Extempore Preaching

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1871

Extempore Preaching.

AFTER Newman Hall had finished his address before the Young Men’s Christian Association, at Springfield, he was waited upon by a few theological students. After the introduction, he stepped forward, and throwing great earnestness into his face and voice, he remarked:—

“I have a word or two to say to you. Learn to speak without notes. I hear that a good many—perhaps the most—of the ministers in America confine themselves to their manuscripts. That is abominable. One shouldn’t be under that sort of bondage. One ought, of course, to be able to write. I write, and sometimes follow closely from beginning to end what is before me on paper. But for a minister to limit himself to that one method, and never feel free to speak without having the written words of elaborate preparation under his eye, is terrible. No; you must learn to speak without notes. Some think they cannot do this. Let me tell you how I did it.”

“When I went to college, it seemed to me I should never be able to say a word in public without writing. But I soon determined that if I were going to be a preacher, and particularly if I wanted to be anything like a successful preacher, I must form the habit of extemporaneous address. So I went into my room, locked the door, placed the Bible before me on the mantle, opened it at random, and then, on whatever passage my eye chanced to rest, proceeded to deliver a discourse of ten minutes. This practice was kept up for an entire twelvemonth. Every day, for a whole year, ten minutes were given to that kind of speaking, in my own room, by myself. At first, I found it very difficult to speak so long right to the point. But then, if I could not talk on the subject, I would talk about it—making good remarks and moral reflections, being careful to keep up the flow, and say something, to the end of the term allotted for the exercise. At the end of the twelve months, however, I found I could not only speak with a good degree of fluency, but that I could hold myself strictly to the subject in hand.”

“You take this course. Don’t do your practicing on an audience. That is outrageous. No man ought for a moment to think of inflicting himself on an assembly of people, until he has gone through a course of training, such as I have indicated, by himself. But you can learn to speak without notes, if you will try.”