A boundless subject--Visiting--All-important--Prepare for the round with prayer--Method--Brevity but not hurry--An example--Courtesy--It must be impartial--Visitation of the sick--Its special demands--Punctuality always a duty--Use of the Bible--The advantage of coming as "the Clergyman"--Mistaken for the undertaker--Come to the point--Lying in wait for the occasion--Happy rebukes to timid reticence 147 CHAPTER VIII. _PASTOR IN PARISH_ (ii.). Teach as you go--Urgent need of teaching--About Christ--And the Holy Spirit--And Sacraments--Common mistakes about the teaching of the Church--Sin--Evidences--Recollections of a visiting round--The retired tradesman--The sceptical blacksmith--The invalid artizan--The civil-servant--The consumptive--The dying printer--The cripple--Aged poor saints--Saddening visits--Humbling memories--A bright conversion at eighty-two 173 CHAPTER IX. _THE CLERGYMAN AND THE PRAYER BOOK._ "As bad as inspired"--Imperfections in the Book--Yet it is priceless--Spirituality of the Prayer Book--What it takes for granted in the worshipper--A remarkable reason for secession--The Prayer Book as a weapon--Its Scripturality--Its compilers jealous for the Word of God--Ministerial use of the Prayer Book--Put yourself into it--We are not to preach the prayers--Yet we are to pray them--Reading of the Lessons--Baptism--Marriage--Burial--The Holy Communion--Reverence--Of what sort--Instruction-addresses on the Prayer Book--"Less worship" 201 CHAPTER X. _PREACHING_ (i.). The Pulpit a central point in the Ministry--Mutual influence of "parish-work" and preaching--"Truth through personality"--Let us "labour in the Word"--"Litho Sermons"--Addison's village-parson and his sermons--_Attractive_ preaching--Is a duty--Audibility--Of the right sort--Good English--Why to be cultivated--Mr Spurgeon's style--French hearers of an English preacher--Good effects on his style--"Written or extempore?"--Length--Action 225 CHAPTER XI. _PREACHING_ (ii.). Further remarks on Attractiveness--And, in passing, on Ministerial Considerateness--This is to be practised in preaching--As well as in other functions--Attractiveness to be guarded by Faithfulness--Requisites to attractiveness--"Preach the Gospel earnestly, interestingly, fully"--Jesus Christ is _the Gospel_--Personal conviction the essence of _Earnestness_--"Matter-of-Fact"--_Interest_ sustained by anecdote and illustration--But still more by intelligibility and practicality--Expository sermons--_Fulness_ in the message--Jesus Christ for us--And in us--The Holy Spirit must work with the Word 249 CHAPTER XII. _PREACHING_ (iii.).