Another way of losing individuality is to allow oneself to be drowned in officialism, buried beneath its trappings, interred in its dignities. Many a man spends his life in a futile attempt to live up to some official tradition, even as he might pass his time in a family picture gallery cultivating the expression of some ancestral portrait on the wall. There is also to be remembered the possibility of a slavery to books. There is such a thing as the spell exercised by a great author through the printed page. We heard the other day of a contemporary literary man who is understood to pose as a second edition of William Shakespeare on the strength of some asserted resemblance to a bust of the poet. Certainly it cannot be on the strength of any intellectual inheritance. We could name men who have preached in a thousand times more pulpits than they have ever seen through the lips of others whom they have subdued to bondage by some famous volume. We could name the books if we cared to do so. Perhaps we could recall periods in our own life when such a spell cast its glamour over us.

To resist all these influences successfully, or, rather, to so appropriate what is good and helpful in them, which it is our duty to do, and still remain a full blooded, virile individual, will require resolution. To give due meed of homage to the great, due recognition—and there is a certain recognition due—to the conventions of our church life—to realise the office of the preacher, to assimilate the book, to grind and polish one's gifts—to do all this, and yet be at the end of the doing of it our own natural, unaffected selves, is far from easy. It can only be done as the preacher remembers two or three things which are all too often forgotten or ignored.

And the first of these is surely this: That each and every man's individuality is a gift from God, the basal talent on which the rest are built. It was of the wisdom of God that you were born you and I was born I. Here is the one and only possession which is our very own, and which none other can share, however ready we be to barter it away for something of less value. "Do you know who I am?" said the nobleman, swelling with importance, to the boy who failed to lift his cap in the lane. "I am the Marquis." "An' does yer honour know who I am?" said the lad. "I am Patrick Murphy from the cabin by the bog." Within that ragged jacket was an inheritance which could not be measured as could land, or counted as could money, or appraised as are titles and coronets, but which was as real as any of them and more valuable than all; an inheritance to be improved, perhaps extended, ennobled, but never changed into something other than itself. Let us remember this. With all humility, it is capital for pulpit business that we are what we are.

And another thing is written in our experience for our reflection, and it is this:—That it was for what we were that God called us into this preaching work. He had discernment of natural qualities in calling even us, and counted upon them to be serviceable in His Kingdom. There is surely no need to deny our manhood, or become ashamed of this being that is "I" when He chose it for employment in ambassadorship. It was for what Peter was as Peter, dashing, impetuous, impatient, full of driving power and combative energy, that Jesus called him from the fishing of Galilee into the ministry of the word. It was for what John was as John, intense, clear-eyed and trustful that he, too, was called. Thomas was also called—that Thomas who found it hard to believe but easy to love, and whose faith, when once achieved, brought a whole heart's devotion to its gracious object—even he was called, not as another, but as himself. Very different from them all was Saul of Tarsus; logical, incisive, proud with the pride of ancient lineage and of high culture, descendant of armoured kings, citizen of the first of cities—he, too, was called for he, for himself, was needed. So through the ages—what contrasts we behold, what differences as between a Chrysostom and an Augustine, a Calvin and a St. Francis of Assisi, a Wesley and a Fletcher of Madeley; as between William Booth and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, called, every one of them, because he was what he was.

Then let us remember that if He chooses a man for what he is, it is because He knows that the work needs just this very man. Many tools will be called into service before the brown pebble hidden away in the blue clay beneath the South African veldt becomes the glorious star of a monarch's crown. One will tear it from its age-long concealment; another will test and prove its value; others will grind; others polish, and by others will it be set in its place of pride. Very mysterious, again, are the correspondences and affinities existing between human souls. It is very curious how one hearer will respond to an appeal which would never touch another. "There is something about him that always gets at me," remarked a hearer, adding, "and I cannot tell what it is, or how it does it." The "something" was individuality. Why it did it, was because, somewhere in the soul of the hearer was a chord tuned to some string in the preacher's nature. Such ships are reached by a given set of wireless apparatus as have their instruments tuned to that apparatus. There is something between men reminding us of this. Again, for a man's own sake it is a pity to surrender this individuality of his. For in holding on to it with grim resolve lies the only possibility of full self-realisation. Let a man cultivate himself along the line of what he is if he would come to his best and achieve any genuine success, any real happiness in life. The world is full of men who have failed, simply because they left untrained what they were, to try to be what they were not and never could become. Nowhere is this more true than in the pulpit. Many an excellent Brown, or Jones, or Robinson has been spoiled by his attempt to become a Beecher, a Joseph Parker, an Archdeacon Farrar. Many a David, less wise than he of history, has failed against his Philistine because he discarded the sling he knew so well how to use, the smooth stones from the brook he knew so well how to aim, for the panoply and ordnance made for the greater limbs of Saul. Along one line, and one line only, was victory possible to the son of Jesse, and from that line he would not be diverted. It was a shepherd who came from the hills as a shepherd armed. It was this same shepherd with this same weapon who, resisting temptation, went out to the apparently unequal conflict from which he returned bringing the head of his adversary. This history is surely written for preachers that, for their own sake, they may be encouraged to give exercise to their own spiritual genius. Along one path alone lies, if not greatness, at least usefulness for every truly called messenger of Christ. It is along the path of faithfulness to self in the development, the polishing, the use of his own gifts in his own way.

Only one other word remains to be added:—That, as already hinted, the pew hails always with respect the man who is brave enough to be himself. Let no one imagine that he can try to be someone else, or even that, without trying to be anyone in particular, he can surrender himself to a conventional ideal of clericalism without discovery and loss of the esteem and reverence of men and women of sense. The pew is very quick to see through disguises, be they worn never so skilfully. No voice rings true in a man's throat excepting his own. The people are sick of the cleric in the pulpit; they want the man. They had rather hear you when you are planned than any one, or anything, you may try to be.

Here then is the true originality by which the gospel is made new by every new preacher of it and by every new telling of its wondrous story. The old truths may be repeated in almost the same old words, but here and there will come a new tone, a breath of new influence, a new personal aura. Oh, for the individual in the pulpit, the preacher who is not an echo, but comes to relate the evangel as it has been unfolded to himself! Oh, for the brother who will bring us, not a sermon only, but a man—a man discovered, saved, cleansed, polished by God; improved into value and profitableness, but still a man! In these words we express one of the greatest needs of the hour, and define a quality absolutely essential to the successful and effective preacher.



CHAPTER V.

Concerning "Understanding."

"And the preacher had understanding," so runs the ancient word, and "understanding" the preacher must have. This is only another way of saying that he must know what he is talking about. So much as this, at least, is essential in every man who comes forth to teach others.

And this proposition has reference to more matters than such as are theological or Biblical. It ought to go without saying that the preacher should know as much as he can possibly learn about the book in which is written the revelation he has to hand on to others. It ought to be equally well understood that he obtain, at least, a working knowledge of the theology of the church to which he belongs and for which he speaks. Again, it is, surely, not unreasonable to expect that he will have some acquaintance with the "evidences" on which rests his appeal to his fellows. A preacher should certainly be as well able to defend his faith as the average man is to attack it. It must be frankly recognised, of course, that it is impossible for every preacher to be an expert on every question of Biblical criticism and interpretation that may arise. Especially is this true in a Church drawing the great majority of its preachers from classes untrained, in the ordinary sense of the word, for their work. Still, it is possible for every man among us to have an intelligent grasp of the subject upon which he discourses. It is possible, we say, and it ought to be required. With so elementary a proposition we do not even tarry for discussion, excepting to say that he who will not so far give himself to study as to secure this simple furnishing should not be surprised if the people cease to ask for his services. It was a wise word of Dr. Adam Clarke:—"Study yourself to death, and then pray yourself to life."

For the purposes of this lecture we take it for granted that every reader is already so convinced of the need just set forth that there is no need to dwell upon it. We do desire, however, to emphasise the need of that understanding which goes beyond what is particularly known as the Gospel. There is no department of life and experience which that Gospel does not cover, and, therefore, there is no one who needs to speak of so many matters as the preacher. Carlyle proposed a professorship of things in general. The pulpit within certain limits is such a chair!

It has long been the reproach of the studious class to which the preacher belongs that its members, in their devotion to book-learning, too often remain ignorant of "life," that they live in a world of paper and print, of speculation and theory, which is seldom a faithful reflection of the real world of men and women and actual affairs. Such a man, in short, is apt to live in a world of his own—a very delightful world, it may be, intellectual, idealistic, spiritual; but not the world of every day—the world in which the vast majority of men have to spend fifty-two weeks of every year. Very delightful, too, is the type of man thus produced—charmingly learned, sweetly innocent, guileless, impracticable; walking the path of life with head in air, with eyes unseeing and ears unhearing the things that fill the thoughts of common men. Holding fellowship with the immortals, eating the bread of philosophy, doctrinaire, drinking the wine of poetry—how good would it be to live with such men if only there were nothing else to do in this old world of ours. Dreamers of dreams; watchers of the stars; spinners of speculative webs, in which they love to find themselves gloriously entangled; Rip Van Winkles asleep to the actual, so wise among books; so deliciously foolish among men and affairs—we know the type, and we do confess we love it!

But, delightful as is this kind of scholar or preacher, he is often far, very far, "out of it" in dealing with the needs and perils of those around him. That was a significant passage in the will of the South African Colossus in which, in forming a trust to administer the scholarships he desired to found at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, he provided that a number of men of business should find places upon the board, in addition to the men of learning already nominated, as the latter were often unlearned in the ways of business. There is a statesman in this land who has lost the headship of a great party largely because of a confession that he does "not read the newspapers" and is "a child in these matters." Even political parties require something more in their chiefs than an appreciation of the subtleties of philosophic doubt. Of course there is a place in the scheme of things for this type of man; there is no doubt a use for him in certain fields of thought, and it is our good fortune that plants amongst us men who are with us, but not of us, for to our ultimate advantage may be their sublime detachment of mind. It is here simply pointed out that their place is not in the pulpit of a busy, perplexed and burdened age. Their use does not lie in inspiring men to deal with urgent practical issues. True enough, the truth they discern may be of the highest value in the matter of leading men out to the light of day; but it will be found that the lamp will generally have to be kindled and carried by other hands than his who found the wells of illuminating oil. It needs genius to make discoveries and often quite other genius to apply them. "He is a preacher to preachers," was said of one, and said truly, as many hearers could testify. But this "preacher to preachers," as a preacher to the people, failed!

And the misfortune is that often, alas! it comes to pass that just such men as these do make the attempt to guide men through a world of which they, the preachers, know nothing. To change the figure, they make the attempt to treat by means of remedies which they have studied a little, patients whom they have not studied at all, and of whose condition, habits, history and surroundings they know next to nothing. There is much of this kind of doctoring and what is the result of it? What but the oft-repeated criticism that the sermon had small practical application to the every-day side of things? It answered no present questions, though it did, perhaps, throw light upon some period of Jewish history. It solved no present problems, though it did contain an interesting exegesis of a much discussed passage. It dealt with no present difficulties, though it did suggest an entertaining theory as to the authorship of such and such a psalm. It opened out no heart before its own vision. It neither created nor deepened nor satisfied a single desire. It might as well have been a disquisition on the fate of the lost ten tribes of Israel, or a treatise on the properties of the differential calculus, or a discussion of the politics of the planet Mars for any application it had to the need of any one person, young or old, in the congregation sitting there and providing that example of patience which was the most edifying feature of the occasion. It was eloquent, learned, poetic, profound, but it was not life. It is because there is so much of this kind of preaching that it has come to be said that the pulpit is out of touch with the needs of men; that it is too otherworldly, and that it displays a knowledge of everything but the necessities it pretends to meet. The criticism may be exaggerated and unjust, but the contention it is meant to enforce is true. Preaching must be life. Preaching can only be life when the preacher has understanding!

Understanding of what? Of the human creature to be preached to and by preaching saved, ennobled and led up, through almost infinite opposition, to a glorious destiny. That human creature must be studied at first hand. It is not enough to know the heart of man according to theological classification and description. Consciously or unconsciously, the effective preacher will be first a practical psychologist and afterwards a theologian. If he cannot be greatly both he had better be a psychologist with small knowledge of theology than a theologian with small knowledge of psychology. He has not to speak to abstractions; not to speak to sinners merely, nor to saints as he knows them through descriptions whereof the subjects were simply types, but he has to preach to men and women, men and women who all have their individual and peculiar tastes, tendencies, likes and dislikes, desires and passions; men and women looking at things in ways of their own, influenced by such and such prejudices, such and such hopes and fears. Every one has his own disposition, his own history, which began long e'er he came upon the earth in far-off ancestors, who bequeathed to him the inheritance of themselves to be a blessing or a curse, or, what is more frequent, both a blessing and a curse, as circumstances and free-will may decide. Here are racial instincts, tribal qualities, individual idiosyncrasies, and all to be studied with care and perseverance. The preacher may preach to five hundred people to-night, and he has so to preach as to bless them all.

The first study of the messenger, then, must be the study of men. He must specialise in human nature, and his understanding must go down into its very depths. Every addition to the volume and accuracy of his knowledge will mean addition of power and competence. Those writers who impress us most are those who understand us best. The physician who most commands our confidence and, as a consequence, does us most good is he whose description of our symptoms most nearly corresponds with our own experience, who, we reason, obviously "knows our case." Putting his finger upon the painful spot, the aching limb, he says: "Thou ailest here and here," and we feel the cure begun, for the diagnosis is nine-tenths of the treatment. Similarly when the man in the pew feels that the man in the pulpit understands him—and he soon makes the discovery—he listens for what has yet to come. How often the true preacher hears the remark:—"Sir, your sermon was about me and to me!" That is a certificate of efficiency which may well make a preacher glad.

To attain to this understanding men must be studied in all the ways we can devise—individually and in the mass, for, strangely enough, men in the mass often look at things very differently from the manner in which the individuals, of whom the mass may be composed, would look at them when alone. In books, too, man must be studied, but more especially face to face, in constant, earnest observation. The preacher must get out and about. A recluse he cannot afford to be. Pale-faced piety cultivated in the cloister may be admirably adapted for Sunday exhibition, but is apt to prove rather ineffective when brought into active service in week-day tasks. Wisdom waits to be gathered in every place where men do congregate. Earnestly must the preacher listen in those moments—and they come to all true teachers of the things of life—when some fellow-mortal, compelled by very need, opens to him the secret chambers of his soul. Great, also, is the knowledge the preacher may win from self-dissection. Let him analyse his own heart unsparingly, his own motives and desires. His doubts and fears, his aspirations and longings are for his teaching that he may be able the more wisely to deal with those of other men. "Commune with thine own heart and be still." There is one man whom every preacher needs more frequently to meet, and whose acquaintance he needs to cultivate to a point of greater intimacy, and that one man is himself. Know him, and so know his race, for he is kindred, bone of bone and flesh of flesh, with all who live. He who would explain a man to himself must first have explored the dark continent of his own soul!

And the preacher's knowledge of men must include as large a measure of information as can be acquired concerning the conditions under which their lives are spent, and which so greatly influence a man's character, and account, so largely, for what he is and does. The preacher has to be Greatheart to his hearers in relation to the temptations they are called upon to fight, and often our temptations, when not the immediate product of our own hearts, grow out of the circumstances under which our lives are lived. If, again, the temptation be not the direct result of these circumstances, it is often aided by them in the undoing of the soul. The poverty and wretchedness; the low bodily state of the slum dweller, have, at least, as much to do with making him the sot he often is as his intemperance has in bringing him to indigence and misery. Criminality, we are beginning to see, may be partly a vice, partly the result of bad economic and social laws, and partly a disease inherited with life itself. The same may be said of many forms of sin which do not, perhaps, come within the scope of the law courts of the land. Not that any conditions, or any personal history, abrogate responsibility in the evil-doer. The final consent lies ever with a man himself, but the conditions of his life may explain how many things came to be, and a knowledge of them may point the way to help. The physician of to-day not only feels the pulse and uses the stethoscope; he asks questions as to drainage and ventilation, as to supplies of water and of light.

Let us remember, then, that the preacher needs to be in a very considerable and general degree acquainted with the life of the world around him. He should know something about business; something about industry; something of the every-day round of those sitting before him in free seat and cushioned pew. Ignorance of the world is worse than ignorance of letters, or sciences, or arts. A preacher ought, if possible, to know something of ancient oriental manners and customs and languages; but it is infinitely more important that he know something of the actualities of his own time. History tells us of the great French lady who, hearing the people clamour for bread, remarked that surely they need not make so great a noise about bread. Was there not beef to eat? How interesting are those articles, with which our newspapers are sometimes enlivened, wherein duchesses take in hand to teach the wives of working men how to keep house on thirty shillings a week. We have seen "A Guide to Cookery" written by a countess for the use of families of moderate means, and the book was very well worth buying if only for the sake of a little mild amusement when the spirit is in danger of growing too serious for mental health. A great chapter in humorous literature is that in which Mark Twain places on record how for a few brief but exciting days he edited an agricultural paper while the editor was, perforce, absent from his chair. Good, it is to read the answers he returned to rural inquirers who wished for counsel in relation to the difficulties of farm or garden. This kind of thing in a newspaper is ridiculous; in a cookery book or an article on domestic economy it is amusing; but in the pulpit it is disastrous.

Thus it comes to pass that while the preacher must not neglect his study, he must just as certainly not fail to learn the lessons of the home and of the street. He must talk often with his fellow-men. He must drive conversation with the workman of the city and with the master for whom he works. He must hold intercourse with the man of business as well as with the brother minister with whom it is so pleasant to chat on topics of mutual interest. He must cultivate the friendship of the ploughman as he "homeward wends his weary way." He must even condescend to little children. Men can only learn from him as he first learns from them. Of course all this may mean some little sacrifice, some self-denial. The tastes of the preacher may lie in other directions. They are such pleasant company—those writers who speak to us from pages waiting to open at our touch. It may seem such a waste of good opportunity to leave the philosopher in half-calf for the society of the workman in fustian. It may mean some coming down from one's stilts, too, some forgetting of what is called "one's position." It may involve, to put it in a word, the living of a human life among human beings; still, the results will be worth the winning.

Again, an understanding of the material conditions under which life is lived, greatly helpful to the preacher as it is, is not all that is needed. The messenger must know in what direction runs the thought of his age. The learned and able authorities dwelling within the covers of the precious volumes upon his library shelves form an interesting and inspiring society in which it is pleasant to spend his hours. The religious people with whom the preacher mostly consorts form a more, or less, agreeable circle in which it may be pleasant to pass such time as he can spare for social enjoyment. But the world has many men and many minds. Continually the ferment of intellect goes on. Thoughts ripen into tendencies with wonderful rapidity. It is recorded of a great emperor that he was wont to disguise himself and wander at large among his people, listening to the talk of common men. As a result he knew, even before his counsellors, how set the wind. Hence he was "beforehand" in his government. There is no rebellion that is not first a conspiracy, and no conspiracy that is not first a smouldering, and then a blazing, discontent. The preacher must hearken beneath the eaves for his people's sake. He must stand sentinel upon the tower. He must be a watchman in the night. He must put his ear to the earth that he may detect the far-off tramp of approaching foes. What is being said in a whisper to-day will be cried from every high place to-morrow, and he who listens to the whisper may be found ready to answer or explain the cry—perhaps, even, to prevent it. "As those who watch for your souls," so writes the Apostle. "As those who watch." Behold the shepherd, as he tends the flock, sleeplessly gazing for the approach of lion, or wolf, or bear, or prowling Bedouin of the desert. So must the preacher sweep the horizon by day; so listen to the speaking silences of the night.

Then to all this the messenger must add an intimate knowledge of the Church, of her condition and of her needs. To know her history is well. It is knowledge from which the Christian worker of every name may derive many warnings. It will be found to contain many lessons profitable for consolation and for inspiration. It will suggest many an useful explanation of phenomena in the church life of to-day. But the preacher must study the Church as she is in this very hour. How beat her pulses now? How run the currents of her life in the days that are? Does her faith wax, or wane? Does her love grow colder or warmer with the passing years? Is it well with her, or is it ill?

In regard to all these things our friend will have—he must have if he seek to feed the flock of God with food convenient—true understanding. He will know how the work of God is moving in the congregations. He will be able to distinguish between true, spiritual success and that success which is noise and show alone. He will discern the difference between the rosy flush that signifies health and the hectic spot of burning red that speaks only of disease and death. He must look deep. He must look far. He must look constantly. He must look deep, because truth lies often at the bottom of a well, and the true state of the Church is not always according to superficial signs. He must look far, because he is surely more than a mere denominationalist; he belongs to the Holy Catholic Church, and he must know her life in other places in order to better judge her life at home. He must look constantly, for "if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up."

For the effective delivery and application of his message, then, we insist that the preacher needs to be in touch with every aspect of the lives of those who come beneath the influence of his preaching. He must know them; the conditions under which they live; the thoughts upon which they feed from day to day. Oh, if only we knew more about the people, how much more could we help and bless them! There they sit before us as we speak. If only we could look down into their hearts; if only we could hear the questions asking themselves in their minds, the doubts and fears, the sad perplexities which, even within sound of our voices, darken our counsel and come between the soul and God! If only we knew the struggle maintained, the heavy burden borne, from year to year by yonder man anxiously listening to our words! Silently he comes and goes between his home and this house of prayer. He neither pines nor whines; he does not rise to put the question which needs an answer before his heart can be at peace. If we only knew—but oh! our knowledge is so small at the best. The more reason then why we should seek to make increase therein, that from the worst results of ignorance in their teachers the people may be saved!

Lest some may think that, in emphasising the importance of that understanding which is not altogether gained from books we have under-valued the work of the study, let us, in closing our chapter, describe what seems to us to be the highest type of training for the work of the pulpit. It is the training in which the student gives to every means of furnishing its due and proportionate place; in which he turns to books and to life for the wisdom he seeks. We have spoken of the impracticable scholar, but not all men of learning have been of this order. Among the most practical of preachers; among those who have displayed the greatest knowledge of the human heart and of the times, their conditions and their problems, have been many renowned for breadth and depth of scholarship. These men were mightier, and not weaker, for their learning. They were able to apply the best of everything to the uses and necessities of the hour. They brought out of their storehouse, to quote a well-worn phrase "things new and old." So let a man be diligent at his books and diligent, everywhere, in using his eyes and ears, and so "let him go round the walls of the city and let him tell the towers thereof."



CHAPTER VI.

Passion.

There is a page in Tyerman's monumental "Life of George Whitefield," which illustrates, as few pages do, the quality of that essential of true and effective preaching in regard of which we are now to speak. It is that page in which are described the last hours of the great evangelist.

On Saturday morning, September 29th, 1770, being exceedingly weak and ill, but bent upon the continuance of his preaching work, Whitefield set out from Portsmouth (U.S.A.) to ride to Boston. Fifteen miles from Portsmouth, at Exeter, he was stopped and persuaded to preach. A friend said to him, "Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach." "True, sir," replied Whitefield, and then, clasping his hands and looking up to heaven, he added, "Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, seal Thy truth, and come home and die." At the commencement of his discourse he was unable for some time to speak, but recovering himself he preached for two hours.

At Exeter, to pursue the story, the Rev. Jonathan Parsons, who, for twenty-four years, had been Presbyterian minister at Newbury Port, met the preacher. The two friends dined together at Captain Oilman's, and then started for Newbury Port, a few miles further on. "On arrival there," says the biographer, "Whitefield was so exhausted that he was unable to leave the boat without assistance, but in the course of the evening he recovered his spirits."

Let us give the rest of the story in the words of Mr. Tyerman:—"While Whitefield partook of an early supper, the people assembled at the front of the parsonage, and even crowded into its hall, impatient to hear a few words from the man they so greatly loved. 'I am tired,' said Whitefield, 'and must go to bed.' He took a candle and was hastening to his chamber. The sight of the people moved him; and, pausing on the staircase, he began to speak to them. He had preached his last sermon, this was to be his last exhortation. There he stood, the crowd in the hall gazing up at him with tearful eyes, as Elisha at the ascending prophet. His voice flowed on until the candle which he held in his hand burned away and went out in its socket! The next morning he was not, for God had taken him."

Now, surely, here is a picture worth the painting, if only one could catch the true spiritual significance and lesson of it all. Imagine the scene: the listening multitude crowded into the spacious entrance hall; the preacher, wearied and worn by disease, and still more by his restless and sublime labours in preaching the word in field and temple for many a wondrous year. The candle flickers and fails as the glorious voice, which has made heavenly music for tens of thousands of seeking souls, becomes weaker and weaker. The feeble flame, at last goes out, and leaves the preacher still pleading the cause of the Lord, whose face he is so soon to behold. History has no nobler scene to show in all its gathered years!

We have appropriated this story because it appears to us to hold an explanation of the meaning of the word at the head of this chapter. Possibly there has never been, in all the years of the Church, a greater preacher than this same Whitefield, and Whitefield's greatness has, to a large extent, its explanation in this, the last scene of his ministry. How many he led to God eternity alone can reveal. His spiritual descendants are numbered by multitudes as the sand on the sea-shore, the stars in the firmament, for number. When he died millions in both the old world and the new wept the going of one who to them had been the prophet of a great deliverance. To this day the little New England village where he sleeps is the object of pious pilgrimage to numbers to whom the echo of his voice still comes across the breadth of intervening years. The secret is largely hidden in "this last scene of all." In this mighty passion to preach the word, a passion which neither persecution nor betrayal nor disappointment nor disease nor even the icy breath of approaching death could cool—in this lies the explanation of a ministry that shook the world!

And without this passion even Whitefield's gifts of oratory would have left no record for our reading, for it is absolutely essential to effective preaching; absolutely essential to success. Without it the choicest gifts, the profoundest learning will achieve but little. With it, even humble qualifications and limited scholastic equipment will accomplish—have often accomplished—great things for God and the lives of men.

And this passion for preaching will be a passion for preaching for its own sake. To the true preacher preaching, and everything connected with preaching, will be things in which his soul delights. He will glory in sermon making and sermon preaching more than in any of his life's other activities. It is not implied that he will always approach his task without fear, or even without shrinking, or, at times, a passing desire to shun the duty devolving upon him. There may be hours when, as he truly realises the purpose of his work, a sense of his responsibility will so surge through his spirit as almost to unman him. Other times, again, may come, when even "nerves" may get the better of him, for every preacher worth the name has "nerves," and should thank God for them. There may be days in which, seeing as in a vision something of the mighty issues dependent upon his faithfulness, he will tremble lest he be, indeed, one of those fools who "rush in where angels fear to tread." All these experiences may be—most likely will be—his, and yet he will find in the exercise of his art, both in preparation and performance such a pleasure, and such a sense of mental exaltation, as nothing else can bring. A born artist loves to paint for painting's sake; to such an one there is something almost sacramental in the very mixing of the colours. The true sculptor hears music in the tapping of the mallet upon the chisel as he shapes the marble into grace and beauty. There is no drudgery in the calling that is yours by ordination of nature, by right of true heartfelt affection. The kind of preacher we mean would rather talk about preaching than about any other subject, providing he meet with one like-minded with himself. He is happy to the glowing point when he can discuss with some sharer of the call the latest homiletic creation of his mind or of the mind of his friend. When his creation comes to the stage of delivery he is conscious of that perfect pleasantness which is always felt by a man when engaged in the labour which, of all others, he loves best to perform. "I'd rather preach than be King of England," he will tell you sometimes; and though, on occasion, he may have his "hard times," a form of discipline sent upon him for his soul's good, he will generally be found within a single circling of the Sun as eager as ever to return to the place of his humiliation. Many a preacher who has felt, on Sunday evening, that the only thing left for him to do was immediately to send in his resignation to the proper quarter, has, before Monday evening, known what it was to hunger again for the Sabbath's sweet return. A strange thing is this preaching madness when it possesses a man, as it often will, body, soul and spirit; which no place can satisfy save the preacher's place, no task save the preacher's task, no honour save the honour of telling men about Jesus Christ. Without it there can be no grand success. He who is not thus possessed should decline to be drawn for this duty. Of such as he there are more than enough already in the pulpit—in it, but not at home in it, not glad, gloriously glad, to be there—slaving to make a sermon because "in three days Sunday will be here;" taking with them at service time this so-called sermon, strong with the smell of books and of midnight oil; speaking it in pain of utterance, and delighted when the ordeal is over, with a delight most certainly shared by many who neither came to scoff nor remained to pray. Heaven help the man whom fate in the shape of foolish friends, or parents, or mistaken church-officials has sentenced to hard labour in the pulpit; who is condemned to preach without possession of that love of preaching which makes for him in whose heart it dwells the business of declaring the Gospel the noblest and most rapturous occupation in all the great, wide world! If preparation be invariably irksome—invariably, we say, for all men have their moods and no mere passing spell of depression is worth more than a little special prayer; if preaching be always a pain and a cross—always, we say—for God may cause the chariot wheels to run heavily for reasons of His own, and the difficulty may not point to retreat, but to supplication; if preparation and preaching be invariably irksome and painful, the fact ought to make the preacher ask whether a mistake has been made in his choice, which ought to be rectified as soon as possible. The true preacher will be in love with preaching for its own sake. This love will be part of the great all-conquering passion of his life.

A "part," yes; but only a part. May we call it the human, the temperamental, dispositional part? The passion we desiderate for the present-day pulpit includes something almost infinitely higher than this. It must include the passion for Christ. It is the hunger to preach because Jesus Christ is the chief theme of preaching; because it is in His honour; because out of the fulness of the heart the mouth would speak; because the soul's deep reverence for the Redeemer must extol its object. He is to be obeyed, too, in preaching. It is a form of service rendered to Him. The truth is His truth, "the truth as it is in Jesus," and He gave the command which is honoured in its publication. By this act of preaching He is pleased. It is an evidence of the preacher's glad surrender to His will. It moves others, too, to the same surrender. It extends His kingdom; increases the number of those who "bear His name and sign." It helps Him to see "of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." It pushes further back the bounds of His empire; widens the area of His sovereignty. It "crowns Him with glory and honour." So the preacher "makes his boast in the Lord," and is "glad."

Thus it can be said that all true preaching is worship, which is always the expression of awe, reverence and love. We sometimes speak of worship, and preaching. To the true preacher this distinction does not exist. No act in all the service is more truly an act of adoration than is the preaching of such a man, because it is the pouring out of his inmost heart's affection. With the spirit with which he prays and sings; with the spirit of the Te Deum and the Magnificat, will he preach; and out of the same emotions toward Him whom thus he serves. Such preaching is a bringing of the fruits of the mind and the spirit to the altar of sacrifice. The whole Doxology is in it!

Yes, preaching is worship. We Free Churchmen need to emphasise this truth. Again and again have we heard the criticism that in our churches there "is much sermon and little worship." We have not only heard this criticism from the quarter whence it might be expected, but, also, sometimes even from some of our own fellowship. There is an answer to this complaint which proceeds from a misunderstanding of what true worship really is, as well as from an underestimation of the true sacredness of the preacher's work. It is this:—That preaching is worship when offered in the spirit of worship, and that neither song nor prayer becomes worship except upon the same condition. Further we would say that hearing is worship, too, when the hearer listens as in the spirit. The hearer to whom song and supplication are worship, indeed, will also make an act of adoration of his hearing of the word which is sent unto him.

Behind such preaching as this, and producing the passion out of which it will proceed, there must be high experiences of grace. Such passion can only proceed from a personal knowledge of Christ and from that full surrender which such knowledge at once brings to pass. Love has caught the preacher in the way and led him to Calvary, where his heart has been set on fire. He does but preach because he must, the Lord having done for him such mighty things. As the memory of that divine arrest on the road to Damascus abode with Paul, and so sustained a sense of the mercy of his Lord that he could not help but preach the gospel, so the recollection of the preacher will ever linger around the glad hour when the Master met him in the path, having come down from heaven to seek and to save even him. In these remembrances has the passion of the preacher its origin and its reinforcement. It is the first fruit of a melted heart. The true preacher is—the word is not a pleasant one, but it is the only form of expression that, at the moment, occurs—the devotee. He is the slave of love to Christ.

And without this whole-souled devotion—we say again—there can be no great moving and saving preaching. Eloquence there may be, intellectualism, sublimity of conception and description, pathos—all the qualities which are needed in high public address, but something will be lacking. None can speak of a maiden as can her lover, though others may describe her with a choicer diction than he. None can speak of a child as can his mother, to whom the little life is more precious than her own and every childish way of significance and beauty. "Lovest thou Me?" said the Lord to Simon Peter on that grey morning on the sea-shore. "Lovest thou Me?" He asked again, and yet again. "Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee," cried the disciple, his soul aflame with a living passion never more to be extinguished or bedimmed, "Thou knowest that I love Thee." Then said the Saviour, "Feed My sheep," "Feed My lambs." Peter's preaching hour was come now that this fire had been kindled in his soul. In that confession rang the promise of all the after years, of the ministry in Jerusalem, of his declaration of the Christ in many a heathen city, of the death he was to die in Rome. Lack this flame of affection and preaching will be a task, a penance, a weary iteration and reiteration of things so often spoken as to render them threadbare and hackneyed to the speaker. Possess this all-consuming love and preaching will be as "a song of the Well-Beloved!"

But the passion of preaching has in it another ingredient—if in this way the matter may be expressed. To be effective and successful the preacher must have in his heart the passion of humanity. True preaching is the supreme effort of a man burning to bless and save his fellow-men. Precious to him are the souls before him; terrible to him the thought that any one of them should come short of the salvation he has been sent to proclaim, that one life should wither and be wasted. He is "kindly affectioned" toward them. He loves, therefore he preaches. As long as there are souls to be warned and invited, penitents to be enlightened and led into the peace of God, hearts to be comforted, powers to be taught a better way—as long, in short, as there are men to whom his message may bring help and hope and life he cannot hold his peace. He will be "all things to all men that peradventure" he "may save some."

Now this is a harder thing—this passion for men, as that man must possess it who aspires to preach the gospel with power and full accomplishment of the purposes thereof. For the love he must feel must be a love not only for such as of themselves inspire it, but for those whose life and character are hateful. Of what is called "affinity" between the man to be loved and sought and the preacher there may be none. How can the ambassador of Jesus Christ, who has looked upon the face of the Son of Man and in that look caught a conception of humanity in its fairest beauty,—how can he be in love with men and see, as he must see, their meanness and wrong-doing? The lawyer and the preacher, it is said, see the seamy side of life, and there is no need for wonder if, as has been reported, the lawyer often becomes a cynic. The wonder is if the preacher do not become a cynic too. Seeing what he must see, knowing what he must know, how is he to preserve that longing after the souls of the very vilest which alone can sustain him in his search for them "away on the mountains cold?" Can it really be done?

The answer to this question is, and must be, No. It cannot be done if the preacher look at man only through his own eyes and try to love him for himself alone. It will be found impossible to love one man because we do not know him. It will be found even more impossible—if impossibility admit of degrees of comparison—to love another because we do! Our hearts have neither power to conceive nor life to sustain an universal affection.

And yet this love of man as man must be realised before ever we can hope helpfully to lift up Christ and goodness for his acceptance. The secret thereof must come as came the message itself; as came our call to declare it,—through another love warming our hearts into living heat. The passion for humanity comes to the preacher as a result of his passion for Christ. His love for Christ goes beyond its divine object to all who are precious to his Lord. The worst of men is, by right of redemption, Christ's man, dear to the preacher, because bought by the blood which is more precious than silver and gold. The heathen are His inheritance and the uttermost ends of the earth are His possession. Urged, sustained and comforted by this reflection, the missionary crosses stormy seas, ready to find, if need be, a grave in a foreign land far from home and friends that, so going, he may speak to His Lord's beloved concerning His wondrous grace. Here, and here only, is the true missionary motive, the one missionary argument. We do not seek to save the heathen because of an eschatology which would consign them to the outer darkness. We cannot receive as true any conception of God which includes belief in a doctrine involving so terrible an injustice as that men should be eternally punished for refusing that which has never been offered for their acceptance. We think, rather, of the Lord as robbed of the love of hearts He died to win, hearts made precious by His death, and in the passion kindled by our vision of the Master looking from His cross away over tossing seas to those far-off lands and including every son of savagery to the last moment of time in His dying petition, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." We perceive upon every soul the sign of the cross; and this sign makes every man a brother to the ends of the earth. So the preacher is lifted by his love for his Master into a love for all for whom He agonised and died.

And this, from the beginning of his preaching to its end, and in relation to all the experiences into which his labours shall bring him, must be the true preacher's way of looking at his fellow-men. The social reformer has his way, too, the politician his, the scientist his. This is the preacher's way. Each and every man is sanctified to him by the sprinkling of blood. So he, also, will bear a cross for the saving of men; so he, too, will carry the sorrows and sins of humanity. He will have a Gethsemane of his own, be led to a Calvary waiting for him, for every saviour of men must tread this appointed way. Every shepherd who is not an hireling "giveth his life for the sheep."

One word more. We have named the preacher's passion for his Lord. We have also named his passion for those upon whom his Lord has set the mark of His love. There is something more needed ere the flame of passion burn with its fullest intensity. It is the passion of the dream—the dream that is not a dream excepting to those who have only heard of it by the hearing of the ear. To the preacher it will be a vision. It is the vision of which we have already spoken, and may speak again in pages yet to come—the vision of the divine ideal at last triumphant. In this vision the preacher must live. To lose it is despair. No one has so many disappointments as the idealist; but it is the glorious fact that no one cares about his disappointments less. Not that he does not see them, but because he sees beyond them. The true preacher—he is your incorrigible optimist. Some men form their expectations of the future out of material supplied in tables of statistics, ecclesiastical Blue Books, censuses of church attendance, returns and percentages. Not so the true preacher. He has "seen the King in His beauty and the land that is far off." Columbus like, he steers his barque toward the new world his faith has gazed upon, and, as with Columbus, the passion of the coming victory holds him, heart in tune and head erect, while others mournfully prophesy the disasters always by shortsighted people seen.

So by the power of his passion the preacher declares his message and this passion gives power to every word thereof. In that same passion is his own sustenance in all the divers contradictions that preaching may bring upon him. He needs it for his own preservation. Often the preacher who accomplishes the most is, more than those who accomplish less, rewarded with ingratitude, misjudgment, scorn. "The carnal mind is at enmity against God, and is not reconciled to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be." This means suffering for the preacher as it meant suffering for the Lord. What can keep him in countenance among it all? Love and the passion of the vision. In these will he conquer ever! The prodigality of the younger son had long worn out the patience of the elder brother. Love kept the father waiting on and vision saw the lad's return while still he was far away. In this love and vision he went forth the door; in this love and vision he returned leading the late returning child back again to home and rest and peace and purity. The parable is for preachers as well as prodigals. Oh, for the passion, the far, far sight of this old history! They are our greatest need to-day!

Passion! How is it with us now? Have we this absolutely essential possession in our hearts, in our preaching, as we have had it aforetime, as our fathers had it? Are we so set upon giving glory to Christ that we long for the opportunity to come to speak His name in the congregation? Are we so given up to the enterprise of saving men that we rest not day nor night for very longing for their salvation? Are we so full of the sense of the triumph drawing nearer that our hearts are already rejoicing with the joy of Harvest? These are questions for us all, and we may discover the quality of our preaching from their answers, if only we will whisper them to ourselves with faithfulness to God and men and our own souls.



BOOK II

THE MESSAGE:—

ITS ESSENTIAL NOTES



THEORY OF BOOK II.

The Effectiveness of the Message arises from the Completeness with which it Meets the Needs of Men. We believe that the Measure of the Gospel is the Measure of Man's Spiritual and Moral Necessity, and we plead for a Full Statement thereof in order that it may Prove its "Power unto Life."

What are the Essential Notes of the Message?



CHAPTER I.

The Note of Accusation.

In a purely heathen country the first business of the preacher must naturally be concerned with the publication of the great historical facts upon which the Christian faith is based. In such a land as ours, where these facts are already the subject of common knowledge, his first service to every soul to whom he is sent is to bring home the truth of that soul's condition and necessity. It is not a pleasant task. It is not an easy one. It forms a duty from which we instinctively shrink, but no ministry is complete in which it is neglected. No ministry that is incomplete can be effective and successful.

Now an examination of the history of preaching will reveal to us that all the great preachers have been examples of faithfulness concerning, not only the softer, but also the sterner portions of their message. Before us are the Hebrew prophets. By them was Israel arraigned at the bar of God. Could anything be more fearful than the indictment they laid? Kings, priests, councillors and commoners—against them all was the testimony maintained. "Art thou he that troublest Israel?" asks a conscience-stricken monarch of the seer from Mount Gilead. Troublers of Israel they were, exposing, denouncing, declaring judgment against evil doers. Such was their mission. Troublers of Israel, they were sent to be.

After the prophets, when, at last, the fulness of time began to dawn, he appeared who was to be the great herald of the Redeemer. "In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." John, too, was an accuser. Hark, how he addresses the Pharisees; how he speaks of "the axe laid at the root of the tree!" Once more did Israel hear of her rebellion and transgression. Again was the veil torn from her heart, the trappings of ceremonialism, the rags of hypocrisy. Again were men made to tremble by warning of the doom about to break. Wonderfully effective this ministry seems to have been—"Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins." To the preacher came martyrdom, and that as the direct consequence of his faithfulness. It is dangerous to play the accuser at the foot of the throne, and for this, in the lone dungeon of Machaerus, the Baptist dies, but not until He whom he announced, and of whom the law and the prophets did speak, has lifted up His voice to preach to the nations and the ages. To the world came Jesus also as an accuser, and such accusations were His as men had never heard—accusations founded upon an infinite knowledge of mankind, on an infinite hatred of sin, on a perfect vision of the end of all wrong-doing. To convince and convict the world—for this first of all was He made flesh. Over the land His "Woe unto you" rang out as the thunder of a divine sentence, blanching the cheek and smiting the soul with shame and fear. For this testimony He died.

And after He had ascended up on high the apostles carried on this accusing work. Knowing "the terrors of the law" they persuaded men. As Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled." To him the prisoner of that memorable day spoke as the representative of outraged deity. In his voice the hardened Consul heard the echo of his own disregarded conscience, and was reminded of his "more perfect knowledge of that way" which would one day make all the deeper the blackness of his condemnation. The joints of his harness were undone.

And so in that time of beginnings was set forth for all after years on the stage of that Eastern land the pattern of Gospel preaching, and its great copyists in all subsequent generations have come forth bearing, as their first word to men, the message of accusation. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God;" such has been their opening announcement. Sin is rebellion against God; such has been their all-embracing definition. "The soul that sinneth it shall die;"—this "certain fearful looking for of judgment" they have held up before mankind. "Thou art the man!" has been the constant challenge of the Christian ambassador. It would be an interesting employment to journey back across the past and listen for this note as it fell from the lips of the great preachers of bygone ages. Our own Connexional fathers, however, as the figures most familiar to our minds, may remind us how faithful the pulpit used to be in the execution of this hard task. Some of us are old enough to remember as common, a phrase which now we hear only occasionally and in the out of the way corners of our Church. It was the expression "black sermon" as descriptive of a discourse in which the sterner side of the revelation was enunciated. Such sermons in those days formed part of every preacher's armoury. They were sermons of accusation; sermons about sin; sermons diagnostic of the state of the human heart. In these discourses the sinner was assailed through the gateway of his fears. The old preachers believed there was such a place as Hell, and said so,—sometimes with a great wealth of staking, figurative language which was perhaps used less symbolically than literally. They believed in a final and general judgment in which the dead, small and great, with such as shall be then living upon the earth, will be called to stand before the Great White Throne to give an account of the deeds done in the body. Clearly did they see this coming day and clearly did they proclaim that at any time its terrors may break upon a careless and prayerless world. Some of them gained celebrity by the vigour and colour of their descriptions. In the North of England they still speak of the sermon with which Joseph Spoor transported multitudes into the circumstances of that awful hour. Hugh Bourne, it is well known, gave himself to this kind of preaching to a degree which has made his name the more to be remembered on its account. His language was literal indeed! To our mind, at the moment of writing, returns something of the emotion with which in the days of boyhood we listened to a sermon on "The Pale Horse and his Rider" from a local preacher not long since passed to his reward. Another discourse on "The Swellings of Jordan" has been with us vividly, though forty years have flown since we heard it in a tiny chapel among the Northern hills. We can remember, too, an expression now used no more, but which we have often heard as part of the final appeal with which such sermons were wont to close. "My friends," the preacher would say, "I have cleared myself this day of your blood." Sometimes this declaration would be followed by a challenge in which the ungodly of the congregation were called to meet the preacher, "on that day when the books shall be opened and the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed," there and then to bear witness of his guiltlessness as to their damnation. It was very terrible, no doubt, very harrowing, and often as unpleasant to listen to as to utter, but such preaching was justified by its results. Many a sinner trembled as his heart was opened before him. Many a strong man broke into cries and tears as he saw himself a rebel against divine justice and mercy. Many an one smote upon his breast in terror as the veil of the future was lifted, and he saw himself standing guilty before the last tribunal, and praying for the mountains to fall and hide him from the eyes of an angry God. In our time, however, such preaching has become a tradition. It might be centuries since it was a fashion in the land, for hardly does its echo reach our ears to-day. And concerning this fact there emerges a curious thing. Confessedly the effect of such preaching was often the offending of the hearer. It has ever been so—was so, as we have seen, with the prophets; the apostles; the Lord Himself—and yet there is complaint when accusation and warning are withheld, and that, strangely, from the very people who would probably protest the most against it. It is said, even by these very people, that nowadays the preacher does not hurt; that he fails to find the conscience. The fact is, there exists in the heart of man an instinctive expectation that the messenger of God will do these things. It is one of the criticisms of to-day that sternness has died out of theology. The preacher is no longer the representative of a judge; no longer in God's stead the accuser of men. In every age the Church displays favouritism in her doctrinal attachments. In our time it is the doctrine of the divine Fatherhood of which the most is heard. This were well if the whole truth were told; but what manner of fatherhood is that of which we all too often hear? A fatherhood of colossal good nature, of blind, of foolish, indulgence; a conception of paternal wisdom and affection against which the conscience of the thoughtful instinctively revolts. The man in the street is not satisfied, and never will be satisfied, with a merely sentimental God. Some day, perhaps, it may be discovered that he is outside the churches, not because preaching, asking too much, has made him afraid, but because preaching, asking too little, has left him contemptuous.

And how has the change come to pass? Some say that the lack of the hour is a sense of sin. This sense, they tell us, has been lost as a result of our theorising about the origin of moral evil. There are some, indeed, who talk as if the tragedy of sin was not really a tragedy at all, but actually a blessing in disguise. We have been assured that the only hope for humanity lay in a moral fall which had to come to pass that the race might achieve its destiny through its experience of what is only called "wrong-doing," and of the suffering resulting from it. Only by this rugged and shadowed road, so are we informed, can we ever come to perfection and reach the golden age for which our hearts are sighing. Others see in sin a proof that man is struggling to be better. They regard his transgression as a hopeful symptom of divine discontent. Many do see tragedy in it all, but the blame lies otherwhere than with the transgressor. Sin grows less terrible, but more hopeless, as they talk about heredity, as they transfer the responsibility from the criminal to his circumstances, his education, the conditions of his life or the state of society. Not a sentence of punishment but a vote of sympathy should crime evoke if all that is said along such lines be true.

But not in any one of these things, nor in all of them put together, lies the whole reason of our modern tenderness in dealing with sin. Even preaching has its fashions, and he is a bold man who dares to disregard the prevailing mode. The convention of the time may decide that it is not quite "the correct thing" to lay too much emphasis on the harder teaching of the Christian belief. Whether unpopular with the people or not, this teaching may be unpopular with the preachers. We do not speak of these unpleasant things, for why be singular in direful prophecy? Of some preachers, to summarise, we will say that their need is a recovery of the sense of sin; of others that a deepened consciousness of every man's power to triumph over his inherited tendencies, his circumstances, his training and the temptations of his age, must precede the return of success. To others we would venture a reminder that the preacher might, perhaps, be all the better for a little more personal independence, and for the realisation that he is not responsible only to men for the manner in which his work is done, but to Him who sent him out to preach the whole message of His heart. The thing for the preacher to do is to learn the truth and tell it, even though it be bitter to the hearer and bitterer to himself; even though it make short work of social respectability and conventional religiosity, bringing the blush of shame to the cheek and setting the pulses throbbing with the fear of the lightnings of God.

Faithfulness, then, is essential to the completeness of the message—faithfulness as to the true condition of the soul and its position in the sight of God. As Samuel stood before Saul in that fateful hour when the king, having disobeyed the commandments of the Lord, had brought of the sheep and of the oxen which he should have utterly destroyed; as the prophets, the apostles, the Master alike lifted up their witness against a corrupt and stiff-necked people, so the preacher of to-day must bear his testimony against the sins of men; must pronounce the penalties of ungodliness. A revelation of the transgression of the individual, of the lost state of every soul out of Christ, are part of the Word received from Him who sent him. This declaration must not concern the individual alone. To the age, also, he has a message of kindred truth. The pulpit is erected as a witness against the generations as they come and go. It is by the preacher that Jesus Christ speaks to successive centuries. He is the true oracle of God. Against the carelessness, the covetousness, the debauchery and corruption of the nations, God would speak through him. Against the oppression of the poor, the robbery of the widow, the exploitation of the savage; against the crimes of the empires, the Almighty, through his lips, would make His anger known. He has done so often and often. Again and again has the preacher turned back the tides of national iniquity, again and again prevented the wrongful purpose upon which a people had set its heart. The need is with us still. This warning and accusing note of sternness must be regained. To tell men of their sins and that they are lost unless God delivers them; to tell the age of its iniquities and that the sure end of national vice is national destruction—here is our work to-day.

So there needs something in the nature of a reversion to the methods of days that are no more. Yet a full return to the mode of our fathers is impossible. Let this be acknowledged frankly and fully and at once. Those "black sermons" to which we listened forty years ago can never be preached again. The day has gone, at least within the area of civilisation, for painting flaming pictures of hell, for realistic and horrible descriptions of the tortures of the damned. That kind of thing has had its day and can be done no more. Preachers could not do it; hearers would not hear it. The misfortune has been that the passing of our fathers' methods has not been followed by the discovery of others in which the truth they conveyed could be expressed in forms more suitable to different times. Even the man outside the Church has left behind him the literal understanding of those old figures of speech. Few now think of heaven as our grandsires thought of it; few imagine hell as they imagined it. Yet is there still a heaven; yet is there still a hell.

And, hard as it is to write it, it is to the preaching of hell that we must return—the hell of degradation and of loss and of sure retribution. That hell is the latter state to which every path of wrong-doing leads with the inevitability of eternal law. Sin is hell in the making. Hell is sin found out, perhaps, alas, too late. This word is needed in our churches this very day.

It is needed, it was recently suggested to us, especially by our young people. With good reason the churches are all anxious as to the young people, so many of whom, alas! show a disposition to leave the temples of their fathers. It cannot be said that the Church has not done her best along certain lines to keep the coming generation at home. Older men and women have been heard to murmur that too much has been done for the young person's sake, too many things sacrificed. Religion has been made very easy—too easy, it is said. Unpleasant demands have been kept, it is suggested, too much in the background. We all know parents who confess that their children are permitted to do things at home of which they, the parents, disapprove, lest they should go elsewhere and do worse. It is alleged that the same thing often happens in the Church for the same reason. Ah! you must be careful what you say lest you offend the young! This is an indulgent, a good-natured, a compromising time. Behind this solicitude the best reasons lie, but is there no danger to these young people in all this amiability? Is it quite impossible for a young man to be put in peril by our very anxiety to save him?

Yes, there is such a possibility. It arises when we shrink from that plainness of speech which is, after all, friendship's best service. Is it not better to offend, even to wound deeply, than to speak only the smoother things, however kindly the intent, and, so speaking, fail to produce that great renunciation, that strengthening of bands, that strong grasp of the Eternal which alone mean safety in future years? We know that the whole question is encompassed with difficulties. It is hard to write it, but the best friends of the young are not always those preachers who are most tender concerning their feelings.

And not for the sake of the young only is this note of sternness needed. It may be recalled that, some time ago, the columns of a well-known religious weekly contained a discussion as to which are morally the most perilous years of a man's life. The conclusion reached therein was startling, but bore the test of reflection. We have generally assumed that "the dangerous years" are those of early manhood, the years that lie between leaving school and marriage. In those years the youth has probably left the Sunday School behind him, probably hangs only loosely to the Church. He feels the vigour of his young manhood stirring within him. He is drinking his first draughts of the wine of life. Restraints are being relaxed and companionships are being formed, while there is a sense of freedom almost intoxicating in its exhilaration. These are the days that we have commonly described as the most perilous of life.

Probably, however, we have been wrong in this conclusion. In the discussion referred to it was contended, perhaps established, that the period of greatest moral and spiritual danger lies a score or more years further along the road. From forty to fifty, and nearer fifty than forty, was maintained to be the fateful age. Youth has innocence, ambition, enthusiasm, ideals. Youth has generous impulses, has not yet been soured by disappointments, has not yet found out the cynicism of the world, has not become infected by the canker of covetousness. It has made no enemies, is not corrupted by success, is not daunted by failure. A score of years later some or all of these things will have happened to a man. Harder has become the world, fiercer the battle in which he is engaged, lower burn the fires of life; enthusiasm has faded as grey hairs have come. These are the perilous years.

There is one thing the preacher must never forget:—That the men and women before him go in constant peril from temptation. Not of the avowedly non-Christian only is this true, but of all. Yonder man, known for his respectability, his regular attendance at the sanctuary, falters, perhaps, this very day on the crumbling edge of a moral precipice. Ever and anon some one is missed from the means of grace. Where is he? Hush! Tell it softly and with tears. He has fallen who but recently bade so fairly to carry his cross to the summit of the hill. Can it be that he fell because in the House of Prayer no voice warned him? Can it be that he has committed the greater sin because no reproof was whispered in his ear concerning the beginnings of transgression? Was there no message committed to the preacher for that man as he drew near the parting of the ways? Did the messenger suppress the truth because it was hard to utter?

What, then, is it that is asked? Not, of course, a ministry of continual denunciation, of constant reproach, of endless accusation—not that, but a ministry in which the witness shall be not one-sided but complete. Let us hear, if you please, of the sweeter things; tell us again, and again, of that divine Fatherhood in which must be our final trust; whisper in our cars of the gentleness of God and the infinite tenderness of His Son; but tell us all, for so wayward are we, so presumptuous, so prone to go astray that we need to hear of chastisement as well as mercy. We must be reminded that "the way of transgressors is hard" as well as of the blessing that the Lord has in His heart for us.

To the preacher, then, we would say:—Here is a task which must not be neglected however hard it be. The word should be a hammer to break, a sword to pierce, an arrow in the heart. Here is something for us all to do:—To cultivate the arts of the counsel for the prosecution. In the exercise of those arts all our knowledge of human nature, all possible learning in the word will be needed to their very last syllable. It is not true that any one is qualified to wave the lamp that shall reveal the pitfall in the path of the over-confident disciple. He must be a wise physician who has to diagnose the sickness of the soul. He must be a lawyer learned in the law who has to explain the position of the rebel before his flouted Sovereign. He must have larger skill than most who has to bring home the broken will of God to the soul. A reflection, more important still, has yet to be suggested. For this work the preacher will need to be a man of holiness, for, though he speak to his brother only as a fellow-sinner saved by Grace, he must speak as one who has escaped from bonds. Thus comes character into the business. "Woe is me," said the prophet, called to witness against the transgression of Judah, "for I am a man of unclean lips." Only by prayer, by the cleansing of the fountain, by sustaining grace shall we be sufficient for these things. For this manner of preaching one man alone can ascend into the hill of the Lord:—"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up himself unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."



CHAPTER II.

The Note of Pity.

In the chapter just concluded we have tried to lay down that one essential of the preacher's message is the note of sternness, that the preacher is, on God's behalf, the accuser of his hearers, charging them before the bar of conscience, declaring to the soul its state and condition, pronouncing, also, the punishment which must follow persistent rebellion against God. It becomes us immediately to say something as to another note which must be heard in unison with this of sternness, and that is the note of pity. It is time to insist upon this. Only that man can declare the terrors of the law who knows something of the spirit of the prophet who cried, "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Only he can cry out against Jerusalem who, when he beholds the city, weeps over it as he sees its crime and shame and notes the tempest gathering to burst over its "cloud-capp'd towers, its solemn temples, its airy palaces." The preacher, like his Lord, must be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It must be true of him that for "the hurt of the daughter of My people was He stricken." His heart must have bled for the tragedy of the world!

And into the delivery of the message this pity must find its way and have expression, if not always in word, certainly in tone. In tone, we say, for the tone of the preacher's utterance is almost, if not quite, as important as its words. Lacking the accent of pity, the accusations of the preacher will degenerate into scolding, and of all scolds the pulpit scold is the most objectionable. Without a pitiful heart his exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not set up to threaten but to pronounce. We have heard preaching of this order. "I am not at all well to-night," said a clergyman of whom we once read, "and I shall give it 'em hot." Men are sometimes reminded of their sins, not out of a sense of duty borne in upon a reluctant spirit, but because the wind happens to be in the east, or the preacher's nerves are badly out of order. The Church is told of her coldness, her indolence and unfaithfulness, her narrowness, bigotry and greed, not because, after a struggle to win permission to tell a more flattering tale, the preacher comes forth under a divine compulsion to "cry aloud and spare not," but because his digestion is upset, or his temporal concerns are awry, or even because his personal ambitions have been disappointed and himself unappreciated. There is such a thing as bad-tempered, ill-natured preaching, in which the weapons of the Bible armoury are borrowed for the expression of the preacher's chagrin and spite. In a literal sense every word he speaks may be true, but the spirit of the message destroys all possible good effects and turns the word of God into an angry snarl. It might, therefore, be well to decide to preach along lines of accusation, exposure, judgment or warning only on those days when the heart is happiest, when life goes well and the cheek of health glows with its brightest bloom. Perhaps the resolution might take such a form as this:—Resolved: Never to preach a hard sermon when I feel like doing so.

All this is no fancy picture, and the peril indicated is not imaginary but real. The story of Jonah is left to all time for the warning of the preacher. Seated yonder in his booth, biting his nails in vexation, he is the type of the preacher whose righteous indignation, because of its lack of that element of unselfishness, and that spirit of pity by which moral anger should always be qualified, becomes simply grim and merciless wrath. "Doest thou well to be angry?" the eternal voice asks of him and of all who follow in his prophetic line. It was not thus that Jesus looked upon the multitude. They despised Him—many of them. That He knew. They accused and slandered Him one to another and in their own secret hearts. Some of them said He was a glutton and a wine-bibber, others that He had a devil, others, again, that He was the friend of publicans and sinners. They ate His bread, accepted His healing kindness, and all the time were making ready to cry, "Not this man, but Barabbas," when opportunity should arise. All this He understood, but "when He saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd."

"All His words are music, Though they make me weep, Infinitely tender, Infinitely deep."

And the absence of this undertone of pity from the message of the preacher always destroys the effect of his warnings and causes the hearer to be less afraid than angry, as is always the case when men are captiously scolded and found fault with and threatened. On the other hand, its presence gives power and penetration to the terrors borne upon its breath. It is instinctively felt that the hard words of the preacher are spoken as by one who weeps before he speaks. He does but speak because he must, because it would be cruellest cruelty to be silent. "For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace." "Zion's sake"—here, then, is the motive of all this unfolding of the secret history of the hearer's heart and life. From very pity this man cannot speak of health when he sees the canker in the rose which blooms upon the cheek, when he perceives that, despite the appearance of strength and vigour, "the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint." He has not told us pleasant things to-day, though we would have liked to hear them, and he would have been glad to tell them, because he is too deeply concerned for us to prophesy golden groves at the end of a journey whose every footstep is taken upon the broad road leading to destruction. With meekness can we receive the reproofs of a parent knowing that, however hard his word, his heart is tender. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth," was written of the Lord. When it can be written of the Lord's ambassador, then again it will be true that although "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous," yet will it yield "the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Let us take it, then, that pity is an essential of the preacher's message, and must make its presence felt, if not in word, at least in accent, or tone, or atmosphere. Is it too late in the argument to ask what this pity really and truly is?

In Theodore Hunger's volume, "The Freedom of Faith," a book which will be found in many of our libraries, there is a chapter on the pity of Jesus Christ which would probably repay us for another perusal. Very powerfully the author maintains that pity is a deeper and sublimer passion than love. In "The Alchemist," Balzac, depicting an ideally perfect affection makes the object of it deformed, indicating that love has not attained its highest height until it has become pity. Thus the mother's love for her child is never so noble as when expressed in ministering to its sickness. How near to the little one does she come in those painful, anxious hours when, perchance, all the reward her love seems like to bring is the blighting of her dearest hopes. She loves her child in health, but that love is rewarded with joy; she loves it as it triumphs in its little tasks of intellect, but that love is rewarded with pride; its moral achievements awaken her admiration; its spiritual victories arouse her gratitude, and in admiration and gratitude, love has compensation; but none of these emotions so carry over her soul into fellowship with the soul of that dear one, none bring her into a touch so close, or give such gentleness to the fingers, such softness and tenderness to the voice as does pity, "when pain and sickness wring the brow." And what of the parental feeling for that other child—the child, we mean, whose name no one speaks in her ear, who has gone out from the family circle, who is away in the far country, wasting his substance in riotous living; who, indeed, has wasted it, and who is now feeding the swine of the stranger, and longing to fill his belly with the husks that the swine do eat? Behold, now, the father standing upon the threshold shading his eyes as longingly he gazes along the road which climbs the distant hill. A world of trouble is in his eyes. "Yonder young fool who has wandered away is not worth a single sigh of this grand old man," we say. "He is reaping as he has sown," we moralise. Time was when this youth went brightly to and fro in the homestead, when innocence sat throned upon his forehead, when truth shone brightly from his eyes, when purity and modesty mantled with blushes his boyish cheek. The old man loved him then. But this watching from the threshold, this long, long tearful look down the road winding away to the land of profligacy and shame, these are the glories of his love. Here is pity. This is affection glowing in its fairest flower, its most precious fruit. Before us is a dim adumbration of the pity of God, the highest manifestation of His love for man. Similarly the pity of man for man is the highest manifestation of our love one for another. It is by pity, and by pity only, that humanity can be brought into true unity. It is by pity that the preacher comes into oneness with his congregation. There is a sense in which he comes nearer to his hearers through their sufferings and their sins than through their joys and their virtues, for suffering and sin give occasion for compassion. Only let the man in the pulpit feel this emotion toward the man in the pew; only let the tragedy of his wrong-doing, the poverty of his soul resultant from his neglect of higher things, the awful fact that he is without God and hope in the world come home to the preacher's heart; only let the shadow of this man's fate cast its darkness upon the preacher's soul and oh! how precious does that man become, sinner though he be. Let the man in the pew but feel that the heart of the man in the pulpit is almost breaking for the longing it has toward him and how differently will he receive the reproof that man may bring; with what new reverence will he attend to the solemn warning he may utter. At last a brother seeks his soul!

For another result of pity will be that the Gospel of reconciliation will be preached indeed. If from the compulsion of compassion the preacher declared the terrors of the law, from the same divine concern he will glory to declare the way of return, the counsel and invitation of mercy. Even as none but a pitiful man can declare the words of the law so only a pitiful man can declare the provisions and conditions of the Cross. If the words of the Law, without pity are mere scolding and fault-finding and threatening, the words of the Gospel without pity must be cold, perfunctory and lifeless. Calvary was the expression of infinite compassion. In its own spirit alone can its message be set forth. You may preach even the justice of God in such a way as to make His judgments seem full of the kindest intention to the heart. On the other hand, you may preach the sacrifice of love in such a manner as to make the story hard as judgment thunders. You may throw a pardon at a man in such a fashion as to make the forgiveness it expresses more bitter than a curse.

But how are we so to abound in pity as to be able, at all times, to fill our message with its gracious influence, for pity is not always easy, in which fact is one element of its high nobility? The sins of men, their vices with their results in life and character, often make it hard to pity them. A horrible thing is sin, and so horrible its effects that it seems, at times, almost impossible to look upon those in whom these effects are evident with any emotions save those of loathing and disgust. It was no very natural thing for Jonah to look with any sort of tenderness on that great, debauched, besotted Nineveh, reeking in its vileness, foul with the accumulated moral filth of many generations. Out of a man's own righteousness, too, his jealousy for God and his reverence for goodness, there may grow a certain hardness and, from very loyalty to God, it may not be easy to look with compassionate eyes upon the transgressor. We cannot but remember that every blessed purpose of the Kingdom is delayed by sin. By this black impediment every golden dream of devout saints, of moral and spiritual reformers is held back from happy fulfilment. It is difficult, indeed, to feel pitiful when the heart for Christ's sake is longing to behold the glories He died to bring to pass and sees those glories thus wantonly postponed. Yes, the note of pity is often hard to strike. The more we think of all that is involved the more emphasis we throw into the question—how has it to be done?