AN EXAMPLE OF PREPARATION
The first five points of this counsel can be made plainer by an example of actual preparation. The subject was chosen for the writer (though he was glad to have it), and was:

Christ's Memorial
No hint was given of what was intended. The previous lecture at the same place had been Is Baptism Necessary? and the one to follow was something like The Churches and True Christianity. There seemed to be no intention to arrange a sequence (but we should be always on the look-out for this when a programme is sent us: we may be able to do the ecclesia concerned a considerable service). Here, then, slightly idealized, is the course of preparation of this lecture:

(a) First Notes.
(1) They must mean me to talk about the Breaking of Bread, unusual but with splendid possibilities.
(2) Obviously The Atonement: " This is my blood-shed for remission of sins."
(3) Trans-substantiation? (I had been reading books about Catholics and the subject cut across my current thoughts).
(4) " This is my Body: this is my blood ": but at the time this was said the body and blood were unharmed-an obstacle for those who insist on being quite literal.
(5) Obvious comparison with " eating the flesh of the Son of Man " in John 6, after feeding of 5,000. Note specially, " It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing " -a rebuke to their literal-mindedness.
(6) Other examples of literalness rebuffed: Nicodemus and rebirth; the woman by the well and " living water."
(7) Old Testament types: Melchizedek ; Manna in the wilderness (as in 5) ; the Passover (used in records of Breaking of Bread).
(8) Look up: " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us."
(9) All of you drink-of the blood. But this was forbidden under the Law. Why?
(10) Who should partake? Opportunity to talk about narrowness of way.
(11) Every week? Why? What is the evidence?
(12) What is meant by " partaking unworthily "?
There is much confusion here. A good many unformed ideas can be seen, but at present there is no plan, and the notes are vague and lack substance. The Concordance must now supply that lack.

(b) Concordance. The title provides no key-words sufficiently distinctive: " memorial" is not used in the Scripture of Christ. " Remembrance " supplies the place of, and other words likely to be useful are " Bread," " Body," " Blood," " Passover," " Sacrifice." A rapid glance down the concordance picks out quickly the passages which may help, and supplies the following list:
(1) Matt. 26: 26-29 ; Mark 14 : 22-25 ; Luke 22 : 18-20 ; 1 Cor. 11 : 23-25. (The accounts of the Last Supper.)
(2) Heb. 10: 3 : In those (O.T.) sacrifices is a remembrance made of sins.
(3) John 6: 5-58 ; Feeding of 5,000 and " bread from heaven."
(4) Luke 24: 30-35 : " Jesus took bread and blessed and brake " (after Resurrection.)
(5) Acts 2: 42, 46 : " Breaking of bread "-practice of early Church.
(6) Acts 20: 6, 11 : ditto.
(7) 1 Cor. 10: 14-22 : " bread we break is communion of the body of the Lord."
(8) John 6:4: " The passover was nigh " (Feeding of 5,000).
(9) 1 Cor. 5:7: " Christ our passover is sacrificed-let us keep the feast."
(10) Lev. 17: 10 : " Whosoever eateth blood will I cut off-The Life is in the blood-it is the blood that maketh atonement."
(11) Heb. 9: 22 : " Without the shedding of blood is no remission."
(12) Heb. 9: 26 : " Jesus put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
In each case the passage (with many more) was looked up in the Bible itself after it had been spotted in the Concordance. This is most important: a mere phrase is not enough. We must be familiar with the setting of all the texts we use.

(c) Other Reading: (i) R. Knox: "The Belief of Catholics." Not very useful: Trans-susbstantiation is so because the Church declares it thus-the matter is beyond human understanding.
(ii) di Bruno : " Catholic Belief " (1884).
(Hi) Blunt: " Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology," articles on " Eucharist," " Trans-substantiation," " Real Presence."
(iv) "Documents of the Christian Church" (World's Classics, 1943) for extracts from Justin Martyr and other early writers on the church's practice in Breaking of Bread.
(v) Collected abstracts from various works on Catholicism, Church History, and the Atonement.
This rather specialized selection was made necessary by the fact that I might intend to make reference to the Catholic practice, and must therefore be sure what it was. This has been sufficiently emphasized already. Actually, the outside reading occupies only a very small place in the finished lecture, but it was necessary for the plan adopted.

(d) Taking Stock: The basic fact about the Breaking of Bread is its association with the death of Jesus and its promise of his resurrection. The death of Jesus was for our sins, and disciples of Jesus who partook of his death promptly celebrated this feast. My aim is therefore to show what the feast is, what it means to those who partake of it, and who they are who can share its meaning-thus pointing the need for a definite attitude of mind and action for those who would look for its promise. All the passages in the list are suitable to this end. Incidentally, superstition (as of Catholics, and High Churchmen who ape them) and mere humanism (as of those who despise the ordinance altogether) or indifference, can receive their rebuke.

(e) Making a Plan,
(i) introduction: Attention can be arrested by describing a Breaking of Bread service as we celebrate it, with its simplicity, its lay-president, and a note on those who are allowed to participate.
(ii) Opposite reactions to this ceremony can be considered: the Salvationist and the Quaker on the one hand (who consider it imprudent, or unnecessary); and the Catholic on the other (who believes in a magical Real Presence conveying virtue by the act of eating the very flesh and blood of Jesus).
(iii) Each can be answered and advance my purpose: the non-partakers, by pointing out that Jesus commanded, and so impressing the need for humble obedience to his will, not an upstart advancing of our opinions; the Catholics, by pointing to three other occasions where Jesus prescribed a " supernatural " experience for his disciples.
(iv) These three are the Rebirth, to Nicodemus, where flesh is set against spirit, and no literal physical birth is intended ; the Living Water, to the woman by Jacob's Well (John 4), where the pitcher cannot contain it, and a further explanation is later given (John 7 : 39) ; and the Bread from Heaven (John 6) which is Jesus's flesh, though " the flesh profiteth nothing, it is the Spirit which quickeneth."
(v) Thus in all cases a contrast, Flesh v. Spirit, is set out: what we are naturally, against what only God (in Jesus) can do for us. Our nature in Adam comes at once to the fore; and need of a Saviour; the work of Jesus in his life and his death, and his blood " shed for remission of sin." From us, then is needed a recognition of this, a willingness to obey, and a glad waiting for his reward.
(vi) Hence the exclusiveness of the service to those who have been baptized; its usefulness in keeping them aware of what the flesh tends to forget, that we are bought with a price;
(vii)-and-conclusion-its promise to those who are faithful. " I will drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." They could not take blood-which was life-under the Law. But Jesus bids it in symbol, and points forward to the life it foreshadows.

There is a unity of theme shown there which is very desirable. Very few disgressions from a clear path are permitted (to the advantage of clarity). The description with which it opens at once commands interest and identifies the lecture with the practice of our body; the development which follows keeps the stranger continually aware of his own relationship with what is being said (there is no hasty and rather constrained importation of a personal message at the end), and so the lecture preaches all the time. And the conclusion, the " peroration " as it is called, leads right on from the feast to the reward without artificiality. All this, at least, is what the one who prepared it intended, and the claims are made for it, only so as to show that a lecturer ought to intend to do things of this kind, with the same deliberation. Whether it was successful is not the present point: an idea was clearly conceived and purposefully carried out. The lecture was at this stage written out in detail, and later condensed for the actual delivery.
This is the next topic for discussion.