then, for any man to assert that the written sermon must bear the
stamp of artificiality or that the fire evaporates in the passage
from the desk to the pulpit.

[Side note: II.]

But I may be told there is small time for writing sermons. It is
singular that where there is most time on a priest's hands there
are fewest sermons on his desk. But to the objection. One of the
strongest motives urging the writer to insist on the written
sermon is his deep conviction of the shortness of time, for there
is no more expeditious way of squandering that precious gift of
God than by preaching extemporary sermons.

This is how the case stands. You have to spend as much time in
gathering and arranging the matter for the extemporary as for the
written one. Next year you may have to preach on the same gospel
or feast; of what use will your notes be then? The ideas,
arguments, and illustrations that now spring to your mind with a
glance at this cipher or note will then have vanished. The cipher
remains, but its inspiring power has passed. The oracle is dumb.
You may summon spirits from the vasty deep--but will they come?
You have again to face your old task; year after year the same
drudgery awaits you with less hope of success. The brain, at
first stimulated by novelty, poured forth the hot tide of
thought; now it will answer only to the lash. At the end of five
years what hoarded reserve have you laid by? Your hands are as
empty as the day you started, with this disadvantage, that you
have lost the habit of labour you acquired at college--a serious
loss. When a man permits the fine edge of college industry to