Sermons

doned all idea of reconstruction, and have removed only the more obvious faults where they did not inhere in the very structure of the discourse, and have, in the main, left them as they were originally delivered.

It has been my habit to prepare the matter of my discourses, to arrange carefully the plan in copious written notes, but beyond that to rely wholly on the inspiration of their delivery for their literary clothing and for most of the illustrations.

In making a selection among so many, those discourses have been chosen which would, as far as possible, give a correct view of the range of subjects which I am accustomed to employ in my ministry. An important exception is made in regard to the application of Christian truth to public questions of the day. These it has been thought best to reserve, and, should they ever be republished, to place them in a volume by themselves.

I am indebted for the reports of my sermons for many years to the skill and fidelity of T. J. Ellinwood.

I have always been glad that I chose the ministry of the Gospel of Christ as the business of my life. My work has been a joy to me all the way. I can not conceive of another profession in which the noble enjoyments are so many and the drawbacks so few. If, when I am too old to labor, these sermons shall still be read, it will complete my satisfaction, and extend my joy and reward down to the very end of my life.

Brooklyn, January, 1868.

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE friends of Mr. Beecher have long desired some collection of his sermons such as would present an authoritative statement of the views which he has maintained, and the methods which he has employed for their presentation. Yielding to this desire, often and urgently repeated, Mr. Beecher has placed in my hands over five hundred sermons, published and unpublished, from which, after careful examination, and in constant consultation with him and some personal friends to whom he referred me, the sermons comprising these volumes have been selected. To take so little from so much that is every way worthy of permanent preservation has been a task of rare difficulty. If any reader, therefore, is inclined to complain of the omission of special sermons which were deserving of insertion, I shall heartily concur in his regrets. The limits of space have compelled me to omit more that ought to be preserved than it was possible to insert.

There is, perhaps, no man of ancient or modern times whose preaching is so diverse in manner as that of Mr. Beecher-a fact which partly accounts for his perpetual freshness and his permanent success. The diversity of method and unity of truth, which he combines in a rare degree, I have endeavored to illustrate in these volumes. The reader will here find, therefore, not only a presentation of his theological system, as in the sermon on The Importance of Correct Belief, and his doctrinal views on special subjects, as in the sermons on the Incarnation and the Divinity of Christ, but also sermons addressed to modern skepticism, as The Decadence of Christianity; sermons of practical ethics, as Love the Essence of Religion; of personal appeal, as What will you do with Christ? of description, as Spring-time in Nature and in Experience; of personal experience, as The Walk to Emmaus; sermons addressed to the Church and the clergy, as Fishers of Men, and the two on "Jesus Christ and Him crucified;" and sermons that are poems in prose, as The Sepulchre in the Garden. In short, the sermons have been selected in the spirit in which they

were preached, with reference not so much to the demands of theological scholarship as to the wants of the popular heart.

The whole selection has been made under the supervision of Mr. Beecher. Each sermon has been carefully revised by him, and several have been rewritten in whole or in part. The collection may be accepted, therefore, as an authoritative presentation of his views and teachings, so far as its compass permits, the only one before the public which really is so.

These pages afford no fitting place for an analysis or a culogy of Mr. Beecher, his tenets, or his pulpit methods. But these discourses of his have been thus collected by one who, personally grateful to him, under God, for much in his own spiritual experience, believes that Mr. Beecher needs no other defense from his assailants, no other commendation to the sincere and unbiased friends of Christian truth, than a faithful portraiture of his customary teachings for the past quarter of a century.

New England Church, New York City,

January, 1868.

}

LYMAN ABBOTT.

CONTENTS.

SERMON

PAGE

I. THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE GOSPEL MINISTRY: A SERMON

OF MINISTERIAL EXPERIENCE (1 Cor., ii., 2-5).....................................

II. THE LOVE OF GOD (1 John, iv., 9–11)......

III. THE SEPULCHRE IN THE GARDEN (John, xix., 41, 42;

Matt., xxvii., 61)....................