A Generous Soul - Part 5

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Watson on various occasions, and particularly in his book The Cure of Souls, which contains the lectures on Practical Theology delivered by him at Yale University in 1896, has carefully explained his views on preaching. In what follows I borrow first from him; next from those who were familiar with his pulpit work

He held that the critical and influential event in the religious week is the sermon. Whenever preaching falls into low esteem, the Church becomes weak and corrupt. It is impossible to exaggerate the opportunity given to the preacher when he ascends the pulpit and faces his congregation. There his business is not so much to teach or define as to stimulate and encourage. This work cannot be done rightly without inspiration, but this inspiration only rests on the outcome of hard, honest work.

Among the elements of the work the first is Selection, and the text should select the man rather than the man the text. " As the minister was busy with study, or as he sat by the bedside of the sick, or as he walked the crowded street, or as he wandered over the purple heather, or such things have happened, the grace of God being sovereign as he endured in a Church Court, the truth, clad in a text, which is the more or less perfect dress of the Spirit, suddenly appeared and claimed his acquaintance." Such an experience means the pre-established harmony between a particular truth and the soul of a minister.

The second process is Separation, and this means that the sermon should be a monograph and not an encyclopaedia. The handling of one idea is sufficient. " He's a good preacher" a Highland gamekeeper was describing his minister," but he scatters terribly." The sermon should be like a single rifle-bullet which, if it hits, kills, not a charge of small shot which only peppers.

The next process is Illumination. It is the setting of the bare, cold, lifeless idea in the light of all he has read, has seen, has felt, has suffered. Here it is that culture comes in. The student has an invaluable advantage over the ablest Philistine. " Those mornings given to Plato, that visit to Florence where he got an insight into Italian art, that hard-won trip to Egypt, the birthplace of civilisation, his sustained acquaintance with Virgil, his by-study of physical science, his taste in music, the subtlest and most religious of the arts, all now rally to his aid."

The fourth process is Meditation. The idea must be removed from the light, where reason and imagination have their sphere, and be hidden away in the dark chambers of the soul. Many masterly sermons fail because they have never had the benefit of this process. They are clear, interesting, eloquent, but helpless. The brooding over a spiritual experience where the subject is hidden in the soul as leaven in three measures of meal till all be leavened gives preaching the greater qualities of the past, depth of experience, and an atmosphere of peace.

Then comes Elaboration, the placing, reviewing, transposing, till the way stands fair and open from Alpha to Omega a clean, straight furrow from end to end of the field. There should be no introduction ; nothing more certainly takes the edge off the appetite than the laborious preface. The latest results of the criticism on the book from which the text is taken should be severely left alone. Elaborate perorations are also to be put aside.