Another deep and unfailing secret of interest, so that it be used intelligently and prayerfully, is close akin to this last. It lies in the right sort of _expository_ preaching. I have in my mind such exposition as will be found in Dr Vaughan's sermons on the Philippian Epistle. The charm and power of those sermons lie, I know, very much in the extraordinary excellence, the _curiosa simplicitas_, of their literary style, so unpretentious and so masterly. But it lies also in the fact that the preacher takes us over a familiar Scripture passage, verse by verse, phrase by phrase, and translates it into the dialect of present circumstances. Let me heartily commend this sort of preaching from my own parochial experience in past days. In a congregation consisting chiefly of the poor, I found that the most intelligent and sustained interest was excited by a series of Sunday evening sermons on a selected chapter or paragraph, in which the aim was first to paraphrase the sacred phrases, as it were, into modern shapes, and then at the close to enforce some main message of the portion. The method is as old as the Homilies of Chrysostom, and older.
Another secret of interest, permanent and effectual, is _practicality_ in preaching. I protest, whenever I can, and I hope to do so to the last, against the common but unhappy fallacy of an outcry against doctrine: "_Give us not a creed, but a life_." The whole New Testament, the whole Bible, protests against such a sentence. There, a divine creed is always seen as necessary for a divine life. Supernatural facts, livingly apprehended, are necessary for supernatural peace and power in this formidable natural world. But then, on the other side, it is a fallacy almost as fatal to preach the supernatural fact and truth without a constant and practical application of them to the crude and stern realities of life. A young pastoral preacher was once, in my hearing, warmly and lovingly thanked for his pulpit-work, on the eve of his quitting his Curacy; and the point on which his humble friends dwelt was that he had always preached Christ, _and_ always showed them how to make use of His presence and power in the actual circumstances of their lives. Eloquent words, aye and true words, spoken _in vacuo_, will be dull to most hearers; eternal truths laid alongside the weekday work and temptation will always be interesting.