THE GIVING OF THE LECTURE
The lecture has been written out-in full. The ideas we wish to present have been developed in their proper order, and the words we should like to use to put them forward have been thought about and put on record beforehand. How shall the putting forward be done? There are at least these ways:
(i) To take the manuscript along and read it;
(ii) To learn its contents by heart and recite them;
(iii) To condense the text to a series of headings, or brief notes, and reconstruct the lecture from those;
(iv) To digest the plan and substance of the manuscript so thoroughly that we can on the occasion present its message in the words which there come to us.

These are not as distinct as they might appear. To do (i) effectively, the matter must have been so thoroughly digested, that the manuscript does not intervene between ourselves and the audience. Properly done, it can be an altogether acceptable method. There is one brother, whose wise speaking is properly in demand, who insists indeed that he will not (though he might) attempt any other, on the ground that only by the utmost fidelity to the terms of his script can he be confident that he will not betray the Truth by some unguarded error or unpremeditated unfortunate phrase. We may feel that this outlook shows too great diffidence in himself, too harsh a judgment on an adventitious slip, and still recognize that the high ideal it displays demands our approval and support. But that brother knows (as such a speaker must) his manuscript so thoroughly that his bondage to it is of the lightest, and he can face his audience and gain their confidence as though he were nearly noteless.

It is, in any case, for most of us, the best way to start. We know then what we shall say, and panic terrors that we shall lose our thread are practically excluded. We must, if we use this method, mark the manuscript itself clearly and sharply with capital headlines, preferably in another colour, and distinguish plainly the passages to be quoted. For it is more than likely that, increasingly with increasing experience, we shall look away from our writings to our hearers, and as the length of time for which we do that grows, the more we shall need to be quite sure where to turn where memory fails or prudence bids return. This increasing emancipation is leading the way to (iii).

(ii) is something off the main line of a speaker's development, and the writer believes it to be a backwater into which we will do well not to sail. Some memorizing, no doubt, all speakers do, even in following (i), and it is right that things we simply must say as we have planned them, should be committed to memory. When this is done, it requires some art not to stand proudly before the audience and say in effect, " Look! This is a special bit which I have memorized. Isn't it a peach?" Such passages must take their place in our message without the I word for word, is the worst strain on our memory any method, lean impose, and the least profitable. Only with the utmost I care can it be anything but artificial, and only with the greatest confidence anything but a frightful nervous strain, likely I to lead at any moment to forgetfulness and mental shipwreck. I Concentration on the simple physical necessity of recalling I words must nearly always destroy our contact with those we I address, and convert preaching into mere declamation.

The path of progress (as I believe) leads directly to (iii). i Condensing our material into headings, brief notes and. I references is good for us in any case, whether we intend to 6 preach from them or not. It is the final assurance that we I have done what we set out to do, that our aim has been clearly i followed, our course reasonable, and our conclusion established 'and commended. It fixes our final plan in our minds. It is not the same thing as the original skeleton from which the lecture was built up, for it must be rarely that the lecture in preparation follows exactly the course we set for it: if we are, thinking as we write, it hardly ever will. These notes are to form the chart for our public journey, and they must bell carefully prepared.

Headings must be brief, written large and plain, and pointed. It does not matter whether they mean anything to other people who read the notes, so long as they strike a chord in our own memory. Passages should be marked plainly for turning up. The papers or cards should be small enough to fit our Bible comfortably and be out of the public gaze (not from shame, but because turning over sheaves of foolscap is distracting). They should be as few as we can manage with, but as full as we should need in emergency. In all our subsequent development they should never be omitted. Examples are given later in the chapter.

The completion of this process, noted in (iv), is hardly a. separate stage. It consists simply in finding that the notes we have prepared recede more and more into the background as we speak, and the words we need come more and more naturally in response to a thought-development which proceeds in our minds apace with the need. A preacher in that position thinks over again the terms of his preparation, and. lives in his own mind that which he offers. And this is a very enviable state.