• For Pulpiteers
Visible and Invisible: Christian Affirmations in a Secular Age. By Giovanni Miegge. (MO" brays, 15s.)
'To oblige an ordinary man to preach fifty ser- the tradition of incessant preaching and °Iloilo mons a year,' said Father George Tyrrell, 'is to bring themselves to believe that 'more vi'd1 oblige him to talk a deal of flatulent nonsense.' pulpits would more converts make,' then 00 Would you not like the vicar, more often than stand in constant need of pulpit aids. 1 not, to read a well-chosen passage from the know why, but there has lately been a large(); treasury of Christian literature instead of feeling of books about preaching. Those here unto that he must produce a sermon of his own corn- view are typical and commendable. The, v4./11 position every Sunday? I am sure that I should the Bishop of Bradford's : Stewards 01 "wel prefer as a rule to hear readings from sources should be useful to experienced preachers as ancient and modern, provided of course that they as to beginners, and might even interest toe were read well. There is no reason why it should who want to get an inside view of the rin%hil always be the vicar who did the reading. In many that a man who mounts a pulpit has to fac" tit parishes there are lay men and women who could answer. In Preachink and the New Refotirlao do this and the clergyman could have the unusual Dr. Douglass makes the point that preachers too advantage of listening. 'Preach not because you ought to reckon With the ecumenical111°.vegibit have to say something, but because you have some- as 'the great new fact of our era,' which Is „eg thing to say.' The import of this admirable maxim, he means by 'the new reformation.' He S''-gt which was bestowed upon the churches by Arch- various ways in which it should be doney bishop Whately, is almost everywhere disregarded. Tizard, who was minister of the famous hi It is feared that congregations will abandon Lane Church in Birmingham, illustrate:oh church-going if they are not offered every Sunday posthumous reflections on the preacher's tas"„c an 'original' sermon. many lively incidents drawn from experiett'•Do not blame the clergy, unless it be for weakly Free Church pulpits. yielding to the supposed popular demand. Their It can hardly be denied that any preacherhoo difficulties are great, and steadily become greater derive wholesome instruction from these,r,-,0 as the shortage of clergy becomes more acute. though even more he might be depressea vi",00 More and more ecclesiastical chores fall on those amount of good advice and high oth;arh t that remain. Their pastoral, administrative and which they contain. Perhaps he should P social duties can easily take up all their time. But console himself with the striking words 1113 they are told that they must devote themselves to Karl Barth (quoted by Douglass): 'It MO' or; on prayer and meditation; otherwise they cannot hope the Word, the Word of God, which we to be 'men of God' and to serve the spiritual needs shall never speak, has put on our wealtn,c1t5 of their flocks. They are told they must read, not unprofitableness so that our word, in cs only works of theology, but other literature too so weakness and unprofitableness, has hecc)".vescc that they can keep abreast of modern thought and able of being the mortal frame, the earthen
understand what is likely to be going on in the of the Word of God.' _roc
minds of their parishioners. They must understand More useful, however, than books aboutitlil what they ought to be saying, and also how to say ing are books that can feed a preacher'bsat it. Hence they are expected to digest contemporary with the substance of the message 1" 15r essays in `the problem of communication.' All should be proclaiming. The flow of booPo's these mandates set an impossible standard for and small, learned and popular, on religi0c; ordinary men (experto crede). The wonder is not jects"continues unabated, and some fair sric reP that the clergy are criticised for their short- are before us here. Professor Danielou IS comings, but that they manage to carry on at all. sentative of the fine work on the Bible tha'c'obot
scholars, but I should hesitate to recommend my vicar to take over his eloquent and fascinating typological explanations of the meaning of the Scriptures until they have been submitted to criti- cal examination by experts in this field. Mr. Clemo, who is a poet and has an attractive style of writing, gives a moving account of his conversion to a strictly evangelical faith, but he is so intolerant of other forms of Christian experience and also so indiscriminate in his hero-worshipping (Aimee Semple Macpherson is put in the first class along with Robert Browning) that his message is cal- culated to repel rather than win those who are not already where he is himself. The pulpit is furnished with enough of this kind of testimony as it is.
Much the best of these books for the working preacher is Professor Miegge's Visible and In- visible. He is well known for his earlier book on The Virgin Mary. He writes here about the princi- pal articles of the Christian faith with great pene- tration and balance and an awareness of the con- text in which they have to be considered and restated today. One would like to hear what he says communicated through the pulpit, though it would be unreasonable to expect that it should be done
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