Excerpt from Public Worship There are three strategic points in the work of the minister; and unless he gives to each of these its due weight he can scarcely hope to make full proof of his ministry. Of these the first is the pas torate, the second the religious service, and the third the sermon. No doubt the predominance of the sermon in Christian worship from the begin ning has given to the service its peculiar character. The Protestant Reformation laid great emphasis upon the discourse, and Vinet scarcely exaggerates when he says, With the Catholics, preaching has little place; it is almost everything with us. In the case of the free Churches, which are not bound by any liturgical form, this is especially true. My purpose in this book is to give to all the parts of Public Worship their due importance. It is intended to be complementary to The Making of the Ser mon, and to distribute the emphasis which an ex clusive study of Homiletics might be tempted to concentrate on the discourse. We often hear it said that the sermon without the preacher is the gun without the man at the back of it. With equal justice it may be added that the sermon severed from the entire service is shorn of a large measure of its strength. Not alone is the picture robbed of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.