Preaching and Preachers

Preaching and Preachersmediated through personality'. I believe that is right, that in preachingall one's faculties should be engaged, the whole man should beinvolved. I go so far as to suggest that even the body is involved. I amreminded as I say this of something once said by one of my predecessorsat Westminster Chapel in London, Dr. John A. Hutton. Inhis case the preaching could always be differentiated from the matterof his sermon. His predecessor at Westminster was a well-knownpreacher in the U.S.A. as well as in Britain, Dr. John Henry Jowett.Jowett was rather a quiet, nervous kind of man, and he found theparticularly large rostrum in Westminster Chapel very trying. Heused to say that when he stood in that rostrum on his own, with thewhole of his body visible to the congregation from various angles, thathe felt as if he were standing naked in a field. He became so selfconsciousabout this that he asked for the railings round the rostrumto be draped with a curtain so that at any rate most of his body shouldbe concealed. Well then he, as I say, was succeeded by Dr. JohnHutton. I happened to be present in a service about the third Sundayafter the arrival of Dr. Hutton. I noticed, as everyone else noticed,that allthe drapery round the rostrum had been removed and that thewhole body of the preacher was visible as in former times. Dr.Hutton gave us the explanation of this and told us that the draperyhad been removed at his request because he believed that a preachershould preach with the whole of his body-and that this was certainlytrue of him. He told us that he preached as much with his legs as withhis head, and thatifwe watched him we would discover that this wastrue. Watching him one found that it wastrueI I am not sure that thatwasalwaysto the advantage of the preaching, because he went throughallkinds of contortions. He would stand on his toes and wind one footround the other leg and so on. The point I am making is that therewas something in what he said, the whole man was involved. He didnot stand like a statue and just utter words through his lips; the entireperson was engaged-gestures, activity and so on.I do not want to make too much of this, but you will remember thatwhen Demosthenes was asked what is the first great essential in82