Black first suggests methods of using a book of the Bible and preaching about it or through it. Some books are best expounded around the problems they face, the problems they were meant to solve, like the Epistles to the Church at Corinth. A book like Amos can be expounded under the sins it scourges. Another type of book, like Proverbs or the Epistle of James, can best be treated by selecting its main ideas.

For a short course to open up a book like the Acts, Black suggests treating it under the idea of the cities into which Paul entered. The same book can be used as a portrait gallery, revealing the types of people whom the Apostles met. An explanation of a book like Numbers or Deuteronomy might expound the gracious laws promulgated by the Jews and the institutions set up for life and safety, like the cities of refuge.

It was Black's custom to take one book of the Bible each winter; he found, after his study of it, that he could have turned back and preached on fifty different texts and subjects that appealed to him. On Sunday evenings, he often preached on some of the chief doctrines, translating them into modern terms.

Black urges the need of constant writing as a discipline which no preacher dare sacrifice. He says that Joseph Parker of the City Temple had acquired a freedom and power in extempore speech that was unique. A young student came to him after a service and asked whether he himself should not try the same method. Parker replied: "Young man, I wrote every word I uttered for fifteen years. When you have done what I did then, you can try to do what I do now."

Black felt there was a great deal to be said for the read sermon, for it represents well-considered material and is likely to offer as full and rounded a statement as a man can give. Yet he also recognized that a read sermon can easily become cold or lukewarm, too detached and too essay-like. Nevertheless, at the beginning of a ministry it saves a preacher from fear of himself, his subject, and his people. After fifteen years in the ministry he considers that speaking out of a full mind is the ideal method.

Until the first World War, Black never preached a sermon that he had not previously written, and he read it word for word. When he became a chaplain, it was impossible to read and he learned to speak without notes.

For the next two years he never wrote out a sermon, but prepared more carefully than ever and tried to think out his subject in all its details until he could talk it out aloud in his study. Then he went into the pulpit as full of his theme as possible, and with only his points and transitions before him, trusted to the moment for his language.

Thereafter he made it his practice to write and read one of the two sermons each Sunday, and to speak the other out of a full mind. This rescues the preacher from the tyranny of one method and of one mood, and gives variety to the services. For a preacher who wants to try free speech, Black recommends a big canvas, a subject or situation with points and natural developments. The one-idea sermon is too narrow and limiting for free speech. It needs fine handling, delicate transitions and precise phrasing.

As an example of his dramatic power I recall a sermon I heard Black preach at a Tuesday midday service in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester before 2,500 people. His theme was "Comparative Values in Life." It was a study of Jesus on trial before Annas. His three points were as follows:

1. In this meeting we see the essential opposition of final good and final evil.

2. There is the opposition between the two final creeds. Jesus stood for fine character, honesty, truth; we know what Annas stood for, the direct opposite of these things.

3. There is the opposition between the two final destinies. Annas received the contempt of the world and six feet of earth. Jesus received a Cross and a grave; nay, rather, a throne and life.

"I shall not be afraid," he concluded, "in the last day if Jesus talks to me and even scolds me, but I shall be afraid if He just looks at me and says nothing."