Now we come to direct preparation of our sermon. Undoubtedly the only way at the beginning is to write it out, learn it and deliver it from memory. But this laborious process is only a means to an end. It will in the first instance help the priest through his initial shyness and diffidence in speaking of God and holy things in public; and it will lay the foundation for the methodical composition of a discourse. For he will soon learn the sequence of ideas which sound at first artificial, though eventually they become part of the instinct of the preacher-- text, introduction, statement, development, explanation, illustration, peroration, etc. But it bears the same relation to preaching that the old autumn manœuvres did to war. His sermons in future will not be written out: in the present hard-worked state of our clergy, it would be impossible; and in any case, it would be ineffective. A sermon written and repeated by heart _must_ sound unreal and dead. [3] As Cardinal Manning puts it, "The written word is what we thought when we wrote it; the spoken sermon is what we think at the moment of speaking. It is our present conviction of intellect and feeling of heart: it is therefore real, and felt to be real by those who hear it." [4] It is not intended to discourage a careful preparation, so far as circumstances will permit; quite the contrary. But it will not be of the nature of writing a set discourse. It will be a far more simple preparation. Cardinal Manning instances the preaching of the Apostles. "We cannot," he says, "conceive these messengers of God labouring to compose their speech, or studying the rules and graces of literary style. The records of their preaching in the New Testament are artless and simple as the growths of nature in the forest, which reveal the power and beauty of God. Their words and writings are majestic in their elevation and depth and pathos and unadorned beauty, like the breadth and simplicity of the sea and sky. Their whole being was pervaded by the divine facts and truths, the eternal realities of which they spoke." [5]