Excerpt from Sermons: A Paper Read at the Church Congress, Brighton, October, 1901 I know that it is maintained that written sermons are commonly so ill-read as to be ineffective, whereas extempore preaching better arrests and holds attention. It may be so, though I confess that, for my part, the defects of both modes of preaching seem to be roughly equal. If the read sermon is monotonous - the extempore discourse is as often noisy; if the one is sometimes inaudible, the other is occasionally offensive. Burnet's counsel is sound, though he, inclines 'too much to extempore preaching The great rule' which the masters of rhetoric press much can '11ever be enough remembered, that to make a man speak well and pronounce with a right emphasis, he ought thoroughly to understand all that he says, be fully persuaded of it, and bring himself to have those affections which he desires 'to' infuse into others. And, therefore, such as read their sermons ought' to practise reading mu'ch in private and read aloud, that so their own ear and sense may guide them to know where to raise or quicken, soften or sweeten their voice, and when to give an articulation of authority or of conviction, where to pause and where to languish. Those who read ought certainly to be at a little more pains than for the most part they are to read true, to pronounce with an' emphasis, and to raise their heads and to direct their eyes to their hearers; and if they practised more alone the just way of reading, they might deliver their sermons with much more advantage Pas toral Care, c. Ix). Even more important than the delivery is the composition of sermons. Dr. Johnson observed that the established clergy in general did not preach plain enough, and that polished periods and glittering Sentences flew over the heads of the common people without any impression upon their hearts Works, II., 268, ed. Birrell). About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.