MODERN EXPOSITORY SERMONS.
PULPIT fashions change as often as any other. The typical discourse in our grandfather’s day was the long and labored doctrinal sermon; that of this day is the so-called “expository” sermon. There is, perhaps, good reason for the prominence given to the exposition of Scripture in the pulpit of to-day, but not all the zeal shown is according to knowledge. One finds it easy, in the light of certain experiences that most of us have had, to understand why some people have a positive dislike to expository sermons. One of these reasons is admirably put in a little paragraph of the current Harper’s Magazine: “Well, my dear, what did you think of Dr. Verbose’s sermon this morning?” “Why, I was very much surprised. I never knew before that the apparently simple text he chose was so hard to explain.” No doubt it is true that many of the most familiar texts will yield to close examination unsuspected depths of meaning; but after one has listened some time to the wrestlings of Dr. Verbose with a text whose meaning is all on the surface, one may admire the mental agility with which he twists it and turns it, and apparently accomplishes the miraculous task of making something out of nothing—but does that kind of exposition increase one’s reverence for the Scriptures?—(N. Y.) Examiner.