A favorite method of avoiding these difficulties is to make no formal introduction, but plunge at once into the heart of the subject. Occasionally, this can be done to good advantage, and tends to prevent a monotonous uniformity. But as a rule it is better to prepare the minds of our hearers by all needed observations, and gradually lead them to our subject.
The introduction should not be left to the chance of the moment. It requires more careful study than any other part of the sermon, for the tide of speech, which may afterward bear us over many barriers, is not then in full flow. But the preparation should be general, and not extend to the words. A first sentence may be forecast, but much beyond this will do harm. For the introduction should not be the part of the discourse longest remembered. It would be better to omit it, than to have the attention distracted from the main subject. For this reason nothing far-fetched or hard to be understood should be admitted. But, beginning with some familiar thought closely connected with the text, it should remove difficulties and open the whole subject for discussion.
Much is gained if, at the outset, we can arrest the attention and win the sympathy of our hearers. They come together from many different employments, with thoughts fixed on various objects, and it is a difficult task to remove these distracting influences and cause the assembly to dwell with intense interest on one subject. Sometimes a startling proposition will accomplish this end. Earnestness in the speaker tends powerfully toward it. But sameness must be carefully avoided. If every sermon is carried through an unvarying number of always-expressed divisions and subdivisions, the hearer knows what is coming, and loses all curiosity. We have heard of a minister who made it a rule to consider the nature, reason and manner of everything he spoke of. He would ask the questions: “What is it? Why is it? How is it?” The eloquence of Paul would not many times have redeemed such an arrangement.
A considerable degree of inattention is to be expected in every audience at first, and the speaker’s opening words may be unheard by many and unheeded by all. It is useless to attempt by violent means and loudness of voice to awaken them from their indifference. The preacher may safely bide his time. If his words have weight and his manner indicate confidence, one by one will listen, until that electric thrill of sympathy, impossible to describe, but which can be felt as easily as an accord in music, will vibrate through the hearts of all present. Then the orator’s power is fully developed, and it is delightful to use it. This silent, pulsating interest is more to be desired than vehement applause, for it cannot be counterfeited, and indicates that the hearts of the assemblage have been reached, and fused by the fires of eloquence, and are ready to be molded into any desired form. Happy the minister who has this experience, for if his own heart is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, he can stamp on the awakened multitude the seal of undying truth.
The introduction should be plain, simple and direct. But its very simplicity renders it more difficult to construct. Preachers who are great in almost everything else, often fail by making their introductions too complicated, thus defeating their own purpose as surely as the engineer who gives his road such steep grades, that no train can pass over it. Others deliver a string of platitudes that no one wishes to hear, and the audience grows restive at the very beginning.
When from these or other causes, the sermon is misbegun, the consequences are likely to be serious. The thought is forced home on the speaker, with icy weight, that he is failing, and this conviction paralyzes all his faculties. He talks on, but grows more and more embarrassed. Incoherent sentences drop from him, requiring painful explanation to prevent them from degenerating into perfect nonsense. The outline of his plan dissolves into mist. The points he intended to make, and thought strong and important, now appear very trivial. He blunders on with little hope ahead. The room may grow dark before him, and in the excess of his discomfort, he ardently longs for the time when he can close without absolute disgrace. But, alas! the end seems far off. In vain he searches for some avenue of escape. There is none. His throat becomes dry and parched, and the command of his voice is lost. The audience grow restive, for they are tortured, as well as the speaker, and if he were malicious he might find some alleviation in this. But he has no time to think of it, or if he does, it reacts on himself. No one can help him. At last, in sheer desperation, he cuts the Gordian knot, and stops—perhaps seizing some swelling sentence, and hurling it as a farewell volley at the audience—or speaks of the eternal rest, which no doubt appears very blissful in comparison with his own unrest—then sits down bathed in sweat, and feeling that he is disgraced forever! If he is very weak or foolish, he resolves that he will never speak again without manuscript, or, if wiser, that he will not only understand his discourse, but how to begin it.
The passage from the introduction to the discussion should be gradual. To make the transition smoothly, and strike the subject just at the right point, continuing the interest that may have been previously excited, is a most important achievement. A strong, definite purpose materially assists in this, for it dwells equally in all parts of the sermon. The object is clearly in view, and we go right up to it with no wasted words, while the people cheerfully submit to our guidance because they see that we have an aim before us. But if this be absent we may steer around our subject, and are never quite ready to enter upon it, even if we are not wrecked at the outset. A careful preparation of the plan will do much to prevent this, but it is not enough, for the words and phrases are not to be prepared. With every precaution, the best of speakers may fail at this point, and the more brilliant the introduction the more marked will the failure be. When this danger is safely passed, he is in the open sea, and the triumphs of eloquence are before him.
There is great pleasure in speaking well. An assembly hanging on the words, and thinking the thoughts of a single man, gives to him the most subtile kind of flattery, and he needs to beware how he yields to its influence, or his fall will be speedy and disastrous. The triumphs of oratory are very fascinating. The ability to sway our fellow men at will—to bind them with the strong chain of our thought, and make them willing captives—produces a delirious and intoxicating sense of power. But this is very transient, and unless taken advantage of at the moment, to work some enduring result, it fades, like the beautiful cloud-work of morning, before the rising sun. Even during the continuance of a sermon it is hard to maintain the influence of a happy moment. Persons not unfrequently give utterance to some great and noble thought, that echoes in the hearts of the audience, and the nameless thrill of eloquence is felt, but some irrelevant phrase, or commonplace sentiment dissolves all the charm. To avoid this, the whole discourse must be of a piece, and rise in power until the object is accomplished.
Diffuseness is often supposed to be an essential quality of extemporaneous speech. It is not such, though many speakers do fall into it. The reason of this fault is that they are not content to place the subject in a strong light by one forcible and luminous expression, but say nearly what they mean, and continue their efforts until they are satisfied. They furnish no clear view of anything, but give a sort of twilight intimation of their idea. But serious as this fault is, it may easily be overcome. Exquisite finish, and elaborate arrangement are not to be expected in off-hand speech, but we may give force and true shading to every idea just as well as in writing.
To express exactly what we mean at the first effort, is one of the greatest beauties of a spoken style. The hearer is filled with grateful surprise when some new and living idea is placed before him, clothed in a single word or sentence. But a diffuse speaker gives so many premonitions of his thought, that the audience comprehend it before he is half through the discussion, and are forced to await his ending, in listless weariness. He never receives credit for an original idea, because his advances toward it call up the same thought in the mind of his hearers, and when formally presented it has lost all novelty, and seems to be trite.