his text and hymns. Mrs. Jameson writes: "Until he was five and twenty he had never learned to read; and his reading afterwards was confined to such books [very few] as aided him in the ministry. He remained an illiterate man to the last." Miss Martineau says of his preaching: It "exerts a prodigious power over an occasional hearer, and it is an exquisite pleasure to listen to it; but it does not for a continuance meet the religious wants of any but those to whom it is expressly addressed." The peculiarities both of the audience and the speaker demanded the extemporary style. It was interesting to compare his manner of presenting an idea with the manner of an Edwardean divine. That divine might read a sermon at a funeral, and prove that every man is bound to love his neighbor as himself; that all men who love "being in proportion to its amount of being ""are the body of Christ and members in particular," and "the members should have the same care one for another," and if "one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," for "they are all included in being, as such." But this preacher for sailor-boys is described in the following manner by Miss Frederika Bremer, in her " Homes of the New World": Father Taylor, who usually entered the church looking to the right hand and the left, bowing kindly to his friends, entered, on the occasion described here, without any such kindly greetings. All wondered what could be the cause of the sorrow depicted on his face. "He mounted the pulpit, and then, bowing down as if in the deepest affliction, exclaimed: 'Lord, have mercy upon us, because we are a widow!' And so saying, he pointed down to a coffin which he had had placed in the aisle below the pulpit. One of the sailors belonging to the congregation had just died, leaving a widow and many small children without any means of support. Father Taylor now placed himself and the congregation in the position of the widow, and described so forcibly their grief, their mournful countenances, and their desolate condition, that at the close of the sermon the congregation rose as one man; and so considerable was the contribution which was made for the widow that she was raised at once above want. In fact, our coldly moralizing clergy, who read their 1 Common-place Book of Thought, Memories, and Fancies. Jameson, p. 169. By Mrs. written sermons, ought to come hither, and learn how they may touch and win souls.”1 5. Many objections arise from overlooking the fact that some of the preachers who are exposed to criticism for their faults in speaking extempore would be equally exposed if they should read or recite their sermons. The fault is in not in their method. A French critic thus describes the men, "They give utterance to all which comes into their minds. They altogether omit, or only half present, their proofs. They lose themselves in detail. Their manner is injured by the conflict in the mind seeking that which is wanting to complete a sentence already begun; they repeat themselves, wander into digressions, without action, without movement; or, if they have a lively temperament, their action is turbulent, their eyes and their hands fly about here and there, and they contradict themselves. I have seen men who, as if drowning, throw out their hands and their feet to catch hold where they can and save themselves. To what ridicule do not those expose themselves, who, under the poorly-conceived pretext of apostolic simplicity, appear in the pulpit without having studied their discourse, imagine that they preach naturally because they shout with all their strength, perspire a great deal, speak often of the devil and hell, bewilder their hearers by all the devices that their imagination can suggest, and pretend they are converting all the people. I wonder equally at the patience of the hearers who listen in silence to these ranting preachers, and at the insufficiency and coarseness of these pretended orators, who give forth with boldness and a pretended apostolic manner all that a fiery zeal excited by a pious frenzy can dictate."* Among the freedmen of our Southern States there are preachers whose eloquence is marvellous, and still their faults are ridiculous. Would not these men sink into worse faults if they should commit their sermons to memory? Would any one advise them to read their discourses? We admit that an extemporizer often disgusts his hearers with a sing-song or hesitating or drawling or boisterous or blatant delivery; but are there not well-educated preachers who murder in their reading what they have enlivened in their writing? Are there not many persons who can talk well but cannot read well? 1 Incidents, etc., of Rev. Edward T. Taylor, pp. 354, 355. 6. Several objections come from overlooking the fact that variety in the ministrations of the pulpit has in itself a value. We have seen that one style of discourse is more appropriate to one clergyman, to one audience, to one class of subjects, than to another. But this is not all. The same preacher, addressing the same audience, on the same class of topics, may augment his power by varying his methods of address. The objector says: Of the three fundamental methods of preaching, that which in itself is the best ought to be adopted uniformly; the extemporary method ought not to be the uniform one; therefore it is not the best. The dietetist might as wisely say: If a certain kind of meat is more nutritious than a certain kind of fruit, the meat should be taken to the exclusion of the fruit. As a change of food from the more to the less nutritious is sometimes healthful, so the style of preaching may be wisely changed from the more to the less elaborate, the more to the less exciting. A man's hearers should not always know exactly what to expect. Dr. Emmons devoted four and twenty days to his sermon entitled "The Law of Paradise," but not half so many hours to his sermon entitled "The House of the Grave"; still the last-named (which might well have been an extemporary) sermon was more interesting than the first-named to a majority of his hearers, and each was more interesting than it would have been without the other. 7. A class of objections comes from overlooking the fact that the good, as well as the evil, tendencies of the extemporaneous method have been developed in the pulpit. The objector points us to the learned clergymen who have sadly failed in adopting this method, and to the unlettered exhorters who have brayed when they fancied that they were preaching, and have mistaken "the perspiration for the inspiration of oratory." But the objector should remember that the practice of reading an entire sermon from the pulpit prevailed nowhere before the Reformation, and since that period has prevailed only in Great Britain and America. Many homi In 1712 Bishop Burnet said: "Reading is peculiar to this nation and is endured in no other."— The Pastoral Care, p. 189. 1 lies of Origen, Cyril, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Atticus, were not written until they were taken down from the lips of the preachers by the Taxvypápor who heard them. Historians tell us that Chrysostom often preached oxediaσTiKws.1 Augustine sometimes preached on themes suggested at the moment by other persons, by the reader of the scriptural lesson, who himself occasionally chose the lesson on which the Father wast immediately to discourse. On a certain occasion Augustine requested a particular psalm to be read, but a different psalm was read by mistake, and he preached upon the latter instead of the former on which he had prepared himself. His homiletical rules intimate that he favored the extemporaneous method. Thus he remarks that the hearers of a sermon are accustomed to signify by their movements whether or not they understand it; and until the preacher perceives that they do understand it, he should repeat in various forms what he has said already; but adds: Quod in potestate non habent, qui praeparata et ad verbum memoriter, retenta pronuntiant."2 Tully's celebrated Address to Cataline was not more obviously extemporaneous than were many passages in the Mediaeval sermons. Of the Reformers, Calvin frequently, Luther 1 In proof that he spoke extempore they often quote some of his allusions to the incidents occurring at the time of his preaching. Thus in a Homily on Genesis he made an allusion to the lamplighter: "I am expounding the scriptures, and ye all turn your eyes from me to the lamps, and him that is lighting the lamps. What negligence is this, so to forsake me, and set your minds on him? For I am lighting a fire from the Holy Scriptures, and in my tongue is a burning lamp of doctrine. This is a greater and a better light than that. For we do not set up a light like that moistened with oil, but we inflame souls that are watered with piety, with a desire of hearing." - See Bingham's Antiquities, Vol. vi. Book 14. We presume that the homily containing this passage was extemporaneous, but many a reader of sermons intersperses such off-hand remarks with what he has written. 2 De Doctrina Christiana, Lib. iv. § 25. Several passages in this Work indicate the author's habit of preaching extempore. Thus he says of the reward promised to him who gives a cup of cold water to a disciple: "When it has happened that we spoke to the people on this subject, and God was present that we should speak not inappropriately, did there not arise from that cold water a kind of flame which, with the hope of a reward in Heaven, set the cold hearts of men on fire for performing works of mercy."-Lib. iv. § 37. still more frequently, preached without notes. Among the French orators, Bossuet in large part, and Fenelon almost altogether. dispensed with the manuscript. Of the English and American divines nearly all the most eloquent preachers in the Baptist and Methodist denominations, and many among the Presbyterian and Congregational have abstained occasionally or habitually from reading their discourses. The extemporaneous eloquence of the bar and the senate is not necessarily either superficial or puerile. With few exceptions that of the ancient pulpit was equal to that of the Bema or the Rostrum. There is no reason why that of modern preachers should not be as instructive and dignified as that of modern civilians and jurists. 8. A large class of objections results from overlooking the fact that the extemporaneous preacher can and should habitually discipline himself for his extemporanous efforts. The objector says: If a man deliver his sermons extempore, he will not carry beaten oil' into the sanctuary; he will 'offer to the Lord that which costs him nothing.' Our first reply to this objector is: The right habit of preaching extempore implies that the preacher is a student, and that he pursues all his studies with the intent of fitting himself to compose a sermon while he is delivering it. Our second reply is: In writing one sermon, the preacher is disciplining himself to extemporize more than one. When the objector adds: You contradict yourself in representing the extemporaneous method as the true one, and yet recommending that a preacher spend the greater part of his time in writing his sermons, we rejoin: The time which the minister spends on his manuscript is really spent in preparing him to speak without a manuscript. The objector might as well say that a pyrotechnist is inconsistent with himself because he spends a whole day in adjusting his nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, and spends only a few minutes in igniting them. Our third reply is: While the extemporaneous method presents many incitements to habitual toil, it does present some temptations 1 2 Sam. xxiv. 24; 1 Chron. xxi. 24. |