring to him by an express revelation.
The second method of imparting unction and feeling to the coldness of thought, is by meditating on the great truths and promises of Christianity. This subject is well treated in Baxter’s “Saint’s Rest,” though not with reference to the wants of the orator. The power of long-continued and earnest meditation varies in different persons, but all can acquire it to some degree. It may be defined as a method of transporting ones-self from a sense of the present reality to an ideal situation—reaching and experiencing the feelings that would naturally arise in that situation. Thus we may experience some of the pleasures of heaven and the society of the blest. We may walk the plains of Galilee with the Lord and behold his wondrous love there manifested, almost as if we mingled with the throng who hung on his gracious words; we may turn to the time of our own conversion, and recall the passage from despair to conscious life; or look forward to the day of our death, and think of its mingled sorrow and triumph. It is a kind of waking dream by which the mind is filled with one idea to the exclusion of all others. And when we select some high object of contemplation and return often to it, we acquire a susceptibility of strong and fervent emotion on that subject which it requires only a word to arouse. An illustration of this is often found in the case of an inventor or discoverer who has dwelt on one subject until his whole mind is filled with it, and he cannot hear it mentioned without the deepest feeling. However cold and listless he may be on other subjects, touch but the sacred one of his fancy, and his sparkling eye and animated voice tell how deeply you have roused the whole man. What an advantage it must be to the extempore speaker, with whom everything depends on feeling, to have all the cardinal facts he proclaims surrounded by fountains of holy emotion, continually supplied from the spring of meditation, and ready to flow copiously at the slightest touch! Such trains of thought may be carried on in moments too often given to idleness, and thus, not only will a mighty power be added to our pulpit ministrations, but our whole life ennobled and enriched. It has been conjectured that Milton’s mind, while composing “Paradise Lost,” existed in the state of a sublime waking dream, in which the forms of heaven and hell, chaos and creation, all mingled in one glorious vision. Something of this nature, though not necessarily continuous, must take place in the mental history of every true and powerful Christian minister.
CHAPTER IV.
ACQUIREMENTS.—KNOWLEDGE, GENERAL—OF BIBLE, OF THEOLOGY, OF MEN.
Thought is the workman of the mind, and requires materials upon which to labor. We are such creatures of experience that we cannot go far beyond a foundation of fact, or weave long trains of pure imagination. In the wildest fiction the mind can only combine and rearrange what was previously known. This necessity rests with added weight upon the preacher. He cannot invent his materials in the sense the poet can, but must confine himself to the statement of unadulterated truth. Fortunately, he has no narrow field to explore, for all knowledge is related to his themes. He has to speak of God, by whom everything exists, and whose glory shines through all the works of his hand. The truths he utters apply to the whole circle of life and its duties, yet are so familiar and so often neglected, that he needs all his power to make them touch the popular heart. There is no science that may not at times be made available for illustrating or enforcing the word of God.
The want of extended knowledge will be more severely felt by an extempore preacher, than by one who reads or recites. The latter has time for selection, and may take the parts of a subject with which he is familiar and pass over all others. But the former will find this very dangerous. Extemporizing should be free and unfettered. The speaker must be able to see his own way, and make it clear to his hearers. If he is always anxious to avoid dangerous obstructions and steer around them, he will lose that free flow of ideas in which much of the beauty of unstudied speech consists. Let the man, therefore, who looks to the preacher’s vocation, lay the foundation broad and deep in a complete education, not only in that of the schools, for the knowledge they teach is very defective, but let him know all the facts that hinge on common life; the processes of the different pursuits and trades; the subjects that most occupy the human mind; the arts and sciences in their wide departments. We have no hesitation in affirming that preaching ought to be more scientific than it often is; that is, when the preacher deals with the phenomena of nature, he should speak of them in their true form, as revealed by science, and not indulge in loose generalities or popular misstatements. If he master these and all other branches of knowledge, he will have at hand a fund of illustration that will never grow old, and instead of being under the necessity of turning over books of sermons, and hunting out figures of speech that have done duty for generations, he will be supplied from nature’s great volume with those that are ever fresh and new. They will be redolent of the morning dew, the sparkle of sunlight, the life of humanity, rather than the must of books.