A Beautiful Sermon

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 5, 1885

"A Beautiful Sermon."

IN a recent letter from a friend she spoke of a sermon to which she had listened on the preceding Sabbath as "beautiful." I judge from the expression that it pleased the ear, as a beautiful landscape pleases the eye. Many such sermons are preached in these days. They seem to be prepared and delivered more with a design to please than to profit. They are listened to with admiration, and the people go away from the house of God praising the preacher, and well satisfied with themselves.

Many years ago the writer heard a good deacon say that he liked that kind of preaching which exalted God and humbled man. Such does not seem to be the design, nor is it the effect of these "beautiful sermons." The design rather seems to be to glorify the preacher, and as for God, he seems to be but little thought of. As regards the sermon on the mount, the profoundest and most instructive sermon ever preached, spoken by Him who spake as never man spake, we think that no one that listened to it thought of it as beautiful. Probably no one of its hearers went away thinking of it or speaking of it in that light. There are indeed beautiful things in it and beautifully expressed—gems of thought—but these were not the things that were uppermost in the minds of those that heard it. Thus we read at the conclusion of the narrative: "And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings the people were astonished at his doctrine. For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes."

What is wanted in sermons is truth that comes home to the heart, and reforms and beautifies the life. That is a beautiful sermon that the Holy Spirit makes use of to put the beauty of the Lord our God upon us. Where the great truths of the gospel are ignored, beautiful sermons are as powerless to these ends as are moonbeams to melt the snows of winter, or to cause the earth to be fruitful.—N. Y. Observer.