However, we must leave the second part of the sermon, because the comments of the congregation, which I take as my text this morn: ing, "They wondered at the words of grace that proceeded out of His mouth,' were a comment on the first division only. A congregation can change its mind very quickly, and say, "What a good thing it would have been, if the minister had stopped hall-way." Here then is our difficulty. I have undertaken to preach on Christ's first sermon, on the first part of it; and there is no first part at all reported. A pity a shorthand writer was not present. However, there wasn't one, though ¢ might have been, seeing that, as the late Dr. Alexander Whyte tells us, Cicero had invented shorthand a hundred years before.
in this difficulty of having to preach a sermon of which we have no rd, there is nothing for it but to see whether Jesus took a text. It is remarkable how very seldom He did. His texts were from human life. But in. this case He did, and St. Luke has told us what it v We have to thank him for that. We have a te: That seems, little. There is a story told of a theological student, who asked his professor of homiletics, what he thought of a sermon that he, the student, had just delivered in the sermon class. The professor is reported to have answered, "You had a very good text.
That is; supposed to be the most sarcastic thing that you can say to any preacher, who is ill-advised enough at_you have thought sermon, Tell him, that he had a good text, and you have established your reputation as a brilliant wit.
But I am not so sure! of that. A text is a "Word of God." a message from the eternal world, where the air is purer than in this. Afte all the best, sermon is just the avenue that leads to the mansion, the text.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.