they make the body; this rule is essential, it makes the soul. The soul will live without the body; the body is putrefaction without the soul; both together make the man.

A distinguished fanatic, who had been tenderly nursed during a long sickness at the house of a friend, and who felt sincerely grateful for the kind attentions of that friend, was asked, on the morning of his departure, to lead in social prayer. He prayed with his wonted boisterousness, until he began to pour out his thanksgivings for the assiduous care of his host; then a subdued manner and a still small voice usurped the place of vehemence and noise. "I knew," said his friend, "that my guest felt thankful and attached to me; and it was his deep feeling that lowered his tones, and repressed the turbulence of his nerves. When therefore he was not so calm, I inferred that he had not so much feeling; and the part of his prayer which was most sincere, was that which was least impetuous." Let us not deceive ourselves. The fitfulness of nervous excitation is distinct from the sober emotion of the heart; the rodomontade in the pulpit is easily distinguished from the eloquent expounder of truth. Children, young or old, may be amused with a vociferous declaimer, as they would be with a fire eater, or wire tumbler, but even children will not be inspired by him with solemn conviction, but will turn from him with the vague feeling, that something or other is wanting, and can only say of their preacher's oratory, what was once said of a different kind of disturbance of the peace, "a tumult my lord, but I know not the meaning thereof." If Campbell's definition of eloquence be just, that it is the "art or talent by which a discourse is adapted to its end," there can be no sacred eloquence which does not more than amuse, more than interest, more than astonish, it must illuminate, and with its light which cheers must emit the heat which melts.

There is a second mode in which theological study increases the eloquence of the preacher; it gives him a proper confidence in himself and his ministrations. A minister should not be arrogant and presumptuous, neither should he be crest-fallen and craven. True self-respect is the ground of true humility, and the same knowledge which imparts the former, imparts also the latter. A man is as much entitled to respect himself, as to respect others, and a minister has as much right as any other man, to form the merited estimate of his own character. Besides, he is authorized to regard himself as a messenger from God,

and in imitation of that inspired model of preachers who never disparaged his high calling, he is bound to say in word and in life, "I magnify mine office." Who among his hearers can vie in importance with the preacher of the Gospel? Physicians, jurists, statesmen must bow themselves before the pulpit, and must yield their dignified obeisance to him, who is distinguished by the appellation," the mouth of God." He who is the instructor of his audience, the spiritual father perhaps of many of them, the guide and counsellor of all, should not appear before them in a crouching posture, as if it were a great favor and honor to him that they will deign to lend their ears; he should not speak as if he were about to apologize for troubling them with his words, or "beg pardon for having been born." No, he should stand up like a man, and speak like a man, and let it be known that he is a man, yea, more than a man, a preacher. Then will his words come with authority. Then will the hearers look up to him. But no minister will speak with that confidence which is neither too great nor too small, but just right, unless he have the mastery of his subject.

There is something in the very consciousness of understanding his doctrine, which gives him the appropriate boldness of utterance. He feels, that he can teach his hearers. However striking their superiority over him in many things, he feels that in the most important of all things he has, as he ought to have, superiority over them. He can make the wisest of them more wise. He can reprove the most learned of them for their ignorance of the one thing needful. It will be a feast for the oldest of them to hang upon his lips, even though he be on the green side of mature age. This will not make him vain; if so, he has peculiar reason to be humble, and may be sure that he has not the qualifications for an occupant of his high office. The truth properly proportioned never ministers to vanity; truth whatever it be, does good and no evil at all to him who comprehends it, and it is one great requisite of a preacher, that he be able to look at truth, just as it is, the whole truth respecting himself, and be quickened by it to cry aloud and spare not, and be emboldened to "show himself a man."

Again, theological knowledge gives the proper degree of confidence to the preacher, because it discloses the adaptedness of his themes to the moral nature of his hearers. By fully understanding a doctrine, the minister may understand how it operates on the heart, and by understanding how it operates, he feels confi

dence in the utility of preaching it. He is like a mechanic using sharp tools in broad day-light; if he were in the dark, he would move with faint-hearted and wavering uncertainty, but in the sunshine he knows how and where he is cutting, and strikes his chisel with confidence, that it will cleave not merely the thin air. When a preacher sees the nature and the tendency of his doctrine, he feels a mysteriously imparted expectation of success in enforcing it. He feels a rational, animating faith, that the Holy Spirit will comply with the laws of mental action, and accompany the means which are so happy in their tendencies, with the influence which is needed to develope those tendencies in saving results. He feels, when he enters the sacred desk, that he is to do something, and this assurance of success, as it increases his reliance upon the ultimate source of all success, increases also his vigor, and manliness, and life.

Still further, there is something in the very nature of theological truth, which gives confidence to the preacher. It opens, enlarges, and vivifies the mind. There is a clearness in truth; a directness and a freshness in it, which strangely disenthralls the spirit, and gives free, full scope. Truth favors freedom; freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of act. Revealed by the same God, who made the soul, and all the laws of the soul, it harmonizes with these laws, moves along with them easily and happily, and jars with the mind only when the mind puts constraint upon itself, and jars with its own principles. The mind was made for truth, and of course sympathizes with it wherever found. When wounded and bruised it glides instinctively to truth, as the serpent, when self-poisoned, is said to hasten for the curative leaf. It has a kindly feeling toward all truth, and rejoices in it as a brother, and when torn from it, pines away as a dove mourning its mate. It is the heart only which is disloyal and disorganizing, and impresses the intellect into a rebellion as injurious to it as unnatural. Still the mind even when carried captive by a depraved will, looks back with yearnings to its native land; and wherever truth points, there the mind points, unless forcibly held down; and wherever truth stays, there the mind stays, unless forcibly driven on. The words of the philosophical poet may be well applied to the secret union between the mind and evangelical doctrine, two emanations from the same source;

"T was thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold,
Two faithful needles from th' informing touch

Of the same parent stone, together drew

Its mystic virtue, and at first conspired
With fatal impulse quivering to the pole;

Then, though disjoined by kingdoms, though the main
Rolled its broad surge betwixt, and diff'rent stars
Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserved
The former friendship, and remembered still
Th' alliance of their birth: Whate'er the line
Which one possessed, nor pause nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere with trembling speed
He found its path, and fixed unerring there.”*

Point to any man, who in his preaching is fettered with doubts, trammelled with consciousness of impotency, moves with halting step, utters his doctrine in long periphrases, and explains about it and about it, and well nigh bespeaks pity for it, and never thrusts it home with energy and courage upon the conscience and the heart; and I strongly suspect that the man does not understand the gospel. Ye shall know the truth," says Jesus, "and the truth shall make you free," and "where the Spirit of the Lord is," says Paul, "there is liberty." I love to see a preacher deeply imbued with the impression that he is a moral being, and his hearers are moral beings, and that he must aim at moral effects by moral means; that he has something to do, and his hearers have something to do; and that they must do their duty immediately, and he must do his duty fearlessly ; for this impression is in harmony with actual fact, and he who makes this impression a part of his own soul "shall be free indeed." It is an old proverb, "men will praise thee when thou doest well for thyself;" and so when a minister looks and speaks and acts, as if he respected himself as a moral agent; and reverenced his official elevation; and had full faith in the efficacy of that sword which he wields, but which is nevertheless the sword of the Spirit, and when he applies doctrine with an untied hand and trustful heart, as well as with meekness and love, then will his people praise him; and the way to praise a minister is, to attend to him, and profit by him.

There is a third mode in which the minister improves his eloquence by extensive theological investigation; he acquires by it the respect and confidence of his people. A bishop, says Paul, "must have a good report of them which are without;" and an orator, says Cicero, must be confided in as a good man,

* Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, B. III. p. 325–337.

or his oration will exert but diminished influence. The preacher must make objective as well as subjective preparations; for the most finished sermon will fall upon an unprepared audience, as Priam's spear upon the buckler of Neoptolemus. It is a wise remark of Hooker, "let Phidias have rude and obstinate stuff to carve, though his art do that it should, his work will lack that beauty which otherwise in fitter matter it might have had. He that striketh on an instrument with skill, may cause notwithstanding a very unpleasant sound, if the string whereon he striketh chance to be uncapable of harmony."* When an audience depreciate their minister's ability to instruct them, their very prejudice will convert his eloquence into inanity; and moreover, he will find it beyond his power to attain such eloquence before hearers who turn the cold shoulder to the pulpit, as before those who turn the eager eye and the open breast. If therefore the preacher aim at efficiency in the pulpit, he must divert the power of popular prejudice to his own favor, as the skilful pilot watches wind and tide, so as to be wafted along by the same elements, which would otherwise resist him. The preacher must appear to be pious and intelligent, and the only way of appearing to be so, is to be so. It is more than one age too late, to acquire the respect of a congregation by superficial and common-place teaching. Simple truths are on the wings of the wind. Our popular religious literature has carried them to every man's fire-side. The churches demand a higher instruction, and an ampler reasoning from the pulpit, than can be gleaned from the narratives of the nursery. They may be pleased for a time with the pleasant voice, and the pathetic tale, but like the prodigal they will soon turn away from the husks, and long for more nutritive aliment though presented in a homelier dish. Even the child who early learns to sing,

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round and round and round,

will soon loathe the emptiness and inflation and circumvolutions of the discourse, which rings in his ears just as monotonously as the drum, because it is filled with just the same substance. The bare belief that a preacher has no excellence but that of elocution, and no grace but that of attitude, will soon degrade his authority, while the bare belief that he is a consummate

* Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Vol. 1. p. 207.