The Priestly Vocation Part 7

In more outlying parts, it would seem that the regulation issued by Pius X insisting on the singing of the "proper"--introit, gradual, etc.--in some cases has had the opposite effect to that intended, and has caused many to give up the sung ma.s.s altogether; for although it may be urged that the "proper" can always be sung either in psalm tone, or at least monotone, in practice people will not attempt it; and indeed often when it is attempted, the difficulty of reading Latin to laymen who are not accustomed to it in a country where the language is so different in sound and rhythm produces a result the reverse of devotional.

Then again restrictions on the cla.s.s of music from a false reading of the well-known _Motu Proprio_ of Pius X has had the same effect. There is no doc.u.ment more frequently misquoted than this _Motu Proprio_. The lover of Gregorian music speaks as though universal plain chant was prescribed; the admirers of Palestrina quote it in favour of polyphonic music; while those who are opposed to the ma.s.ses of Mozart and Haydn, once so popular, appeal to the _Motu Proprio_ as though it were a condemnation of this whole cla.s.s of music. In point of fact if anyone will actually read the text, he will find it most broad in outlook.

Undoubtedly the Pope extols plain chant as pre-eminently the music of the Church and calls for its restoration; but he also speaks highly of polyphonic music; and with respect to modern music, he only stipulates that it should not be theatrical in character. Those who are familiar with the very light and trumpery music in vogue in the Italian churches--which is the instance actually quoted by the Pope--will readily understand this restriction. That it condemns ma.s.ses such as Haydn's Imperial may perhaps be fairly argued; but most of Mozart's ma.s.ses would seem to come within the scope of what is allowed. A possible exception is the well-known No. XII, which many maintain to have been written not by Mozart at all, but by his pupils. At any rate it is of a distinctly more operatic character than the other Mozart ma.s.ses. But even if Mozart and Haydn are excluded, there are plenty of simple ma.s.ses often sung which are entirely within the line drawn.

Indeed, on the important point emphasised by the Pope, of the words being sung so that the listeners can follow them, music of this kind is superior to polyphonic, in which the syllables in the different voices so overlap that it is often impossible to follow the words. It is true indeed that these ma.s.ses sometimes include the "needless repet.i.tion" of the words of the liturgy which the Pope condemns; especially in the _Kyrie_, where the number of invocations is never the proper nine, and is simply adapted to the exigences of the music; and in the concluding phases of the _Gloria_ and _Credo_, in which the _Amen_ is often repeated many times; in the beginning of the _Gloria_ also, or in the _Sanctus_ or elsewhere some repet.i.tion is found; but as a general rule in the ma.s.ses we have had in this country the repet.i.tions have been less p.r.o.nounced than is often implied, and a good many ma.s.ses are practically free from them. The abuse current in Italy of having all the chief parts of the _Gloria_--the _Gratias agimus_, the _Domine Deus_, etc.--as separate pieces which is condemned by the Pope has never found its way into England. [1]

Then with respect to details, although the ideal put forward is for a choir of men and boys, it was apparently not intended to exclude women altogether: it was only meant to stipulate that they should not be "admitted to the choir," which according to the authorised explanation, is complied with provided that they are grouped apart and not mixed with the men. Indeed, solos are expressly allowed, provided that they do not monopolise the singing. The chief instrument is to be the organ or harmonium, but with leave of the Bishop other wind instruments may be added on special occasions. The only prohibition is against _instrumenta percussionis_, specified as pianoforte, drums, kettledrums, cymbals, triangles, etc.--a list which is in itself a sufficient commentary on the music which it is desired to exclude.

All this seems surely broad enough to bring the sung ma.s.s within the capability of most missions. Nevertheless, there is much in favour of a return to plain chant. The old idea which was involved in Bishop Dougla.s.s's description of a Requiem a century ago that "the Responses were in plain chant except the _Libera_, which was in music," calls for combating, for Gregorian Chant is in the highest sense music. The chief reason that people do not always take to it is that it requires a certain training to appreciate it. If plain chant is to be restored, the first step is to train not only the clergy, as is already being done, but more importantly still, the schoolmasters. Recently the writer heard a high ma.s.s in a country church sung in plain chant by the school children, who had been trained by their master, and not only was the effect most devotional, but the congregation was already beginning to join in the singing--a consummation devoutly to be wished. If this could be done regularly, we should perhaps see our way to the restoration of the liturgy in popular estimation, and an incidental advantage not to be lost sight of would be that it would limit the duration of the services.

[2]

The case of Vespers is different from that of sung ma.s.s. It was never meant for an evening service of the modern type, and used to be sung early in the afternoon. From the time when vernacular evening services began to come in--which was about the middle of last century [3]--the popularity of Vespers has steadily declined. There are now but few churches where they are ever attempted; and such services as _Tenebrae_ in Holy Week or the _Dirge_ on All Souls' Day seem to be almost limited to cathedral churches. This is of course to be regretted, and it is probable that a good deal more might be done to revive the singing of Vespers; but it may be doubted whether it would be really popular in England as a regular thing. [4]

Now a priest should love the liturgy, both for his own spiritual life and for that of his people; and likewise for the outward glory of G.o.d, for it is the official life of the Church. The Puseyites boasted to Cardinal Wiseman that great credit was due to them for reintroducing high ma.s.s (as they considered it). The Cardinal replied that still greater credit was due to Catholics who had never lost it. A priest should be educated in the liturgical sense that he in turn may educate his people. If he has little taste for liturgy he is wanting in the fulness of his vocation. It is certainly not an over-statement that much more trouble might be taken with the liturgical services than is often the case. To learn to be at home on the sanctuary and to move about quietly and in a dignified way requires a little effort, but presents no great difficulty. Yet often we see it far otherwise. So, also, every priest should be able at least to chant the prayers in a proper tone, and this will make a great difference to the general effect. If he is musical, so much the better. Many priests are not, and for them it involves a good deal of trouble and will be only moderately successful; but it is hard to believe that the prayers we sometimes hear represent really the best that the priest can do. An unmusical priest may be excused for finding the Preface and _Pater Noster_ a difficulty, but it should not be insuperable.

Although, however, a high ma.s.s, or at least _Missa Cantata_, may be regarded as the ideal even for small missions, there are undoubtedly many in which this is impossible. In such cases the chief Sunday low ma.s.s can be and often is performed with solemnity--such as the lighting of the "sixes" on the altar, and the number of servers increased--which may be very devotional. And it may be accompanied by singing, provided this is in Latin. [5] And in large churches, all the Sunday ma.s.ses should be celebrated as solemnly as possible. Let it be remembered that many persons always hear one of the low ma.s.ses only. For this reason it is desirable that at least the more essential notices--announcing coming feasts, or fast days, or special services--should be read at every ma.s.s, as well as the Epistle and Gospel of the Sunday. Where possible, even a short five minutes' sermon serves a very good purpose. The whole service can be made devotional, and the large Communion makes itself necessarily so. The well-known description of Father Dalgairns, in his book on Holy Communion, is worth quoting as ill.u.s.trating this fact:--

"Enter into a London chapel on a Sunday when not even the few attempts at magnificence which our poverty permits us are displayed. Let it be in the depths of the City, in an old-fashioned chapel, with Protestant pews. Here the church has no beauty that one should desire her. No organ peals, and no sweet-toned choir chants. Yet there is a marvel which kings and prophets thirsted to see and did not see. They throng to the altar; the priest in a low voice repeats the blessed words and gives to each his G.o.d. No saints are there, but good ordinary Christians, fearing G.o.d in the midst of the world; some are even great sinners who have just been cleansed in the sacrament of Penance. The same scene goes on all over even this heretical land. No glorious bells ring out over the length and breadth of England, from spire and steeple, to announce the adorable sacrifice, but in our great wicked towns you may count the communicants by tens of thousands. In Birmingham and Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester, they are crowding to receive their Lord. The same blessed work is going on in lowly country missions scattered up and down the country, where a few worshippers still congregate to worship the G.o.d of their fathers, in venerable chapels under the roof of Catholic gentlemen, the descendants of martyrs, where the Blessed Sacrament has found a refuge through centuries of persecution." [6]

But the priest will have to conduct many services which are only partly liturgical, or not liturgical at all. Of such a nature is the ordinary Sunday evening service at most of our churches, or the weekday Benedictions, meetings of Confraternities, etc. Here again there is room for improvement in the manner they are conducted. Many a priest "gabbles" the prayers--especially the Hail Marys of the Rosary--in a manner which makes them quite inaudible, and is a real hindrance to the people joining. It conveys the idea that he is discharging a duty for the sake of his people, without any idea of praying himself. Yet surely the prayers which are good enough for them are good enough for him; and in truth there is no more moving or devotional sight than that of a priest praying together with his people. The practice of utilising the time during Benediction to say Office is regrettable if only for this reason--that it destroys the community of prayer between priest and people, and he loses the grace of the Congregational Act. At the Eucharistic Congress in 1908, when the people a.s.sembled at each side of the street in their thousands, one of the most touching sights was the arrival of groups or congregations led by their priests, reciting the Rosary or other devotions or singing hymns with him. No more vivid representation could be imagined of the good shepherd leading his flock, as is customary in southern or mountainous countries, which formed one of the best known of the parables of our Lord.

There is certainly a need for more variety in our popular evening services: people get tired of the perpetual Rosary, sermon and Benediction; but until something better is forthcoming, we must make the best of what we have. Evening services are comparatively new in other countries besides England, as formerly there was no satisfactory means of lighting the churches, and there is now room for their development.

In some smaller churches Night Prayers are an agreeable variety: the Cure of Ars used to say them with his people every evening. There is something to be said also for the old English devotion of the Jesus Psalter; and in Lent, Stations of the Cross are usually popular. But on the whole, there is a want of suitable variety in the first part of the service. For the concluding part, nothing could be more beautiful than the Benediction service, which has crystallised itself into a definite form for this country.

Finally, it is worth while to put in a word in favour of an effort to keep the church open all day. The importance of this practice has been emphasised not only in our own Synods of Westminster, [7] but also in the new Codex, [8] which orders it for at least several hours each day.

With us there are sometimes difficulties in the way, especially when the presbytery is at a distance from the church. Sometimes, however, these difficulties are unduly magnified. Even the danger of occasionally losing a few shillings from the collection boxes would seem to be not too great a price for satisfying the devotion of so many who long to visit the Blessed Sacrament from time to time. A Catholic church should have as its characteristic that it is _alive_; and even when no service is going on, the daily life of the church shows itself. Time was, and not so many years ago, when a church left open would run the risk of being maliciously desecrated: and that is probably in part at least responsible for the bad tradition in some of our churches in this respect; but it is to be hoped that we have got past that danger by now.

[1] That is, not as a rule. In the days of the so-called "shilling opera" at Warwick Street, some of the Italian type of ma.s.ses were in vogue.

[2] As an extreme example of the opposite spirit and the decay of liturgical sense may be quoted that of a church a few years ago on Palm Sunday, which fell that year on March 16, the only music being at the distribution of the Palms, when the people sang the hymn "Glorious St.

Patrick." On another occasion at quite a large church, one Maundy Thursday, falling that year a few days after March 19, and within the supposed Octave of St. Joseph, when we came hoping to find _Tenebrae_, instead there were popular devotions before the statue of St. Joseph, which in consequence of Pa.s.siontide, was covered with a purple veil, but had lights burning before it.

[3] About half a century earlier a system of English psalm-singing was introduced by some of the gentry in their chapels. Owing to the nature of its origin--for it was at a time when the laity were in opposition to their Bishops and adopted the name "Cisalpines"--these English psalms did not at that time receive Episcopal sanction; but they were not forbidden, and were in use in some chapels down to comparatively modern times. In the home of Cardinal Vaughan at Courtfield, in Herefordshire, they were in regular use. In his youth he learnt to love them, and when Bishop of Salford he introduced something similar in his Cathedral, with considerable success; and the experiment was copied elsewhere. When he came to London as Archbishop, he tried to introduce them there; but they were not taken up, and are now rarely heard anywhere. Nevertheless, the "Come let us adore"--an adaptation of the _Venite exultemus_--found its way into the Manual of Prayers and has thus secured a permanent place among our devotional exercises.

[4] The practice in some few churches of having votive Vespers of our Lady every Sunday has little to recommend it. They are in truth private devotions, and ought to be sung as such, without any liturgical accessories. If there is, as often, a celebrant in cope, either he will be vested in a colour incongruous to the season--as, for example, a white cope in Lent or Advent, or even on a green Sunday--or, what is worse, he will be celebrating the office of our Lady in green, red or purple, which is still more incongruous. Moreover, since the reform of the Calendar under Pius X, the proper liturgical psalms at Vespers are nearly always the same, which removes the difficulty which used to drive people to votive Vespers of our Lady, in days when the liturgical Vespers were so various and complicated.

[5] So the _Motu Proprio_ of Pius X provides. In the case of children's ma.s.ses the singing of English hymns seems to be sanctioned by custom.

[6] P. 403. (Ed. Duffy. 1903.)

[7] "Ad hanc devotionem magis magisque fovendam, vehementer optandum est ut Ecclesiae aditus vel continuo diu, vel si ruri sit, per aliquot horarum spatium fidelibus pateat; et doceantur omnes amantissimum Salvatorem in Ss. Eucharistia latentem invisere, adorare, ac fervidis precibus supplicare, animamque simul communione spirituali refocillare"

(_I Westmonast_. xviii. 9).

[8] "Ecclesiae in quibus Sanctissima Eucharistia a.s.servatur, praesertim paroechiales, quotidie per aliquot saltem horas fidelibus pateant"

(Canon 1266).

CONFERENCE IX

THE PRIEST'S PASTORAL WORK (_continued_)

PREACHING

LET us begin this Conference by propounding a question for consideration. The preaching of the Word of G.o.d is a sacred part of the priest's pastoral work, and not the least sacred part of it. Yet the average priest speaks of it as though it were a task irksome in itself, to be got through somehow or other, and always a nuisance. If anyone is available and is kind enough to replace him in the pulpit, or if he gets off by the timely arrival of a Bishop's pastoral, he is unreservedly pleased. It is true that he is usually a hard-worked man, and that if he gets off any of his work, it is a relief to him; but in the case of a sermon he is far more relieved than in any other case. Does this look as if he appreciated at its true value the pastoral work of preaching the Word of G.o.d?

In order to get a true answer to this question, we shall probably not be far wrong in seeking it in the personal history of the individual priest as preacher, to see whether he has imperceptibly learnt an inadequate view of his office.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that his early sermons were simply a struggle against breaking down. He was naturally nervous the first few times that he found himself in so novel a position, standing before a congregation all listening to his words. In order to nerve himself up for the occasion, he has taken no small trouble in writing out in full his discourse and committing it to memory. His chief anxiety is lest his memory should fail him--which sooner or later it is sure to do, not once, but often, and he is anxious as to what will happen the first time that this shall occur. He gets through his first sermon, and is then anxious about his secondhand so on. Very soon he finds that it is practically impossible for him to write out all his sermons, and he contents himself with an a.n.a.lysis; for as time goes on, he is acquiring a certain facility in expressing himself _ex tempore_, and the frequency of his sermons is gradually curing him of nervousness. Perhaps the first time that he lost the thread of his discourse he covered his difficulty better than he might have hoped, and this helps to give him confidence.

Then sooner or later it will occur that some unexpected pressure of work--a sick call on a Sat.u.r.day night or a Sunday morning, let us say-- prevents him from preparing his sermon at all in a systematic way, and he finds himself face to face with the duty of preaching with only a few minutes to collect his thoughts. With commendable trust in Providence, he says a fervent prayer for Divine a.s.sistance, boldly ascends the pulpit, and perhaps surprises himself at the facility with which he discharges his task. Would that he always bore in mind that if our Heavenly Father helps us in a special way when we have to speak for Him and His kingdom on the pressure of an emergency, this does not dispense us from using ordinary means on a future occasion when the emergency has pa.s.sed away. It was for such occasions--when the Apostles were to be delivered up to the hands of their enemies--and for those occasions only that He told them to "take no thought of how or what to speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak." [1]

If we may venture to give a natural explanation, it would be that we all have a certain cla.s.s of thoughts in our mind which, under the influence of sudden or strong stimulus, take shape in words. If we trust to these time after time, we shall, to say the least, lay ourselves open to great monotony and self-repet.i.tion in our preaching. And this is what often occurs as a young priest gradually gains confidence, and begins to think that he can preach without serious or long preparation.

The above description might be continued, but enough has been said for the present purpose, which is to call attention to this point. At the beginning the priest's preaching has been a struggle to get through without breaking down. When he has been sufficiently long at it for this danger to have pa.s.sed away, he still has the practical feeling--his aim is to fill up the requisite amount of time with respectably good matter, so as to discharge his duty. It has hardly at all come before him in the light of a privilege to speak the Word of G.o.d, a source of grace to himself as well as to others, an expression of his own spiritual thoughts put forth for the benefit and instruction of those entrusted to his pastoral charge; and this is to a large extent responsible for the want of fervour and of soul and interest in his sermons.

It is always easier to state an evil than to suggest a remedy; but it is something towards the desired end if we are able to diagnose the true cause of our difficulty. The conclusion urged is that it is not enough to insist on an elaborate direct preparation; on a scientific knowledge of the way to order a discourse; on rules of elocution and rhetoric; highly desirable as some of these may be. Still less would one ask a priest to write and learn all his sermons, which even if practically possible, is not in any way desirable. The true remedy is rather to teach our young priests the spiritual side of preaching, to train them to look on the sermon as part of their pastoral office. If this view is planted in their minds at the outset of their priestly career, it will grow rapidly and strongly, as by actual contact with their parishioners they feel their own power for good in the pulpit, and see before their eyes their people growing and living on the strength of words heard in their sermons. It is this consciousness which will elevate the duty in their minds from an irksome task to that of one of the most privileged of their pastoral duties.

In this point of view we see the key of the remark often made that the remote preparation for preaching is more important than the proximate.

By the remote preparation is meant the priest's daily life, his union with G.o.d, his supernatural views of the things of this world, and the acquiring of his store of thoughts from his prayer, his meditation, his spiritual reading, and, not least important, his pastoral work among the poor, the sick and the dying. "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." [2] If the truths of faith are so vividly present to us that G.o.d's dealings with mankind are as things we have actually seen and heard, we shall long that others may share our privilege, and we shall feel the greatest joy in instructing them in Christ's Name. But if this spirit be wanting, all human eloquence will be of no avail. The value of the sermon is the reflection of the life of the preacher.

In considering the question of reading and study in preparation for the pulpit, we naturally turn first to the two-fold branches of Scripture and Dogma as that which will help chiefly to give substance and backbone to our sermons.

It is astonishing how little use many preachers make of the inspired Word of G.o.d, containing as it does in itself not only the essence of all religious history and dogma, but so many of the words of Christ Himself.

Limiting our observations to the Gospels alone, it is an extraordinary grace we have received in having such full records of His words and acts at least during His public life. This in itself enables us to have a real personal knowledge and love of our Redeemer. We should expect our sermons to be full of His words and sayings, His parables, His ill.u.s.trations, the example of His works; and that all our moral lessons should be ill.u.s.trated and driven home by His words. Yet in practice we hear sermon after sermon with no more than a few texts from Scripture scattered through them, and these often isolated and without their context; and when we find a preacher really familiar with our Lord's life and words, we comment on it as quite remarkable.

It is probable that this is largely due to our habit of quoting isolated texts in support of dogmatic truths, and our very reverence for them as the inspired Word has led us to rest on the actual words and to lose sight of their general context. Very probably also Cardinal Manning's remark may be true, that since the sixteenth century there has been a tendency to over-strictness against the popular use of the Scriptures as a sort of recoil or reaction against Protestantism. At the present day, however, there is happily a reaction against this in all countries, and a movement in favour of circulating at least the New Testament more freely in the vernacular. With us we can date it from the issue of the sixpenny New Testament by Burns and Gates, and the Penny Gospels of the Catholic Truth Society; but the cheap Gospel texts in the vernacular which have appeared in some other countries--notably those issued by St.

Luke's Society in Rome itself--have outdone anything we have in England.

One of our chief and foremost duties then is to familiarise ourselves with the words and actions of our Lord in English. There are many texts with which we are familiar in Latin, but we seldom make use of them because of the labour of turning them into English in the middle of a sermon, when our mind is already intently occupied. Let us know them in English for the sake of our people whom we wish to instruct. As to how this is best done opinions may differ. Some recommend learning texts by heart so as to have them always at hand. Others would find this method too mechanical, and would prefer to trust to their own reading of and meditation on the Gospels to bring about the desired result. They would argue that he will have more command over texts that he has used and pondered over than over those he has simply learnt by heart.

It is wonderful how the simple quoting of Gospel words elevates our sermons. The people want the words of our Lord, His acts, His parables, the lessons He intended to teach; they want to hear of the collateral setting of His life, the gradual development of His work, the kind of people He was teaching, and so forth. Then they should hear the teaching of St. Paul, his words to his converts, his warnings against abuses, his doctrinal and disciplinary instructions. Then also they like to hear from time to time some of the Old Testament--either the history of G.o.d's chosen people, or the beauties of the Messianic prophecies--of Isaias and others; or the psalmody of David; or the Sapiential books of Solomon; or the works of Jeremias and the other prophets. Mere memory work will not do all this for us; we must ourselves be accustomed to think of the Gospels, to meditate on our Lord's words, to see the meaning of His parables, and so forth. Here is prayer enough and work enough to last us a lifetime, and be continually bearing fruit.

Now we come to direct preparation of our sermon. Undoubtedly the only way at the beginning is to write it out, learn it and deliver it from memory. But this laborious process is only a means to an end. It will in the first instance help the priest through his initial shyness and diffidence in speaking of G.o.d and holy things in public; and it will lay the foundation for the methodical composition of a discourse. For he will soon learn the sequence of ideas which sound at first artificial, though eventually they become part of the instinct of the preacher-- text, introduction, statement, development, explanation, ill.u.s.tration, peroration, etc. But it bears the same relation to preaching that the old autumn manuvres did to war. His sermons in future will not be written out: in the present hard-worked state of our clergy, it would be impossible; and in any case, it would be ineffective. A sermon written and repeated by heart _must_ sound unreal and dead. [3] As Cardinal Manning puts it, "The written word is what we thought when we wrote it; the spoken sermon is what we think at the moment of speaking. It is our present conviction of intellect and feeling of heart: it is therefore real, and felt to be real by those who hear it." [4]

It is not intended to discourage a careful preparation, so far as circ.u.mstances will permit; quite the contrary. But it will not be of the nature of writing a set discourse. It will be a far more simple preparation. Cardinal Manning instances the preaching of the Apostles.

"We cannot," he says, "conceive these messengers of G.o.d labouring to compose their speech, or studying the rules and graces of literary style. The records of their preaching in the New Testament are artless and simple as the growths of nature in the forest, which reveal the power and beauty of G.o.d. Their words and writings are majestic in their elevation and depth and pathos and unadorned beauty, like the breadth and simplicity of the sea and sky. Their whole being was pervaded by the divine facts and truths, the eternal realities of which they spoke." [5]

Let us fix our ideas by a definite instance. In all St. Paul's career there was no one sermon which would have needed greater care than his sermon at Athens. He had to speak to a highly educated audience, of people without belief even in G.o.d, most of them eaten up with pride, listening to him with a supercilious curiosity; and he knew that for most of them his sermon would be the one opportunity of their lifetime.

If any sermon of his would have needed previous thought and preparation, it would have been this one. Of course we have no authority for saying how much preparation he gave to it. We can well imagine his carefully thinking over what he was going to say, thinking of his initial outburst about the Unknown G.o.d, carefully considering his line of argument about the Resurrection of our Lord, his reference to the Greek poet with whom both he and they were familiar, and so forth. But equally we most a.s.suredly cannot for a moment imagine him writing out and learning his discourse. Had he done so, it would have lost all its force and reality.

Any gain in the artificial rhetoric, or the choice of words, or the like would have been far more than compensated for by the hollowness and want of fervour _hic et nunc_. Other instances might be adduced and the same reasoning applied to them: St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, St. Stephen's speech to his murderers, and many others. From internal evidence we can see that these were thought out and prepared beforehand; but we cannot even imagine their having been written out and committed to memory.

Our future preparation may perhaps be something of this kind. First we have to fix on our subject--not always the easiest part of our work. Let us suppose that on reading through the Sunday Gospel some aspect of it or some incident in it appeals to us from a particular point of view, and that point we decide to develop. Possibly something we have read in the past occurs to mind, and we get out a book--or perhaps several books--to suggest to us a few ideas. Then the first stage of our work is done.

The next process is to think. We have to make the ideas our own, and develop them according to the bent of our own minds. This cannot easily be done as we sit at our desks. Thoughts will not come to order.

Developing a subject in one's mind is a gradual process, and takes time.

It can well be done as we walk from place to place, or exercise any light employment. It is specially suitable to do it as we go about our pastoral work. The words we use in our visits to members of our flock are the reflection of our mind and will bear close resemblance to our words in the pulpit. If we find plenty to say, and are conscious of the consolation we give by saying it to the poor individually, why should it not be so likewise when we address them from the pulpit?

In order to complete our preparation, we must then sit at our desk and write out the substance of our thoughts and put them in methodical order. We should also look up the texts of Scripture on which we rely, and frequently the context will suggest further thoughts. All this will vary between man and man, and between day and day. Some will write long notes, others short. On some days thoughts come easily, on others only with difficulty. Some people may find it useful to write a fair copy when the matter has been rearranged, others will arrange their matter methodically at the outset, and so forth. When we have done this, we can leave the sermon to the time, presumably not far distant, when we are going to preach it.