THE PREACHER'S THEME
two but one, our preaching must ever return, and from them it must continually derive fresh strength and urgency and inspiration.
"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." There is no magnetism like that. Show men Calvary "towering o'er the wrecks of time," and you will not preach in vain. Incomparably the greatest service you can ever perform for those committed to your charge is to thrust the Cross before their eyes. Leave this out, and all your other appeals and exhortations will be as nothing: empty, useless, unsubstantial words. Set this at the centre, and it will prove itself to be, in the twentieth century as in the first, the power of God unto salvation.
Now the herald of the Cross has a twofold task. He must present his theme in a double setting. On the one hand, he must preach the Cross in the context of the world's suffering. Your own congregation will be a microcosm of humanity; and for many of those to whom you minister, the dark mystery which has haunted the sons of men from the dawn of time will be no abstract, impersonal problem to be academically explained, but a grim reality to be faced and fought. Be very clear about this, that what men and women need, face to face with the mystery of pain and trouble and tragedy, is not a solution that will satisfy the intellect, not that primarily at any rate, but a force that will stabilize the soul; not a convincing and coercive argument as to the origins of evil or the reasons why such suffering is permitted on the earth, but a power
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