ully
enough prepared as to matter and order,) is usually best to listen to,
and therefore should be the preacher's goal. Some men write their
sermons and then learn them by heart for delivery. For myself, I own
this would be a severe ordeal to nerve; and in very few cases, if I am
right, does it produce a perfectly natural effect. Not long ago, if not
now, it was a frequent custom in Scotland; and one amusing story comes
to my mind. A good minister, known to a near relative of mine, always
thus "mandated" his sermon, and punctually delivered it word for word.
One day a tremendous hailstorm assailed the church windows, and not only
did his parishioners fail to hear him, but literally he lost the sound
of his own voice. Yet he _dared not stop_, lest memory should play him
false; and when the storm ceased, "I found myself," he said, "with some
surprise, in a quite distant part of the sermon."

ORDER AND DIVISION.

Another important aid to attractiveness is order and division, simply
and sensibly managed. Nothing is much more repellent, at least to modern
hearers, than an excess of arrangement; headings and subdivisions
overdone. But nothing is more helpful to attention than a simple,
natural, luminous division, present in the preacher's mind, announced to
the audience, and faithfully carried out. Remember this, among many
other things, in the choosing of the text; _ceteris paribus_, that text
is best which best lends itself to natural division.

PAINS AND FAITH.

There are many other points, more or less of the exterior kind, so to
speak, which concern the attractiveness of our preaching. There is the
question of length, which can only be settled by careful and prayerful
consideration of special circumstances, with recollection of the general
principles that the morning sermon should be short compared with that of
the evening, and that he who would reach the hearts of the poor must not
give them "sermonettes," but sermons. There is the question of action, a
large subject. All that I can say is, that _some_ action is almost
always a help to attention, but that it proves the very opposite as soon
as it seems uneasy, or a mannerism.

I have yet to deal with some thoughts about the preacher's message, and
the inmost secrets of his power. Meanwhile, may our Lord and Master
enable us so to "labour in the Word" that we shall think no means too
humble which will really help us to make His message plain, and no
dependence on