CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 103, 1 May 1879, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor op the " Evenihg Mail."

Sib, — In a local in the Mail a few days ago I saw that the Incumbent of Christ Church had introduced the very sensible plan of reading a sermon by an eminent English divine. As bearing upon this subject might I ask you to publish an extract from a leading article iv the Melbourne Argus of the 14th inst, criticising a paper which appeared in the Victorian Church of England Messenger on 'Sermon recital and preaching ? " The article in extenso would perhaps be too long for your columns so that I merely enclose a portion of it. I am &c, Churchman. .[Extract.]

" We think Mr Torrance's proposal to read sermons occasionally is good for two reasons. In the first place, its adoption would elevate the pulpit by leavening its average dulness w4n. some masterpieces of eloquence and

reasoning ; secondly, it would afford clergymen proper leisure to prepare any original remarks they might wish to offer to their congregations. At present the literary capabilities even of the best of them are overtaxed, and the result fs necessarily a . great , deal oi wOtk dt A Velry inferior deicripUob. Religions toewabapers may go oh for ever attempting to persnade people that for some esoteric reasons they should tolerate, or even be thankful for, slovenly and vapid preaching, without producing the slightest effect, whereas if they would support the ratioiial reform advocated by Mr Tdrrance they might perhaps a,boliuh the coniplaints they caunot ignore. Ib must be borne in mind that Mr Tdrrance does not propose that clergymen should altogether abandon the practice of delivering their own compositions in favor of the reading system, but simply that they should give variety to their pulpit ministrations, and. themselves more leisure for careful authorship, by occasionally substituting discourses of which they approve for their own productions. We submit that in the choice they would be called on to exercise if the scheme was generally adopted, clergymen would almost as truly speak " living words " to their people as they do when they offer their own preparations. They would exercise their discretion in the adoption of the ideas, and if they approved of the ideas, the language would be a matter of secondary consideration. How is an ordinary sermon prepared now-a-days ? The preacher borrows a number of old ideas, and clothes them with his own language. Would his discourse be any less an ordinance of God to his congregation if he occasionally, or even always, borrowed the language as well as the ideas ? Assuredly not. That a great extemporary orator will always be more effective than a mere reader may be admitted ; but wherever there ha 3 been verbal preparation it matters little whether the reciter deliver his own or another man's words. In practice it will frequently be found that the latter are more telling, the theory about tbe efficacy of a special ministry to the contrary notwithstanding."