1. The things undone are many.
2. The things undone are often the things of greatest consequence.
3. The things undone are things for which we must be held responsible.4
"Learn to do well" (Isaiah 1:17) is the text for a sermon on "The Highest Education." Watkinson begins: "We hear much of primary, secondary, and higher education. But our text reminds us of a sphere yet beyond these levels. This highest level of education concerns all: securing it is the main end of life. To acquire this we need (1) a pattern (2) power (3) practice.5
"The Apology of the Sneak" is a striking title for a sermon on Judges 5:15-16. "By the watercourses of Reuben there were great resolves of heart. Why sattest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the pipings for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben there were great searchings of hearts." This text is treated as a rebuke to the theorist, to the critical, and to the sentimentalist.6
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Watkinson often uses his text for the idea it gives him; this is most obvious when he chooses curious texts. His titles are clear, usually arresting, and indicative of the content; often they sum up the whole sermon. His structure is always sound. His careful construction of a sermon permits the outline of his thought to come through very clearly. But the sermons lack definite movement. Transitions are almost wholly lacking; each division stands alone.
His style is excellent, though judged by the standards of today too florid. His words flow smoothly and rhythmically, with the apparent ease that comes only from the hardest effort. He is always concrete. He says in a letter to a ministerial friend: "I am afraid I rather resemble those poor sailors who love to hug the shore. The abstract very soon to me becomes faint and dubious unless the concrete comes to the rescue."7
He is never dull or commonplace, and his sermons are studded with fresh and suggestive illustrations, apt and effective quotations, and with bright, sparkling sentences which linger in the memory like proverbs. Here are a few of his memorable sayings:
"Life seems to many people like that African forest which a traveller described as a forest of fish-hooks, varied with an occasional patch of penknives."
"Man opens a blossom with a crowbar; God opens it with a sunbeam."
"Plato believed in moral beauty for a few aristocratic souls. Jesus Christ brings that beauty to the man in the street."
"In the East the nest of the hummingbird is sometimes seen fastened by a spider's thread to the face of a rock and in this marvelous combination of strength and weakness the frail, beautiful creature is secure."
Sentences and illustrations like these -- and they are frequent -- display the preacher's power to a marked degree. But this is not the only way in which his genius reveals itself. Every place is explored in turn, and all yield valuable materials. The curiosities of travel, the treasures of biography, the legends of primitive people, the facts of everyday life, and the discoveries of modern science are all full of illustrations for Watkinson. He also shows great skill in using Scripture to illustrate Scripture.
The chief criticism that can be made of these sermons is that there is too little of Christ in them, and too much of man, his character and conduct. There is a man-centeredness in his sermons as the very titles of his books suggest. They are uniformly exhortatory or didactic. Exhortation and instruction are honorable forms of preaching in the New Testament but they are definitely subordinate forms. They rise out of the Kergyma. In these sermons we are instructed about character and conduct, but rarely are we given a vision of God.
Nevertheless the clarity and finish of his workmanship, his homiletic genius and apologetic adroitness, his consummate artistry and his fertile mind make Watkinson a preacher whose sermons are still worthy of careful study by preachers of the present day.
1. Hugh Sinclair (the pen-name of Mrs. E. Herman), Voices of Today, p. 267-8.
2. Arthur Porritt, The Best I Remember, p. 161.
3. The Supreme Conquest (1907), pp. 60-61.
4. Things Undone (1901), p. 73.
5. The Bane and the Antidote (1902), p. 165.
6. Studies in Christian Character, Work and Experience, Vol. II (1901), p. 55.
7. Letters of Two Friends: W. L Watkinson and F. W. Macdonald, p. 18.
