HINTS ON EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING


Henry Ware, Jr.

Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care in Harvard
University.

Maximus vero studiourm fructus est, et velut praemium quoddam
amplissimum longi laboris, ex tempore dicendi facultas.
               QUINCT.
      

Third Edition

Boston

Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkins.

1831


James Loring, Printer


CONTENTS

Preface.                 .......     v.




CHAPTER I.
Advantages of Extemporaneous Preaching   .....   1


CHAPTER II.
Disadvantages--Objections considered             37



CHAPTER III.

Rules.                                        63.

PREFACE

     It is the object of this little work, to draw the attention
of those who are preparing for the Christian ministry, or who
have just entered it, to a mode of preaching which the writer
thinks has been too much discountenanced and despised; but which,
under proper restrictions, he is persuaded may add greatly to the
opportunities of ministerial usefulness.  The subject has hardly
received the attention it deserves from writers on the pastoral
office, who have usually devoted to it but a few sentences, which
offer little encouragement and afford no aid.  Burnet, in his
Treatise on the Pastoral Care, and Fenelon in his Dialogues on
Eloquence, have treated it more at large, but still very
cursorily.  To their arguments and their authority, which are of
great weight, I refer the more distinctly here, because I have
not quoted them so much at large as I intended when I wrote the
beginning of the second chapter.  Besides these, the remarks of
Quinctilian, x. 7. on the subject of speaking extempore, which
are full of his usual good sense, may be very profitably
consulted.

It has been my object to state fully and fairly the advantages
which attend this mode of address in the pulpit, and at the same
time to guard against the dangers and abuses to which it is
confessedly liable.  How far I may have succeeded, it is not for
me to determine.  It would be something to persuade but one to
add this to his other talents for doing good in the church.  Even
the attempt to do it, though unsuccessful, would not be without
its reward: since it could not be fairly made without a most
salutary moral and intellectual discipline.

     It is not to be expected -- nor do I mean by any thing I
have said to intimate -- that every man is capable of becoming an
accomplished preacher in this mode, or that every one may succeed
as well in this as in the ordinary mode.  There is a variety in
the talents of men, and to some this may be peculiarly unsuited. 
Yet this is not good reason why any should decline the attempt,
since it is only by making the attempt that they can determine
whether or not success is within their power.

     There is at least one consequence likely to result from the
study of this art and the attempt to practice it, which would
alone be a sufficient reason for urging it earnestly.  I mean,
its probable effect in breaking up the constrained, formal,
scholastic mode of address, which follows the student from is
college duties, and keeps him form immediate contact with the
hearts of his fellow men.  This would be effected by his learning
to speak from his feelings, rather than from the critical rules
of a book.  His address would be more natural, and consequently
better adapted to effective preaching.

Boston, January, 1824.

     To this third edition have been added several notes, and a
few paragraphs in the third chapter.
                                  Cambridge, November, 1830. 

HINTS ON EXTEMPORANEOUS PREACHING

CHAPTER I.

     It is a little remarkable that, while some classes of
christians do not tolerate the preaching of a written discourse,
others have an equal prejudice against all sermons which have not
been carefully precomposed.  Among the latter are to be found
those who favor an educated ministry, and whose preachers are
valued for their cultivated minds and extensive knowledge.  The
former are, for the most part, those who disparage learning as a
qualification for a christian teacher, and whose ministers are
consequently not accustomed to exact mental discipline, nor
familiar with the best models of thinking and writing.  It might
seem at first view, that the least cultivated would require the
greatest previous
preparation in order profitably to address their fellow-men, and
that the best informed and most accustomed to study might be best
trusted to speak without the labour of written composition.  That
it has been thought otherwise, is probably owing, in a great
measure, to the solicitude for literary exactness and elegance of
style, which becomes a habit in the taste of studious men, and
renders all inaccuracy and carelessness offensive.  He who has
been accustomed to read and admire the finest models of
composition in various languages, and to dwell on those niceties
of method and expression which form so large a part of the charm
of literary works; acquires a critical delicacy of taste, which
renders him fastidiously sensitive to those crudities and
roughnesses of speech, which almost necessarily attend an
extemporaneous style. He is apt to exaggerate their importance,
and to imagine that no excellences of another kind can atone for
them.  He therefore protects himself by the toil of previous
composition, and ventures not a scene which he has not leisurely
weighted and measured.  An audience also, composed of reading
people, or accustomed to the exactness of written composition in
the pulpit, acquires something of the same taste, and is easily
offended at the occasional homeliness of diction and looseness of
method, which occur in extemporaneous speaking.  Whereas those
preachers and hearers, whose education and habits of mind have
been different, know nothing of this taste, and are insensible to
these blemishes; and, if there be only a fluent outpouring of
words, accompanied by a manner which evinces earnestness and
sincerity, are pleased and satisfied.

     It is further remarkable, that this prejudice of taste has
been suffered to produce this effect in no profession but that of
the ministry.  The most fastidious taste never carries a written
speech to the bar or into the senate.  The very man who dares not
ascend the pulpit without a sermon diligently arranged, and
filled out to the smallest word, if he had gone into the
profession of the law, would, at the same age and with no greater
advantages, address the bench and the jury in language altogether
unpremeditated.  Instances are not wanting in which the minister,
who imagined it impossible to put ten sentence together in the
pulpit, has found himself able, on changing his profession, to
speak fluently for an hour.
  
     I have no doubt  that to speak extempore is easier at the
bar and in the legislature, than in the pulpit.  Our associations
with this place are of so sacred a character, that our faculties
do not readily play there with their accustomed freedom.  There
is an awe upon our feelings which constrains us. A sense, too, of
the importance and responsibility of the station, and of the
momentous consequences depending on the influence he may there
exert, has a tendency to oppress and embarrass the conscientious
man, who feels it as he ought.  There is also, in the other
cases, an immediate end to be attained, which produces a powerful
immediate excitement; an excitement, increased by the presence of
those who are speaking on the opposite side of the question, and
in assailing or answering whom, the embarrassment of the place is
lost in the interest of the argument.  Whereas in the pulpit,
there is not to assault, and none to refute; the preacher has the
filed entirely to himself, and this is sufficiently dismaying. 
The ardor and self-oblivion which present debate occasions, do
not exist; and the solemn stillness and fixed gaze of a waiting
multitude, serve rather to appall and abash the solitary speaker,
than to bring the subject forcibly to his mind, or cause his
attention to be absorbed in it.  Thus every external circumstance
is unpropitious, and it is not strange that relief has been
sought in the use of manuscripts.
 
     But still, these difficulties, and others which I shall have
occasion to mention in another place, are by no means such as to
raise that insuperable obstacle which many suppose.  They may all
be overcome by resolution and perseverance.  As regards merely
the use of unpremeditated language, it is far from being a
difficult attainment.  A writer, whose opportunities of
observation give weight to his opinion, says, in speaking of the
style of the young Pitt -- "This profuse and interminable flow of
words is not in itself either a rare or remarkable endowment.  It
is wholly a thing of habit; and is exercised by every village
lawyer with various degrees of power and grace." (Europe; &c. by
a Citizen of the United States.) If there be circumstances which
render the habit more difficult to be acquired by the preacher,
they are still such as may be surmounted; and it may be made
plain, I think, that the advantages which he may thus ensure to
himself are so many and so great, as to offer the strongest
inducement to make the attempt.

     That these advantages are real and substantial, may be
safely inferred from the habit of public orators in other
professions, and from the effects which the are known to produce. 
There is more natural warmth in the declamation, more earnestness
in the address, greater animation in the manner, more of the
lighting up of the countenance and whole mien, more freedom and
meaning in the gesture; the eye speaks, and the fingers speak,
and when the orator is so excited as to forget every thing but
the matter on which his mind and feelings are acting, the whole
body is affected, and helps to propagate his emotions to the
hearer.  Amidst all the exaggerated colouring of Patrick Henry's
biographer, there is doubtless enough that is true, to prove a
power in the spontaneous energy of an excited speaker, superior
in its effects to any thing that can be produced by writing. 
Something of the same sort has been witnessed by every one who is
in the habit of attending in the courts of justice, or the
chambers of legislation.  And this, not only in the instances of
the most highly eloquent; but inferior men are found thus to
excite attention and produce effects, which they never could have
done by their pens.  In deliberative assemblies, in senates and
parliaments, the larger portion of the speaking is necessarily
unpremeditated; perhaps the most eloquent is always so; for it is
elicited by the growing heat of debate; it is the spontaneous
combustion of the mind in the conflict of opinion.  Chatham's
speeches were not written, nor those of Fox, nor that of Ames on
the British treaty.  They were, so far as regard their language
and ornaments, the effusions of the moment, and derived from
their freshness a power, which no study could impart.  among the
orations of Cicero, which are said to have made the greatest
impression, and to have best accomplished the orator's design,
are those delivered on unexpected emergencies, which precluded
the possibility of previous preparation.  Such were his first
invective against Catiline, and the speech which stilled the
disturbances at the theatre.  In all these cases, there can be no
question of the advantage which the orators enjoyed in their
ability to make use of the excitement of the occasion, unchilled
by the formality of studied preparation.  Although possibly
guilty of many rhetorical and logical faults, yet these would be
unobserved in the fervent and impassioned torrent, which bore
away the minds of the delighted auditors.

     It is doubtless very true, that a man of study and
reflection, accustomed deliberately to weigh every expression and
analyze every sentence, and to be influenced by nothing which
does not bear the test of the severest examination, may be most
impressed by the quiet, unpretending reading of a well digested
essay or
dissertation.  To some men the concisest statement of a subject,
with nothing to adorn the naked skeleton of thought, is most
forcible.  They are even impatient of any attempt to assist its
effect by fine writing, by emphasis, tone, or gesture.  They are
like the mathematician, who read the Paradise Lost without
pleasure, because he could not see that it proved any thing.  But
we are not to judge from the taste of such men, of what is
suitable to affect the majority.  The multitude are not mere
thinkers or great readers.  From their necessary habits they are
incapable of following a long discussion except it be made
inviting by the circumstances attending it, or the manner of
conducting it.  Their attention must be roused and maintained by
some external application. To them, 
          Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant       
          More learned than their ears.

     It is a great fault with intellectual men, that they do not
make sufficient allowance for the different modes of education
and habits in men of other pursuits.  It is one of the
infelicities of education at a university, that a man is there
trained in a fictitious scene, where there are interests,
associations, feelings, exceedingly diverse from what prevail in
the society of the world; and where he becomes so far separated
from the habits and sympathies of other men, as to need to
acquire a new knowledge of them, before he knows how to address
them.  When a young man leaves the seclusion of a student's life
to preach to his fellow-man, he is likely to speak to them as if
they were scholars.  He imagines them to be capable of
appreciating the niceties of method and style, and of being
affected by the same sort of sentiment, illustration, and cool
remark, which affect those who have been accustomed to be guided
by the dumb and lifeless pages of a book.  He therefore talks to
them calmly, is more anxious for correctness than impression,
fears to make more noise or to have more motion than the very
letters on his manuscript; addressing himself, as he thinks, to
the intellectual part of man; but he forgets that the
intellectual man is not very easy of access, and must be
approached through the sense and affections and
imagination.

     There was a class of rhetoricians and orators at Rome in the
time of Cicero, who were famous for having made the same mistake. 
They would do every thing by a fixed and almost mechanical rule,
by calculation and measurement.  Their sentences were measured,
their gestures were measured, their tones were measured; and they
framed canons of judgment and taste, by which it was pronounced
an affront on the intellectual nature of man to assail him with
epithets, and exclamations, and varied tones, and emphatic
gesture.  They censured the free and flowing manner of Cicero as
"tumid and exuberant," inflatus et tumens, nec satis pressus,
supra modum exultans et superfluens. (Tac. de Oratoribus Dial. c.
18.)  They cultivated a more guarded and concise style, which
might indeed please the critic or the scholar, but was wholly
unfitted to instruct or move a promiscuous audience; as we said
of one of them, oratio -- doctis et attente audientibus erat
illustris; a
multitudine autme et a foro, cui nata eloqentia est, devorabatur. 
The taste of the multitude prevailed, and Cicero was the
admiration of the people, while those who pruned themselves by a
more rigid and philosophical law,
        'Coldly correct and critically dull,'
"were frequently deserted by the audience in the midst of their
harangues." (Middleton's Life of Cicero, III.324.)

     We may learn something from this.  There is one mode of
address for books and for classical readers, and another for the
mass of men, who judge by the eye and ear, by the fancy and
feelings, and know little of rules of art or of an educated
taste.  Hence it is that many of those preachers who have become
the classics of a country, have been unattractive to the
multitude, who have deserted their polished and careful
composition, for the more unrestrained and rousing declamation of
another class.  The singular success of Chalmers seems to be in a
considerable measure owing to his attention to this fact.  He has
abandoned the pure and measured style, and adopted a
heterogeneous mixture of the gaudy, pompous, and colloquial,
offensive to the ears of literary men, but highly acceptable to
those who are less biassed by the authority of a standard taste
and established models.  We need not go to the extreme of
Chalmers -- for there is no necessity for inaccuracy, bombast, or
false taste -- but we should doubtless gain by adopting his
principle.  The object is to address men according to their
actual character, and in that mode in which their habits of mind
may render them most accessible.  As but few thinkers or readers,
a congregation is not to be addressed as such; but, their modes
of life being remembered, constant regard must be had to their
need of external attraction.  This is most easily done by the
familiarity and directness of extemporaneous address; for which
reason this mode of preaching has peculiar advantages, in its
adaption to their situation and wants.

     The truth is, indeed, that it is not the weight of the
thought, the profoundness of the argument, the exactness of the
arrangement, the choiceness of the language, which interest and
chain the attention of even those educated hearers, who are able
to appreciate them all.  They are as likely to sleep through the
whole as others.  They can find all these qualities in much
higher perfection in their libraries; they do not seek these only
at church.  And as to the large mass of the people, they are to
them hidden things, of which they discern nothing.  It is not
these, so much as the attraction of an earnest manner, which
arrests the attention and makes instruction welcome.  Every day's
observation may show us, that he who has this manner will retain
the attention of even an intellectual man with common-place
thought, while, with a different manner, he would render tedious
the most novel and ingenious disquisitions.  Let an indifferent
reader take into the pulpit a sermon of Barrow of Butler, and all
its excellence of argument and eloquence would not save it from
being accounted tedious; while an empty declaimer shall collect
crowds to hang upon his lips in raptures.  And this manner, which
is so attractive, is not the studied artificial enunciation of
the rhetorician's school, but the free, flowing, animated
utterance, which seems to come from the impulse of the subject;
which may be full of faults, yet masters the attention by its
nature and sincerity. This is precisely the manner of the
extemporaneous speaker -- in whom the countenance reflects the
emotions of the soul, and the tone of voice is tuned to the
feelings of the heart, rising and falling with the subject, as in
conversation, without the regular and harmonious modulation of
the practiced reader.

     In making these and similar remarks, it is true that I ma
thinking of the best extemporaneous speakers, and that all cannot
be such.  But it ought to be recollected at the same time, that
all cannot be excellent readers; that those who speak ill, would
probably read still worse; and that therefore those who can
attain to no eminence as speakers, do not on that account fail of
the advantages of which I speak, since they escape at least the
unnatural monotony of bad reading; than which nothing is more
earnestly to be avoided.

     Every man utters himself with greater animation and truer
emphasis in speaking, than he does, or perhaps can do, in
reading.  Hence it happens that we can listen longer to a
tolerable speaker, than to a good reader.  There is an
indescribable something in the natural tones of him who is
expressing earnestly his present thought, altogether foreign from
the drowsy uniformity of the man that reads.  I once heard it
well observed, that the least animated mode of communicating
thoughts to others, is the reading from a book the composition of
another; the next in order is the reading one's own composition;
the next is delivering one's own composition memoriter; and the
most animated of all is the uttering one's own thoughts as they
rise fresh in his mind.  Very few can give the spirit to
another's writings which they communicate to their own, or can
read their own with the spirit, with which they
spontaneously express themselves.  We have all witnessed this in
conversation; when we have listened with interest to long
harangues for persons, who tires us at once if they being to
read.  It is verified at the bar and in the legislature, where
orators maintain the unflagging attention of hearers for a long
period, when they could not have read the same speech without
producing intolerable fatigue.  It is equally verified in the
history of the pulpit; for those who are accustomed tot eh
reading of sermons, are for the most part impatient even of able
discourses, when they extend beyond the half hour's length; while
very indifferent extemporaneous preachers are listened to with
unabated attention for a full hour.  In the former case there is
a certain uniformity of tone, and a perpetual recurrence of the
same cadences, in separable from the manner of a reader, from
which the speaker remains longer free.  This difference is
perfectly well understood, and was acted upon by Cecil, whose
success as a preacher gives him a right to be heard, when he
advised young preachers to "limit a written sermon to half an
hour, and one from notes to forty minutes." (Cecil's remains - a
delightful little book.)  For the same reason, those preachers
whose reading comes nearest to speaking, are universally more
interesting than others.

     Thus it is evident that there is an attractiveness in this
mode of preaching, which gives it peculiar advantages.  He
imparts greater interest to what he says, who is governed by the
impulse of the moment, than he who speaks by rule.  When he feels
the subject, his voice and gesture correspond to that feeling,
and communicate it to others as it can be done in no other way. 
Though he possess but indifferent talents, yet if he utter
himself with sincerity and feeling, it is far pleasanter than to
listen to his cold reading of what he wrote perhaps with little
excitement, and delivers with less.

     In thus speaking of the interest which attends an
extemporaneous delivery, it is not necessary to pursue the
subject into a general comparison of the advantages of this mode
with those of reading and of reciting from memory.  Each has
prevailed in different places and at different periods, and each
undoubtedly has advantages and disadvantages peculiar to itself. 
These are well though briefly stated in the excellent article on
Elocution in Rees' Cyclopaedia, to which it will be sufficient to
refer, as worthy attentive perusal. (See also Bridge's "Christian
Ministry," Part iv. Ch. 5, Sec. 2 - a work first published in
1829.)  The question at large I cannot undertake to discuss.  If
I should, I could hardly hope to satisfy either others or myself. 
The almost universal custom of reading in this part of the world,
where recitation from memory is scarcely known, and
extemporaneous speaking is practiced by very few except the
illiterate, forbids any thing like a fair deduction from
observation.  In order to institute a just comparison, one should
have had extensive opportunities of watching the success of each
mode, and of knowing the circumstances under which each was
tried.  For in the inquiry, which is to be preferred in the
pulpit, -- we must consider, not which has most excellences when
it is found in perfection, but which has excellences attainable
by the largest number of preachers; not which is first in theory
or most beautiful as an art, but which has been and is likely to
be most successful in practice.  These are questions not easily
answered.  Each mode has its advocates and its opponents.  In the
English church there is nothing but reading, and we hear from
every quarter complaints of it.  In Scotland the custom of
recitation prevails, but multitudes besides Dr. Campbell (See his
fourth Lecture on Pulpit Eloquence.) condemn it.  In many parts
of the continent of Europe no method is known, but that of a
brief preparation and unpremeditated language; but that it should
be universally approved by those who use it, is more than we can
suppose.

     The truth is, that either method may fail in the hands of
incompetent or indolent men, and either may be thought to succeed
by those whose taste or prejudices are obstinate in its favor. 
All that I contend for, in advocating unwritten discourse, is,
that this method claims a decided superiority over the others in
some of the most important particulars.  That the others have
their own advantages, I do not deny, nor that this is subject to
disadvantages from which they are free.  But whatever these may
be, I hope to show that they are susceptible of a remedy; that
they re not greater than those which attend other modes; that
they are balanced by equal advantages; and that therefore this
art deserves to be cultivated by all who would do their utmost to
render their ministry useful.  There can be no good reason why
the preacher should confine himself to either mode.  It might be
most beneficial to cultivate and practise all.  By this means he
might impart something of the advantages of each to each, and
correct the faults of all by mingling them with the excellencies
of all.  He would learn to read with more of the natural accent
of the speaker, and to speak with more of the precision of the
writer.

     The remarks already made have been designed to point out
some of the general advantages attending the use of unprepared
language.  Some others remain to be noticed, which have more
particular reference to the preacher individually. 

     It is no unimportant consideration to a minister of the
gospel, that this is a talent held in high estimation among men,
and that it gives additional influence to him who possesses it. 
It is thought to argue capacity and greatness of mind.  Fluency
of language passes with many, and those not always the vulgar,
for affluence of thought; and never to be at a loss for something
to say, is supposed to indicate inexhaustible knowledge.  It
cannot have escaped the observation of any one accustomed to
notice the judgments which are passed up[on men, how much
reputation and consequent influence are acquired by the power of
speaking readily and boldly, without any other considerable
talent, and with very indifferent acquisitions; and how a man of
real talents, learning, and worth, has frequently sunk below his
proper level, form a mere awkwardness and embarrassment in
speaking without preparation.  So that it is not simply
superstition which leads so many to refuse the name of preaching
to all but extemporaneous harangues; it is in part owing to the
natural propensity there is to admire, as something wonderful and
extraordinary, this facility of speech.  It is undoubtedly a very
erroneous standard of judgment.  But a minister of the gospel,
whose success in his important calling depends so much on his
personal influence, and the estimation in which his gifts are
held, can hardly be justified in slighting the cultivation of a
talent, which may so innocently add to his means of influence. 

     It must be remembered also, that occasions will sometimes
occur, when the want of this power may expose him to
mortification, and deprive him of an opportunity of usefulness. 
For such
emergencies one would choose to be prepared.  It may be of
consequence that the should express his opinion in an
ecclesiastical council, and give reasons for the adoption or
rejection of important measures.  Possibly he may be only
required to state facts, which have come to his knowledge.  it is
very desirable to be able to do this readily, fluently, without
embarrassment to himself, and pleasantly to those who hear;  and
in order to this, a habit of speaking is necessary.  In the
course of his ministrations amongst his own people, occasions
will rise when an exhortation or address would be seasonable and
useful, but when There is not time for written preparation.  If
then he have cultivated the art of extemporaneous speaking, and
attained to any degree of facility and confidence in it, he may
avail himself of the opportunity to do good, which he must
otherwise have passed by unimproved.  Funerals and baptism afford
suitable occasions of making good religious impressions.  A
sudden providence, also, on the very day of the sabbath, may
suggest most valuable topics of reflection and exhortation, lost
to him who is confined to what he may have previously written,
but choice treasure to him who can venture to speak without
writing.  If it were only to avail himself of a few opportunities
like these in the course of life, or to save himself but once the
mortification of being silent when he ought to speak, is expected
to speak, and would do good speaking, it would be well worth all
the time and pains it might cost to acquire it.

     It is a further advantage, not to be forgotten here, that
the excitement of speaking in public strikes out new views of a
subject, new illustrations, and unthought of figures and
arguments, which perhaps never would have presented themselves to
the mind in retirement.  "The warmth which animates him," says
Fenelon, "gives birth to expressions and figures, which he never
could have prepared in his study."  He who feels himself safe in
flying off for the path he has prescribed to himself, without any
fear lest he should fail to find his way back, will readily seize
upon these, and be astonished at the new light which breaks in
upon him as he goes on, and flashes all around him.  This is
according to the experience of all extemporaneous speakers.  "The
degree in which," says Thomas Scott (Life, p.268.), who practised
this method constantly, "after the most careful preparation for
the pulpit, new thoughts, new arguments, animated addresses,
often flow into my mind, while speaking to a congregation, even
on very common subjects, makes me feel as if I was quite another
man than when poring over them in my study.  There will be
inaccuracies; but generally the most striking things in my
sermons were unpremeditated."

     Then again, the presence of the audience gives  a greater
seeming reality to the work; it is less like doing a task, and
more like speaking to men, than when one sits coolly writing at
his table.  Consequently there is likely to be greater plainness
and directness in his exhortations, more closeness in his
appeals, more of the earnestness of genuine feeling in his
expostulations.  He ventures, in the warmth of the moment, to
urge considerations, which perhaps in the study seemed too
familiar, and to employ modes of address, which are allowable in
personal communion with a friend, but which one hesitates to
commit to writing, lest he should infringe the dignity of
deliberate composition.  This forgetfulness of self, this
unconstrained following the impulse of the affections, while he
is hurried on by the presence and attention of those whom he
hopes to benefit, creates a sympathy between him and his hearers,
a direct passage from heart to heart, a mutual understanding of
each other, which does more to effect the true object of
religious discourse, than any thing else can do.  The preacher
will, in this way, have the boldness to say many things which
ought [25] to be said, but about which, in his study, he would
feel reluctant and timid.  And granting that he might be led to
say some things improperly, yet if his mind be well disciplined
and well governed, and his discretion habitual, he will do it
exceedingly seldom; while no one, who estimates the object of
preaching as highly as he should, will think an occasional false
step any objection against that mode, which ensures upon the
whole the greatest boldness and earnestness.  He will think it a
less fault than the tameness and abstractness, which are the
besetting sins of deliberate composition.  At any rate, what
method is secure from occasional false steps?

     Another consideration which recommends this method to the
attention of preachers, though at the same time it indicates one
of its difficulties, is this; that all men, from various causes,
constitutional or accidental, are subject to great inequality in
the operations of their minds -- sometimes laboring with felicity
and sometimes failing.  Perhaps this fact is in no men so
observable as in preachers, because no others are so much
compelled to labor, and exhibit their labors, at all seasons,
favorable and unfavorable.  There is [26] a certain quantity of
the severest mental toil to be performed every week; and as the
mind cannot be always in the same frame, they are constantly
presenting proofs of the variation of their powers.  An
extemporaneous speaker is of course exposed to all this
inequality, and must expect to be sometimes mortified by ill
success.  When the moment of speaking arrives, his mind may be
slow and dull, his thoughts sluggish and impeded; he may be
exhausted by labor, or suffering from temporary indisposition. 
He strives in vain to rally his powers, and forces his way, with
thorough discomfort and chagrin, to the end of an unprofitable
talk.  But then how many men write under the same embarrassments,
and are equally dissatisfied; with the additional mortification
of having spent a longer time, and of being unable to give their
poor preparation the interest of a forcible manner, which the
very distress of an extemporaneous effort would have imparted.

     But on the other hand, when his mind is bright and clear,
and his animal spirits lively, he will speak much better after
merely a suitable premeditation, than he can possibly write. 
"Every man," says Bishop [27] Burnet, "may thus rise far above
what he could ever have attained in any other way."  We see proof
of this in conversation.  When engaged in unrestrained and
animated conversation with familiar friends, who is not conscious
of having struck out brighter thoughts and happier sayings, than
he ever put upon paper in the deliberate composition of the
closet?  It is a common remark concerning many men, that they
pray much better than they preach.  The reason is, that their
sermons are made leisurely and sluggishly, without excitement;
but in their public devotions they are strongly engaged, and the
mind acts with more concentration and vivacity.  The same thing
has been observed in the art of music. "There have been
organists, whose abilities in unstudied effusions on their
instruments have almost amounted to inspiration, such as
Sebastion Bach, Handel, Marehand, Couperin, Kelway, Stanley,
Worgan, and Keeble; several of whom played better music extempore
than they could write with meditation." (Rees' Cyclopaedia.)

     It is upon no different principle that we explain, what all
scholars have experienced, that they write best when they write
[27] rapidly, from a full and excited mind.  One of Roscommon's
precepts is, "to write with fury and correct with phlegm."  The
author of Waverly tells us, "that the works and passages in which
he has succeeded, have uniformly been written with the greatest
rapidity."  The same author is understood to have said, that of
his principal poems, only one, the "Lady of the Lake," was
written over a second time, and that this was completed in six
weeks.  Johnson's best Ramblers and his admirable  Rasselas were
hurried wet and uncorrected to the press. The celebrated
Rockingham Memorial at the commencement of the late war, is said
to have been the hasty composition of a single evening.  And it
will be found true, I believe, of many of the best sermon
writers, that they revolve the subject till their minds are
filled and warmed, and then put their discourse upon paper at a
single sitting.  Now what is all this but extemporaneous writing?
and what does it require but a mind equally collected and at
ease, equally disciplined by practice, and interested in the
subject, to ensure equal success in extemporaneous speaking? 
Nay, we might anticipate occasional superior [29] success; since
the thoughts sometimes flow, when at the highest and most
passionate excitement, too rapidly and profusely for any thing
slower than the tongue to afford them vent.

     There is one more consideration in favour of the practice I
recommended, which I think cannot fail to have weight with all
who are solicitous to make progress in theological knowledge;
namely, that it redeems time for study.  The labor of preparing
and committing to paper a sermon or two every week, is one which
necessarily occupies the principal part of a minister's time and
thoughts, and withdraws him from the investigation of many
subjects, which, if his mind were more at leisure, it would be
his duty and pleasure to pursue.  He who writes sermons, is ready
to consider this as the chief object, or perhaps the sole
business of his calling.  When not actually engaged in writing,
yet the necessity of doing it presses upon his mind, and so binds
him as to make him feel as if he were wrong in being employed on
any thing else.  I speak of the tendency, which certainly is to
prevent a man from pursuing, very extensively, any profitable
study.  But if he have acquired that ready [30] command of
thought and language, which will enable him to speak without
written preparation, the time and toil of writing are saved, to
be devoted to a different mode of study.  He may prepare his
discourses at intervals of leisure, while walking or riding; and
having once arranged the outlines of the subject, and ascertained
its principal bearings and applications, the work of preparation
is over.  The language remains to be suggested at the moment.

     I do not mean by this, that preparation for the pulpit
should ever be made slightly, or esteemed an object of small
importance.  It doubtless demands, and should receive, the best
of a man's talents and labors. What I contend for is, that a
habit of mind may be acquired, which shall enable one to make a
better and more thorough preparation at less expense of labor and
time.  He may acquire, by discipline, that ease and promptitude
of looking into subjects and bringing out their prominent
features, which shall enable him at a glance, as it were, to
seize the points on which he should enlarge. (I would here refer
the student to Whately's valuable work, ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC,
which has appeared since the first publication of this treatise.
"A perfect familiarity," he says, "with the rules laid down in
the first part of his work, would be likely to give the
extemporaneous orator that habit of quickly methodizing his
thoughts on a given subject, which is essential (at least when no
very long premeditation is allowed) to give to a Speech something
of the weight of argument and clearness of arrangement, which
characterize good writing.")  Some minds [31] are so constituted
as "to look a subject into shape" much more readily than others. 
But the power of doing it is in a great measure mechanical, and
depends upon habit.  All may acquire it to a certain extent. 
When the mind works with most concentration, it works at once
most quickly and most surely.  Now the act of speaking extempore
favors this concentration of the powers, more than the slower
process of leisurely writing -- perhaps more than any other
operation; consequently, it increases, with practice, the
facility of dissecting subjects, and of arranging materials for
preaching.  In other words, the completeness with which a subject
is viewed and its parts arranged, does not depend so much on the
time spent upon it, as on the vigor with which the attention is
applied to it.  That course of study is the best, which most
favors its vigor of attention; and the habit of extemporaneous
speaking is more than any thing favorable to it, from the
necessity which it imposes [32] of applying the mind with energy,
and thinking promptly. 

     The great danger in this case would be, that of substituting
an easy flow of words for good sense and sober reflection, and
becoming satisfied with very superficial thoughts.  But this
danger is guarded against by the habit of study, and of writing
for other purposes.  If a man should neglect all mental exertion,
except so far as would be required in the mediation of a sermon,
it would be ruinous.  We witness its disastrous effects in the
empty wordiness of many extemporaneous preachers.  It is wrong,
however, to ague against the practice itself,f from their
example; for all other modes would be equally condemned, if
judged by the ill success of indolent and unfaithful men.  The
minister must keep himself occupied, -- reading, thinking,
investigating; thus having his mind always awake and active. 
This is a far better preparation than the are writing of sermons,
for it exercise the powers more, and keeps them bright.  The
great master of Roman eloquence thought it essential to the true
orator, that he should be familiar with all sciences, and have
his mind filled with very variety of [33] knowledge.  He
therefore, much as he studied his favorite art, yet occupied more
time in literature, philosophy, and politics, than in the
composition of his speeches.  His preparation was less particular
than general.  So it has been with other eminent speakers.  When
Sir Samuel Romilly was in full practice in the High Court of
Chancery, and at the same time overwhelmed with the pressure of
public political concerns; his custom was to enter the court, to
receive there the history of the cause he was to plead, thus to
acquaint himself with the circumstances for the first time, and
forthwith proceed to argue it.  His general preparation and long
practice enabled him to do this, without failing in justice to
his cause.  I do not know that in this he was singular.  The same
sort of preparation would ensure success in the pulpit.  He who
is always thinking, may extend upon each individual effort less
time, because he can think at once fast and well.  But he who
never thinks, except when attempting to manufacture a sermon (and
it is to be feared there are such men,) must devote a great deal
of time to this labor exclusively; and after all, he will not
have that wide range of [34] thought or copiousness of
illustration, which his office demands and which study only can
give.

     In fact, what I have here insisted upon, is exemplified in
the case of the extemporaneous writers, whom I have already
named.  I would only carry their practice a step further, and
devote an hour to discourse instead of a day.  Not to all
discourses, for some ought to be written for the sake of writing,
and some demand a sort of investigation, to which he use of the
pen is essential.  But then a very large proportion of the topics
on which a minister should preach, have been subject of his
attention a thousand times.  He is thoroughly familiar with them;
and an hour to arrange his ideas and collect illustration, is
abundantly sufficient.  The late Thomas Scott is said for years
to have prepared his discourses entirely by meditation on the
Sunday, and thus to have gained leisure for his extensive
studies, and great and various labours.  This is an extreme on
which few have a right to venture, and which should be
recommended to none.  It shows, however, the power of habit, and
the ability of a mind to act promptly and effectually, which is
[35] kept upon the alert by constant occupation.  He who is
always engaged in thinking and studying, will always have
thoughts enough for a sermon, and good ones too, which will come
at an hour's warning.

     The objections which may be made to the practice I have
sought to recommend, I must leave to be considered in another
place.  I am desirous, in concluding this chapter, to add the
favorable testimony of a writer, who expressly disapproves the
practice in general, but who allows its excellence when
accompanied by that preparation which I would every where imply.

     "You are accustomed," says Dinouart, (Sur l'Eloquence du
Corps, ou l'Action du Predicateur.) "to the careful study and
imitation of nature.  You have used yourself to writing and
speaking with care on different subjects, and have well stored
your memory by reading.  You thus have provided resources for
speaking, which are always at hand.  The best authors and the
best thoughts are familiar to you; you can readily quote the
scriptures, you express yourself easily and gracefully, you have
a sound and correct judgment on which you can depend, method and
precision in the [36] arrangements of proofs; you can readily
connect each part by natural transitions, and are able to say all
that belongs, and precisely what belongs to the subject.  You may
then take only a day, or only an hour, to reflect on your
subject, to arrange your topics, to consult your memory, to
choose and to prepare your illustrations, -- and then, appear un
public.  I am perfectly willing that you should.  The common
expressions which go to make up the body of the discourse, will
present themselves spontaneously. Your periods, perhaps, will be
less harmonious, your transitions less ingenious, an ill placed
word will sometimes escape you; but all this is pardonable.  The
animation of your delivery will compensate for these blemishes,
and you will be master of your own feelings, and those of your
hearers.  There will, perhaps, be apparent throughout a certain
disorder, but it will not prevent you pleasing and affecting me;
your action as will as your words will appear to me the more
natural."

[37]
                           CHAPTER II.

     Against what has been advanced in the preceding pages, many
objections will be urged, and the evils of the practice I
recommend be declared more than sufficient to counterbalance its
advantages.  Of these it is necessary that I should now take
notice, and obviate them as well I may.

     It should be first of all remarked, that the force of the
objections commonly made, lies against the exclusive use of
extemporaneous preaching, and not against its partial and
occasional use.  It is of consequence that this should be
considered.  There can be no doubt, that he would preach very
wretchedly, who should always be haranguing without the
corrective discipline of writing.  The habit of writing is
essential.  Many of the objections which are currently made to
this mode of address, fall to the ground when this statement is
made.

     Other objections have been founded on the idea, that by
extemporaneous is [ 38] meant, unpremeditated.  Whereas there is
a plain and important distinction between them, the latter word
being applied to the thoughts, and the former to the language
only. To preach without premeditation, is altogether
unjustifiable; although there is no doubt that a man of habitual
readiness of mind, may express himself to great advantage on a
subject with which he is familiar, after very little meditation.

     Many writers on the art of preaching, as well as on
eloquence in general, have given a decided judgment unfavorable
to extemporaneous speaking.  There can be no fairer way of
answering their objections, than by examining what they have
advanced, and opposing their authority by that of equal names on
the other side.

     Gerard, in his Treatise on the Pastoral Charge, has the
following passage on this subject.

     "He will run into trite, common-place topics; his
compositions will be loose and unconnected; his language often
coarse and confused; and diffidence, or care to recollect his
subject, will destroy the management of his voice."  At the same
time, however, he admits that "it is very [39] proper that a man
should be able to preach in this way, when it is necessary; --but
no man ought always to preach in this way."  To which
decision I have certainly nothing to object.

     Mason, in his Student and Pastor, says to the same effect,
that "the inaccuracy of diction, the inelegance, poverty, and
lowness of expression, which is commonly observed in extempore
discourses, will not fail to offend every hearer of good taste."

     Dinourat, who is an advocate for recitation from memory,
says that "experience decides against extemporaneous preaching,
though there are exceptions; but these  are very few; and we must
not be led astray by the success of a few first rate orators."

     Hume, in his Essay upon Eloquence, expresses an opinion that
the modern deficiency in this are is to be attributed to "that
extreme affectation of extempore speaking, which has led to
extreme carelessness of method."  
     
     The writer of an article, on the Greek Orators, in the
Edinburgh Review, (No.LXXI,p.82.) observes, that "among the
sources of the [40] corruption of modern eloquence, may clearly
be distinguished as the most fruitful, the habit of extempore
speaking, acquired rapidly by persons who frequent popular
assemblies, and, beginning at the wrong end, attempt to speak
before they have studied the art of oratory, or even duly stored
their mind with the treasures of thought and language, which can
only be drawn from assiduous intercourse with the ancient and
modern classics."

     These are the prominent objections which have been made to
the practice in question.  Without denying that they have weight,
I think it may be made to appear that they have not the
unquestionable preponderance, which is assumed for them.  They
will be found, on examination, to be the objections of a
cultivated taste, and to be drawn from the examples of
undisciplined men, who ought to be left entirely out of the
question.

     1. The objection most urged is that which relates to style. 
It is said, the expression will be poor, inelegant, inaccurate,
and offensive to hearers of taste.

     To those who urge this it may be replied, that the reasons
why style is an important consideration in the pulpit, is, not
[41] that the taste of the hearers may be gratified, for but a
small part of any congregation is capable of taking cognizance of
this matter; -- but solely for the purpose of presenting the
speaker's thoughts, reasonings, and expostulations distinctly and
forcibly to the midst of his hearers.  If this be effected, it is
all which can reasonably be demanded.  And I ask if it be not
notorious, that na earnest and appropriate elocution will give
this effect to a poor style, and that poor speaking will take it
away from the most exact and emphatic style?  Is it not also
notorious that the peculiar earnestness of spontaneous speech,
is, above all others, suited to arrest the attention, and engage
the feelings of an audience?  and that the mere reading of a
piece of fine composition, under the notion that careful thought
and finished diction are the only things needful, leaves the
majority uninterested in the discourse, and free to think of any
thing they please?  "It is a poor compliment," says Blair, "that
one is an accurate reasoner, if he be not a persuasive speaker
also."  It is a small matter that the style is poor, so long as
it answers the great purpose of instructing and affecting men. 
So that, as I have [42] more fully shown in a former place, the
objection lies on an erroneous foundation.


     Besides, if it were not so, it will be found quite as strong
against eh writing of sermons.  For how large a proportion of
sermon writers have these same faults of style!  what a great
want of force, neatness, compactness, is there in the composition
of most preachers!  what weakness, inelegance, and
inconclusiveness; and how small improvement to they make, even
after the practice of years!  How happens this?  It is because
they do not make  this an object of attention and study; and some
might be unable to attain it if they did.  But that watchfulness
and care which secure a correct and neat style is writing, would
also secure it in speaking.  It does not naturally belong to the
one, more than to the other, and may be as certainly attained in
each by the proper pains.  Indeed so far as my observation has
extended, I am not certain that there is not as large a
proportion of extempore speakers, whose diction is exact and
unexceptionable, as of writers -- always taking into view their
education, which equally affects the one and the [43] other.  And
it is a consideration of great weight, that the faults in
question are far less offensive in speakers than in writers.

     It is apparent that objectors of this sort are guilty of a
double mistake; first in laying too great stress upon mere
defects of style, and then in taking for granted, that these are
unavoidable.  They might as well insist that defects of written
style are unavoidable.  Whereas they are the consequence of the
negligent mode in which the are has been studied, and of its
having been given up, for the most part, to ignorant and
fanatical pretenders.  Let it be diligently cultivated by
educated men, and we shall find no more cause to expel it from
the pulpit than from the forum or the parliament.  "Poverty,
inelegance, and poorness of diction," will be no longer so
"generally observed," and even hearers of taste will cease to be
offended.

     2. A want of order, a rambling, unconnected, desultory
manner, is commonly objected; as Hume styles it, "extreme
carelessness of method;" and this is so often observed, as to be
justly an object of dread.  But this is occasioned by that
indolence and want of discipline to which we have just alluded. 
It is not a [44] necessary evil.  If a man have never studied the
art of speaking, nor passed through a course of preparatory
discipline; if he have so rash and unjustifiable a confidence in
himself, that he will undertake to speak, without having
considered what he shall say, what object he shall aim at, or by
what steps he shall attain it; the inevitable consequence will be
confusion, inconclusiveness, and wandering. Who recommends such a
course?  But he who has first trained himself to the work, and
whenever he would speak has surveyed his ground, and become
familiar with the points to be dwelt upon, and the course of
reasoning and track of thought to be followed; will go on from
one step to another, in an easy and natural order, and give no
occasion to the complaint of confusion of disarrangement.

     "Some preachers," says Dinouart, "have the folly to think
that they can make sermons impromptu.  And what a piece of work
they make!  The bolt out every thing which comes into their head. 
They take for granted, what ought to be proved, or perhaps they
state half the argument, and forget the rest.  Their appearance
corresponds to the state of their [45] mind, which is occupied in
hunting after some way of finishing the sentence they have begun. 
They repeat themselves; they wander off in digression.  They
stand stiff without moving; or if they are of a lively
temperament, they are full of the most turbulent action; their
eyes and hands are flying about in every direction, and their
words choke in their throats.  They are like men swimming who
have got frightened, and throw about their hands and feet at
random, to save themselves from drowning." 

     There is doubtless great truth in this humorous description. 
But what is the legitimate inference?  that extemporaneous
speaking is altogether ridiculous and mischievous? or only that
it is an art which requires study and discipline, and which no
man should presume to practice, until he has fitted himself for
it?

     3. In the same way I should dispose of the objection, that
this habit leads to barrenness in preaching, and the everlasting
repetition of the same sentiments and topics.  If a man make his
facility of speech an excuse for the neglect of study, then
doubtless this will be the result.  He who cannot resist his
indolent propensities, [46] had best avoid this occasion of
temptation.  He must be able to command himself to think, and
industriously prepare himself to think, and industriously prepare
himself by meditation, if he would be safe in this hazardous
experiment.  He who does this, and continues to learn and reflect
while he preaches, will be no more empty and monotonous than if
he carefully wrote every word.

     4. But this temptation to indolence in the preparation for
the desk, is urged as in itself a decisive objection.  A man
finds, that, after a little practice, it is an exceedingly easy
thing to fill up his half-hour with declamation which shall pass
off very well, and hence he grows negligent in previous
mediation; and insensibly degenerate into an empty exhorter,
without choice of language, or variety of ideas.  This is
undoubtedly the great and alarming danger of this practice.  This
must be triumphed over, or it is ruinous.  We see examples of it
wherever we look among those whose preaching is exclusively
extempore.  In these cases, the evil rises to its magnitude in
consequence of their total neglect proportion of the time would,
in some measure, counteract this dangerous tendency.  [47]

     But it is still insisted, that man's natural love of ease is
not to be trusted; that he will not long continue the drudgery of
writing in part; that when he has once gained confidence to speak
without study, he will find it so flattering to his indolence,
that he will involuntarily give himself up to it, and relinquish
the pen altogether; that consequently there is no security,
except in never beginning.

     To this it may be replied, that they who have not principle
and self-government enough to keep them industrious, will not be
kept so by being compelled to write sermons.  I think we have
abundant proof, that a man may write with as little pains and 
thinking, as he can speak.  It by no means follows, that because
it is on paper, it is therefore the result of study.  And if it
be not, it will be greatly inferior, in point of effect, to an
unpremeditated declamation; for in the latter case, there will
probably be at least a temporary excitement of feeling, and
consequent vivacity of manner, while in the former the indolence
of the writer will be made doubly intolerable by his heaviness in
reading.

     It cannot be doubted, however, that if any one find his
facility of [48] extemporaneous invention, likely to prove
destructive to his habits of diligent application; it were
advisable that he refrain from the practice.  It could not be
worth while for him to lose his habits of study and thinking for
the sake of an ability to speak, which would avail him but
little, after his ability to think has been weakened or
destroyed.

     As for those whose indolence habitually prevails over
principle, and who make no preparation for duty excepting the
mechanical one of covering over a certain number of pages, --they
have o concern in the ministry, and should be driven to seek some
other employment, where their mechanical labor may provide them a
livelihood, without injuring their own souls, or those of other
men.

     If the objection in question be applied to conscientious
men, whose hearts are in their profession, and who have a sincere
desire to do good, it certainly have very little weight.  The
minds of such men are kept active with reflection, and stored
with knowledge, and warm with religious feeling.  They are
therefore always ready to speak to the purpose, as well as write
to the purpose; and their habitual sense [49] of the importance
of their office, and their anxiety to fulfill it in the best
manner, will forbid that indolence which is so disastrous.  The
objection implies, that the consequence pointed out s one which
cannot be avoided.  Experience teaches us the contrary.  It is
the tendency -- but a tendency which may be, for it has been,
counteracted.  Many have preached in this mode for years, and yet
have never relaxed their diligence in study, nor declined in the
variety, vigor, and interest of their discourses; sometimes dull,
undoubtedly; but this may be said with equal truth of the most
faithful and laborious writers.

     5. Many suppose that there is a certain natural talent,
essential to success in extempore speaking, no less than in
poetry; and that it is absurd to recommend the art to those who
have not this peculiar talent, and vain for them to attempt its
practice.

     In regard to that ready flow of words, which seems to be the
natural gift of some men, it is of little consequence whether it
be really such, or be owing to the education and habits of early
life, and fain self-confidence.  It is certain that diffidence
[50] and the want of habit are great hindrances to fluency of
speech; and it is equally certain, that this natural fluency is a
very questionable advantage to him who would be an impressive
speaker.  It is quite observable that those who at first talk
easiest, do not always talk best.  Their very facility is a snare
to them.  It serves to keep them content; they make no effort to
improve, and are likely to fall into slovenly habits of
elocution.  So that this unacquired fluency is so far from
essential, that it is not even a benefit, and it may be an
injury.  It keeps from final eminence by the very greatness of
its early promise.  On the other hand, he who possesses
originally no remarkable command of language, and whom an
unfortunate bashfulness prevents from well using what he has; is
obliged to subject himself to severe discipline, to submit to
rules and tasks, to go through a tedious process of training, to
acquire by much labor the needful sway over this thoughts and
words, so that they shall come at this bidding, and not be driven
away by his own diffidence, or the presence of other men.  To do
all this, is a long and disheartening labor.  He is exposed to
frequent mortifications, and must endure many grievous [51]
failures, before he attain that confidence which is indispensable
to success.  But then in this discipline, his powers, mental and
moral, are strained up to the highest intenseness of action;
after persevering practice, they become habitually subject to his
control, and work with a precession, exactness, and energy, which
can never be the possession of him, who has depended on his
native, undisciplined gift. Of the truth of this, examples are by
no means wanting, and I could name, if it were proper, more than
one striking instance within my own observation.  It was probably
this to which Newton referred, when he said, that he never spoke
well till he felt that he could not speak at all.  Let no one
therefore think it an obstacle in his way that he has no
readiness of words.  If he have good sense and no deficiency of
talent, and is willing to labor for this as all great
acquisitions must be labored for, he needs not fear but that in
time he will attain it.

     We must be careful, however, not to mistake the object to be
attained.  It is not a high rank in oratory, consummate
eloquence.  If it were, then indeed a young man might pause till
he had [52] ascertained whether he possessed all those
extraordinary endowments of intellect, imagination, sensibility,
countenance, voice, and person, which belong to few men in a
century, and without which the great Orator does not exist.  He
is one of those splendid formations of nature, which she exhibits
but rarely; and it is not necessary to the object of this pursuit
that the minister be such.  The purpose of his office are less
ambitious, -- to impart instruction and do good;  and it is by no
means certain that the greatest eloquence is best adapted to
these purposes in the pulpit.  But any man, with powers which fit
him for the ministry at all, --unless there be a few
extraordinary exceptions, -- is capable of learning to express
himself clearly, correctly, and with method; and this is
precisely what is wanted, and no more than this.  I do not say
eloquently; for as it is not thought indispensable that every
writer of sermons should be eloquent, it cannot be though
essential that every speaker should be so.  But the same powers
which have enabled him to write, will,with sufficient discipline,
enable him to speak; with every probability that when he comes to
speak with the same ease and [53] collectedness, he will do it
with a nearer approach to eloquence.  Without such discipline he
has not right to hope for success; let him not say that success
is impossible, until he has submitted to it.

     I apprehend that these remarks will be found not only
correct in theory, but agreeable to experience.  With the
exceeding little systematic cultivation of the art which there is
amongst us, and not actual instruction, we find that a great
majority of the lawyers in our courts, and not a small portion of
the members of our legislatures, are able to argue and debate. 
In some of the most popular and quite numerous religious sects,
we find preachers enough, who are able to communicate their
thoughts and harangue their congregations, and exert very
powerful and permanent influence over large bodies of the people. 
Some of these are men of as small natural talents and as limited
education, as any that enter the sacred office.  It should seem
therefore that no one needs to despair.

     In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, this
accomplishment was a necessary branch of a finished education.  A
much smaller proportion of the citizens were [54] educated than
amongst us; but of these a much larger number became orators.  No
man could hope for distinction or influence, and yet slight this
art. (It is often said that extemporaneous speaking is the
distinction of modern eloquence.  But the whole language of
Cicero's rhetorical works, as well as particular terms in common
use, and anecdotes recorded of different speakers, prove the
contrary; not to mention Quinctilian's express instructions on
the subject.  Hume, also, tells us from Suidas, that the writing
of speeches was unknown until the time of Pericles.)  The
commanders of their armies were orators as well as soldiers, and
ruled as well by their rhetorical as by their military skill.  
There was not trusting with them as with us, to a natural
facility, or the acquisition of an accidental fluency by actual
practice.  But they served an apprenticeship to the art.  They
passed through a regular course of instruction in schools.  They
submitted to long and laborious discipline -- infinitus labor et
quotidiana meditatio. (Tac. de Or. Dial.c.30.)  They exercised
themselves frequently, both before equals and in the presence of
teachers, who criticized, reproved, rebuked, excited emulation,
and left nothing undone which art and perseverance could
accomplish. The greatest orators of antiquity, so far from being
favored by natural tendencies, except indeed in their high
intellectual [55] endowments, had to struggle against natural
obstacles; and instead of growing up spontaneously to their
unrivalled eminence, they forced themselves forward by the most
discouraging artificial process.  Demosthenes combated an
impediment in speech and ungainliness of gesture, which at first
drove him from the forum in disgrace.  Cicero failed at first
through weakness of lungs, and an excessive vehemence of manner,
which wearied the hearers and defeated his own purpose.  These
defects were conquered by study and discipline.  Cicero exiled
himself from home, and during his absence in various lands passed
not a day without a rhetorical exercise; seeking the masters who
were most  severe in criticism, as the surest means of leading
him to the perfection at which ha aimed.  Such too was the
education of their other great men.  They were all, according to
their ability and station, orators; orators, not by nature or
accident, but by education; formed in a strict process of
rhetorical training; admired and followed even while Demosthenes
and Cicero were living, and unknown now, only because it is [56]
not possible that any but the first should survive the ordeal of
the ages.

     The inference to be drawn from these observations, is, that
if so many of those who received an accomplished education became
accomplished orators, because to become so was one purpose of
their study; then it is in the power of a much larger proportion
amongst us, to form themselves into creditable and accurate
speakers.  The inference should not be denied until proved false
by experiment.  Let this art be made an object of attention, and
young men train themselves to it faithfully and long; and if any
of competent talents and tolerable science be found at last
incapable of expressing themselves in continued and connected
discourse, so as to answer the demands of the christian ministry;
then, and not till then, let it be said that a peculiar talent or
natural aptitude is requisite, the want of which must render
effort vain; then, and not till then, let us acquiesce in this
indolent and timorous notion, which contradicts the whole
testimony of antiquity, and all the experience of the world. 
Doubtless, after the most that can be done, there will be found
the greatest variety of attainment; "men will [57] differ," as
Burnet remarks, "quite as much as in their written compositions;"
and some will do but poorly what others will do excellently.  But
this is likewise true of every other art in which men engage, and
not least so of writing sermons; concerning which no one will
say, that as poor are not written, as it would be possible for
any one to speak.  In truth, men of small talents and great
sluggishness, of a feeble sense of duty and no zeal, will of
course make poor sermons, by whatever process they may do it, let
them write or let them speak.  It is doubtful concerning some,
whether they would even steal good ones.

     The survey we have now taken, renders it evident, that the
evils, which are principally objected against as attending this
mode of preaching, are not necessary evils, but are owing to
insufficient study and preparation before the practice is
commenced, and indolence afterward.  This is implied in the very
expressions of the objectors themselves, who attribute the evil
to "beginning at the wrong end, attempting to speak before
studying the art of oratory, or even storing the mind with
treasures of thought and language." [58] It is, also, implied in
this language, that study and preparation are capable of removing
the objections. I do not therefore advocate the art, without
insisting on the necessity of sever discipline and training.  No
man should be encouraged or permitted to adopt it, who will not
take the necessary pains, and proceed with the necessary
perseverance.

     This should be the more earnestly insisted upon, because it
is from our loose and lazy notions on the subject, that eloquence
in every department is suffering so much, and that the pulpit
especially has become so powerless; where the most important
things that receive utterance upon earth, are sometimes read like
schoolboys' tasks, without even the poor pains to lay emphasis on
the right words, and to pause in the right places.   And this,
because we fancy that, if nature have not designed us for
orators, it is vain to make effort, and if she have, we shall be
such without effort.  True, that the noble gifts of mind are from
nature; but not language, or knowledge, or accent, or tone, or
gesture; these are to be learned, and it is with these that the
speaker is concerned.  These are all matters of [59] acquisition,
and of difficult acquisition; possible to be attained, and well
worth the exertion that must be made.

     The history of the world is full of testimony to prove how
much depends upon industry; not an eminent orator has lived, but
is an example of it.  Yet in contradiction to all this, the
almost universal feeling appears to be, that industry can effect
nothing, that eminence is the result of accident, and that every
one must be content to remain just what he may happen to be. 
Thus multitudes, who come forward as teachers and guides, suffer
themselves to be satisfied with the most indifferent attainments
and a miserable mediocrity, without so much as inquiring how they
might rise higher, much less making any attempt to rise.  For any
other art they would have served an apprenticeship,and would be
ashamed to practice it in public before they had learned it.  If
any one would sing, he attends a master, and is drilled in the
very elementary principles; and only after the most laborious
process dares to exercise his voice in public.  This he does,
though he has scarce any thing to learn but the mechanical
execution of what lies in [60] sensible forms before his eye. 
But the extemporaneous speaker, who is to invent as well as to
utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as well as s to
produce sound, enters upon the work without preparatory
discipline, and then wonders that he fails!  If he were learning
to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days
would he spend in giving facility to his fingers, and attaining
the power of the sweetest and most impressive execution.  If he
were devoting himself to the organ, what months and years would
he labor, that he might know its compass, and be master of its
keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various
combinations of harmonious sound, and its full richness and
delicacy of expression.  And yet he will fancy that the grandest,
the most various, the most expressive of all instruments, which
the infinite Creator has fashioned by the union of an
intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon
without study or practice;l he comes to it, a mere uninstructed
tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole
compass of its varied and comprehensive power!  He finds himself
a bungler in the attempt, is [61] mortified at his failure, and
settles it in his mind forever that the attempt is vain.

     Success in every art, whatever may be the natural talent, is
always the reward of industry and pains.  But the instances are
many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has
promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they
advanced, because they trusted to their gifts and made no effort
to improve.  That there have never been other men of equal
endowments with Demosthenes and Cicero, none would venture to
suppose; but who have so devoted themselves to their art, or
become equal in excellence?  If those great men had been content,
like others, to continue as they began, and had never made their
persevering efforts for improvement, what would their countries
have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of
their fame?  They would ave been lost in the undistinguished
crowd, that sunk to oblivion around them.  Of how many more will
the he same remark prove true!  What encouragement is thus given
to the industrious!  With such encouragement, how inexcusable is
the negligence which suffers the most interesting and important
[62] to seem heavy and dull, and fall ineffectual to the ground,
through mere sluggishness in their delivery!  How unworthy of one
who performs the high function of a religious instructor -- upon
whom depend, in a great measure, the religious knowledge and
devotional sentiment and final character of many fellow beings, -
- to imagine that he can worthily discharge this great concern by
occasionally talking for an hour, he knows not how, and in a
manner which he has taken no pains to render correct, impressive,
or attractive; and which, simply through want of that command
over himself which study would give, is immethodical, verbose,
inaccurate, feeble, trifling.  It has been said of the good
preacher, that "truth divine come mended from this tongue." 
Alas, they come ruined and worthless from such a man as this. 
They lose that hole energy by which they are to convert the soul
and purify man for heaven, and sink, in interest and efficacy,
below the level of those principles which govern the ordinary
affairs of this lower world.
[63]
                          CHAPTER III.

     The observations contained in the preceding chapter make it
sufficiently evident, that the art of extemporaneous speaking,
however advantages to the christian minister, and however
possible to be acquired, is yet attended with embarrassments and
difficulties, which are to be removed only long and arduous
labor.  It is not enough, however, to insist upon the necessity
of this discipline.  We must know in what it consists, and how it
is to be conducted.  In completing, therefore, the plan I have
proposed to myself, I am not to give a few hints respecting the
mode in which the study is to be carried on, and obstacles to be
surmounted.  These hints, gathered partly from experience and
partly from observations and books, will be necessarily
incomplete; but not, it is hoped, altogether useless to those who
are asking some direction.

     1. The first thing to be observed is, that the student who
would acquire [64] facility in this art, should bear it
constantly in mind, and have regard to it in all his studies and
in his whole mode of study.  The reason is very obvious.  He that
would become eminent in any pursuit, must make it the primary and
almost exclusive object of his attention.  It must never be long
absent from his thoughts, and he must be contriving how to
promote it, in every thing he undertakes.  It is thus that the
miser accumulates, by making the most trifling occurrences the
occasion of gain; and thus the ambitious man is on the alert to
forward his purposes of advancement by little events which
another would pass unobserved.  So too he, the business of whose
life is preaching, should be on the watch to render every thing
subservient to this end.  The inquiry should always be, how he
can turn the knowledge he is acquiring, the subject he is
studying, this mode of reasoning, this event, this conversation,
and the conduct of this or that man, to aid the purposes of
religious instruction.  He may find an example in the manner in
which Pope pursued his favorite study.  "From his attention to
poetry," says Johnson, "he was never diverted.  If [65]
conversation offered any thing that could be improved, he
committed it to paper; if a thought, or perhaps an expression
more happy than was common, rose to his mind, he was careful to
write it; an independent distich was preserved for an opportunity
of insertion, and some little fragments have been found
containing lines, or parts of lines, to be wrought upon at some
other time."  By a like habitual and vigilant attention, the
preacher will find scarce any thing but may be made to minister
to his great design, BY either giving rise to some new train of
thought, or suggesting an argument, or placing some truth in a
new light, or furnishing some useful illustrations.  Thus none of
his reading will be lost; every poem and play, every treatise on
science, and speculation in philosophy, and even every ephemeral
tale may be made to give hints toward the better management of
sermons, and the more effectual proposing and communicating of
truth.

     He who proposes to himself the art of extemporaneous
speaking, should in like manner have constant regard to this
particular object, and make every thing cooperate to form those
habits of mind which [66] are essential to it.  This may be done,
not only without any hindrance to the progress of his other
studies, but even so as to promote them.  The most important
requisites are rapid thinking, and ready command of language.  By
rapid thinking I mean, what has already been spoken of, the power
of seizing at once upon the most prominent points of the subject
to be discussed, and tracing out, in their proper order, the
subordinate thoughts which connect them together.  This power
depends very much upon habit; a habit more easily acquired by
some minds than by others, and by some with great difficulty. 
But there are few who, should they have a view to the formation
of such a habit in all their studies, might not attain it in a
degree quite adequate to their purpose.  This is much more
indisputably true in regard to fluency of language.

     Let it, therefore, be a part of this daily care to analyze
the subjects which come before him, and to frame sketches of
sermons.  This will aid him to acquire a facility in laying open,
dividing, and arranging topics, and preparing those outlines
which he is to take with him into [67] the pulpit.  Let him also
investigate carefully the method of every author he reads,
marking the
divisions of his arrangement, and the connexion and train of his
reasoning.  Butler's preface to his Sermons will afford him some
fine hints on this way of study.  Let this be his habitual mode
of reading, so that he shall as much do this, as receive the
meaning of separate sentence, and shall be always able to give a
better account of the progress of the argument and the relation
of every part to the others and to the whole, than of merely
individual passages and separate illustrations.  This will
infallibly beget a readiness in finding the divisions and
boundaries of a subject, which is one important requisite to an
easy and successful speaker.

     In a similar manner, let him always bear in mind the value
of a fluent and correct use of language.  Let him not be
negligent of this in his conversation; but be careful ever to
select the best words, to avoid a slovenly style and drawling
utterance, and to aim at neatness, force, and brevity.  This may
be done without formality, or stiffness, or pedantic affectation;
and when settled into a habit, is invaluable.  [68]

     2. In addition to this general cultivation, there should be
frequent exercise of the act of speaking.  Practice is essential
to perfection in any art, and in none more so than in this.  No
man reads well or writes well, except by long practice; and he
cannot expect without it to speak well -- an operation which is
equivalent to the other two united.  He may indeed get along, as
the phrase is; but not so well as he might do and should do.  He
may not always be able even to get along.  He may be as sadly
discomfited as a friend of mine, who said that he had made the
attempt, and was convinced that for him to speak extempore was
impossible; he had risen from his study table, and tried to make
a speech, proving that virtue is better than vice; but stumbled
and failed at he very outset.  How could one hope to do better in
a first attempt, if h had not considered before hand what he
should say?  It were as rational to think he could play on the
organ without having learned, or translate from a language he had
never studied.

     It would not be too much to require of the student, that he
should exercise himself every day once at lest, if not [69]
oftener; and this on a variety of subjects, and in various ways,
that he may attain a facility in every mode.  It would be a
pleasant interchange of employment to rise from the he subject
which occupies his thoughts, or from the book which he is
reading, and repeat to himself the substance of what he has just
perused, with such additions and variations, or criticisms, as
may suggest themselves at the moment.  There could hardly be a
more useful exercise, even if there were no reference to this
particular end.  How many excellent chapters of valuable authors,
how many fine views of important subjects, would be thus
impressed upon his mind, and what rich treasures of thought and
language would be thus laid up in store.  And according as he
should be engaged in a work of reasoning, or description, or
exhortation, or narrative, he would be attaining the power of
expressing himself readily in each of these various styles.  By
pursing this course for two or three years, "a man may render
himself such a master in this matter,"  says Burnet, "that he can
never be surprised;" and he adds, that he never knew a man [70]
faithfully to pursue the plan of study he proposed, without being
successful at last.

     3. When by such a course of study and discipline he has
attained a tolerable fluency of thoughts and words, and a
moderate confidence in his own powers; there are several things
to be observed in first exercising the gift in public, in order
to ensure comfort and success.

     It is advisable to make the first efforts in some other
place than the pulpit.  The pulpit, from various causes already
alluded to, is the most embarrassing place from which a man can
speak.  One may utter himself fluently in a spot of less sanctity
and dignity, who should be unable to summon his self possession
or command his thoughts in that desk, which he never names or
contemplates, but "filled with solemn awe."  Let the beginner,
therefore, select some other filed, until he have become
accustomed to the exercise, and disciplined to self command.  Let
him, in the familiar lectures of the Sunday School, or in classes
for the biblical instruction of young people, or in private
meetings for social religious worship, when there is less
restraint upon his powers and he is warmed by near contact with
those whom he [71] addresses -- let him in such scenes make the
first rude trial of his gifts.  Practice there will give him
confidence and facility; and he may afterward make the more
hazardous and responsible attempt before a Sabbath congregation.

     4. It has been generally recommended to beginners, that
their first experiments should be hortatory; and for this end,
that after having written the body of the discourse, the
application and conclusion should be left to the moment of
delivery.  Then, it is said,m the hearer and speaker having
become engaged and warm in the subject, the former will less
observe any blemishes and inexactness of language, and the latter
will have a freedom and flow of utterance, which he would be less
likely to enjoy at an earlier and colder moment; besides, the
exhortation is a much easier achievement than the body of the
discourse.

     It is probable that for some persons this rule may be found
best; though if I were to give one founded on my own experience,
it would be directly opposed to it.  I should esteem it a much
safer and more successful mode, to attempt ex tempore the
commencement, than the close of a [72] discourse.  The
commencement, if the sermon be worth preaching, is laid out in
orderly succession of ideas, which follow one another in a
connected train of illustration, or argument, or narrative; and
he who is familiar with the train, will find its several steps
spontaneously follow one another, and will have no difficulty in
clothing them in ready and suitable terms. But the application is
a matter which cannot so well be thus arranged, and the parts of
which do not so closely adhere to each other.  This makes the
actual effort of mind at the moment of delivery more severe.  And
besides this, it will generally be found more difficult, I
apprehend, to change the passive state of mind which exists in
reading, for the action and ardor of extemporaneous address, than
to start with this activity at the beginning, when the mind in
fact is already acting under the excitement of a preparation to
speak.  Not to forget, that a young man, who is modest because of
his youth as much as he is bold because of his office, is
naturally intimidated by the attempt to address with direct
exhortation those whom he sees around him so much older than
himself, and many of whom, he feels, to be so much better. [73]

     I am persuaded, too, that it is a great mistake to imagine a
closing exhortation easier than the previous management of the
discourse.  I know nothing which requires more intense thought,
more prudent consideration, or more judicious skill, both in
ordering the topics and selecting the words.  One may indeed very
easily dash out into exclamations, and make loud appeals to his
audience.  But to appeal pungently, weightily, effectually, in
such words and emphasis, that the particular truth or duty shall
be driven home and fastened in the mind and conscience -- this is
an arduous, delicate, anxious duty, which may well task a man's
most serious and thoughtful hours of preparation.  It is only by
giving such preparation that he can hope to make that impression
which God will bless; and he that thinks it the easiest of
things, and harangues without forethought, must harangue without
effect.  Is it not probable, that much of the vapid and
insignificant verbiage which is poured out at the close of
sermons, originates in this notion that exhortation is a very
simple affair, to which any body is equal at any time? [74]

     Nevertheless, it must be remembered that minds are
differently constituted.  Some may find that mode the best for
themselves, which to me seems the worst.  It remains therefore
for every one to try himself, and decide, from a proper
acquaintance with the operations of his own mind, in what method
he shall most probably be successful.

     5. It is recommended by bishop Burnet and other, that the
first attempts be made by short excursions from written
discourses; like the young bird that tries its wings by short
flights, till it gradually acquires strength and courage to
sustain itself longer in the air.  This advice is undoubtedly
judicious.  For one may safely trust himself in a few sentences,
who would be confounded in the attempt to frame a whole
discourse.  For this purpose blanks may be left in writing, where
the sentiment s familiar, or only a short illustration is to be
introduced.  As success in these smaller attempts gives him
confidence, he may proceed to larger; till at length, when his
mind is bright and his feelings engaged, he may quit his
manuscript altogether, and present the [75] substance of what he
had written, with greater fervor and effect, than if he had
confined himself to this paper.  It was once observed to me by an
interesting preacher of the Baptist denomination, that he had
found from experience this to be the most advisable and perfect
mode;` since it combined the advantages of written and
extemporaneous composition.  By preparing sermons in this way, he
said, he had a shelter and security if his mind should be dull at
the time of delivery; and if it were active, he was able to leave
what he had written, and obey the ardor of his feelings, and go
forth on the impulse of the moment, wherever his spirit might
lead him.  A similar remark  I heard made by a distinguished
scholar of the Methodist connexion, who urged, what is
universally asserted by those who have tried this method with any
success, that what has been written is found to be tame and
spiritless, in comparison with the animated glow of that which
springs from the energy of the moment.

     There are some persons, however, who would be embarrassed by
an effort to change the operation of the mind from reading to
inventing.  Such persons may [76] find it best to make their
beginning with a whole discourse.

     6. In this case, there will be a great advantage in
selecting for first efforts expository subjects.  To say nothing
of the importance and utility of this mode of preaching, which
render it desirable that every minister should devote a
considerable proportion of his labors to it; it contains great
facilities and reliefs for the inexperienced speaker.  The close
study of a passage of scripture which is necessary to expounding
it, renders it familiar.  The exposition is inseparably connected
with the text, and necessarily suggested by it.  The inferences
and practical reflections are, in like manner, naturally and
indissolubly associated with the passage.  The train of remark is
easily preserved, and embarrassment in a great measure guarded
against, by the circumstance that the order of discourse is
spread out in the open Bible, upon which the eyes may rest and by
which the thoughts may rally.

     7. A similar advantage is gained to the beginner, in
discourses of a different character, by a very careful and minute
division of the subject.  The division should [77] not only be
logical and clear, but into parts as numerous as possible.  The
great advantage here is, that the partitions being many, the
speaker is compelled frequently to return to his minutes.. He is
thus kept in the track, and prevented from wandering far in
needless digressions -- that besetting infirmity of unrestrained
extemporizes.  He also escapes the mortifying consequences of a
momentary confusion and cloudiness of mind, by having it in his
power to leave an unsatisfactory train at once, before the sate
of his mind is perceived by the audience, and take up the next
topic, where he may recover his self possession, and proceed
without impediment.  This is no unimportant consideration.  It
relieves him from the horror of feeling obliged to go on, while
conscious that he is saying nothing to the purpose; and at the
same time secures the very essential requisite of right method.

     8.  The next rule is, that the whole subject, with the order
and connexion of all its parts, and the entire train of thought,
be made thoroughly familiar by previous meditation.  The speaker
must have the discourse in his mind as one whole, whose various
parts are distinctly perceived as [78] other wholes, connected
with each other and contributing to a common end.  There must be
no uncertainty, when he rises to speak, as to what he is going to
say; no mist or darkness over the land he is about to travel;
but, conscious of his acquaintance with the ground, he must step
forward confidently, not doubting that he shall find the passes
of its mountains, and thread the intricacies of its forests, by
the paths which he has already trodden.  It is an imperfect and
partial preparation in this respect, which so often renders the
manner awkward and embarrassed, and the discourse obscure and
perplexed.  Nemo potest de ea re, quam non novit, non turpisime
dicere.  But when the preparation is faithful, the speaker feels
at home;  being under no anxiety respecting the ideas or the
order of their succession, he has the more ready control of his
person, his eye, and his hand, and the more fearlessly gives up
his mind to its own action and casts himself upon the current.
Uneasiness and constraint are the inevitable attendants of
unfaithful preparation, and they are fatal to success.

     It is true, that no man can attain the power of self-
possession so as to [79] feel at all times equally and entirely
at ease.  But he may guard against the sorest ills which attend
its loss, by always making sue of a train of thought, -- being
secure that he has ideas, and that they lie in such order as to
be found and brought forward in some sort of apparel, even when
he has in some measure lost the mastery of himself.  The richness
or meanness of their dress will depend on the humor of the
moment.  It will vary as much as health and spirits vary, which
is more in some men than in others.  But the thoughts themselves
he may produce, and be certain of saying what he intended to say,
even when he cannot say it as intended. It must have been
observed, by those who are at all in the habit of observation of
this kind, that the mind operates in this particular like a
machine, which, having been wound up, runs on by its own
spontaneous action, until it has gone through its appointed
course.  Many men have thus continued speaking in the midst of an
embarrassment of mind which rendered them almost unconscious of
what they were saying, and incapable of giving an account of it
afterward; while yet the unguided, self-moving intellect wrought
so [80] well, that the speech was not esteemed unwholesome or
defective by the hearers.  The experience of this fact has
doubtless helped many to believe that they spoke from
inspiration.  It ought to teach all, that there is no sufficient
cause for that excessive apprehension, which so often unmans
them, and which, though it may not stop their mouths, must
deprive their address of all grace and beauty, of all ease and
force.

     9. We may introduce in this place another rule, the
observance of which will aid in preventing the ill consequences
resulting from the accidental loss of self-possession.  The rule
is, utter yourself very slowly and deliberately, with careful
pauses.  This is at all times a great aid to a clear and
perspicuous statement, who would keep the command of himself and
consequently of his hearers.

     One is very likely, when, in the course of speaking, he has
stumbled on an unfortunate expression, or said what he would
prefer not to say, or for a moment lost sight of the precise
point at which he was aiming, to hurry on with increasing
rapidity, as if go get as far as possible from his [81]
misfortune, or cause it to be forgotten in the crowd of new
words.  But instead of thus escaping the evil, he increases it;
he entangles himself more and more; and augments the difficulty
of recovering his route.  The true mode of recovering himself is
by increased deliberation.  He must pause, and give himself time
to think; -- ut tamen deliberare non haesitare videatur.  He need
not be alarmed lest his hearers suspect the difficulty.  Most of
them are likely to attribute the slowness of his step to any
cause rather than the true one.  They take it for granted, that
he says and does precisely as he intended and wished.  They
suppose that he is pausing to gather up his strength.  It excites
their attention.  The change of manner is a relief to them.  And
the probability is, that the speaker not only recovers himself,
but that the effort to do it gives a spring to the action of his
powers, which enables him to proceed afterward with greater
energy.

     10. In regard to language, the best rule is, that no
preparation be made.  There is no convenient and profitable
medium between speaking from memory and from immediate
suggestion.  To mix the two is [82] no aid, but a great
hindrance, because it perplexes the mind between the very
different operations of memory and invention.  To prepare
sentences, and parts of sentences, which are to be introduced
here and there, and the intervals between them to be filled up in
the delivery, is the surest of all ways to produce constraint. 
It is like the embarrassment of framing verses to prescribed
rhymes; as vexations, and as absurd.  To be compelled to shape
the course of remark so as to suit a sentence which is by and by
to come, or to introduce certain expressions which are waiting
for their place, is a check to the natural current of thought. 
The inevitable consequence is constraint and labor, the loss of
everything like easy and flowing utterance, and perhaps that
worst of confusion which results from a jumble of il assorted,
disjointed periods.  It is unavoidable that the subject should
present itself in a little different form and complexion in
speaking, from that which it took in meditation; so that the
sentences and modes of expression, which agreed very well with
the train of remark as it came up in the study, may be wholly
[83] unsuited to that which it assumes in the pronunciation.

     The extemporaneous speaker should therefore trust himself to
the moment for all his language.  This is the safe way for his
comfort, and the only sure way to make all of a uniform piece. 
The general rule is certain, though there may be some exceptions. 
It may be well, for example, to consider what synonymous terms
may be employed in recurring to the chief topic, in order to
avoid the frequent reiteration of the same word.  This will
occasion no embarrassment.  He may also prepare texts of
scripture to be introduced in certain parts of the discourse. 
These, if perfectly committed to memory, and he be not too
anxious to make a place for them, will be no encumbrance.  When a
suitable juncture occurs, they will suggest themselves, just as a
suitable epithet suggests itself.  But if he be very solicitous
about them, and continually on the watch for an opportunity to
introduce them, he will be likely to confuse himself.  And it is
better to lose the choicest quotation, than suffer constraint and
awkwardness from the effort to bring it in.  Under [84] the same
restrictions he may make ready, pithy remarks, striking and
laconic expressions, pointed sayings and aphorisms, the force of
which depends on the precise form of the phrase.  Let the same
rule be observed in regard to such.  If they suggest themselves
(which they will do, if there be a proper place for them) let
them e welcome.  But never let him run the risk of spoiling a
whole paragraph in trying to make a place for them.

     Many distinguished speakers are said to do more than this, -
-to write out with care and repeat from memory their more
important and persuasive parts; like the de bene esse's of
Curran, and the splendid passages of many others.  This may
undoubtedly be done to advantage by one who has the command of
himself which practice gives, and has learned to pass from memory
to invention without tripping.  It is a different case from that
mixture of the two operations, which is condemned above, and is
in fact only an extended example of the exceptions made in the
last paragraph.  With these exceptions, when he undertakes, bona
fide, an extemporaneous address, he should make no [85]
preparation of language. Language is the last thing he should be
anxious about.  If he have ideas, and be awake, it will come of
itself, unbidden and unsought for.  The best language  flashes
upon the speaker as unexpectedly as upon the hearer.  It is the
spontaneous gift of the mind, not the extorted boon of a special
search.  No man who has thoughts, and is interested in them, is
at a loss for words -- not the most uneducated man; and the words
he uses will be according to his education and general habits,
not according to the labor of the moment.  If he truly feel, and
wish to communicate his feelings to those around him, the last
thing that will fail will be language; the less he thinks of it
and cares for it, the more copiously and richly will it flow from
him; and when he has forgotten every thing but his desire to give
vent to his emotions and do good, then will the unconscious
torrent pour, as it does at not other season.  This entire
surrender to the spirit which stirs within, is indeed the real
secret of all eloquence.  "True eloquence," says Milton, "I find
to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth; and that
whose mind soever is [86] fully possessed with a fervent desire
to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the
knowledge of them into others, -- when such a man would speak,
his words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him
at command, and in well ordered files, as he would wish, fall
aptly into their own places."  Rerum enim copia (says the great
Roman teacher and example) verborum copiam gignit; et, si est
honestas in rebus ipsis de quibus dicitur, existit ex rei natura 
quidam splendor in verbis.  Sit modo is, qui  dicet aut scribet,
institutus liberaliter educatione doctrinaque puerili, et flagret
studio, et a natura adjuvetur, et in universorum generum
infinitis disceptationibus exercitatus; ornatissimos scriptores
oratoresque ad cognoscendum imitandumque legerit; - ane ille haud
sane, quemadmodum verba struat et illuminet, a magistris istis
requiret.  Ita facile in rerum abundantia ad orationis ornamenta,
sine duce natura ipsa, si modo est exercitata, labetur {De
Or.iii.31}

     11. These remarks lead to another suggestion which deserves
the student's [87] consideration.  He should select for this
exercise those subjects in which he feels an interest at the
time, and in regard to which he desires to engage the interest of
others.  In order to the best success, extemporaneous efforts
should be made in an excited state of mind, when the thoughts are
burning and glowing, and long to find vent.  There are some
topics which do not admit of this excitement.  Such should be
treated by the pen.  When he would speak, he should choose topics
on which his won mind is kindling with a feeling which he is
earnest to communicate; and the higher the degree to which he has
elevated his feelings, the more readily, happily, and powerfully
will he pour forth whatever the occasion may demand.  There is no
style suited to the pulpit, which he will not more effectually
command in this state of mind.  He will reason more directly,
pointedly, and convincingly; he will describe more vividly from
the living conceptions of the moment; he will be more earnest in
persuasion, more animated in declamation,  more urgent in
appeals, more terrible in denunciation.  Every thing will vanish
from [88] before him, but the subject of this attention, and upon
this his powers will be concentrated in keen and vigorous action. 
   
     If a man would do his best, it must be upon subjects which
are at the moment interesting to him.  We see it in conversation,
where every one is eloquent upon his favorite topics. We see it
in deliberative assemblies; where it is those grand questions,
which excite an intense interest, and absorb and agitate the
mind, that call forth those bursts of eloquence by which men are
remembered as powerful orators, and that give a voice to men who
can speak on no other occasions.  Cicero tells us of himself,
that the instance in which he was most successful, were those in
which he most entirely abandoned himself to the impulses of
feeling.  Every speaker's experience will bear testimony to the
same thing; and thus the saying of Goldsmith proves true, that
"to feel one's subject thoroughly, and to speak without fear, are
the only rules of eloquence."  Let him who would preach
successfully, remember this,  In the choice of subjects for
extemporaneous efforts, let him have regard to it, and never
encumber himself [89] nor distress his hearers, with the attempt
to interest them in a subject, which excites at the moment only a
feeble interest in his own mind.

     This rule excludes many topics, which it is necessary to
introduce into the pulpit, subjects in themselves interesting and
important, but which few men can be trusted to treat in
unpremeditated language; because they require an exactness of
definition, and nice discrimination of phrase, which may be
better commanded in the cool leisure of writing, than in the
prompt and declamatory style of the speaker.  The rule also
forbids the attempt to speak, when ill health, or lowness of
spirits, or any accidental cause, renders him incapable of that
excitement which is requisite to success.  It requires of him to
watch over the state of his body -- the partial derangement of
whose functions so often confuses the mind -- that, by preserving
a vigorous and animated condition of the corporal system, he may
secure vigour and vivacity of mind.  It requires of him, finally,
whenever he is about entering upon the work, to use every means,
by careful mediation, by calling up the strong [90] motives of
his office, by realizing the nature and responsibility of his
undertaking, and by earnestly invoking the blessing of God -- to
attain that frame of devout engagedness, which will dispose him
to speak zealously and fearlessly.  One who has been particularly
successful in extemporaneous efforts, once said to me, "My only
rules are to study my subject thoroughly, and seek for feeling on
my knees."

     12.  Another important item in the discipline to be passed
through, consists in attaining the habit of self command.  I have
already adverted to this point, and noticed the power which the
mind possesses of carrying on the premeditated operation, even
while the speaker is considerably embarrassed.  This is, however,
only a reason for not being too much distressed by the feeling
when only occasional; it does not imply that it is no evil.  It
is a most serious evil; of little comparative moment, it may be,
when only occasional and transitory, but highly injurious if
habitual.  It renders the speaker unhappy, and his address
ineffective.  If perfectly at ease, he would have every thing at
command, and be able to pour [91] out his thoughts in lucid
order, and with every desirable variety of manner and expression. 
But when thrown from his self-possession, he can do nothing
better than mechanically string together words, while there is
not soul in them, because his mental powers are spell-bound and
imbecile.  He stammers, hesitates, and stumbles; or, at best,
talks on without object or aim, as mechanically and unconsciously
as an automaton.  He has learned little effectually, till he has
learned to be collected.

     This therefore must be a leading object of attention.  It
will not be attained by men of delicacy and sensibility, except
by long and trying practice.  It will be the result of much rough
experience, and many mortifying failures.  And after all,
occasions may occur, when the most experienced will be put off
their guard.  Still, however, much may be done by the control
which a vigorous mind has over itself, by resolute and
persevering determination, by refusing to shrink or give way, and
by preferring always the mortification of ill success, to the
increased weakness which would grow out of retreating. [92]

     There are many considerations besides, which, if kept before
the mind, would operate not a little to strengthen its confidence
in itself.  Let the speaker be sensible that, if self-possessed,
he is not likely to fail; that after faithful study and
preparation, there is nothing to stand in his way, but his own
want of self-command.  Let him heat his mind with his subject,
endeavor to feel nothing, and care for nothing, but that.  Let
him consider, that his audience takes for granted that he says
nothing but what he designed, and does not notice those slight
errors which annoy and mortify him; that in truth such errors are
of no moment; that he is not speaking for reputation and display,
nor for the gratification of other by the exhibition of a
rhetorical model, or for the satisfaction of a cultivated taste;
but that he is a teacher of virtue, a messenger of Jesus Christ,
a speaker in the name of God; whose chosen object it is to lead
men above all secondary considerations and worldly attainments,
and to create in them a fixed and lasting interest in spiritual
and religious concerns; - that he himself, therefore, ought to
regard other things [93] as of comparatively little consequence
while he executes this high function; that the true way to effect
the object of his ministry, is, to be filled with that object,
and to be conscious of no other desire but to promote it.  Let
him, in a word, be zealous to do good, to promote religion, to
save souls, and little anxious to make what might be called a
fine sermon; let him learn to sink every thing in his subject and
the purpose it should accomplish -- ambitious rather to do good,
that to do well; -- and he will be in a great measure secure from
the loss of self-command and its attendant distress.  Not always
-- for this feeble vessel of the mind seems to be sometimes tost
to and fro, as it were, upon the waves of circumstances,
unmanageable by the helm and disobedient to the wind.  Sometimes
God seems designedly to show us our weakness, by taking from us
the control of our powers, and causing us to be drifted along
whither we would not.  But under all ordinary occurrences,
habitual piety and ministerial zeal will be an ample security. 
From the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak.  The most
diffident man in the society of men [94] is known to converse
freely and fearlessly when his heart is full, and his passions
engaged; and no man is at a loss for words, or confounded by
another's presence, who think neither of the language, nor the
company, but only of the matter which fills him.  Let the
preacher consider this, and be persuaded of it, -- and it will do
much to relieve him from the distress which attends the loss of
self-possession, which distills in sweat from his forehead, and
distorts every feature with agony.  It will do much to destroy
that incubus, which sits upon every faculty of the soul, and
palsies every power, and fastens down the helpless sufferer to
the very evil from which he strives to flee.

     After all, therefore, which can be said, the great essential
requisite to effective preaching in this method (or indeed in any
method) is a devoted heart.  A strong religious sentiment,
leading to a fervent zeal for the good of other men, is better
than all rules of art; it will give him courage, which no science
or practice could impart, and open his lips boldly, when the fear
of man would keep them closed.  Art may fail him, and all his
treasures of [95] knowledge desert him; but if his heart be warm
with love, he will "speak right on," aiming at the heart, and
reaching the heart, and satisfied to accomplish the great
purpose, whether he be thought to do it tastefully or not.

     This is the true spirit of his office, to be cherished and
cultivated above all things else, and capable of rendering all
its labors comparatively easy.  It reminds him that his purpose
is not to make profound discussions of theological doctrines, or
disquisitions on moral and metaphysical science; but to present
such views of the great and acknowledged truths of revelation,
with such applications of them to the understanding and
conscience, as may affect and reform his hearers.  Now it is not
study only, in divinity or in rhetoric, which will enable him to
do this.  He may reason ingeniously, yet not convincingly; he may
declaim eloquently, yet not persuasively.  There is an immense,
though indescribable difference between the same arguments and
truths, as presented by him who earnestly feels and desires to
persuade, and by him who designs only a display of intellectual
strength, or an [96] exercise of rhetorical skill.  In the latter
case, the declamation may be splendid, but it will be cold and
without expression; lulling the ear, and diverting the cancy, but
leaving the feelings untouched.  In the other, there is an air or
reality and sincerity, which words cannot describe but which the
heart feels, that finds its way to the recesses of the soul, and
overcomes by a powerful sympathy.  This is a difference which all
perceive and all can account for.  The truths of religion are not
matters of philosophical speculation, but of experience.  The
heart and all the spiritual man, and all the interests and
feelings of the immortal being, have an intimate concern in them. 
it is perceived at once whether they are stated by one who has
felt them himself, is personally acquainted with their power, is
subject to their influence, and speaks from actual experience; or
whether they come from one who know them only in speculation, has
gathered them from books, and thought them out by his won reason,
but without any sense of their spiritual operation.

     But who does not know how much easier it is to declare what
has come to [97] our knowledge from our own experience, than what
we have gathered coldly at second hand from that of others; -how
much easier it is to describe feelings we have ourselves had, and
pleasures we have ourselves enjoyed, than to fashion a
description of what others have told us; -- how much more freely
and convincingly we can speak of happiness we have known, than of
that to which we are strangers?  We see then, how much is lost to
the speaker by coldness or ignorance in the exercises of personal
religion.  How can he effectually represent the joys of a
religious mind, who has never known what it is to feel them?  How
can he effectually aid the contrite, the desponding, the
distrustful, the tempted, who has never himself passed through
the same fears and sorrows?  Or how can he appoint, in the warm
colors of truth, religious exercises and spiritual desires, who
is personally a stranger to them?  Alas, he cannot at all come in
contact with those souls, which stand most in need of his
sympathy and aid.  But if he have cherished in himself, fondly
and habitually, the affections he would excite in others, if he
have combated temptation, and [98] practised self-denial, and
been instant in prayer,a and tasted the joy and peace of a tried
faith and hope; then he may communicate directly with the hearts
of his fellow men, and win them over to that which he so
feelingly describes.  If his spirit be always warm and stirring
with these pure and kind emotions, and anxious to impart the
means of his own felicity to others- how easily and freely will
he pour himself forth!  and how little will he think of the
embarrassments of the presence of mortal man, while he is
conscious only of laboring for the glory of the ever present God!

     This then is the one thing essential to be attained and
cherished by the christian preacher.  With this he must begin,
and with this he must go on to the end.  Then he never can
greatly fail; for he will FEEL HIS SUBJECT THOROUGHLY, AND SPEAK
WITHOUT FEAR.