Sermons that Stoop

C. H. Spurgeon on the preacher humbling himself in the pulpit for the sake of coming clear to his listeners:

It is said that many of the sermons of Augustine are full of shockingly bad Latin, not because Augustine was a poor Latin scholar, but because the dog-Latin of the day was better suited to the popular ear than more classically correct language would have been; and we shall have to speak in similar style if we want to get hold of men.

There is a certain prudery about ministers which disqualifies them for some kinds of work; they cannot bring their mouth to utter the truth in such plain speech as fisher-women would understand, but happy is that man whose mouth is able to declare the truth in such a way that the person to whom he is speaking will receive it.

So Spurgeon concludes, "Learn to stoop."

—C. H. Spurgeon, Pictures from Pilgrim's Progress (Pasadena: Pilgrim Publications, 1992), 58-59.