A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. The Pulpit, in the sober use Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs, Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand, The most important and effectual guard, Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause. COWPER. CINCINNATI: NEW YORK: PHILLIPS AND HUNT. 1879. PREFACE. THIS little book is only what its title indicates,-a book of "hints on preaching." But on matters here set forth, many may pause to take a hint and profit by it, who have no time for extended reading and patient reflection. These hints are mostly from acknowledged high sources, and may be regarded, in the words of Cervantes, as "short sentences drawn from a long experience." They are the abridgments of wisdom. In very many cases, they are the central ideas which their authors have elaborated into chapters. For wider reading, the “Yale Lectures" by Beecher, Taylor, Hall, Dale, Brooks, and Bishop Simpson, are fresh and to the point. The treatises by Claude, Vinet, Theremin, Porter, Ripley, Holyoake, Spurgeon, Shedd, Hoppin, Dabney, and Broadus, are standards. Fenelon's "Dialogues on Eloquence" are full of intelligence and spirit. Bautain, Ware and Storrs have written wisely of extempore preaching. But Quintilian is the teacher of the teachers. He wrote of this great art of speaking in the interest of lawyers, but clergymen may read between the lines a meaning of vast importance to themselves. THE COMPILER. |