The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-11-22
HOW SOME SERMONS ARE MADE.

Helping Hand is the name of a COM
pany just organized in Chicago to furnish a
limited number of clergymen with ready
made sermons at the rate of two for dol
lar. Whilst this is not high price, it can
be doubted whether they are worth so
much. And yet the system may SUPPLY a
long-felt want
Occasionally, when preacher is detected
In plaglarizing discourse, and cannot get
out of the scrape with the plea of '.uncon-
scious cerebration," he excuses himself on
the ground OF his innumerable duty-calls
to funerals, marriages, death-Deds, paro-
chlal visits, church fairs and sociables
We know OF case where a METROPOLITAN
newspaper printed in the same issue the
sermons of two ministers of different de-
nominations that were word for word
alike. This was accounted for by the fact
that each had cribbed from the same
source.
There is practice, though we do not
know how extensive it is, of clergymen
exchanging sermons in manuscript This
permits of contraction in some parts and
elaboration in others, just as the preacher
finds the borrowed sermon to agree OR dis
agree with what he has before SPOKEN
from the pulpit. In cases of differences of
belief or opinion, 1t is not necessary to
omit or curtail the portions not conceded
in; for with a little skill the reverend
speaker may use this as the argument he
Is partly combating, and fairness suggests
that he use 1t as promulgated by its advo-
Gates. Another method of economizing
study is one well-kpown to the news
paper pro fession-which. by the wav. goes
hand in hand with the clergy-and con-
slsts in the ingenious trying on of the work
OF another to the original in hand. SO as to
appear to be constituent part of the lat
ter. Of course the preacher has the adj
vantage OF the editor, in that in his manu-
script the quotation marks are properly
placed, though in the delivery the congre.
CATION cannot tell exactly where the
hooks" come in. So the man of cloth
after giving out his text. may, in an intro
ductory sort of way, remark:
We remember reading discourse by an abIs
divine, who said
And here he rings in the whole sermon
which is most probably far better one
than he would find time to compose in a
fortnight or longer
Labor-savers are quite as useful. and
sometimes as necessary, to ministers as to
any other class of workers, and for their
benefit much has been done in the wav of
books, cyclopodias concordances. bible
histories and biographies, etc. Green
church-goers no doubt often wonder and
are amazed at the number and variety of
quotations from all parts of the scriptures
that preachers bring to bear in elucidatinp
their texts. And the apt quotation and
illustration, let it be remembered, are great
forces in speech or writing. Now there is
bulky volume called "Hitchcock's Analv-
sis, in which all the verses of the Bible
are arranged together according to their
subject, and the book, chapter and verse;
number noted; so that turning to given
subject one may readily find all that
the old and new Testaments say there
upon. This is what may be desig-
mated as udde mccum in minister's Ii
brary. "CRuDES's Concordance" enables