There are various questions which may fitly be thought of in the
listlessness of this summer day. They are questions the consideration
of which does not much excite; questions to which you do not very
much mind whether you get an answer or no. I have been thinking
for a little while, since I finished the last paragraph, of this
point: Whether that clergyman, undertaking the charge of some
important church, is best equipped for his duty, who has a great
many sermons carefully written and laid up in a box, ready to come
out when needed: or that other clergyman, who has very few sermons
fully written out, but who has spent great pains in disciplining
his mind into that state in which it shall always be able to produce
good material. Which of these has made best progress towards the
end of being a good and efficient preacher? Give me, I should say,
on the whole, the solid material stock, rather than the trained
inind. I look with a curious feeling upon certain very popular
preachers, who preach entirely extempore: who make a few notes of
their skeleton of thought; but trust for the words and even for the
illustrations to the inspiration of the moment. They go on boldly:
but their path crumbles away behind them as they advance. Their
minds are in splendid working order: they turn off admirable work
Sunday by Sunday: and while mind and nervous system keep their
spring, that admirable work may be counted on almost with certainty.
They have Fortunio's purse: they can always put their hand upon
the sovereigns they need: but they have no hoard accumulated which
they might draw from, should the purse some day fail. And remembering
how much the success of the extempore speaker depends upon the
mood of the moment: remembering what little things, menial and
physical, may mar and warp the intellectual machine for the moment:
remembering how entirely successful extempore speaking founds on
perfect confidence and presence of mind: remembering how as one