THE PREACHER'S TECHNIQUE
upon whom, as he knelt one day within a church, this great, subduing truth broke with all the force of a personal revelation. "There was not one pang of his lonely, wandering life, no throb or ache or groan of his up to that moment when the light of his eyes and the desire of his heart were taken from him at a stroke, that had not been shared by God. For if man has known the stars, so God has known the dust." There is a sentence which positively demands quotation. And is it not possible that, long after everything else in your sermon has been forgotten, such a shining word as that—"If man has known the stars, so God has known the dust"—may grip the memory of some who heard it, and go to work in secret ways within their hearts?
III
It may be well at this point to say something on the question of language. Two pitfalls against which I have already warned you are professionalism of vocabulary or pulpit jargon, and the temptations of the purple passage: on these nothing further need be said. Let me rather go on to stress one great positive rule which ought to determine your choice of language throughout: Be simple and direct. "People think," exclaimed Matthew Arnold, "that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style. "Surely Arnold was right. Every man at Pentecost heard the Gospel, we are told, in his own
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