Sacred Rhetoric: Or, A Course of Lectures on Preaching

INTR OD UCTOE Y. MY YOUXG- BRETHREX:

HOME well-meaning Christians meet us at the thres hold of our subject, with objections to the applica tion of an art of Rhetoric to sacred topics. These may appear plausible enough to need a reply. Not only do they advance the trite assertions, "Poeta nascitur, non fit," and, " Nature is a better teacher than art ;" they draw peculiar pleas from the sanctity of the preacher's function and motive, and even from the word of Gcd. They claim that the messenger, who bears the gospel of love to man, should be unaffected and sincere. They say that while those who argue less worthy causes may perhaps excuse their art, the preacher should be above all art. They cite against us the twice-repeated dec laration of the apostle Paul, that his "speech and his preaching was not with enticing words of man's wis dom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." l To the first observation I answer, that if the orator

is born, his oration is not. That, at least, must be made. Rhetoric does not profess to create a vigorous understanding, feeling, taste and genius, but only to teach their most effective use. The artisan does not make hands for his apprentice, but he shows him how to use the members Nature has given him. And the man of common mould is enabled, by means of this training, to make a better plough or cart than could be produced without it by the youth whose limbs matched those of the Apollo Bdvidere. If it is urged that wre not seldom hear the untaught son of Nature, by virtue of the original nobility of his faculties, speak with far more true eloquence than the assiduous rheto rician, the reply is obvious. Those excellent gifts of Nature should have been perfected by true culture, so that this fortunate man might have excelled his fellows of the common, but trained capacity, even farther than he did. For all that excellence he owed to his God, by the rule that we must "love him writh all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength." The unskillfulness of the professed rhetorician may also prove, not that his art is worthless, but that he has imperfectly acquired it. You will easily conceive how a system of real value, if only half mastered, and by reason of de ficient experience in its application, employed without facility, may embarrass instead of aiding us. The royal armour of King Saul was doubtless of the best temper. We do not doubt that David used such with splendid advantage in his subsequent career of con quest. But when the raw shepherd-boy was clad with it, he found himself encumbered by it, " because he had not proved it."

The assumption that the preacher's sacred attitude is above rhetoric reveals ignorance of the nature of true art. Let us then, at the outset, seek a correct concep tion of it. And we may be led to this idea by consid ering the distinction between art and artifice. Art is but the rational adjustment of means to an end.1 Art is adaptation ; it employs proper means for a worthy end ; it is but wisdom in application. Artifice is false ; it adopts deceitful means for a treacherous end. When the benevolent physician compounds a drug, which his learning shows to be a specific cure for a disease, this is art. When the cunning seducer prepares a seeming attraction which is not indeed real, to inveigle his prey into the snare, this is artifice. There is a popular ap plication of the word art which has also assisted to de lude the judgment of these objectors. It is that which we express usually by the term "fine arts," in which the end of the skill employed is only to gratify taste, and not to evoke practical volition. I shall show that the art of eloquence is contrasted with these, in that its aim is ever intensely practical. And I shall urge that, whenever the preacher permits his aim to degenerate into that of the painter or musician, the mere pleasure of taste, he flagrantly violates both the principles of his art and of his religious duty. But I assert none the less that, since this duty is to convey gospel truth effectively to other souls, and since there are adapted means by which this end may be the better accom1 Art, from Ars (root, art-is} which is from Greek apu, to adjust, •whence aprww, aorof, joined. Art is, therefore, adjustment. Web ster's derivation, from W. c&rz and Ir. ceard, carrying the rudimental idea of strength, is as far-fetched as absurd.

plished, there is a true art of preaching, which is not only lawful and honest, but sacredly obligatory.

The opponents whom we now consider love to con trast art with nature. I assert that all true art is nat ural. If man is by nature a creature of reason and conscience; if duty, forecast, judgment, will, desire of legitimate success, are natural to him, then surely he does not obey, but violates his nature when he discards the use of adapted means for his ends. If there are gifted souls who, without that detailed study of art which is necessary for us common mortals, are able to effectuate their ends more nobly than we with all our labour, then the explanation is that their more powerful genius has only made a quicker and easier intuition of their art. To reach that pinnacle of efficiency, they have ascended the common stairway, for there is no other. The dif ference is, that while we climb it step by step, their superior vigour enables them to bound up it with almost unconscious effort. Moreover, it is not true that these advocates of pure nature discard art. They are not naturally so natural as they claim to be. …