Stephens City star. (Stephens City, Va.) 1881-1883, 1882-03-04
Communicated.
Should Sermons be Read ?
(CoNCLUDED.l

Should Sermons be Read?
CONCLUDED
Fancy reading practiced elsewhere
than in the church, carried into the
common affairs of life, and nothing
else is needed to expose it's absurdity
Let me illustrate this, pleading the
force of the illustration in excuse of
its familiarity. A man, for example,
falls in love with woman; he wishes
to win her affections; and, prepared
to make her an offer OF his hand and
heart, he seeks an interview. They
meet-how soon to part ? Imagine
the lady's astonishment when, instead
of approaching with ardor in his looks,
he coolly enters, pulls manuscript
from his pocket, and with it a pair of
spectacles; after adjusting them on his
nose, begins, in voice as hard as iron
and cold as ice, to read an Grafton !!
How soon, in any woman of sense or
spirit, would indignation take the place
of establishment, and summon SER
want to show him the door? Or look
at men in other circumstances of life
at the bar, or the hastings, in the
senate. When they would rouse the
feelings or carry conviction home to
the minds Of others. they stand before
them eye to eye and face to face. The
barrister who rises to address jury,
knowing right well that if he reads
his speech ten to one but he will lose
his cause. He who would make 9th
ers weep must himself weep, says the
old poet; and he who would speak to
other men s hearts must speak, or at
least appear to speak, from his own.
Here ! have all antiquity on my side,
and all the preachers of christendom
also, save those that speak the English
tongue. 1t was not from papers that
Luther Numbered and Calvin reason
ed, shaking the walls of Rome.
With some practice, and going
about the thing in the right way, a
discourse suited to a popular audience
is much more easily fixed in the mind
than many, till they try it, would i'm
agine. Nor, if a man has that self
possession which is acquired in time
and by familiarity with the pulpit,
need he ever fear, but for an instant,
losing the thread of his discourse.
Let him only pin slip of paper to the
leaves of the open Bible; there let
the heads and chief topics of the SER
mon (each in their proper order, and
marked in many cases only by lead
ing word), be so legibly set down as
to be caught at glance, and he can
not be thrown of the rails. But,
though the difficulties of dispensing
with the paper were as formidable as
many imagine, should preachers of the
Gospel, those who ought to be an ex-
ample of self denial, shrink from toll,
grudge any labor for the good of those
for whom the Son of God himself la
bored and lived and died? Allow me
to say that, unless in those passages
where the impression depended much
on, as good style has been happily
defined fright words in right places"
never be the slave of memory-re-
peating the discourse verbatin,, exactly
as it was written. On the contrary
new ideas are often introduced, that
rise unbidden and are thrown off like
sparks, in the heat of delivery and
the comparatively cold expressions of
the quiet study are also often exchan-
ged for more fervid and forcible terms
However. and at the same time, the
discourse should be carefully commit
ted to menory-so carefully that, by
practice it rises to the mind spontane-
ously, without any conscious effort of
recollection, leaving one free to give
vent to their emotions, and speak as
ii they were speaking from the spur
Of the moment. I would say commit
it so well that you have never to think
in the pulpit what comes next. Be-
ware, however, of committing to mem
cry aloud, like one know, who there
by acquired monotonous, sing-sc ng
manner and besides disturbing the
whole house on Saturday evening,
reared himself hoarse as a raven
There is another advantage from COM
uniting silently-this, namely, that
the language sounds almost as fresh to
your own ears as to the peoples, and
widening thereby your own emotions
give naturalness, force and fire to the
delivery. But, if it is bad to commit,
l have found it good to compose aloud
in your study, as if you were in the
pulpit addressing your congregation
with all of them seated before you
This helps to impart vivacity to the
discourse, and without running into
the merely conversational, to throw
over the whole the charm of a spoken
style. W. M.
ASK YoUksELF.-Does your sys-
TEN need nourishing and strengthen
ing? Are you recovering from some
Ia fou1ro To rN,, ci,ftnr fror7, Il xre