THE PREACHER'S STUDY
on the back of constant labour." If that is true of writing in general, it is certainly true of sermon preparation in particular. "Only out of long preparation can come the truly triumphant flash." If you persist in waiting for the divine afflatus, you will waste valuable hours which might have been more profitably spent in making dogged progress with the work, "line upon line, here a little, and there a little." Anthony Trollope, in the Autobiography, described his own methods of work. "It had at this time become my custom to write with my watch before me, and to require from myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that my 250 words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went." We may feel disposed to deride such a practice as hopelessly mechanical. What we regard as our artistic temperament cries out against it. But let us not be blind to the wisdom it contains. Certainly we have little right to preach to others about conquering the power of moods if our own sermon preparation is swayed by that tyranny!
Nor must we presume upon the text which runs, "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour." Only textual vivisection of the worst kind could twist that passage into meaning that it is a meritorious action to enter the pulpit unprepared. It is quite a false antithesis which would set the toil and premeditation of the study over against guidance by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was referring to the special grace which would be ministered to
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