Written and Unwritten Sermons.
By Editor
IN an article on this subject, Dr. Peabody advocates written sermons, claiming that the minister may feel his subject just as intensely if he reads his sermon as if he simply spoke it. He adds: “As for the interest of the hearers, I doubt not there are moments when the extempore preacher can rouse and startle his hearers as he could not were he reading his sermon; but I doubt whether he can sustain their unflagging attention as he could with a well-written discourse.” We make the above quotation for the purpose of introducing the following comment upon it, by the Christian at Work, which we think is very apt. It is short; but it seems to us that no more need be said:— “In all this, one phase of the matter seems to be lost sight of, and it is this: What is the object of the sermon? If it be to convict and convince men of sin, to lead them to a Saviour, to stir men up to worthy deeds, to induce to the truer conviction of life, then we believe the unwritten discourse will best promote these ends. If the aim of the preacher is to defeat an antagonist, to declare a philosophical system, to please the intellectual tastes of his readers, to set forth the truths of the gospel in a way the farthest possible removed from ordinary speech and thought, then the minister not possessing the power of unwritten discourse would best remedy his deficiencies by the substitute of sermon paper. Imagine Demosthenes to have stirred up the Greeks by reading from a papyrus, or Cicero to have impeached Cataline by holding up a parchment before his eyes, or St. Paul to have defended himself before Agrippa, or preached his matchless sermon on Mars Hill, from the cursive sheep-skin, or Wesley, or Whitefield, Harlin, Page, Finney or Moody, to have resorted to carefully prepared foolscap for leading sinners to Christ! To use a paradoxical phrase, ‘the thought is unthinkable.’ Paper-mills were instituted to remedy the deficiency of nature. About the time that ministers and public speakers become providentially incapacitated for putting forth their utterances—save as they were inscribed on prepared rag-pulp—paper was discovered and paper-mills invented. Ever since then the argument has been going up to the skies that paper is a necessity, and paper-mills Heaven’s last best gift to man. The fact is, the change of the sermonic method and the invention of paper-mill machinery were synchronous. That paper is essential to the modern sermon is true. That the modern sermon is essential to the conversion of the world—well, that is another question.”