In What Way May a Preacher Sink His Audience?
The following anecdote, which the writer of this article had from the lips of the concerned individual, may aid your readers, Mr. Editor, in coming to the proper answer. It may even benefit the venerated incumbents of the highest office in the sublunary gift of God; it may prove salutary to many, as it has to some of the commissioned ambassadors of Jesus Christ. To them the question is practical, and every man shall kiss his lips that “giveth a right answer.” I was once designated, said the narrator, to preach the annual election sermon, in the metropolis of my native State, (Hartford, Ct.,) and before its Governor, its Legislature, and other professional dignitaries. The weather was fine, the concourse numerous, and composed of the intellectual nobility, civil and ecclesiastical, of the whole commonwealth, including strangers of distinction, and constituting an audience of the highest respectability. I, of course, tarried with the pastor of the place, the late Dr. Strong. As the bell began its monitory tolling, I left the study and descended to the parlor. There I was ushered into a circle of clergymen, few of whom I knew, and none of whom at that moment I rejoiced to see. The conversation turned upon my feelings in view of the specialty of the service. Some sympathized, others prophesied, others encouraged, and others counselled; how many prayed for me I know not. At last one said, “Fear nothing; be bold and independent; just imagine them to be a patch of cabbages, and treat them as such, and my word for it you will succeed.” Oh! thought I, “if I could sink them upon this principle, and bring my feelings just there, it would do!” but, at this instant Dr. Strong entered the room, and informed those present that it was time to proceed to the church. As the preacher and pastor are ever partners in the procession, according to our good habits, I had the privilege of walking with the doctor. He soon inquired the state of my feelings, having learned their perturbation, and wishing to assuage them, thus accosted me: “Well, my brother, can you not sink them? You have not forgotten the advice of Mr. ——, which I overheard just before I summoned you to move?” “No,” I replied; “but they are such a select assembly, and will expect so much, and criticise so sternly! and what if I should fail?” The doctor rejoined: “I am not surprised that you find it difficult to adopt that counsel and preach under the inspiration of a lie. It is folly, falsehood, and stupidity; and to which of these ingredients the poisonous composition is most indebted, it were hard to resolve. They are not cabbages, nor cannibals, but a collection of cultivated men and morally responsible beings; and to you pertains the responsibility of addressing them as such, and propounding to them their duty under the sanction of their Creator’s will. You must face them and ‘speak boldly as you ought to speak.’ And you need not fear their faces. “Take my counsel; when the sun rides at his meridian, the stars are lost in the glory of his beams; and when God is exalted, his creatures are forgotten. Fill your thoughts with a sense of his presence, and your obligations; think of his goodness and his promises; let God fill your whole field of vision, then man will appear in proper diminutiveness. This is truth and grace; this will sink your audience without injuring them, or inflating you; and, in truth, I know of no other mode of sinking an audience legitimately, than that I have suggested.” He paused; and I was relieved. His counsel pervading my whole soul, I was enabled to magnify my office and my Master, and I have since retained it, and practice upon it with the happiest and most durable satisfaction. Believing as I do, Mr. Editor, that every audience must be sunk, and God exalted, where the preacher is free and fearless, and the preaching effectual; and that the above counsel of an illustrious preacher may benefit his successors and juniors in office—perhaps private Christians, even editors—I have sent it, with my respects, as a contribution to your valuable miscellany.—Religious Chronicle, for 1840.