A Treatise on the

Preparation and Delivery

of

Sermons

by

John A. Broadus, D.D., LL.D.

author of

“history of preaching,” “commentary on matthew,” etc.

New (Twenty-third) Edition

edited by the

Rev. Edwin Charles Dargan, D.D.

professor of homiletics

in the southern baptist theological seminary,

louisville

London

Hodder & Stoughton

27, Paternoster Row

1898

Copyright, 1898, by A. C. Armstrong and Son, for the United States of America.

Preface

To the Revised Edition

———♦———

THE first edition of this work was published in the summer of 1870. Immediately after getting it through the press the author went abroad for some months, and did not expect to teach Homiletics again after his return. But circumstances made it necessary that he should resume his work in that department—always a favorite subject with him. The book was a great success. It became the most popular and widely-read text-book on Homiletics in this country, and has passed through twenty-two editions, thousands of copies having been sold. It has been adopted in many theological seminaries of different denominations as the text-book, and in many where no text-book is used it is highly commended for study and reference. Besides this, it has had a wide and useful circulation among the ministry in general. Two separate editions were published in England; the book was used in the mission schools in Japan, in its English form, and was translated for similar use in the Chinese missions. A translation into Portuguese for the Protestant missions in Brazil has been prepared, and only waits for funds to be published.

The following several things call for a revised edition at this time: The copyright will have to be renewed in 1898, and this affords good opportunity to bring out a new edition; the original stereotype plates have become greatly worn; the correction of a few minor errors, and some additions and alterations, made desirable by the author’s larger experience in studying and teaching the subject, are called for; there have been great contributions to the literature of Homiletics since the work was first published, and the author always kept abreast of progress; and, most of all, the continued demand for the book after twenty-seven years of useful service requires response in the way of bringing the work up with the times.

The present writer’s connection with this revision is easily explained. In the fall of 1892 I became associate professor of Homiletics with Dr. Broadus in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and had the privilege of teaching the subject with him up to the time of his lamented death in March, 1895. We divided the work of teaching under his direction, and as the state of his health permitted. It fell to my lot to do more and more of the work as his health declined.

During these years we had frequent conversations in regard to the revision of this volume. It was one of his cherished plans to bring out a revised edition before his death. With that end in view he had accumulated ...