ents--the
facts and explanations--should come first, appealing to the intellect;
then should follow the illustrative and pathetic elements, which touch
the feelings; and then, at the close, should come those moving and
over-awing considerations which stir the conscience and determine the
will. Thus the impression would grow from the commencement to the
close.[33]

To obtain command of language it is good to hear the best speakers and
to read the best books. It has been my fortune to be acquainted with
a good many celebrated preachers; and I have observed that, almost
without exception, they have had a thorough acquaintance with the
whole range of the higher English literature. To have the music of
Shakespeare or Milton echoing in your memory, or to have lingering in
your ear the cadence and sweep of the sentences of Thackeray and De
Quincey, will almost unawares give you a good style.[34] In reading
over an old sermon of my own, I can almost tell whether or not, in the
week of its composition, I was reading good literature. In the former
case the language is apt to be full and harmonious, and sprinkled over
with gay flowers of maxim and illustration, whereas in the latter the
style of the performance is apt to be bald and jerky.[35]

Let me mention one more rule for the composition of the sermon which
appears to me to be the most important of all. It is, to take time.
Begin in time and get done in time--this, I often say to myself, is
the whole duty of a minister. The reason why so many of our sermons
are crude in thought, unbalanced in the arrangement of the materials,
destitute of literary beauty, and unimpressive in delivery, is because
they are begun too late and written too hurriedly. The process of
thinking especially should be prolonged; it is not so important that
the process of writing should be slow. It is when the subject has been
long tossed about in thought that the mind begins to glow about it;
the subject itself gets hot and begins to melt and flash, until at
last it can be poured forth in a facile but glowing stream. Style is
not something added to the thought from the outside. It is simply the
beauty of the truth itself, when you have gone deep enough to find it;
and the worst condemnation of a careless and unattractive style is
that it does the truth injustice.

3. The preacher ought to be master of the Oral Word. There is a stage
which the truth has to pass through after it has been prepared in the