utterance become instances of non-preaching, and very inadequate models, therefore, of what preaching ought to be. Many in our churches have never experienced preaching of the historic evangelical sort at all. Secondly, topical as distinct from textual preaching has become common in North America (less so in Britain and elsewhere). For sermons to explore announced themes rather than biblical passages is a twentieth-century development, and hardly a happy one. It has occurred, partly at least, to