The Lutheran visitor. (Columbia, S.C.) 1869-1904, January 16, 1902, Image 12
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THE LUTHERAN VISITOR
January 16, 1902
HINTS ON SERMONIZING.
Written for Young; Preachers.
From Preachers' Journal.
II.
The Work of Preparation.
Having glanced at the necessity of
preparation, the next consideration
has to do with the method of prepa
ration. As to the time when the
sermon should be prepated the
work ought never to be postponed
till Satqrday, for some unexpected
call may be made on the preacher
that very day, leaving him little or
no time to prepare for Sunday;
and, besides, his sermon will be all
the better if it be the result of
work daring some hours of each
of the precedings days. Saturday,
then, should never be the preacher’s
busy day as to any other work
which can be avioded, for be, just
-toas much as others, needs one day
for rest out of every seven, and as
he cannot rest on the Christiau
Sabbath, he ought to do so on the
Jewish Sabbath. The preparation
of his sermon, observe—not his
sermons, for no man should be ex
pected to prepare more than one
sermon each week. If he has to
minister to the same congregation
twice on the Lord’s day he should
have a stock of sermons on hand
before bis ordination to which he
can generally add one every week;
or else he should make one of the
two services purely devotional,
without any sermon at all. Indeed
it is too generally forgotten that
meeting tdgether on the first day
the principal object of Christians’
of the week should be the worship
of Qod, rather than to hear a ser
mon ; so that a service without a
sermon may really be very bene
ficial, though perhaps not very
instructive. As to preparing more
than one sermon a week, a famous
preacher of the last generation said^
that if a man were exceedingly
clever he might prepare one ser
mon for each Sunday ; a man -of
ordinary ability might prepare two;
a man of very inferior talents could
prepare three; and a very foolish
man would have no difficulty in
preparing half a dozen.
Every one accustomed to any
sort of literary work knows how
much he is influenced by the state
of his bodily health. There is such
an intimate connection between the
body and the mind that they mut-
ually affect each other; such a
mysterious sympathy between
them, that if anything be wrong
with either, both are sure to suf
fer. Many of us have heard ser
mons which must, we should say,
have been composed when the
preacher was suffering from a slug
gish liver, and others which sug
gested the thought that the poor
man must have bad the tooth-ache
—though, mind, all scolding ser
mons are not to be thus accounted
for, any more than all tristy or
distorted sermons are to be account
ed for by the preacher composing
them when snfferring from an at
tack of inflammatory rheumatism.
Therefore, when attempting any
sort of mental work a healthy con
dition of both mind and body is
very desirable, and this is especially
true when one attempts to prepare
a speech or lecture. A sermon is
certainly a speech, bnt it is, as
we understand it, a speech upon
some topic connected with the
Christian religion. Hence it shonld
be more or less of spiritual char
acter; and, therefore, in,preparing
it a devout spirit is almost a sine
qua non of snccess. Over and over
all those qualifications which are
requisite for the preparation of
what is commonly called a speech
some knowledge of the subject to
be considered, some acquaitance
wife topic, some readiness in the
practical use of the rules of gram
mar and of rhetoric—the preacher
should be spiritually-minded, feel
ing the supreme importance of the
work he is aoont to engage in
and his need of the aid cf God, the
Holy Ghost, which, of course, he
will seek in earnest pr%er. For
some reason or another, which
perhaps the devout metaphysician
or psychologist may be able to ex
plain, a sermon prepared in any
other state of mind and heart will
fail in effecting the spiritual edifi
cation of t he hearers. It may be
very orthodox and systematic, it
may be suggestive of profound
thought and replete with useful in
struction, the language may be
choice and the style faultless, and
with its delivery the elocutionist
may be delighted ; but yet, because
of the preacher’s own lack of spirit-
uslity when preparing it, because
he put nothing of his spiritual be
ing into it, because he was in such a
spiritual state at the time that it
was impossible for him to do so,
it will fail in what ought to be one
great object of preaching to Christ
ian people, vis., their spiritual
edification. They may go away
from chnroh delighted with the
preacher’s effort, and even in
structed, but they will pot go away
with an increased determination
that their own actual lives shall,
by God's grace, constantly become
more and more like the hf.t l* d by
the locarnate God as He journeyed
from the peaceful home at Nazaretfi
to the tragic scenes of Calvary.
Supposing, then, the preacher to
be in the right state—bodily, men
tally, and spiritually—next comes
the actual, work of preparing his
sermon, and just here it may be
well to mention two or three cau
tions. First, for material to be
used in your sermon, for the know
ledge which is necessary, do not
pend upon your past studies at
either the university or the theo
logical seminary. These studies
were very necessary as preliminary
to your life work, as means of men
tal training, both general and par
ticular; and in pursuing them you
can hardly have avoided accumulat
ing stores of useful knowledge. But
to be a successful preacher you must
be a constant student, always re
garding yourself only an under
graduate in another aud au incom
parably greater university thau
your alma mater; and some time,
even if it be but an hour a day,
should be given regularly to read
ing standard works on divinity
and cognate subjects. Without
this it is useless to expect to be
prepared for the work of weekly
sermonizing. Neglect regular and
systematic reading, and your ser
mons will soon be vapid and super
ficial,“voxel praeterea nihil;” and
the more thoughtful among yonr
people, if they come to church to
be instructed as well as worship,
will soon cease to attend your ser
vices, and will go whtre they can
hear something which it will not be
an insult to their intellect to offer
for their consideration.
Second caution. Do not preach
other men’s sermons; do not even
make them your own, as people
say, by careful study, and then
preach them in substance. Let
them, if you choose, form part ef
your regular reading; get the sub
stance of them into your mind In
such a way that it becomes, as it
were, assimilated into your intellec
tual and theological being; but,
when about to prepare a sermon,
do not take another man’s sermon
and work it up into one of your
own. To prepare sermons in the
way which is here condemned may
at first seem very helpful; but, be
sides beintt dishonest, a species of
intellectual larceny, it will grad
ually dwarf your own power of
original tbinkiog, and will at length
land you iu abject slavery. True,
other men’s serin ms may be much
better than any you c-ia yourself
compose, and yon may try to justify
yourself for using them by saying
that your object is to give your
people the best you can procure—
like a certain clerical friend of
the writer of this papir, who used
to say, even boasticgly, “I spare no
no expense on any sermons; I give
my congregation the best that
money can buy’’—bnt you may de
pend upon it that you will preach
your own sermons more earnestly
and impressively than another
man’s and though for a time they
may not be nearly s) good, they
will be more effective. Certain
observant ana well educated people
belonging to a rural congregation
once remarked in my hearings’
' Our parson certainly gives us ex
cellent sermone, wherever he gets
them; but evidently they are not
bis own, for, from the way in
which he preaches them, it is plain
that he doesn’t understand them ”
A soft heart and refined con
sideration are not inconsistent with
an iron will. There is something
radically wrong with the robo t
when they are not also tender. A
twenty-ton steam hammer has been
made with such perfect adjustment
of machinery that it will descend
so lightly as to scareely crush an
egg shell, though at the will of the
operator it will flatten vast masses
of solid iron and crush out showers
of fiery spirks. Under the in
fluence of Christ, grea'ness and
strength are, when the occasion
demands, the gautlest, most
generous and sympathetic.—The
Cumberland Presbyterian. ^.
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