Chapter I

THE WRITTEN AND EXTEMPORE DISCOURSE COMPARED.

The special object of the following pages is to show the manner and requirements of extempore preaching. But as this differs from other methods of speech in its objects rather than in its external qualities, many of the thoughts we present will apply as well to the bar and forum as to the sacred desk.

There is need that this subject should be enforced, particularly on the ministry. A growing desire is manifested to give up plain, direct speech, and indulge in the ease and certainty of written sermons. Young men find themselves in places where it requires unwearied exertion to sustain their reputation, and satisfy the demands of a cultivated audience. They begin to fear that their spoken sermons may be deficient in polish and style, and at last they write. The people nearly always protest against the innovation, but to no purpose, for having convinced himself that he is right, the minister treats their murmurs as the effect of vulgar prejudice, and as a frequent result, his usefulness is permanently impaired.

This evil cannot be diminished by denouncing those who engage in it, for the supposed necessity they labor under is stronger than any other consideration. But it may be lessened by showing that there is a better way, and making it plain. Such will be our endeavor.

The two extremes of speech are, the discourse which is written and read verbatim, and that in which both words and thoughts are left to the impulse of the moment. Between these there are many intermediate grades. The latter may be excluded from the classification altogether, for no wise man will adopt it except in some unforeseen emergency. True extemporization relates to the words alone, and leaves full room for the complete preparation of thought. Between this and the manuscript discourse there are various compromises which seek to combine the advantages of both. These, for the sake of convenience, may be called the recited, composite, premeditated and sketched discourses.

It is useless to deny that the method of writing in full and reading, possesses many and great advantages. It secures time for the consideration of every thought. If the mind fags, the writer can pause until it is rested and begin again; and in this way all the ideas and expressions that occur for several days can be concentrated into one sermon. Then it can be revised, and the language improved to an indefinite extent, and the sermon, in its completeness, laid away for future use.

But there are great disadvantages. Such a sermon may, by solidity of thought, and brilliancy of expression, command approval, but it will seldom move and sway the people. The very idea that all has been written out, and is merely read, will tend powerfully to neutralize its effects. We may remonstrate against this if we will, and declare that our sermons should be judged by their substance, but this does not abate the preference of our auditors. They will retort, with truth, that they can read even better sermons at home, and dwell on them at their leisure. What they want in preaching is the living sympathy and guidance of the preacher; his soul burning and glowing, and thus lighting up other souls; his eye beaming on theirs; his clear, far-seeing mind, excited by the magnetism of truth, and appealing to their hearts with an earnestness that will take no denial. This fills the popular ideal of preaching, and no elaboration, no word music will atone for the want of it. Men of great genius may succeed otherwise, but the mass of speakers cannot.

The plan of memorizing and reciting sermons would seem, upon a superficial view, to secure the advantages of reading without its defects. But another and formidable class of disadvantages come into being. Very few men can declaim well. For one who can speak from memory with ease and naturalness, twenty can pour forth their ideas in the words of the moment with energy and effect. A few have mastered the difficult art, and won enduring laurels in this way, but their number is too small to encourage others to imitation.

This practice also imposes a heavy burden on the mind. To write and commit two or three sermons in a week, is a task that only those who are strong in mental and physical health can perform with impunity, and even then it requires too much time; for no matter how perfect a minister’s sermons may be, unless he fulfills other duties, he cannot be wholly successful. Most preachers who memorize, inevitably neglect pastoral work because they have not time for it. And another effect follows that is, if possible, still worse. Instead of growing daily in knowledge by diligent study, the mind is kept on the tread-wheel task of writing and committing sermons, and thus permanently dwarfed. A young man may take a higher rank at first by memorizing, than otherwise, but he will not retain it long, for the knowledge others accumulate while he is conning his discourses, will soon place them above him.

The practice of committing brilliant passages to be recited with the eyes withdrawn from the paper, or thrown into the current of unpremeditated discourse, we have termed the composite manner. It is open to all the objections urged against the last method, and a most formidable one in addition—the difficulty of making these sudden flashes fit into their proper places, and of preventing them from destroying the unity of the whole discourse. They differ so widely from the rest of the composition, that the audience are apt to see the artifice and despise it. A skillful man may join them properly, but even then his own attention, and that of the audience will, probably, be so closely fixed upon them that the main design of the sermon will pass out of sight.

These three varieties are much alike, and may be called branches of the word-preparation method. In them, words are carefully chosen, and form the groundwork of discourse. The next three are based on thought.

The premeditated discourse comes nearest to the word method. It was the medium of the wonderful eloquence of the late Bishop Bascom. In it the ideas are first arranged, and then each thought pondered until it resolves itself into words, which are mostly recalled in the moment of speech. Men who speak thus usually have great command of language and much fixity of impression. Those who receive ideas readily, and lose them again as easily, could not adopt this method, for words previously arranged could not be recalled in the same order, unless they had been fixed by the pen. There is little objection to this mode of preparation in the case of those who are adapted to it, provided they do not carry it so far as to feel burdened or confused. No words should be left in charge of the memory, and no conscious effort made to recall particular expressions.

Stevens, in his admirable book called “Preaching Required by the Times,” advises ministers, when revolving and arranging their ideas, not to let them run into words. We can see no ill effect in this, provided the result is a natural one. All the words must be retained easily in the memory, and not sought for if they do not spontaneously present themselves in the act of speech. President Lincoln, who was a most effective off-hand speaker, said, that he owed his skill in this art to the early practice of reducing every thought he entertained to the plainest and simplest words. Then when he desired to enunciate an idea he had no difficulty in giving it a form that even a child could understand.

The sketched discourse approaches very closely to the purely extempore method, and only differs from it in writing the whole matter in full, with no care for style, simply to practice in the art of expression, and to test our mastery of the plan arranged. In it there is no intention of memorizing, or of using the same words again, except so far as the ideas in their simplest form may suggest them. This is only doing on paper what, in the last method, was done mentally. It may be of great advantage to those who have had but a limited experience, and cannot so clearly grasp their ideas in the domain of pure thought as to be sure that they are fully adapted to the purposes of their sermons.

But at the slow rate of writing in the common hand, this requires too much time. If a person have mastered Phonography, or Tachygraphy, a valuable improvement of the former, more easily acquired and retained in practice, he may write a sermon in little more than the time it will take to preach it, if he only work at full speed and do not stay for the niceties of style. Then the defects in the arrangement or material, that before escaped his attention, will be brought to light. We can judge a sermon more impartially when it is placed outside of the mind, than if it were only mentally reviewed, and we still have time to correct whatever may be amiss.

But the great method of which the two former are mere branches, and which in fact underlies every other, is that of pure extemporization. In this there is a firm, compact road of previously prepared thought leading directly to the object aimed at. When thus speaking, we always feel on solid ground, and each moment have the proper, selected idea, seeking expression, and clothing itself in the needed words. All men talk thus, and we cannot but regard it as the highest form of oratory. When we have obtained complete mastery of expression, and the ability to so arrange facts and ideas, that at the fitting moment they will resolve themselves into words, the high problem of eloquence is in a great measure solved.