OVERSEER COURSE LESSON SEVENTY-SEVEN

THE POWER OF A GREAT SERMON

PREPARATION
MODULE SIX

The delivery of the sermon pt. 2

Henry Epps
founder
HARVEST LIFE
GLOBAL NETWORK
Overseer Course Lesson 77
 Lesson Seventy-Seven

The delivery of the sermon pt. 2

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The Delivery of the Sermon (Continued)

Does not Carry the Weight and Authority of Scripture

Has few Historical Precedents to Which it can Appeal
Is Philosophically Objectionable
Produces a sense of separation and distance.
A sense of unreality follows.
Has no Rhetorical Parallels. Gesture and Expression Suffer
Is Untrue to the Ideal of Preaching
Yet There may be Reasons for Adopting It
In the preacher himself: (1) May lack the oratorical temperament; (2) May be over-fluent.
In the theme of the sermon.
In the character of the exercise.
Counsels if This Method be Adopted

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Cultivate a style suitable to spoken discourse.
Pay much attention to composition.
Master the manuscript.
Read well.
Summary and Conclusion
Note—As to the memorized sermon: Of two kinds. Great names no reason for our adopting this
method. What can be said in its favor? Open to serious objections. Of all methods. the least to be
recommended.
The Read Sermon

In considering the various ways in which a sermon may be delivered, we deal, first, with the
practice of reading from a manuscript. This method presupposes that the sermon has been carefully
written, and that it is carefully read. What can be said about it, for and against?
I. That it does not carry the weight and authority of Scripture sanction may be granted at once. The
conception of the sermon as we have it now, dates from a period so much later than the last words
of the New Testament, that we must not be surprised at this; nor must we sweepingly condemn the
read discourse because when Elijah burst in on Ahab with his brief message, or Jonah went through
the streets of Nineveh announcing its impending doom, or John the Baptist cried in the wilderness
of Judea, or Jesus taught by the waters of Galilee, or Peter rang out his first sermon in Jerusalem,
or Paul spoke to the men of Athens on Mars Hill, no manuscript was used. Under similar
circumstances today no manuscript would be used. Yet it is certainly worthy of our consideration
that nowhere in the Bible is it recorded that a discourse was read; and that when the apostles
received their commission to go and teach all nations, there is no evidence that it was in the mind
of Him in whose name through all the ages repentance and remission of sins should be preached,
that this should be done by means of a read sermon.
II. The habit of reading a sermon has few historical precedents to which it can appeal. There is no
evidence that it was practiced by the orators of Greece and Rome. The early church seems to have
known nothing of it. "All the examples of Christian antiquity are against the practice of the reading
of written sermons. Neither Basil nor Chrysostom, neither Augustine, nor Luther, nor Calvin, nor
their contemporaries, read their discourses." The custom probably dates from the days of conflict
between the friars and the early Protestant Reformers, when feeling ran so high that royal authority
had to be appealed to in order to curb the excesses of controversial speech. It is certain that in 1548
Calvin wrote to Protector Somerset, of England, insisting that lively preaching was much needed,
and adds: "I say this, sire, because it seems to me that there is little of preaching in the kingdom,
but that sermons are for the most part read." In earlier and darker days books of homilies had been
compiled to be read in churches when the priest was unable to make sermons for himself; and the
homilies, which were prepared in the reign of Edward VI, were prepared partly that they might be
read to the people by such as were not licensed to preach, and partly in order to secure uniformity

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of doctrine at a time when there was so much difference of opinion on the part of the clergy.
Charles II., who had probably learned to admire the freedom of the continental preachers, issued
an ordinance against "the present supine and slothful way of preaching," and made the reading of
sermons almost an act of treason by declaring that the practice" took its beginning from the
disorders of the late times." That the Puritans should read their sermons was almost inevitable. The
inordinate length, the tedious multiplying of subdivisions, as well as the careful doctrinal
definitions which characterized them, must have almost obliged the use of a manuscript. Yet even
among them there was a strong difference of opinion on this matter, and John Cotton, who in two
days could preach three sermons six hours long, stoutly maintained that "reading was not
preaching" No doubt it was through the Puritans that the practice of reading sermons came into
New England. Neither in Great Britain nor in America has it been the method of the majority of
useful and successful preachers. If the great name of Thomas Chalmers be appealed to in its
defense, it is sufficient to answer that he who can read as Chalmers did—in tones of enthusiasm
that made the rafters roar, hanging over his audience, menacing them with his shaking fist or
standing erect, manacled and staring—can be suffered to do as he pleases. And if reference be
made to Jonathan Edwards, it may further be affirmed that even when he was preaching his great
sermons he did not always read, and that in his later years he abandoned the manuscript altogether.
What is remarkable, the preachers who have been in the habit of reading have not, as a rule,
preferred the method; and treatises on homiletics, written by those who in the pulpit are slaves to
the paper, have rather commended extemporaneous preaching. "Henceforth," Chalmers wrote n
his journal after hearing Andrew Fuller preach, 'let me try to extemporize in the pulpit." "I heard,"
says C. G. Finney, "a theological teacher read a sermon on the importance of extemporaneous
preaching. His views on the subject were correct, but his practice entirely contradicted him."
III. That the sermon should be read is, further, philosophically objectionable. Between the speaker
and hearer it interposes a paper which, except in very rare cases, such as that of Dr. Chalmers,
produces two evils.
1. A sense of separation and distance. Mr. Blaine told a company of ministers at the
Congregational Club in Boston, that when they put the nonconductor of a pile of manuscript
between themselves and their hearers, they were not preaching the Gospel, "You are only reading
it." Dr. R. S. Storrs abandoned his written sermon when he had to address the throngs in the
Academy of Music, Brooklyn, for this same reason. "Inserting a manuscript between the audience
and myself would have been like cutting the telegraph wires and putting a sheet of paper into the
gap."
2. A sense of unreality naturally follows this sense of separation and distance. The conviction that
the message is with authority, which is absolutely necessary alike with preacher and hearers if the
sermon is to do its best work, is very faint, and often, indeed, it is absent altogether unless the
speaker is in close, conscious touch with his congregation. Rowland Hill had reason to gibe at the
impotence of "dried tongues." Many will agree with Spurgeon when he says, "The best reading I
have ever heard has tasted of paper, and has stuck in my throat," and the conclusion of Dr. Joseph
Parker is still more worthy of being laid to heart by every preacher: "Having tried both methods,
the method of free speech and the method of reading, I can give an opinion founded upon

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experience, and I now give it as entirely favorable to free speech. The pulpit will never take its
proper place until the habit of reading sermons on ordinary occasions is entirely abandoned; it is
official, pedantic, heartless, and ought to be put down."
IV. Let it be remembered again that the practice of reading in the pulpit has no rhetorical parallel.
The lawyer in court, the political speaker on the platform, the actor on the stage, do not read. "The
practice of reading sermons" Blair considered to be "one of the greatest obstacles to eloquence."
"Elocutionists may read," a Southern preacher says, "but orators never." Of what invaluable allies
in effective speaking the habit of reading deprives a preacher. Gesture is crippled and contracted,
and becomes tame and monotonous. The perfection of the art of gesture among the Italians and
other nations which naturally possess it in fuller measure than do we, can make even "their legs
the emblems of their various thought." To this extreme we may not wish to go, but still less can
we hold with Dr. Samuel Johnson that "action can have no effect upon reasonable minds"; and that
"in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have less influence on them." Then
again, the facial expression of the preacher who reads his sermons is almost wholly if not entirely
lost. The lips, which should never be concealed by the mustache, the pose of the head, the varied
expression of the eye, can now do little. The eye is a most powerful auxiliary to the voice. Our
Lord and his apostles used it for this purpose. Why should we forfeit a faculty which comes to us
sanctioned by such high uses? John McNeill is justified in calling the attention of his hearers to
the phrase, "Peter fastening his eyes upon him, with John," and reminding them that "this could
not have been done if they had read their little sermon. That exchange of looks may have decided
the man to accept the muscular arm of the fisherman apostle. Is not this a lesson to preachers?
They cannot fasten their eyes both on the audience and the paper.'" This power of the eye has
always been great in secular oratory; why shall it be less so in the case of those who occupy the
throne of eloquence, the pulpit? By his opponents the glance of William Pitt was as much dreaded
as was his voice. Robespierre, it has been truly said, could quell the French Assembly by his lion
eye; while that of Daniel Webster was a gateway out of which marched conquest. Dr. Thomas
Guthrie held that the objection to "the paper lay deep in the feelings of our nature." These are his
words about reading a sermon, and they well deserve to be heeded: "It universally produces more
or less of monotony, so much of it as to act like mesmerism on the audience. To keep an audience
wide awake, their attention active and on stretch (without which, how are they to get good?), all
the natural varieties of tone and action are necessary qualifications incompatible with the practice
of reading."

V. Assuredly to adopt the habit of reading the sermon is to be untrue to the ideal of preaching The
sermon is a familiar talk, dignified and yet easy, on the highest of all themes. It aims to produce
immediate results, and consequently in times of quickened religious feeling the addresses are
almost without exception spoken, not read. The American audiences of the last century,
accustomed to a ministry addicted to closely written manuscripts held in the hand and often near
to the eyes, were stirred to a passion of enthusiasm by the preaching of Whitefield, "who seemed
to pour forth his torrent of apparently unpremeditated eloquence without fatigue or study." To
Whitefield the gathering thunderstorm, which would have obliterated the manuscript, was only

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another power to be pressed into the service. He invoked the tempest and wielded the lightning
with such tremendous power that men and women fell under the power of words which were
emphasized by the fires of Heaven. To sum up: The preacher may very well hesitate before
deliberately choosing a method of delivery which has no authority in Scripture, and scarcely a
precedent in the great days of the pulpit; for which no parallel can be found in other fields of
oratory; and which tends to arrest the power of sympathy between him and his hearers, to weaken
the sermon in its appointed mission to produce immediately an impression, and to deny to the
speaker the aid of passing incidents which may be arrows of conviction in the hands of the Lord.
VI. Notwithstanding these serious objections to reading, there may yet seem to be reasons why in
certain cases it should be adopted. At these we will now glance.
1. Some of them may be found in the preacher himself.
(1) It is possible that he may lack the oratorical temperament. With Bourdaloue he may not dare
look his audience in the face; with Cardinal Newman his felicity of diction may fail him when he
drops his pen. In such a case Spurgeon's counsel, "Brother, write if you have not the gift of free
speech, and yet are fitted to instruct," will be seasonable. Nor should it be denied that the preacher
who dispenses with a manuscript will have to suffer for it. The perfect self-control of so practiced
a preacher as John Angell James, of Birmingham, England, gave no hint of the fact, to which his
biographer testifies, that for many years he scarcely ever slept on a Saturday night, so
uncontrollable was the apprehension with which he looked forward to the services of the Sunday."
"Why shouldn't I read?" he asked of his colleague when he was anticipating having to deliver a
sermon before the London Missionary Society. "Because you are never so effective when you
read," was the reply. "Well, now," Mr. James answered, "I'll tell you how it is. If I preach without
reading I shall be miserable for three weeks, miserable till I am in the pulpit; if I read, I shall be
quite happy till I begin to preach, though I shall be miserable till I finish." It is sufficient to say on
this point that immunity from suffering is not essential to a preacher's work, and that although in
his resolve to speak without a manuscript he may have to work hard during the week, to rise early
on Sunday morning, and to endure the pangs of anticipation and the penalties of reaction, yet he
will be in the end stronger and more efficient for the effort. The cases are probably rare in which
by determination and perseverance even the most diffident of preachers cannot dispense with his
paper, and benefit alike himself and congregation by doing so.
(2) On the other hand, are there not preachers who by reason of a dangerous fluency of speech
would do well to write and sometimes to read? Dr. Dale, to whom reference has just been made,
explained his invariable habit of reading in this way: "If I spoke extemporaneously I should never
sit down." To Mr. Binney, at one time the most popular preacher in London, an old Scotchwoman
frankly said: "I am aye glad to see the papers, for when ye take them oot and lay them on the buik,
I say to mysel', 'We'll ha'e a deal mair sense the day.'"
2. The theme of the sermon, again, may seem to demand exhaustive treatment and therefore to
justify the preacher in reading his discourse. And yet even here it may fairly be questioned whether
a congregation can profit by a line of thought which a preacher cannot pursue without the use of
notes. The preacher's own ability to master, vitalize, and deliver truth must certainly be superior

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to the ability of his hearers, unprepared by training or forethought, to receive and digest what he
has made ready.
3. A justification of reading is also found by some of its advocates in the very character of the
exercise. Preaching, they urge, necessitates composition, and the demands of composition, and
especially of composition dealing with religion, call for accuracy and finish. In this there is no
doubt a measure of force. It may be granted at once that not only is the best extempore speech
likely to be marred by grammatical blunders, but; what is a far more serious matter, truth of the
first importance may suffer from loose and hasty definition. As to our composition, however, we
must learn not to be too fastidious. We must not allow ourselves to be slaves to moods and tenses,
and to dread a slip in syntax as though it were the unpardonable sin. As to the need for careful
definition of truths of the first moment, we are one with the advocate of reading sermons; our
contention is not for impromptu speech, but only for such a method of delivery as shall do the
utmost justice to thought carefully prepared in the study.

VII. Should the preacher conclude, after honestly trying all other methods, that for him it is best
to read his sermons, we may offer the following counsels:
1. Cultivate a style suitable for spoken discourse. Let it have the freedom and force of vernacular
address. Speak your sentences aloud in your study before you write them down. Let the fresh air
of open day blow through them lest they smell too much of the lamp.
2. Remember that errors in composition which should be quite pardonable in a spoken address are
unpardonable when the address is read. The plainspoken Scotch elder objected to his minister's
sermon—first, because it was read; secondly, because he did not read it well; and thirdly, "because
it was not worth readin' at a'." How few read sermons, which by the character of their thought or
their composition, seem worth the pains which have been taken in writing them out in full.
3. Train yourself in the free and unfettered use of a full manuscript. To do this means giving almost
as much time to becoming familiar with the composition which you propose to read as is given to
it by him who first writes and then lays aside his paper before going into the pulpit. A skillful
preacher of the present day warns the young preacher that "he will never command his
congregation if he cannot command his paper." Preach not from but through your manuscript, as
Chalmers did (Taylor, "The Scottish Pulpit," p. 181).
4. Spare no pains to make yourself a good reader. It by no means follows that should you read your
sermons your hearers will not detect the lack of the oratorical temperament and the presence of
natural timidity. Attend to your voice, to its tone and flexibility and emphasis. Charles Dickens
learned all his public readings by heart , and knew every word of them without needing to look at
the open book which lay on the desk before him. Yet in the anticipation of an engagement, he says
that he read over the selections often twice a day "with exactly the same pains as at night." Mindful
that what is known as clerical sore throat is much more frequent with those who read their sermons
than with those who use no manuscript, it will be wise for you to attend to position and gesture.
An eminent surgeon avers that the malady is caused by the habit of hanging the head. "The speaker

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who directs his remarks to the buttons of his waistcoat is almost certain to have a sore throat.
Clergymen's heads ought never to be hanged."
So much may be said by way of counsel; but we say it with the proviso that under ordinary
circumstances this is the last method which the preacher should adopt permanently. To read may
be the wiser course to pursue for the preacher who, while he has fullness of thought and grace of
language, lacks the oratorical temperament, and consequently falls very much below the level of
his own natural abilities when he dispenses with a manuscript. In nearly every other instance we
advise against it. An age of effective preachers is likely to be an age of preachers who do not read.
The decadence of the pulpit will be marked by a return to this "supine and slothful way of
preaching," which should never be adopted without conscientious and prayerful consideration of
the preacher's duty to his Master and to the world.
Better perhaps here than anywhere else, we may refer to the memorized sermon, in which either
the words are committed to memory without being written down, sentence after sentence being
composed and learned, or the words are first written out in full and then the sermon is verbally
memorized. The second method is the more common, but neither of them can be commended to
the ordinary preacher. Because Robert Hall inwardly elaborated his great sermons in the very
words in which they were delivered, or because Thomas Guthrie never entered the pulpit without
having first written and then committed his, no precedent is furnished for us. On account of his
acute suffering, Robert Hall was compelled to refrain from much writing; and Thomas Guthrie
inherited the traditions of the Scotch pulpit, which laid under the strictest ban the use of the paper
in the pulpit.
No one will question that when the sermon is well memorized, the method combines to a rare
degree finish with power, and it is certain that, since the work of committing presupposes careful
preparation in addition to the task of acquiring the composition, the preacher who does this will be
free from the charge of indolence or superficiality. The objections to memorizing are, however,
very serious. Committing to memory is largely a mechanical process, and it is evident, therefore,
that the higher faculties are suppressed rather than stimulated, and the heaviest strain falls upon
the inferior ability to remember words. The full and vivid processes of immediate thought are
necessarily arrested, the preacher dreads nothing so much as spontaneity, and shuts the door of his
mind against a fresh idea as resolutely as the door of the ark was shut against the flood. However
perfectly it be done, the method is only another form of reading. An invisible paper is present to
the eye of the preacher, and he is really reading off its contents, line by line and page by page. If,
on the other hand, it be ill done, an audience becomes painfully conscious of the effort which the
preacher is putting forth to grasp at the eluding word, and half dreads, half hopes for collapse.
Meanwhile, the fervor and freedom of true eloquence are conspicuous only by their absence.
No method can be recommended which precludes the sudden suggestion of word or thought, and
by so doing binds the truth and, to use the Scottish phrase, "stints the Spirit." Of all methods,
memorizing seems to us to be the one least to be recommended. Rare powers of memory combined
with rare rhetorical gifts may justify its use. Otherwise it is to be avoided.
The Making of the Sermon: For the Classroom and the Study.

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Summary

Definition of the Term "Extemporaneous"

Not impromptu preaching.
Implies special fitness: (1) Health; (2) Intellectual alertness.
Allows some amount of preparation: (1) The subject to be mastered beforehand; (2) Words and
even phrases sometimes composed; (3) A preparation of the heart.
Merits of the Extemporaneous Method
It is natural.
It is convenient.
It is rhetorically excellent.
Cautions and Counsels
Must not be adopted under any misconception: (1) That it has the sanction of great names; (2) That
it is the easiest method. Beware of mental and moral deterioration.
Keep the mind well stored and trained to accuracy.
Constantly practice composition.
Make careful rhetorical preparation.
Discipline yourself in composure.
Make good use of your preparation. How? (1) Preparation may be entirely mental; (2) A brief may
be prepared, but not used; (3) A brief may be prepared and carried in to the pulpit.
Concluding Summary
The Extemporaneous Sermon

There is so much confusion as to the meaning of the term "extemporaneous," and especially as it
is applied to sermons, that we must before proceeding any further come to a clear understanding
on this point.
I. An extemporaneous sermon may be defined as one in which the preacher knows what he is going
to say, but not how he is going to say it. In happy moments the words seem to come as if by
instinct, but there are other times when the swift intuitions of the instant fail, and it is this
uncertainty which makes the sermons of the extemporaneous preacher so uneven.

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1. Let it be understood at once that extemporaneous preaching is not the same as impromptu
preaching. As to this we need say little, and that little only in condemnation. To the Quaker who
told Richard Baxter that he never studied what he said, the reply was, "Then I less marvel at thy
nonsense." Chalmers called such preaching "a mere gurgle of syllables"; and when a lady praised
an impromptu preacher to Archbishop Magee, saying, "Oh, what a saint in the pulpit," his retort
was, "And, oh, what a martyr in the pew." "My lord," a clergyman once boasted to his bishop,
"when I go up the steps of the pulpit I never know the subject of my sermon"; and the bishop
answered him, "No, and I hear that your congregation does not when you come down."
There may indeed be times when, between us and the discourse which we have prepared, a will
higher than our own seems evidently to interpose another message. In the ministry of Fletcher of
Madeley, and in the revival services of C. G. Finney, there came such experiences, and invariably
the sequel explained why the change had to be made. But these times will be infrequent. As a rule
the Spirit honors the preacher who devoutly prepares his sermon beforehand.
2. Extemporaneous preaching to be effective implies special fitness. The speaker should enjoy
good physical health and a fine digestion. He should be endowed with intellectual alertness, and a
readiness to see and catch points as they present themselves. The famous" Conferences" of
Lacordaire were rapidly prepared, but while he worked the intellectal effort was intense. Dr. A.
Alexander used to say that if he had to stake his life on a single effort he would, if familiar with
the general subject, abandon himself entirely to the impulse of the moment. The tremendous
importance of the issue would brace all his powers to their utmost. The opinion of Dr. Kirk,
himself one of the most effective of extemporaneous speakers, is of value; and he says that in order
to success the preacher who adopts this method needs a full mind, a glowing heart, and a relentless
purpose to secure practical results.
3. Extemporaneous preaching allows some amount of preparation.
(1) By previous study the general lines of the subject must have been mastered as completely as
though the whole had been written. The only secret (so Archbishop Magee told his clergy) is to
burn the subject into the brain until out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh. Daniel
Webster opened his large eyes when he was asked about speeches of his which were said to have
been delivered on the spur of the moment or at brief notice, and uttered a sentence which deserves
to be written in letters of gold: "Young man, there is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition."
So another orator, Wendell Phillips, counsels, "Think out your subjects carefully. Read all you can
relative to them. Fill your mind, and then talk simply and naturally." And Dr. Joseph Parker, who
himself does not read his sermons, says: "There is only one thing I am more afraid of than
extemporaneous speaking, and that is, extemporaneous thinking."
(2) Indeed, the preparation may be carried so far that certain words may be chosen and even
sentences composed. A theological definition, for example, should never be left at the mercy of
extemporaneous selection.
(3) Certainly in no other method of delivery is the preparation of the heart so important. In a
memorable crisis in the debates of the Westminster Assembly the learning of Selden, then the
greatest lawyer in England, had been employed to demolish the hopes of the Evangelical party,

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and apparently he had completely succeeded. Then Samuel Rutherford turned to young Gillespie,
the hope of Scottish orthodoxy, and said, "Rise, George man, and defend the church which Christ
hath purchased with his own blood." Gillespie did rise, and so powerfully did he speak that when
he sat down Selden turned to a friend and said, "That young man has swept away the learning and
the labor of ten years of my life." When Gillespie's note book was seized upon by his brethren so
that at least the outlines of this triumphant speech might be preserved, all they found were these
three words, Da lucem, Domine, "Give light, O Lord." Such critical moments come to all
preachers, did they but know it; and at such times it is the heart of Gillespie and not the intellect
of Selden that prevails.
II. What are the merits of the extemporaneous method? We mention three points in its favor.
1. It is natural. To become artificial and formal in style is the danger of him who writes. The
extemporaneous speaker is likely to escape this fault, and to be obedient to Augustine's maxim,
"Let not the preacher become the servant of words; rather let words be servants of the speaker."
The glance of the eye, the free motion of the arms, the gestures with the hand, the poise and play
of the whole body—all these help the extemporaneous preacher to make the most of himself.
2. Undoubtedly also it is convenient. Mr. Spurgeon prepared his Sunday morning sermon on
Saturday evening, working with great intensity while he worked, and pressing into his service all
the resources of a fine library. His evening sermon was prepared on Sunday afternoon. This
allowed him time for other work connected with his great church.
3. Moreover, it is rhetorically excellent. Extemporaneous speech is, as Quintilian says, "the crown
and radiance of all eloquence." The speaker, if in a happy mood, is stimulated to achievements
which surprise himself. Masterful moments come to him when he knows himself to be equal to
the emergency, when rare and fitting words appear at command, when trains of thought marshal
themselves at his bidding, and when the truth glows with the passion of his vigorous conception
and burns its way into the hearts of those who listen to him. When a lady who was a member of
Robert Hall's church at Leicester was reading to him her notes of one of his discourses, he
interrupted her with the inquiry, "Did I say that, madam? I did not know I had ever said anything
so fine." "What would I not do or suffer to buy that ability?" wrote Emerson, after listening to a
facile extemporaneous speaker. But, then, as Emerson wisely adds, "To each his own." We may
readily grant that Quintillian's estimate is a true one. Undoubtedly extemporaneous speech is the
highest form of address. But let us beware before we adopt it as our own constant practice. The
heights to which this method lifts us may usually be very lofty, but the depths to which it
sometimes sinks us are well-nigh unfathomable; and too often the level on which we finally settle
is nearer to the second extreme than to the first. Dean Farrar is probably correct when he says, "It
is certain that not one man in a thousand has the requisite gifts to preach in this manner."
III. Some cautions and counsels will be in place here.
1. And first, I would urge the young preacher not to adopt the extemporaneous method under any
mistaken conception.

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(1) Without question it has the sanction of great names. But such preachers as Chrysostom and
Latimer and Whitefield and Spurgeon do not give us the measure of the ordinary ministry.
(2) Nor should we decide on this method because it is the easiest. There is a deep meaning in the
old phrase, "The duty and discipline of extemporary preaching," and Richard Baxter, among the
most conscientious of men, has left us his significant confession: "I use notes as much as any man
when I take pains, and as little as any man when I am lazy or busy and have no time to prepare."
"Never begin to preach without notes," says Dr. R. S. Storrs, "with any idea of saving yourselves
work by it; if you do, you will fail, and you will richly deserve to fail."
The danger of deterioration in the character of his work is greater in the case of the extemporaneous
speaker than in the case of any other. Unconsciously to himself he comes to limit his vocabulary
to certain words and phrases, and as the years go on he fails to maintain the high standard with
which he started. Perhaps unconsciously to himself, he accepts the lower level as the more
convenient. There is also great risk that he will fall into habits of exaggeration, and lavish his
superlatives on inferior subjects. Be on your guard, therefore, against fluent mediocrity. With yet
greater emphasis we would say, Beware of the moral deterioration which threatens the
extemporaneous speaker. Froude held that men of high sincerity seldom speak well, because they
are too careful about truth, and know "how difficult it is to adhere to it in rapid and excited
delivery." Avoid unmeaning expansion and the reckless use of words which neither add new ideas
nor emphasize those which have already been expressed. And if you resolve to speak
extemporaneously, see to it that the illustrations which you employ are fresh. Keep clear of the
stock anecdotes and stories which form the staple of ready-made collections, and of lines of poetry
which because they are good for all occasions are therefore not good for any.
2. In order to do full justice to the distinction between saying something and having something to
say, it will be necessary for the extemporaneous preacher to keep his mind well stored with facts
and to train it to accuracy in the expression of them. Mere readiness can never take the place of
these. "No man could ever speak extempore if everything he said was literally the fruit of the
moment." If Beecher devoted only a short time to the actual preparation of a discourse, it needs to
be remembered about him that he had a wonderfully accurate memory for facts, and that he lived
in the atmosphere of sermon making. Archbishop Magee's advice to a brother clergyman is much
to the point: "Master your subject, rule number one; master yourself, rule number two; put one
idea into your sermon, and as many thoughts as you can; and when you have worked that idea out
you ought to be able to give your sermon unaided. Unless you can, it is a bad sermon."
3. Constantly practice composition. Robert Hall, although prevented by his physical infirmity from
using his own pen very much, insists that a man will speak well in proportion as he has written
much. The reason for this is obvious. It is no easy matter to couple mental exactness to verbal
exactness. In the rush of unprepared speech it is hard to avoid over-statement or under-statement.
Always to choose the proper word, and to build it into the sentences in the proper place, is an
achievement which baffles even the practiced speaker. One of John Bright's most pathetic
passages—the peroration of his speech on the Crimean War—trembled at one moment on the
verge of bathos because the right word did not immediately occur to him. A keen observer who
frequently listened to Wendell Phillips testifies that with all that orator's wonderful command of

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good English, he never heard him make but one speech which was not marred by decided
grammatical blunders. "Nothing that I say in public," Spurgeon declared, "is fit to be printed as I
say it." In advising young preachers to learn how to speak without notes, Dr. R. S. Storrs is careful
to insist upon writing. "Only careful writing separates, signalizes, infixes the richer and remoter
words in the mind. We pass over them as we read. We seek them out with the pen."
4. Not satisfied with writing in order to enrich and fortify your vocabulary, you must, further, make
careful elocutionary preparation. Not the language which you use, but also the way in which you
use it should be considered. Words can no more be separated from speech in preaching than can
the shot be separated from the cannon in artillery. Study the carrying capacity of the vowels; the
effect of words as they are spoken; their majesty and melody; their power and pathos; their effect
in soothing or stimulating the mind. Whitefield, it is said, could do what he pleased with an
audience with the word "Mesopotamia"; and Robert Hall could never utter the word "tear" without
a disposition to weep, which was shared by his hearers.
5. Magee's insistence that the speaker must master himself, suggests that the speaker must
discipline himself in composure and self-possession. He must accustom himself to meet
interruption at all events with outward serenity. Erskine, the most popular advocate of his day,
broke down before indifference; and to the lawyer who was associated with him in one case he
exclaimed, "Who do you think can get on with that wet blanket of a face of yours before him?"
The preacher is happy indeed if his gaze never meets the lack-luster gaze, or the eye which is
closed. Let him reflect that the stolid features may conceal deeper feeling than he gives them credit
for, and that even though some member of his congregation sleep, perhaps he does well. A falling
handkerchief, a wandering fly, a fainting woman, or the baby, which is not infrequently brought
to the front seat by its proud mother, and is apt to cry at any moment, these are among the minor
annoyances against which the speaker needs to be proof. Only time and practice can train him to
be superior to them; and it must be confessed that in the case of many preachers even time and
practice fail to insure him invariable self-possession.
6. As a last point we advise the extemporaneous preacher to make the best possible use of his
preparation. Three ways of doing this may be mentioned.
(1) The first is to use no notes at all. In the dark lanes around Cambridge young Spurgeon practiced
his early sermons, on his way to the villages where he was to preach. "I do not mean that I ever
repeated a single sentence from memory, but I thought my lesson over while on my legs, and then
worked it into my very soul." The practice of many extemporaneous preachers seems to be
summed up in Doctor Hook's prescription, "To think about what you have to say, and then say it,
in as clear and vigorous a way as you can."
(2) A second plan is to prepare a brief, but not to carry it into the pulpit. The purpose which it
serves in this case is to impress on the mind and preserve in the memory the sequence of thought.
Doctor Storrs held this kind of preparation of so much importance that he says: "If needful I would
write the plan of the sermon over twenty times before preaching; not copying merely from one
piece of paper upon another, but writing it out carefully and fully, each time independently, till I
perfectly knew it; till it was fixed absolutely in the mind."

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(3) A third plan is not only to prepare a brief, but also to carry it into the pulpit for use. This was
the practice of F. W. Robertson, but he rarely used more written notes than could be penciled upon
a small slip of paper. Even this was speedily dispensed with. "Before ten minutes had gone by it
was crushed to uselessness in his grasp, for he knit his fingers together over it, as he knit his words
over his thoughts." By Bishop Wilberforce the brief was probably used as little. A brother prelate
relates that, on one occasion, after hearing the great orator describe the effect on the soul of the
clearing away of intellectual doubts, he begged to be allowed to see the passage in the manuscript.
"The bishop put the document into his hand, turned to the page which contained the passage
inquired after, and showed him a blank sheet of paper, inscribed with the single word "fog." He
preferred he said to carry this manuscript into the pulpit—it frequently lay on the desk before him
upside down—for the benefit of the younger clergy. "I am afraid of their beginning to preach
extempore before they are able to do so with advantage to their hearers." But it is safe to surmise
that there was another reason. The notes, however brief and however little used, gave him
confidence as he spoke. A famous Presbyterian preacher of the last generation , was accustomed
to write only a few hints for his sermon on a slip of paper which he invariably placed under the
thumb of his left hand. On one occasion, when the little brief slipped off and sailed away to the
floor of the middle aisle of the church where he was preaching, he maintained his self-possession,
"tore a small piece from a newspaper in his pocket, placed it under his thumb, and went on with
his discourse, gathering from it apparently the same inspiration." All men are not so happily
constituted, and the ordinary preacher who uses a brief or notes will do well to prepare his notes
with care; to write them in a clear and legible hand; to see that they are well placed on the open
Bible, and not to trust to a chance newspaper for deliverance in case of accident, lest all such
expedients prove vain, and his sermon resemble the blank sheet with the one ominous word in
Bishop Wilberforce's manuscript. He will do well too to keep himself from being the slave of any
habit which is a help only in seeming to furnish the appearance of it.
We may sum up as to the extemporaneous sermon by saying, that while it has been the method
used by some of the greatest of preachers—men who have possessed richness of thought, clearness
of intellectual perception, fervor and fullness of expression, and the natural and acquired graces of
the true orator—yet it is an exceedingly dangerous method for the majority of preachers, especially
for those, and their name is legion, who have more language than thought. Certainly, of all methods
of delivery it is the one which produces the most unequal results. To it belong the most triumphant
achievements of the pulpit, and also its most humiliating defeats.
The Making of the Sermon: For the Classroom and the Study.

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