M‘CHEYNE AS A PREACHER

THE REV. ROBERT M‘CHEYNE went about his public work with awful reverence. So evident was this that I remember, says his biographer, a countryman in my parish observed to me,—“Before he opened his lips, as he came along the passage, there was something about him that sorely affected me.” In the vestry there never was any idle conversation; all was preparation of the heart in approaching God, and a short prayer preceded his entering the pulpit. After announcing the subject of his discourse, he used, generally, to show the position it occupied in the context, and then proceeded to bring out the doctrines of the text after the manner of our old divines. This done, he divided his subject, and herein he was eminently skilful. “The heads of his sermons,” said a friend, “were not the milestones that tell how near you are to your journey’s end, but they were nails which fixed and fastened all he said. Divisions are often dry, but not so his divisions,—they were so textual and so feeling, and they brought out the spirit of a passage so surprisingly.” A simple incident was overruled to promote the ease and fluency of his pulpit ministrations. From the very beginning of his ministry he reprobated the custom of reading sermons, believing that to do so does exceedingly weaken the freedom and natural fervour of the messenger in delivering his message. Neither did he recite what he had written. But his custom was to impress on his memory the substance of what he had beforehand carefully written, and then to speak as he found liberty. One morning, as he rode rapidly along to Dunipace, his written sermons were dropped on the wayside. This incident prevented him having the opportunity of preparing in his usual manner; but he was enabled to preach with more than usual freedom. For the first time in his life he discovered that he possessed the gift of extemporaneous composition, and learned, to his own surprise, that he had more composedness of mind and command of language than he had believed. This discovery, however, did not in the least degree diminish his diligent preparation. Indeed, the only use that he made of the incident at the time it occurred, was to draw a lesson of dependence on God’s own immediate blessing rather than on the satisfactory preparation made. ‘One thing always fills the cup of my consolation, that God may work by the meanest and poorest words, as well as by the most polished and ornate,—yea, perhaps, more readily, that the glory may be all His own.’”Religious Anecdotes of Scotland"