Criticizing the increasingly rapid pace of modern life, George A. Buttrick gave his first sermon as Chairman of the Board of Preachers yesterday in Memorial Chapel. Buttrick said that it is impossible to know life's goal while constantly hurrying, and pointed out that Christ had none of our excessive speed. "We have the appearance of people pursued," said Buttrick. "This is strange, for our human wisdom, even on the secular level, endorses God's method of slowness."

Buttrick, formerly pastor of New York's Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church and professor of Homileetics at Union Theological Seminary, will preach almost all of the sermons in Memorial Chapel during the spring term. Yesterday's sermon began his pre-Lenten series which the University announced last October, a departure from the previous chapel procedure of a different clergyman speaking each week.

The change should give the program a continuity lacking in past years, according to President Pusey, and several scheduled speakers have canceled their engagements to let Buttrick give his series.

Last month the Corporation also appointed Buttrick, who is Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, chairman of the Phillips Brooks House Committee.

Life magazine recently named him one of the country's ten greatest preachers.