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LECTURES ON PREACHING.

DELIVERED TO THE

STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE, IN 1879.

BY

REV. MATTHEW SIMPSON,

SIMPSON, D.D.,

BISHOP OF METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NEW YORK.

LONDON:

RICHARD D. DICKINSON, FARRINGDON STREET.

1879.

[From the Records of the Corporation of Yale College, April 12, 1871.]

"Voted, To accept the offer of Mr. HENRY N. SAGE, of Brooklyn, of the sum of ten thousand dollars, for the founding of a Lectureship in the Theological Department, in a branch of Pastoral Theology, to be designated The Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching,' to be filled from time to time, upon the appointment of the Corporation, by a minister of the Gospel, of any evangelical denomination, who has been markedly successful in the special work of the Christian ministry.”

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LONDON:

PIPER AND CARTER, PRINTERS, GOUGH SQUARE, FLEET STREET.

THE PREACHER'S WÒRK.

DR. LEONARD BACON opened the course by the following

remarks:

"It is understood, of course, that these Lyman Beecher Lectures are for and to students of theology-the students of this school. They are not addressed to the public at large. They are not of the nature of an amusement for the public. They mean business; and we have invited for this year a distinguished preacher to give the results of his long experience in the form of counsels to these students. Well, there are a great many ministers here who are, I trust, themselves students even yet; and it won't hurt them to hear it. And they are welcome; and others are welcome. Our friends who are present here are welcome to the privilege and enjoyment, and profit-as, I trust, they will find— of hearing the lectures which begin to-day. And now I have the pleasure of introducing to you the Rev. Dr. Simpson, one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

BISHOP SIMPSON: Young Gentlemen: How natural is it for a speaker to wish to say something before he begins! Hence I may indulge in a few preliminary remarks. And first of all I wish to express my high esteem of the practical wisdom and catholic spirit which influenced the founder of this lectureship. So far as I know, this is the first endowment of a lectureship devoted specially to preaching. Homiletics and the pastoral office, including preaching, have long been in the curriculum of the theological seminary; but this chair is devoted specially to the subject of preaching. It is an agency by which God has promised to save them that believe; and, if so, it is the most important that was ever committed to human hands, and surely

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