of the audience During my early ministry I delivered a discourse to young men at Saratoga Springs, and closed it with a solemn story of a man who died of remorse at the exposure of his crime.  The Hon. John McLean, a judge of the United States Supreme Court and a prominent man in the Methodist Church, was in the congregation, and the next day I called at the United States Hotel to pay my respects to him.  He said to me, “My young friend I was very much interested in that story last evening; it clinched the sermon.  Our ministers in Cincinnati used to introduce illustrative anecdotes, but it seems to have gone out of fashion and I am sorry for it.”  I replied to him, “Well Judge, I am glad to have the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of telling a story or a personal incident in the pulpit.”  There is one principle that covers all cases.  It is this:  Whatever makes the Gospel or Jesus Christ more clear to the understanding, more effective in arousing sinners, in converting souls, in edifying believers and in promoting pure honest living is never out of place in the pulpit.  When we are preaching for souls we may use any and every weapon of truth within our reach.

Those who have sat before my pulpit will testify that I never spared my lungs or their ears in the delivery of my discourses.  The preaching of the Gospel is spiritual gunnery, and many a well-loaded cartridge has failed to reach its mark from lack of powder to propel it.  The prime duty of God’s ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls before his pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; to awaken those who are impenitent; to cheer the sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and edify believers An advocate in a criminal trial puts his grip on every juryman’s ear So must every herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a hearing, cost what it may:  but that hearing he never will secure while he addresses an audience in a cold, formal, perfunctory manner.  Certainly the great apostle at Ephesus aimed at the emotions and the conscience as well as the reason of his hearers when he “ceased not to warn them night and day with tears.”  I cannot impress it too strongly on every young minister that the delivery of his sermon is half the battle.  Why load your gun at all if you cannot send your charge to the mark?  Many a discourse containing much valuable thought has fallen dead on drowsy ears when it might have produced great effect if the preacher had only had inspiration and perspiration.  A sermon that is but ordinary as a production may have an extraordinary effect by direct and fervid delivery.  The minister who never warms himself will never warm up his congregation.  I once asked Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, “Who is the greatest preacher you have ever heard?” Mr. Barnes, who was a very clear-headed thinker, replied:  “I cannot answer your question exactly, but the greatest specimen of preaching I ever heard was by the Rev. Edward N. Kirk before my congregation during a revival; it produced a tremendous effect.”  Those of us that knew Kirk knew that he was not a man of genius or profound scholarship; but he was a true orator with a superb voice and a sweet persuasiveness, and his whole soul was on fire with the love of Jesus and the love of souls.