Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching

ristian minister, and however possible to be acquired, is yet attended with embarrassments and difficulties, which are to be removed only by long and ard

udy is to be carried on, and obstacles to be surmounted. These hints, gathered partly from experience and partly from observat

business of whose life is preaching, should be on the watch to render every thing subservient to this end. The inquiry should always be, how he can turn the knowledge he is acquiring, the subject he is studying, this mode of reasoning, this event, this conversation, and the conduct of this or that man, to aid the purposes of religious instruction. He may find an example in the manner in which Pope pursued his favorite study. "From his attention to poetry," says Johnson, "he was never diverted. If conversation offered any thing that could be improved, he committed it to paper; if a thought, or perhaps an expression more happy than was common, rose to his mind, he was careful to write it; an independent distich was p

rtant requisites are rapid thinking, and ready command of language. By rapid thinking I mean, what has already been spoken of, the power of seizing at once upon the most prominent points of the subject to be discussed, and tracing out, in their proper order, the subordinate thoughts which connect them together. This power depends very much

ery author he reads, marking the divisions of his arrangement, and the connexion and train of his reasoning. Butler's preface to his Sermons will afford him some fine hints on this way of study. Let this be his habitual mode of reading, so that he shall as much do this, as receive the meaning of separate sentences, and shall be always able

is conversation; but be careful ever to select the best words, to avoid a slovenly style and drawling utterance, and to aim at neatness,

ed. He may indeed get along, as the phrase is; but not so well as he might do and should do. He may not always be able even to get along. He may be as sadly discomfited as a friend of mine, who said that he had made the attempt, and was convinced that for him to speak extempore was impossible; he had risen from his study table, and tried to m

additions and variations, or criticisms, as may suggest themselves at the moment. There could hardly be a more useful exercise, even if there were no reference to this particular end. How many excellent chapters of valuable authors, how many fine views of important subjects, would be thus impressed upon his mind, and what rich treasures of thought and language would be thus laid up in store. And according as he should be engaged in

oughts and words, and a moderate confidence in his own powers; there are several things to

attempts gives him confidence, he may proceed to larger; till at length, when his mind is bright and his feelings engaged, he may quit his manuscript altogether, and present the substance of what he had written, with greater fervor and effect, than if he had confined himself to his paper. It was once observed to me by an interesting preacher of the Baptist denomination, that he had found from experience this to be the most advisable and perfect mode; since it combined the advantages of written and extemporaneous composition. By preparing sermons in this way, he said, he had a

to change the operation of the mind from reading to inventing. Such p

acilities and reliefs for the inexperienced speaker. The close study of a passage of scripture which is necessary to expounding it, renders it familiar. The exposition is inseparably connected with the text, and necessarily suggested by it. The inferences and practical reflections are in like manne

nutes. He is thus kept in the track, and prevented from wandering far in needless digressions-that besetting infirmity of unrestrained extemporizers. He also escapes the mortifying consequences of a momentary confusion and cloudiness of mind, by having it in his power to leave an unsatisfactory train at once, before the state of his mind is perceive

the ideas or the order of their succession, he has the more ready control of his person, his eye, and his hand, and the more fearlessly gives up his mind to its own action and casts himself upon the current. Uneasiness and constraint are the inevitable attendants of unfaithful preparation, and they are fatal to success. It is true, that no man can attain the power of self-possession so as to feel at all times equally and entirely at ease. But he may guard against the sorest ills which attend its loss, by always making sure of a train of thought,-being secure that he has ideas, and that they lie in such order as to be found and brought forward in some sort of apparel, even when he has in some measure lost the mastery of himself. The richness or meanness of their dress will depend on the humor of the moment. It will vary as much as health and spirits vary, which is more in some men than in others. But the thoughts themselves he may produce, and be certain of saying what he intended t

ntal loss of self-possession. The rule is, utter yourself very slowly and deliberately, with careful pauses. This is at all times a great aid

he entangles himself more and more; and augments the difficulty of recovering his route. The true mode of recovering himself is by increased deliberation. He must pause, and give himself time to think;-"ut tamen deliberare non h?sitare videatur." He need not be alarmed lest his hearers suspect the difficulty. Most of them are likely to attribute the slowness of his step to any cause rather than the true one.

delivery, is the surest of all ways to produce constraint. It is like the embarrassment of framing verses to prescribed rhymes; as vexatious, and as absurd. To be compelled to shape the course of remark so as to suit a sentence which is by and by to come, or to introduce certain expressions which are waiting for their place, is a check to the natural current of thought. The inevitable consequence is constraint and labor, the loss of every thing like easy and

cripture to be introduced in certain parts of the discourse. These, if perfectly committed to memory, and he be not too anxious to make a place for them, will be no encumbrance. When a suitable juncture occurs, they will suggest themselves, just as a suitable epithet suggests itself. But if he be very solicitous about them, and continually on the watch for an opportunity to introduce them, he will be likely to confuse himself. And it is better to lose the choicest quotation, than suffer con

ift of the mind, not the extorted boon of a special search. No man who has thoughts, and is interested in them, is at a loss for words-not the most uneducated man; and the words he uses will be according to his education and general habits, not according to the labour of the moment. If he truly feel, and wish to communicate his feelings to those around him, the last thing that will fail will be language; the less he thinks of it and cares for it, the more copiously and richly will it flow from him; and when he has forgotten every thing but his desire to give vent to his emotions and do good, then will the unconscious torrent pour, as it does at no other season. This entire surrender to the spirit which stirs within, is indeed the real secret of all eloquence. "True eloquence," says Milton, "I find to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth; and that whose mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to k

ot admit of this excitement. Such should be treated by the pen. When he would speak, he should choose topics on which his own mind is kindling with a feeling which he is earnest to communicate; and the higher the degree to which he has elevated his feelings, the more readily, happily, and powerfully will he pour forth whatever the occasion may demand. There is no style suited to the pulpit, which he will not more effectually com

ed as powerful orators, and that give a voice to men who can speak on no other occasions. Cicero tells us of himself, that the instances in which he was most successful, were those in which he most entirely abandoned himself to the impulses of feeling. Every speaker's experience will bear testimony to the same thing; and thus the saying of Goldsmith proves true, that, "to feel one's

er. The rule also forbids the attempt to speak when ill health, or lowness of spirits, or any accidental cause, renders him incapable of that excitement which is requisite to success. It requires of him to watch over the state of his body-the partial derangement of whose functions so often confuses the mind-that, by preserving a vigorous and animated condition of the corporeal system, he may secure v

does not imply that it is no evil. It is a most serious evil; of little comparative moment, it may be, when only occasional and transitory, but highly injurious if habitual. It renders the speaker unhappy, and his address ineffective. If perfectly at ease, he would have every thing at command, and be able to pour out his thoughts in lucid order, and with every desirable variety of manner and expressi

orld, and many mortifying failures. And after all, occasions may occur, when the most experienced will be put off their guard. Still, however, much may be done by the control which a vigorous mind has over

ly attainments, and to create in them a fixed and lasting interest in spiritual and religious concerns;-that he himself therefore ought to regard other things as of comparatively little consequence while he executes this high function; that the true way to effect the object of his ministry, is to be filled with that object, and to be conscious of no other desire but to promote it. Let him, in a word, be zealous to do good, to promote religion, to save souls, and little anxious to make what might be called a fine sermon-let him learn to sink every thing in his subject and the purpose it should accomplish-ambitious rather to do good, than to do well;-and he will be in a great measure secure from the loss of self-command and its attendant distress. Not always-for this feeble vessel of the mind seems to be sometimes tost to and fro, as it were, upon the waves of circumstances, unmanageable by the helm and disobedient to the wind. Sometimes God seems designedly to show us our weakn

other men, is better than all rules of art; it will give him courage, which no science or practice could impart, and open his lips boldly, when the fear of man would keep them closed. Art may fail him, and all his treasures o

persuasively. There is an immense, though indescribable difference between the same arguments and truths, as presented by him who earnestly feels and desires to persuade, and by him who designs only a display of intellectual strength, or an exercise of rhetorical skill. In the latter case, the declamation may be splendid, but it will be cold and without expression; lulling the ear, and diverting the fancy, but leaving the feelings untouched. In the other, there is an air of reality and sincerity, which words cannot describe, but which the heart feels, that finds its way to the recesses of the soul, and overcomes it by a powerful sympathy. This i

represent the joys of a religious mind, who has never known what it is to feel them? How can he effectually aid the contrite, the desponding, the distrustful, the tempted, who has never himself passed through the same fears and sorrows? or how can he paint, in the warm colors of truth, religious exercises and spiritual desires, who is personally a stranger to them? Alas, he cannot at all come in contact with those souls, which stand most in need of his sympathy and aid. But if he have cherished in himself, fondly and habitually, the affections he would excite in others, if he have combated

reacher. With this he must begin, and with this he must go on to the end. Then he ne

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Citizen of the Un

fe of Cicero,

a delightful lit

ecture on Pulpit

p. 268

clop?dia

orps, ou L'Action du

orps, ou l'Action du

I. p. 8

well as particular terms in common use, and anecdotes recorded of different speakers, prove the contrary; not to mention Quinctilian's expre

non novit, non turpissime

iii. 31