he time if a preacher were able to show that
he was master of some single section of Scripture, say, the Prophets
of the Old Testament or the writings of St. John. I do not know why we
should hesitate about the next step, which, if we have gone so far, we
are logically bound to take--the mastery of the message of the Bible
as a whole. This is what we are responsible for. The Bible is the
message of the mind and will of the loving and redeeming God; and this
we are bound to deliver in such a way that neither its truth nor its
glory will suffer in our hands.

How this is to be done, of course it requires wisdom to decide, and
there will doubtless be different ways for different men and for
different times. In a former generation a president of this
college[61] preached in the College Chapel straight through the
doctrines of Christianity, taking them up one by one in systematic
order; and his book was long a model to preachers both in this country
and Great Britain. He was preaching to an academic audience, and there
are probably few congregations for which such a course would be
suitable now; although I know at least one able young minister in a
country village who has been pursuing this method from the
commencement of his ministry. Once a month he gives a sermon of the
course; perhaps his people do not know that he is doing so; but he is
giving his own mind the discipline of investigating the doctrines of
Christianity in their order; and I am certain both that he himself is
growing a strong man in the process and that his people, though
unconsciously, are getting the benefit of it. In the Lutheran and
Episcopal Churches the observance of the Christian festivals gives
occasion for regularly bringing the circle of the grand Christian
facts before the minds of the people. We have not this guidance; but a
faithful minister is bound to make sure that he is preaching with
sufficient frequency on the leading Christian facts and doctrines, and
that he is not omitting any essential element of Christianity.[62]

Not unfrequently ministers are exhorted to cultivate extreme
simplicity in their preaching. Everything ought, we are told, to be
brought down to the comprehension of the most ignorant hearer, and
even of children. Far be it from me to depreciate the place of the
simplest in the congregation; it is one of the best features of the
Church of the present day that it cares for the lambs. I dealt with
this subject, not unsympa