I address myself to write, soon after delivering to my students, in the library adjoining my study, a lecture on Preaching. Let me call it rather, a talk on Sermons, which is a term less grandiose and much more true; for in fact the discourse has been a most informal series of remarks and suggestions on topics suggested by a collection of sermons written for me, and which I now came to give back, annotated, to their writers. It occurs to me to offer my kind reader a written version of some of these remarks just made _viv‚ voce_ to my friends. They happen to touch on a variety of points which are not unimportant in themselves and also typical of very many more. For the purposes of the lecture, they have been divided between matters of form and matters of substance; and I report them, or rather some of them, in that order. I. _Remarks on Diction, Style, etc._ (_a_) Take care to "pull the sentences together," to avoid loose and redundant phrases and words. Why write "_grief and sorrow_," "_fatigued and tired out_," "_attacks and assaults_"? A subtle intellect may see distinctions here, but it is too much for me, and, I am sure, for most plain people in church. (_b_) Respect the Queen's English. "_The one_ who lives a Christian life" is scarcely English; say "the man," not "the one." "_Like_ Adam and Eve walked in Paradise"! This is a serious, though common, piece of bad grammar. Say, "_Like Adam_, when he walked," but "_As_ Adam _walked_." (_c_) Remember that the genius of English eschews a large use of _connecting words_, particularly in spoken discourse. Not often is a sentence the better for an "_and_" at the beginning. Many a "_therefore_" and "_because_" are well away, if you would speak with freedom and vigour. AVOID RHETORICAL DICTION. (_d_) Avoid altogether such touches of expression as characterise verse, or rhetorical prose. I find in one sermon the sentence, "_Think you_ St Paul trembled at the prospect?" Please re-write this, and say, "_Do you think_ St Paul was afraid?" For you certainly would not say, speaking however gravely, to your friend, "Think you that we shall have a fine day to-morrow?" Rhetorical phrases rarely give an impression of practical reality. (_e_) Do not speak in the pulpit as if you were writing notes for an edition of the Epistles. What does the labourer (and what do many hearers more highly educated than he) think when you say, on Rom. v. 1, that "_weighty manuscript authority gives another reading_"? And what does he think you mean when you talk about "_SheÙl_"? By the way, when you quote Scripture in the pulpit, passingly, to a general congregation, I would advise you to quote not the Revised Version, but the Authorized, which will surely be "_the_ English Bible" for many long days yet. Unless you have before you some special difference between the two Versions, on which you can _stop to speak explicitly_, quote the familiar (and inimitable) diction of 1611. PREACH WHAT CAN BE REPORTED.