A certain means of improvement is to bestow a great deal of time and thought on the formation of plans, and make no disposition of any part without a satisfactory reason. If this course is faithfully continued, the power to arrange properly will be acquired, and firm, coherent, and logical sermons be constructed.
There are certain characteristics that each sermon skeleton should possess. It must indicate the nature of the discourse, and mark out each of its steps with accuracy. Any want of definiteness is a fatal defect. The orator must feel that he can rely absolutely on it for guidance to the end of his discourse, or be in perpetual danger of embarrassment and confusion. Each clause should express a distinct idea, and but one. If it contain anything that is included under another head, we fall into wearisome repetition, the great danger of extempore preachers. But if discordant and disconnected thoughts are grouped together, we are liable to forget some of them, and in returning, destroy the order of the sermon.
A brief plan is better than a long one. Often a single word will recall an idea as perfectly as many sentences would do, and will burden the memory less. We do not expect the draft of a house to equal the building in size, but only to indicate the position and proportion of its apartments. The plan cannot supply the thought, but, indicating what exists in the mind, it shows how to bring it forth in regular order. It is a pathway leading to a definite end, and like all roads, its crowning merits are directness and smoothness. Without these, it will perplex and hinder rather than aid. Every word in the plan should express, or assist in expressing an idea, and be so firmly bound to it that the two cannot be separated by any exigency of speech. It is perplexing in the heat of discourse to have a prepared note lose the idea attached to it, and become merely an empty word. But if the conception is clear, and the most fitting term has been chosen to embody it, this cannot easily happen. A familiar idea may be noted very briefly, while one that is new requires to be more fully expressed. Most sermon skeletons may be brought within the compass of a hundred words, and every part be clear to the mind that conceived it, though, perhaps not comprehensible by any other.
It is not always best to present the divisions and subdivisions in preaching. The congregation do not care how a sermon has been constructed, provided it comes to them warm and pulsating with life. To give the plan of a sermon before the sermon itself, is contrary to the analogy of nature. She does not require us to look upon a grisly skeleton before we can see a living body. It is no less objectionable to name the parts and numbers of the sketch during the discourse, for bones that project through the skin are very uncomely. The people will not suffer, if we keep all the divisions to ourselves, for they are only professional devices to render our share of the work easier. Much of the proverbial “dryness” of sermons arises from displaying all the processes we employ. A hotel that would have its beef killed and dressed before its guests at dinner, would not be likely to retain its patronage. Whenever we hear a minister state his plan in full, and take up “firstly” and announce the subdivisions under it, we prepare our patience for a severe test.
What the people need, are deep, strong appeals to their hearts, through which shines the lightning of great truths, and the sword of God’s spirit smites—not dry, dull divisions through which “it is easy to follow the preacher”—a compliment often given, but always equivocal. A tree is far more beautiful when covered with waving foliage, even if some of the branches are hidden. Let the stream of eloquence sweep on in an unbroken flow, bearing with it all hearts, but giving no indication of the manner in which it is guided; or, better still, let it move with the impetus of the cannon ball, overthrowing everything in its path, but not proclaiming in advance the mark toward which it is flying!
We should go as far in the plan as we intend to do in the sermon, and know just where to stop. Then we arise with confidence, for we are sure that we have something to say; we know what it is; and most important of all, we will know when it is finished. Most objections against extempore preaching apply only to discourses that have no governing plan. When this is firm and clear, there is no more danger of saying what we do not intend, or of running into endless digressions, than if we wrote every word. Indeed there is no better way to compose a written sermon, than by first arranging a plan.
But it may be urged that this laborious preparation—this careful placing of every thought—will require as much time as to write in full. It may at first. The mind needs to be trained in the work, and it will be of great advantage even as a mental discipline. But it grows easier with practice, until the preparation of two sermons a week will not be felt as a burden—will only afford grateful topics of thought while busied at other labor. The direct toil of a mature preacher may not exceed an hour per week.
The sermon is now clearly indicated. A plan has been prepared that fixes each thought to be expressed in its proper place. There is no further danger of the looseness and desultoriness that are not unfrequently supposed to be peculiar to extemporaneous speech. It is possible, in the moment of utterance, to leave the beaten track, and give expression to any new ideas that may be suggested. But there is a sure foundation laid—a course marked out that has been deeply premeditated, and which gives certainty to all we say.
But it is not enough to have the plan on paper. As it came from the mind at first in detached items, it must, in its completed state, be restored to it again. Some ministers are not willing to take the trouble of committing their skeletons to memory, but lay the paper before them, and speak on one point until that is exhausted, and then look up the next, which is treated in the same manner. This tends powerfully to impair the unity of the discourse, which should he unbroken, and to make each note the theme of a short, independent dissertation, rather than an integral part of the whole. The minister reaches a point where he does not know what is to come next, and on the brink of that gulf looks down at his notes, and after a search, perhaps finds what he wants. Had this latter thought existed in his mind, it would have been taken notice of in time, and the close of the preceding one bent into harmony with it. The direct address of the preacher to the people, which they value so much, is interfered with in the same way, for his eye must rest, part of the time, on his notes. The divisions also of the sermon are apt to be mentioned, for it is hard for the tongue to refrain from pronouncing the words that the eye is glancing over.
For all these reasons we believe that notes should seldom, if ever, be used in the pulpit. They remedy none of the acknowledged defects of extempore speaking, but add to them the coldness and formality of reading. Those who cannot trust the mind alone had better go further, and read their sermons with what earnestness they can command, and thus secure the elegant finish supposed to be attainable only in written compositions.