When a preacher was censured by his brethren for the bad habit of exaggeration, he assured them he had "often bitterly repented of it; it had cost him barrels of tears." For such a case there is no cure.
Whether you do your work with notes or without them, do it courageously, earnestly, with devotion; with a glad sense of the greatness of it, and a full consecration of every force and faculty to it.
We doubt whether a man ever brings his faculties to bear with their whole force on a subject, until he writes upon it.
A leading Welsh minister—and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers—was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." "But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."
If any of you ever go into the pulpit "simply upon the cold legs of custom," be very careful to take a manuscript with you. But if you go to speak to the assembly because your mind is full of the truth, and you long to impart that truth to them, for their sake and for God's sake,—then charge your mind with it, and speak with all the force you can give it, without any notes.
