es to his task as well furnished as a
Gladstone or a Bright, the advocates of extemporary speaking are
out of count.

[Side note: III.]

The extemporary preacher challenges nature on her own ground. No
one need doubt the issue. Nature will conquer, and the man who
defies her will succumb. He endeavours to think, to select
word-clothing for his thoughts, to labour his memory, and deliver
his sermon, and performs all four operations at the same time, a
task clearly impossible, but more so when we remember the usual
embarrassments that beset a young preacher--the nervous
agitation, the want of self-control, the desire to succeed. It
ends generally in a stammer and then a break, greeted by the
congregation with a sigh of relief or perhaps a sneer of
contempt.

Is it by preaching such as this you hope to challenge the respect
and get a hold on the intellect of a cynical world? Is it through
such instrumentality you would bring home the Church's message to
proud and festering humanity? No one can succeed who attempts
more than one task at a time.

Look to analogy. At the moment when a regiment is expected to
charge, you don't find it engaged in collecting ammunition,
sharpening swords, and learning drill. All these necessary
preliminaries are long since completed. Now every bridle is
grasped, every sword hilt in grip, and the rowelled heels are
ready to dash into the horses' flanks at the first note of the
trumpet blast.

The preacher should come to the pulpit in a like state of
preparedness, with his thoughts already gathered, moulded,
polished and clothed in the words that fit them best; with every
argument as definite and well knitted as a proposition in Euclid;
the page swept clear of superfluous verbiage; each idea standing
out bright as a jewel in its setting, and the whole so thoroughly
committed to memory that he can defy the most critical to
discover a trace of effort. He should come, holding his
elocutionary forces in reserve, and ready, when the moment
arrives, to flash from his lips each living thought and send from
his heart the waves of subtle, unseen fire to melt, rock, or
subdue the hearts of others, instead of attempting four tasks
simultaneously, and failing in all. His sole business in the
pulpit is not to shape his message or to clothe his message, but
to gather and converge all the powers within him for one grand
purpose and it alone--to send that message home.

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