PREFACE THE sermons in this volume were preached in the First Congregational Church of Montclair, New Jersey. After the death of their late minister, Dr. Bradford, I took charge of the pulpit for a year and a half. It was a service of great happiness to myself, and I received so much kindness at the hands of the people that I desire to associate their name with this book. The selection was limited by the fact that comparatively few of the sermons were written. During the whole period, at the Vesper Service I preached on the Teaching of Jesus, but kept no record of the sermons. This explains the frequency of texts from the Old Testament in this volume. The particular contents were chosen from the point of view of variety, and I notice now that, though single sermons, they are all expository in character. It still remains true, as I believe it must always be true, that the Christian preacher must go to the Bible for his material. There we have the classic literature of our religion, and the history of faith, and the record of the great experiences of the soul of man. One of the chief tasks of the pulpit still is to explain, and interpret, and illustrate the teaching of the Bible. The roots of all our Christian ideas and ideals are found in that soil. It makes also for sanity to bring everything to the test of the normal religious experience, whose history we find in the Bible. H. B. CONTENTS But many of the priests, who were ancient men, that God led them not by the way of the Philistines, though that was near-but God led the people |