On the duty and the discipline of extemporary preaching

Introduction

On looking over my completed work I feel that its argument and recommendations are so presented as almost to assume tlie ctaracter of a chapter of Mental Autobiography. This has been done to a far greater extent than was contemplated ia the forecast of the book. I find in fact that I have given but little heed to the proverbial caution, if I may be allowed a reference to it here, against admitting spectators behind the scenes ; and which ought to be observed most carefully when the indiscretion to be guarded against is that of revealing what passes behind the scenes of a man's own mind. But I shall not regret having neglected it, if by so doing I shall have been enabled to impart to the treatment of my subject some of that kind of interest, which it could not have possessed, had it been dealt with in an abstract and impersonal form. Perhaps, also, it wiU be better that what I submit to the consideration of my brethren in the Sacred Ministry, should not be set forth didactically, but as the experience of a brother Minister of the Word. At all events, whatever may be the estimate put on my specific recom-

VI INTROnUCTION.

mendations, most people will, I suppose, agree with me in thinking that it would be of advantage to the Church that some effort be made, and that is my aim, to improve the delivery of the spoken Word.

1 take this opportunity to say that in the Notes and Studies of Sermons, which form the latter part of the volume, I had but one object in view — that of illustrating in some particulars my previous remarks on Preaching. In selecting the Sermons that seemed suitable for this purpose from those I preached during the time I was engaged in writing the first part of the book, I passed by aU that were of a purely doctrinal character, because I shrunk from dissecting, and from regarding, in a rhetorical light, the treatment of the most sacred of all subjects.

Many are asking how the efficiency of the Church may be so increased as to enable her to meet the peculiar and pressing difficulties of the times. No one would think of limiting the reply to any single measure, or recommendation. The following pages endeavour to direct attention to what I would beg permission to call a more instructed, and if so, then a more fruitful use of the oldest and most necessary of aU. the means that have been committed to the Church for enabling her to propagate the Faith.

Wherstead Vicarage, Oct. 1, 1866.