The ideas that have revolutionized the world came at times and in places most unlooked for.
When musing on the swaying Sanctuary lamp during Benediction, Galileo discovered the laws of the pendulum. Such a trifle as the fall of an apple suggested the laws of gravitation to Newton; and the first idea of the steam engine came to Watt while he was watching the lid rising from the boiling kettle. During a royal banquet the argument to crush the Manicheans grew on the great mind of St. Thomas, and the king made his secretary write it down on the spot. Had not these men trained themselves to admit and welcome the angel visitant, no matter when or where he came, the stagnant pool of the world"s ignorance might have remained for ever unstirred.
Your notes are now before you, some the offspring of original thought and others culled from reading. The former require only polishing and shaping, but the latter must pa.s.s through your own intellect; every thought must feel the brain heat before it becomes palatable. We do not ask people to eat meat raw, so we should take care not to offer them ideas cold and untouched by the warmth of our own reasoning. Think over, ruminate, roll them from side to side, let them sink down through the tissues of your own brain and settle there; then when you send them out warm, bearing the stamp of your own minting, they will be found effective.
Remember that to translate dry theology into questionable English, enc.u.mbered with technical expressions, is not writing a sermon; but the man who takes up the theological principles, simmers them in his own thought, wraps them in the transparency of clear language, ill.u.s.trating them with his own imagery, and thereby bringing them within the grasp of the meanest intelligence, that man, in a sense, creates the truth anew.
You begin the work of construction by making out a sketch argument. Let a well-jointed syllogism underlie and form the framework of your sermon. The conclusion of that syllogism must be the goal point at which you aim. That once selected, all other parts of the sermon should tend towards it. As all roads lead to Rome, so all members of the argument should converge to this point. The congregation should leave the church with that idea fixed and clear as a star of light before their minds.
In writing, as in committing to memory, you should keep the audience ever before the mind"s eye. Attack it on every side; pursue it with argument, and never leave it in the power of an intelligent man to say: "I do not understand what he means."
This habit of writing with the audience before us not only secures cogency and point for our arguments and clearness for our ill.u.s.trations, but it saves us from the fatal mistake of producing not a sermon but an essay.
Here our meditations a.s.sist us. The daily habit of balancing and introspection enables a man to read and a.n.a.lyse his own heart, its strength and weakness. He becomes familiar with the springs and levers that move it, the storms that convulse and the sunshine that gladdens the mysterious world within his own breast. How useful this knowledge when he comes to train the artillery of the pulpit on the hearts of others!
[Side note: _Placere_]
So far we have been studying how to mortise the joints of our arguments into well-knit and shapely strength; the pure scholastic, however, possesses but half the weapons of the preacher. The best built skeleton is repulsive till it is clothed with flesh, colour and beauty. This is the rhetorician"s task. He comes with his graceful art, and drapes the dry bones of hard reasoning, clarifies the arguments by ill.u.s.trations, clothes them in language crisp and sparkling, weaves around them the warm glow of fancy and renders the hardest truths palatable by the grace of diction and delivery. He accomplishes all implied in the word "_placere_."
When rhetoric and logic clasp hands the standard of triumph is fairly certain to be planted above the stubborn heart. We must, however, remember that the arts of rhetoric are subordinate to the reasoning, and must be brought forward only for the purpose of driving the reasoning home. But since man"s faculties are not divided into watertight compartments, neither should the sermon intended to influence him.
Our reason is not independent of our pa.s.sions; our feelings so influence our judgment that even in our greatest actions it is hard to disentangle and say so much is the product of one and so much of the other. The sermon should be constructed to fit the man; argument and emotion should not stand apart, but dovetail and interlace.
[Side note: Sheil]
In the art of entwining the garlands of rhetoric around the framework of argument, Sheil stands conspicuous. Lecky says of him--"His speeches seem exactly to fulfil Burke"s description of perfect oratory--half poetry, half prose. Two very high excellencies he possessed to the most wonderful degree--the power of combining extreme preparation with the greatest pa.s.sion and of _blending argument with declamation_.
"We know scarcely any speaker from whom it would be possible to cite so many pa.s.sages with all the _sustained rhythm and flow of declamation, yet consisting wholly of the most elaborate arguments_. He always prepared the language as well as the substance of his speeches. He seems to have followed the example of Cicero in studying the case of his opponent as well as his own, and was thus enabled to antic.i.p.ate with great accuracy."
The hint contained in the last paragraph is invaluable to the man who proves or expounds doctrine. It sometimes happens that there is an objection so natural that it seems to grow out of the reasoning. Perhaps, while the preacher is speaking, it is taking shape on the minds of the hearers; at least sooner or later it is certain to recur.
How is it to be dealt with? Let it pa.s.s, and the audience carry away the argument with a cloud of doubt hanging around that goes far to destroy its force. Or it may be that when he opens the morning paper it confronts him, set forth in the most convincing shape, with the advantage of having, at least, twenty-four hours to rest on the public mind before he can touch it. Therefore, let no such objection pa.s.s, but grapple with it here and now, and tear it to shreds. Here you are master of the situation, and can present the objection in a shape most accessible to your own knife. By antic.i.p.ating an antagonist you break his sword and render your own position una.s.sailable.
Before our preacher goes into the pulpit just one word in his ear--Beware of two very common defects--(I) _Rapidity of speech_ and (2) _Want of proper articulation_. A people who think warmly, as we Irish do, speak rapidly. Thought is rushed upon thought and sentence telescoped into sentence. Before sending forth an idea, take care that its predecessor has got time to settle on the minds of your hearers. In articulation try to earn the eulogy pa.s.sed on Wendell Philips: "He sent each sentence from his lips as bright and clear cut as a new made sovereign from the mint."
[Side note: _Movere_]
What is the main weapon of the orator? Demosthenes answers-- "Action." Mr. Gladstone--"Earnestness." But St. Francis Borgia probably explains what both mean when he advises us to preach with an evidence of conviction that makes it clear to the audience you are prepared to lay down your life at the foot of the pulpit stairs for the truth of what you say.
Without this deep-seated conviction and the enthusiasm that flows from it, your fire is but painted fire, your thunder the thunder of the stage. This living earnestness is the spark that illumines and vitalizes all. Without it the best built sermon is but a painted corpse; but when the soul gleams forth in the flashing eye and quivering lip, waves of unseen fire are issuing with every sentence, and arrows of light silently piercing every heart. The most stubborn prejudices are forced to melt and the most depraved wills are swept on the crest of the grand tidal wave, slowly gathering from the start; but when the preacher forgets himself and his surroundings, flings self-consciousness away, goes outside himself, pouring the hot tide from his own glowing heart, till every flash of his eye and every wave of his hand becomes a palpitating thought, then his audience surrender; their hearts are in the hollow of his hand, wax to receive any impression; their wills can be braced and lifted to the sublimest heights of heroism--this is triumph.
[Side note: O"Connell]
It is said that the great mastery O"Connell exercised over the people mainly sprang from the pa.s.sionate earnestness of his conviction. The nation"s heart seemed merged into his own. He stood forth her living, breathing symbol. When he spoke it was Ireland spoke. Her pa.s.sions rocked his soul; her humour flashed from his eye; her scorn gleamed in his glances, and her sobs choked his utterance. Ah! if preachers were as filled with the Spirit of Christ as this man was with the spirit of patriotism, what a revolution we might witness!
You ask--"How then do actors move people since there can be no enthusiasm when men know they simulate unreal people and unreal pa.s.sions?" I answer, that the first step towards becoming a great actor is to fling aside that knowledge and hand yourself over the willing victim of a delusion. You must not _act_ but _live_ your part: persuade yourself that you are the character you personate: surrender your heart to be torn by real pa.s.sions and wrung by real sorrows.
The answer is well known which a celebrated actor once gave to a divine:--"How is it that you so move people by fiction and our preachers fail to move them by truth?" "Sir, we speak fiction as if it were fact, and your preachers speak truth as if it were fiction."
Here we leave our preacher facing his audience and filled with but one idea: I have a great message to deliver and I will lay hold of every means to send that message home; voice, pa.s.sion, style, gesture, these are my arms, and with these I hope to conquer.
[Side note: Parting glance at the preacher"s mission]
In parting we take a glance at the preacher"s exalted mission, and we may well ask: What in the whole range of human occupations does this world hold worthy of being compared to it?
The battle-field, it is true, has its glories, but it has its horrors also. Who can paint the pride with which Napoleon saw the triumph of his skill crush two Emperors at Austerlitz or the rapture with which he beheld the trophies of great kingdoms at his feet? The fatigues of winter marches were forgotten when in the fiery flashes of his veterans" eyes he read his own renown, while their applauding shouts fell like music on his ears. But blood soils the proudest trophies of war, and across the perspective of victory the spectres of murdered men will stalk.
Human eloquence, too, has its conquests, the purest, the most beautiful in the natural order. How the pride flush heightens on the orator"s cheek as he watches the crusts of prejudice melt and hostile hearts surrender; when he marks the bated breath and the hushed silence attesting his victory more eloquently than the stormiest applause! He sees the varied moods of his own soul mirrored in the faces around him, as he summons forth what spirit he lists: tears or laughter, murmurs or applause answer to his call.
What pen can picture the ecstasies that thrilled the soul of Grattan as he gave utterance to the spirit of expiring freedom in those orations that rank among the world"s masterpieces? The snows of age melted and the decrepitude of years was flung aside, and his eyes gleamed with strange fires as he beheld sodden corruption struck dumb and hang its guilty head; when he saw the wavering drink fresh courage with each new outburst, and men of commonest clay transformed into heroes by the blaze of his genius. Glorious triumphs indeed; but, alas! human, and as such doomed to die.
But in the sublimity of his purpose and the imperishable nature of his conquests the preacher stands alone. Compared with his the greatest trophies of the battle-field or the forum are feeble trifles.
The preacher, in prayer and study, goes down over the green swards of Calvary, and there gathers the ruby drops of Redemption. He ascends the pulpit and pours them as a purple tide over souls that are parched and perishing. As when the Pentecostal fire rested on the Apostles" heads, a new light filled their minds and a new flame sprung up within their hearts; so when the same spirit breathes through the preacher"s lips, the clouds of ignorance dissolve and the light of truth divine glorifies the minds and inflames the souls of his hearers. The ears of faith can hear the applause of angels and the eyes of faith can read Heaven"s approval in the flashing glances of the Blest, as with each stroke the preacher widens the empire of the Precious Blood and piles palpitating trophies before the Sacred Heart. Ah! here is a field worthy of the highest ambition that ever burned within a human breast.
Hence, we should toil, toil, toil, and call no labour excessive that we put forth in burnishing into polished efficiency every weapon G.o.d has given us for the service of his pulpit.
CHAPTER FIFTH
A SOPHISTRY EXPOSED. ADVICE GIVEN
Theologian and Preacher--The Difference
It is amazing to think how often the offices of theologian and preacher are spoken of as if they were identical. Now, the functions of theologian and preacher stand widely apart. To the reflective mind this sounds like repeating a truism; yet what a world of confused thought and ignorant criticism would be cleared from the subject if this fact were kept well in sight.
When you say that a young priest is becoming a good preacher you are met by "impossible! he never got a prize in theology."
This is supposed to give your poor judgment its final _coup_; argument after that is useless: _causa finita est_.
Now, I do not think our appreciation of an eminent surgeon is lessened by our being told that he is a poor chemist; yet the difference between these respective professions is scarcely more radical than that which separates the office of preacher from that of theologian.
To the ordinary public the theological treatise is a sealed book.
It is the preacher"s duty to break that seal; to take out the dry truths stored there; to render them palatable and inviting, and bring them within the grasp of the plainest intelligence.
[Side note: Solicitor and barrister]
Few occupations more aptly ill.u.s.trate this difference than those of solicitor and barrister.
The attorney works up the materials for the case: he groups statutes, discovers principles, tabulates references, supplies dates. While he does not plead himself, a man so armed is invaluable at the elbow of an able advocate; without the barrister, however, especially where the prejudices, interests, and the imagination of a jury have to be worked upon, his load of learned lumber would be of small value. The theologian makes out the brief: the preacher pleads it.
To render this distinction clearer let us take one more ill.u.s.tration. No animal can exist on air and clay and sunlight alone. Though these contain the elements on which it is fed; yet, though surrounded by them in most ample abundance, he must perish if a third power is not brought into play. The vegetable world comes intervening between the raw chemicals and the hungry man.
Out of earth and air and light it builds the ripened sheaf, the succulent apple and the savoury potato. So, though bookshelves groan under calf-bound tomes h.o.a.rding the hived treasures of the masters of theology, the common minds of the mult.i.tude would starve did not the preacher interpose as interpreter of the theologian"s message, drawing forth from his storehouse truths and principles out of which he manufactures the daily bread on which the ordinary man must live. Without his aid the richest repository ever clasped between the covers of a book would remain a _fons signatus a hortus conclusus_. The prophet of G.o.d saw the dry bones scattered over the valley of desolation till the breath of a new power pa.s.sed over them, and lo! (I) "the bones came together each one to its joint; (2) the sinews and the flesh came upon them . . . (3) and the skin was stretched out over them . . . and the spirit came into them and they lived."
The attorney and the theologian gather the dry bones, but on the preacher and the barrister lie the fourfold task of mortising the joints into each other, binding them with the sinews of argument, clothing them in living beauty and vitalizing the whole structure with the flame of impa.s.sioned earnestness. Only when this has been done will they live.
So thoroughly distinct are the two offices it rarely happens that a professional theologian becomes an efficient preacher. The concentration and exclusive exercise of one faculty unfits him for a task demanding many.