Quiet Hints, Chapter 19–"Foolishness”

Notes taken from Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers by Charles E. Jefferson, Chapter 19, “Foolishness.”

Beginning a speech with an apology is a piece of nonsense unprovoked and inexcusable, but if you wish to break a man of that habit he must be caught young.

Why squander time in announcing what will become perfectly clear before one sits down?

If a man cannot say anything in the first ten minutes of his sermon he ought to drop the first ten and begin with the second ten.

A sermon with two “finallys” in it is a monstrosity and a plague.

Many a man in trying to be a jolly, good fellow has abdicated his position as leader of the higher life of his parish.

A Bible sentence joked about becomes a withered leaf on the tree of life.

The man who jokes straight through the week will be suspected of joking on Sunday.

Alas for the man who is so incorrigibly and irresistibly funny that even in the pulpit he seems less of a prophet than a clown.

Visitor Comments:

February 9, 2010, 7:39 AM Firerelated says:
	Do you have other books By Jefferson He has a great Book Quiet talks with Earnest people in my Study He has one on being the Shepherd