sermon

1. SERMONS.-Sermons are oral discourses delivered by preachers before religious bodies. The topic discussed in a sermon is taken from some verse or passage in the Bible, and the sermon consists of a development and an enforcement of the truth found in it, and an application of it to the conduct and life of the hearers. The design of the sermon is to teach what is to be believed concerning God and our relations to him and to our fellows, and to lead us to be and to do what is becoming to us, and imperative upon us, as accountable beings. Our moral and religious duties-the duties we owe to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to God-furnish the preacher his subjects. The range of them is immense; and their importance is beyond estimate, since they have to do with the forming of the most precious thing conceivable-human character. The preacher's function is extending with the advance made in the interpretation of the Scriptures, with the disclosure of new mines of truth in them, and with the application of it to us in the relations which we sustain to others-ever increasing in number and in reach. No other species of oral discourse ranks with the sermon in variety and dignity of topics, and in the importance of the motives arrayed and of the ends presented. The lawyer seeks to redress wrongs, the preacher seeks to prevent them; the occupation of the one would decline, were the teaching of the other completely effective. Sermons may be written-volumes of these are in every library. (Kellog, 207)