Genuine preaching, then, first of all, calls men to repentance, bids
them turn away from their natural selves, and, to find that other and
realer self, enter the straight and narrow gate. The call is not an
arbitrary command, born of a negative and repressive spirit. It is a
profound exhortation based upon a fundamental law of human progress,
having behind it the inviolable sanction of the truth. Such preaching
would have the authentic note. It is self-verifying. It stirs to
answer that quality--both moral and imaginative--in the spirit of man
which craves the pain and difficulty and satisfaction of separation
from the natural order. It appeals to a timeless worth in man which
transcends any values of mere intelligence which vary with the ages,
or any material prosperity which perishes with the using, or any
volitional activity that dies in its own expenditure. Much of the
philosophy of Socrates was long ago outmoded, but Socrates himself, as
depicted in the Phaedo, confronting death with the cup of hemlock in
his hand, saying with a smile, "There is no evil which can happen to
a good man living or dead," has a more-than-natural, an enduring and
transcendent quality. Whenever we preach to the element in mankind
which produces such attitudes toward life and bid it assert itself,
then we are doing religious preaching, and then we speak with power.
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