Arizona silver belt., 1888-06-02
[ PREPARATION OF A SERMON.
Hints of Value to All Public Speakers

Hints of Value to All Public Speakers.
 An Essential Quality.
 For twelve years now-though my ser- mons have all been published-very few of them have been written. They are published from shorthand reports. And generally no part of them is ever written. I am often asked if l write and commit my sermons to memory This is some- thing 1 never did in my life. It seems to me that one who does this is in danger of appearing as if he were speaking a piece" And, besides, unless one has a better verbal memory than I have, it would be an intolerable drudgery. In most cases I write nothing, not even a plan or sketch. It bothers me to have my attention diverted by an effort to re- member something that has been written down. I Iprefer everything on paper or nothing.
 When do write it is done with great rapidity. And, undoubtedly, writing is the easier method For when once it is on paper all the mental strain and nervous worry about it are over. Let no man, then, take up the method of speaking under the impression that it is easier than writing. For me, at any rate, 1t is the method that requires much the greater amount of hard work. There are only two classes of persons who can afford to speak to an audience without the most careful and laboriorIs preparation-in- spired people and fools. do not claim to belong to the first class, and I try to keep out of the last. So I work very hard in preparation for public speech. And I am Srged to this by another con sideration. [ regard it as species of dis honesty, savoring of fraud to claim the attention of an audience unless one has done his best to have something that is worthy of their listening. One may not always succeed, but at least he can try.
 My method, then, is first uo be sure in my own mind that have something to say that 1t is important that people should hear. This conviction is the basis of all earnestness. cannot lock an audience in the face without it. Here, of course, I may be mistaken, but I must do my best. (This point is equally pertinent in the case of any one who offers anything to the public.) am more anxious about a topic than 1 am a text. I am aware that many think nothing is a sermon that has no text. But remembering that Jesus and the Apostles got along without texts, and that texts are really a modern invention, do not let this fact disturb me. am always glad of a text, but I will not twist Scripture for the sake of having one, as is often done.
 l decide on my subject as early in the week as possible. Then, without much worry over the matter, let my mind play about it at odd momeats-in inter Vals of reading, study, parish work or on the street. It acts like a magnet. and draws all sorts of things to i'srIf. The mind seems to work sub-consciOUsiv. and sometimes the whole scheme VII emerge into consciousness complete and ready. But give some definite time t0 earnest and hard thought on the subject cach day by preference in the morning, when am freshest.
 In thinking it out pay no attention to words. But think out my line of thought until I have it completely in hand. want it so that if an earthquake should come in the middle of the sermon could climb up on the ruins after it was over and continue the sermon at the point where left off. I said I have a very poor verbal memory; but if line of thought is logical, if one point naturally follows another, 1 can remember this and keep to it through an hour or two of speaking.
 In my opinion, the most essential quality about either writing or speaking is what I will call movement. If one is ill dead earnest after some definite end, and is seen to be in motion for that end, it is human nature to be interested ill sec ing whether he gets there. Bat you get tired of watching even a gOrgeously uni formed soldier, if he is only marking time ''
 My last word, then, to both speaker and writer, is this: Have some import ant end in view; take the straightest G. e., the most logicaD road that leads to it; and then go.-M. s. Savage ill The Writer.