plied by three, the subject would have remained inadequately treated. It was not till after the first of them had been delivered that the lecturer was advised, by the present publisher, that arrangements had been made for fully reporting her, and that, unless positive objection were made, they would be printed. Certainly no book was ever made, therefore, with less of pre-determination on the part of the author.

It seems only reasonable to ask that any one into whose hands the book may fall will remember the way in which it came to exist, and will not expect from it something more and other than it seeks to supply. The lectures were spoken, without having been written; and the author would not have felt at liberty to recast them, even if he had had the leisure for the work. Here and there a phrase or a sentence has been changed; a word has occasionally been substituted for another, when that selected at the instant of speaking seemed not the best as more quietly reviewed ; and in one instance an unimportant paragraph has been transferred from one part of a lecture to another more fitting. Otherwise, the

PREFATORY NOTE.

7

lectures are printed as delivered, this being the wish of all concerned with them.

The style of them is, therefore, so entirely without the elaboration in which authors delight that if pride of authorship alors are to be consulted they certainly would not now be published. But the thoughts expressed in them are such as had commended themselves to the lecturer, in his own ministerial life and work, and such as he therefore had no hesitation in presenting to others, in the form of free and familiar discourse. He does not now shrink from presenting them to the public, though quite aware how slight is their claim to any general attention, and how different would have been the form to be given them if he had contemplated making a book.

They are published, at the expressed desire of some who had heard them, and of more who had not; in the hope that, with all their obvious imperfections, they may contribute something, of encouragement if not of more special assistance, to those who would speak the unchanging truth with which God crowds and crowns the Gospel, out of a fur

nished and quickening mind, without that perpetual

bondage to the pen which presses heavily on many

ministers.

BROOKLYN, February, 13, 1875

RICHARD S. STORRS.

FIRST LECTURE.

Mr. President: Young Gentlemen:

There will be no misunderstanding between us, I presume, as to my general purpose and plan in coming hither, or in what I am to say to you, now and hereafter. I do not come, of course, to deliver systematic and elaborate lectures, on the subject upon which I am to speak. You have Professors to do that; with leisure, skill, and an aptness for the office, which I do not possess; and I should only be intruding myself upon their function, without invitation and without warrant, if I were to attempt any thing of the kind. I have come simply to talk to you a little, in a familiar way, of the conditions of success in preaching without notes; and to offer some thoughts, concerning these

9

conditions, which are suggested to me by my

own experience.

I have thought, in looking back on my Seminary course, that I should have been glad if some one who had entered the ministry before me had then told me, frankly and fully, as I hope to tell you, what he had learned by any efforts which he had made in this direction. So I have cheerfully accepted the invitation to do for you what I see I should have been glad to have had some one else then do for me.

I am somewhat abashed, I confess, at finding so many present whom I have not come prepared to address: Professors, Secretaries, Clergymen, Lawyers, Editors, and others- many of them masters of every art and power of eloquence, as I am not, and far better qualified to instruct me on the subject than I am to give suggestions to them. But I shall not be diverted from the one purpose which has brought me hitherto talk familiarly and freely to you. If what I am to say shall seem common-place, as very likely