Is governed. We must know the law and understand the law if we are to obey the law; and it is only in obedience that we find our safety and our strength. His preaching was effective because it was in touch with realities, and because he was real himself. And the inner secret of his power was this—if I may borrow a sentence from my old friend, Mr. G. J. Johnson—that Dawson ** was not a preaching man, but a man preaching." Or, to put the truth in another way, he preached not " as a dying man to dying men," —that was the old idea of preaching—but as a living man to living men who found life no simple or easy matter. Preaching of that type was a new thing at that time. Since then, others have learnt the secret; and I venture to say that in two such books as The Ten Commandments and The Laws of Christ for Common Life, you will find the fruit and the flower of the seed that George Dawson had sown. Some people then held that, a sermon, to deserve the name, should deal only with such themes and mysteries as Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute. They held that to bring the business of the week into the stillness of the sanctuary was to profane the temple. And others resented such preaching from baser motives. There was an American minister who went down into the Southern States after the war, and for obvious reasons set himself to preach a good deal about morality. He began to expound the Ten Commandments. When he had reached the fourth or fifth, a deputation came to him from the congregation. They thanked him for all that he had done, and expressed their deep personal esteem for
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