THE PREACHER'S TECHNIQUE
same one which he had just delivered. That night the church doors were rushed! But have a care what moral you deduce from that story. You will be wise not to discard your old sermons. But you will be doubly wise never to have recourse to any of them as a means of escape from the heavy self-discipline, mental and spiritual, of unlit days and difficult weeks. "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
But is there any positive and practical counsel one can give against such hours of emergency, when the mind seems barren, the supply exhausted, and the harp hangs silent on the willows?
Biting my truant pen,
Beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my muse to me,
Look in thy heart, and write.
That is the first essential. Get closer to God. Ponder anew your own immeasurable debt to Him. Has He not delivered, time and again, your eyes from tears, your feet from falling, your soul from death? That recollection will loosen the grip of the low mood from your spirit, as spring breaks up the grip of winter. Then open your Bible. Do not pursue elusive texts. Stop racking your brain for a subject. Take a whole psalm, a complete Gospel incident, or a solid section from an epistle of St. Paul. Set yourself to interpret it faithfully. I am almost inclined to believe that the Holy Spirit deliberately sends such bad weeks occasionally, in order to force the preacher to rediscover the
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