,
Churches at the present day, that they give preaching a position of
too great prominence in public worship; and we are counselled to yield
the central place to something else. It is put to us, for example,
whether our people should not be taught to come to church for the
purpose of speaking to God rather than in order to be spoken to by
man. This has a pious sound; but there is a fallacy in it. Preaching
is not merely the speaking of a man. If it is, then it is certainly
not worth coming to church for. Preaching, if it is of the right kind,
is the voice of God. This we venture to say while well aware of its
imperfections. In the best of preaching there is a large human element
beset with infirmity; yet in all genuine preaching there is conveyed a
message from Heaven. And, while it is good for people to go to church
that they may speak to God, it is still better to go that He may speak
to them. Nor, where God is authentically heard speaking to the heart,
will the response of the heart in the other elements of worship be
lacking. It is the reception of God's message of free grace and
redeeming love which inspires the true service of praise and prayer;
and without this the service of the Church is soulless ceremonial.[6]

From another side disparagement is frequently cast upon preaching in
our day. It is said that the printing-press has superseded the
preacher, and must more and more supersede him. Formerly, when people
could not read, and literature was written only for scholars, the
pulpit was a power, because it was the only purveyor of ideas to the
multitude; but now the common man has other resources: he has books,
magazines, the newspaper: and he can dispense with the preacher. To
this it might be answered, that the sermon is not the only thing which
brings people to church. Where two or three are met together, there
are influences generated of a spiritual and social kind which answer
to deep and permanent wants of human nature. But there is an answer
more direct and conclusive. The multiplication of the products of the
printing-press and the possession by the multitude of the power of
reading them are certainly among the most wonderful facts of modern
times, and, I will add without hesitation, among the most gratifying.
But what do they mean for the great majority? In the days before the
age of the press arrived people only knew the gossip of their own
town, and this absorbed their thoughts and conversation. Now t