treason against Almighty God, or put himself into an attitude of hostility toward those who are leagued with the interest and passion of the hour. Here is a dilemma in which every preacher is liable to be placed. Then comes a strug

gle that tries the fibre of his moral nature and decides whether he is qualified to become a standard-bearer of the Lord, or only a tool of popular caprice. Those who are pelting truth, or putting out the eyes of righteousness, will find leisure to instruct a Christian man how to preach the Gospel. No professor of moral science will be found so eager to instruct the preacher as those whose most intimate relation to the Christian religion is that of a pressing need of it, those who would have the word of God dodge and double, tack and scud, and by all means avoid a collision with tangible sins. Offer to attack their idols, and they rival Demetrius with their uproar. What renders the case still worse, is, that many well-disposed persons, who have no interest in Diana or in her shrines, but who have a nervous abhorrence of noise, agitation and tumult, side with the adverse party from a short-sighted love of tranquillity. Now, he who administers an anodyne is not so liable to have his fingers bitten, as he who uses a caustic; but the latter may do the patient infinitely the most good. If we must be roused out of our rest by any unseemly disturbance, we better spend our resentment upon the disease that makes the man restless, than turn out the physician, who irritated only that he might cure.

What should a preacher do, in such a crisis as we have supposed? "Preach the Gospel, and let disturbing questions alone." He should, indeed, preach the Gospel; but his own conception of it- not the Gospel as it appears after sophistry has dipped its flowing symmetry, until-like the minister's wig which had been successively trimmed by every pair of scissors in the parishit no longer resembles anything in heaven or earth. The Gospel, primarily, is the most disturbing of all questions, for it involves the complete re-construction of society, on the basis of universal justice, equality and love. And the wisdom by which we pray to have it administered, is "first pure, then peaceable, without hypocracy and without partiality." The situation of the preacher, who feels himself summoned by his sense of duty to declare what is repungnant to many of his congregation,

is critical in the extreme. It is presumed that he loves truth and righteousness, else why is he here at all? It is presumed that he loves and reveres God, else why has he consecrated himself to this peculiar career? At the same time, he is more a man than a minister; and as a man has domestic claims to support, and social sympathies to be played upon; is susceptible to censure and applause; falls into illusions and commits errors; and wants the benefit, as much as any man, of large charity and liberal constructions. Like all men of elevated tastes, he loves tranquillity, and would not rashly provoke dissension. Like all intellectual men, he finds in society at once a solace and an inspiration, and would not needlessly forfeit the least of its privileges. How can he utter the word that will probably offend?-the word that wounds his own heart before it flies from his lips, and may rend the tent from over his head if it fail to hit the mark.

While he hesitates, all the sophistries come up and tempt him. "My dear Fanatic, bleed your conscience a little; it may be bad blood that incites you to this business." "Consider that self-preservation is the first law of nature, and that if you provoke a few men in your parish you may lose your bread and butter." "He that provides not for his own household is worse than an infidel; can you provide for yours, if you cease to be popular?" "We are commanded to avoid the appearance of evil; but can you obey this requirement if you drive people out of church, or provoke them to call you hard names?" From which happy specimens, it appears that the devils can reason as well as the metaphysicians, and cite Scripture as pertinently as the prince of them all did to our Lord in the wilderness.

Is it to be accounted at all surprising that so many preachers are unfaithful to the stern requirements of their office? that timidity takes counsel with expediency, and the knightly valor of Achilles, invested with a servile garb, spins out the paltry web of prudence for the traffic of the hour? Is it surprising that so many tame-spirited, lactescent ministers drone in the treadmill of church routine, and exemplify every day how the weak things of the world confound the wise, when we reflect what stupendous premiums are offered for time-servers; how the love of principle is offset against congregational patronage, and domestic comfort and social peace thrown into the scale to outweigh a trembling con

science?

Any society may secure a timid, deferential servant, who shall repeat the truisms of morality and the pass-word of the sect, in the dull monotone of a soul caged up from heaven's liberty; but, how much better to have a self-poised, conscientious teacher, whose formula of ministerial duty is not borrowed, but fashioned by his own creative instinct; and who stands, not by human sufferance only, but by a divine sanction, witnessed by personal force, influence and success. A society may find "a beloved pastor," trained in all the proprieties of clerical prudence, who holds no opinions that are not marketable, and who dares not confess what ticket he votes at the presidential poll; but is it an automaton that people deliberately choose, to dispense for them the mysteries of the kingdom of God? When they come to the altar of prayer, burdened with the labor of life; when they fly to the tents of faith, seeking refuge from over-mastering trouble; the only soul that can speak effec tively for them, wisely administering the sacrament of care and sorrow, must be one in habitual alliance with the spirit of God, and in the daily exercise of that liberty which invites the expression of all its convictions.

Grant that possible abuses are involved in the freedom of pulpit utterance; they are also involved in the freedom of voting. Shall we therefore abolish the ballot box? A free government invites the notorious abuse of demagogueism; but it is better to bear with the abuse than exchange it for an Austrian police; for there grows in the land, besides this cumbrous weed, a superabounding affluence of social good, that no military despotism is allowed to trample out. So, a free pulpit may sometimes vex the pews; but people know that the man who stands in it is giving them his honest thought the latest child of his wedded heart and brain; and that he confides it to their courteous hospitality, for the time being, whether they are capable of loving it or not.

We suppose that no Protestant preacher assumes infallibility, or claims to be exempt from practical errors; but it seems to us that the man who makes it the business of his life to study the Gospel, and to consider the application of moral principles to the affairs of this world, ought to be expected to hold clear convictions, and to announce them with boldness and energy. His very dogmatism may grow out of the fervor of his convictions; and it would be wiser to

trace the processes where his reason has travelled, at the lofty behest of the spirit, than rashly rebel from a conclusion that he may even defend with rhetoric as rough as brickbats. What we want, in the Christian churches, is not ductile ecclesiastics, polished up as Sunday reflectors of the average decency; but long-armed thinkers, who can reach sardonic infidelity asleep in the pew; and broad-breasted evangelists, who dare fire a celestial volley into a wicked caucus or cabinet-not fearing the stain of the powder on their raiment, so long as the lead carries terror into the fortress of the devil. We want, in the churches, bold men, who can face the heat of occasions, and strike when the iron is hot; loving men, who regard their congregations too tenderly to flatter their pride or foster their caprices; faithful men, who wed their faculties and their fame to the principles of Christianity, and abide whatever fortune these may involve; consecrated men, who- drawing their vitality from the life of God- stand on the mountain of faith like cedars, winning vigor from the tempest, and everlasting verdure from the sky.

We pass now to some remarks on the increasing demand of our time for a higher intellectual quality in preaching. There has been much said, in the spirit of complaint and in the language of satire, concerning the growing fastidiousness of congregations. People no longer go to the meeting house to worship, (it is alleged,) but to be entertained: if they miss the entertainment, they esteem themselves defrauded. They do not go to a consecrated place to confess their sins, or to join a great assembly of fervent souls in the solemn petition for broader charity and stronger faith; feeling how the silent Sabbath heaven, brooding over them, opens up to the shining thrones of saints and martyrs, and to the Eternal Majesty that crowns the pyramid of life. But they go to an ecclesiastical theatre to hear the new soprano wed the airs of the opera to the psalms of David, or to see what excitement a jaded fancy may find in the latest exhibition of a Gospel theme.

There is doubtless some ground of censure in these particulars; and yet, the evil deprecated many admit of extenuating reflections. It is undeniable that the preacher of our day addresses an audience widely different from that which

occupied the meeting house thirty years ago. At that time, there were only a few persons claiming to be educated, in the great mass of our congregations, or who were conscious of any standard of taste, by which to estimate the literary worth of a sermon. If a man spoke with fluency and earnestness, he secured the attention of his auditory. If his elocution favored the higher notes, and if he nailed a sound conclusion with a fist that might have demolished a prize fighter, he was applauded as eloquent-though the grammarian might have been as hopelessly lost in the mazes of his rhetoric, as a bewildered traveller in a tropical jungle.

These remarks would be quite misconstrued if they were suspected of undervaluing the seniors in the ministry, many of whom exhibited a grasp of intellect, a faculty for reasoning, and a knowledge both of books and men, that will not soon be either excelled or forgotten. In alluding to the comparatively crude taste of those days, one finds a more effective illustration in the ignorant ranters who won the public favor, than in the cultivated preachers who were wiser than their generation. At that time, there were but few books in general circulation, even newspapers were rare, and the popular lecture was not invented. The Sunday services, particularly the sermons, furnished about the only mental stimulus, as well as spiritual nutriment, available to the great majori ty of the congregation. People often went to the meeting house hungering for mental food: even a stale homily was better than no bread; and, if the doctrine was false the premises assumed, and the conclusion hypothetical — reason enjoyed a kind of gymnastic exercise in boxing the drivelling sermon back to chaos.

All those conditions are now changed. The process of popular education has at once elevated the taste, extended the information, and augmented the mental resources, of the entire American community. We now find, in our most secluded congregations, an enlarged capacity, a more critical appreciation, and a more vigorous standard of mental excellence. Words no longer exhilarate, unless freighted with ideas, and declamation is wisely regarded as a paltry substitute for eloquence. People desire weight of thought rather than vehemence of passion, and they esteem a live heresy better than a dead truism.

Thus ministerial success is being brought, every year, to