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Of all kinds of preaching, I love the expository most. You will understand this from the fact that I have, during the last seven years, expounded most of the first two books of the Pentateuch, the whole book of Nehemiah, the whole of Ecclesiastes, and nearly half the Gospel of Matthew. I care less and less for mere catch-texts and for small ingenuities in pulpit mechanics. Our cleverness is our destruction as expositors. In its exercise we lose breadth, substance, and dignity, and become mere tricksters and jugglers. I care very little for merely literary polish in preaching. We want intelligence, unction and directness. All the rest is comparatively worthless. The preacher is not an author, reading his own manuscript he is a Voice, a Fire, a Herald, bold and eager in his sacred work—an orator speaking in Heaven’s name and strength. There are more authors in the pulpit than preachers. Here is the weakness of the pulpit. It has become a competitor of the press, and has abandoned its special and incommunicable function.