"The best of shields" against some arrow of scepticism which has been shot into the heart, piercing through the shield of early religious education, is "a pure and holy life" (p. 170). This rather contradicts St. Paul, who recommends "the shield of faith wherewith to quench the fiery darts of the wicked!" Now how can we expect better things in our pulpits when such is the teaching of our university? Mr. Goodwin has great influence, and, we confess, we deeply regret it. He is not the man to mould the minds of those who are destined to preach the Gospel of Salvation; and, therefore, we mourn to see such teaching. We appeal to Mr. Goodwin's own past experience, as well as to his knowledge of the university, whether he can conscientiously consider the baptized scapegraces who flock to St. Mary's, and many of the Fellows too, as Christian brethren? Can he really recommend such irreverend minds, such polluted hands, to receive the Lord's Supper as a cure for their scepticism? We are not quite sure whether he has ever been proctor, but even without that he has seen quite enough. Oh, how different was the teaching in the days of Simeon and Carus! Not, of course, at the three o'clock service, for in our time that was generally avoided by spiritually-minded men. But of this we are confident, that a heavy responsibility rests with those who make such appointments, and that such teaching, so ably set forward, will have a most pernicious influence upon the young men especially; and can we blame men so very much for imitating that which has been placed before their notice as a model?

The tone in which sermons are delivered is also very much against their effectiveness. We cannot at all understand why everything should be sacrificed to a conventional tone, either in reading or preaching. Why must the Scripture or the prayers be read in a sonorous, monotonous, sing-song drawl, strangely called a devotional tone? We say strangely called so, for it has nothing akin to the tone of devotion adopted by anyone who offers up a prayer in private. Why must every verse have its invariable inflection of voice, low at the beginning, raised in the middle, and falling at the end? Why is no life, no reality, thrown into the service? Why, in fact, are not our prayers prayed? How absurd, again, is it to read the opening sentences or the invitation in the same tone as the Confession? And why is no distinction made in the reading of the Absolution, the Psalms, or the Lessons? And how often, too, have we heard the Commandments read in the style of supplication as is adopted in the Litany? If men

very same

would but look at this absurdity, we should have some hope for them. And then the very same thing is found in the pulpit: in how many do we find a

"Dr. Humdrum, whose eloquence flows

Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup."

And when this is continued for a half or three-quarters of an hour, no wonder that so many of the congregation nod an involuntary approval of the sentiments so sonorously and grandiloquently uttered. What we want is a naturalness of style, tone, and manner; let everything be read according to its sense; let sermons be preached in tones corresponding to the subject; and we should be less open to the Tractarian objection, "that if they perform the service in monotone, we sing it.'

We have alluded to extempore preaching. We by no means wish to be understood as depreciating it; on the contrary, we should rejoice if every minister of Christ were able to preach without book; we simply meant that there was no merit in extemporaneous preaching, simply because it was extemporaneous. Nor is it so difficult a matter as many seem to suppose. In almost all cases the difficulty is a nervous one; for the same persons who cannot put ten words together in a pulpit or on a platform, are often most instructing and fluent in conversation. Nerve and mental discipline are the two things needful. The nerve to enable the speaker or preacher to "look upon the people as cabbages;" and the mutual discipline, which is a matter of time and practice, by which a man is enabled to say just what he means to say, and no more. For extemporary preaching, the mind should be well saturated with the subject under discussion; the points to be proved, or expounded, never lost sight of; the outline standing out clear and distinct, from beginning to end; and in the filling up, all extraneous matter rightly excluded. It is only by strict attention to these points that an extemporaneous sermon is endurable, and to attain to all this requires constant and habitual training, both in the study and in the pulpit. We should recommend every young man to begin by writing every word of his sermons, first making an outline in which the principal divisions and subdivisions are clearly laid down, somewhat after the manner of the skeleton already given. He should then expound every point equally, assigning a certain space to each division, by which means symmetry will be preserved, rigidly confining himself to Scripture proofs and arguments bearing upon the point. As soon as practicable he should begin cottage lectures. There he should have only the skele

ton of his subject, leaving the filling-up to be done impromptu; and in so doing, talking rather than preaching to the people; using the simplest language for their sakes, avoiding vulgarity for his own. By steadily pursuing this course for three or four years, at least, he will at length be able to preach without writing every word; taking care, however, that his notes are always sufficiently full to avoid meagreness; and always being particular to leave off with the subject. We say this because some persons are in the habit of talking on long after they have ceased to have anything to say, to the great weariness of their hearers. Anything of this sort is bad; and we would recommend young beginners at extempore preaching to write both their introduction, and the application, which latter should be short, pointed, forcible, and personal.

While on this part of our subject we may add a word or two upon pedantry and dogmatism. Pulpit pedantry is of two kinds: the one, out of short texts brewing most improbable and remote ideas; the other, quoting Greek, and Hebrew, and Latin, for the purpose of translating it. Under the former head we class the celebrated sermon of Dr. Hook, which was reported to have given great offence to Her Majesty, entitled, "Hear the Church." This would have been exceedingly culpable in the merest tyro in the pulpit, but in Dr. Hook it was really unpardonable. For it appears to be an authoritative command of our Saviour to "Hear the Church"; but on turning to the passage we find it part of a sentence: "if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.' (Matt. xviii. 17.) This is bad enough; but it becomes still worse when we know that the translation, "neglect to hear," is one Greek word πăρăкovw, so that the Greek word was actually cut in half in order to suit the purpose, and anyone would have been fully justified in taking the whole word, and enforcing upon his hearers or readers with equal authority the command "neglect to hear the Church." This kind of pulpit pedantry we consider extremely reprehensible. Not that we object to short, pithy texts; on the contrary, fairly taken, and fairly worked out, they often rivet themselves upon the mind when longer ones are entirely effaced; we only object to such glaring perversions of purpose and meaning. Under the other head of pulpit pedantry we class the practice of quoting Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, in the pulpit, and then translating them. If the audience be a learned one, why translate them? if unlearned, a man might as well talk gibberish as Greek. If the original brings out the force of the passage better than our

version, suggest the improvement, and, if necessary, work upon it, and take the altered rendering; but we can see no possible end to be answered by quoting the original, except in some few cases-as, for example, where an explanation of an antithesis may be made more intelligible by the sound-unless it be gently to remind the congregation what a clever fellow their minister is. With regard to dogmatism, such expressions as 66 I say,' ‚” “I hold,” “I think," should be almost banished from the pulpit. When a minister stands up to preach, he has a certain message to deliver. His opinion is of no value whatever, simply as his opinion, beyond that of any of his hearers; it is only when he proves that opinion by Scripture that it is entitled to have weight with them. Many men forget this and seem to look upon themselves as oracles, whose opinions are almost infallible; but such teaching is sure to disgust. Some persons consider dogmatic teaching the only true teaching. This we deny. In the case of Jesus, or even his apostles, it was so; but the only dogmatism under which we are entitled to shelter ourselves is, "It is written:" "Thus saith the Lord."

We have thus pointed out those which we believe to be the principal causes of pulpit ineffectiveness, in regard to the masses of the people. There is, however, still one other, and that of vital importance: the adoption of the office as a respectable and gentlemanly profession, without reference to the actual qualifications of the man. For a man to stand up and effectively and earnestly set forth religious truth, he must know its power on his own soul: to be earnest, he must feel; to be truly eloquent, the mouth must speak out of the abundance of the heart: there must be no resting upon self; no trusting in arguments, however forcible, or pathetic appeals, however touching. Every engine, it is true, must be employed: learning, argument, declamation, reasoning, all must be brought to bear, yet only as so many instruments subservient to the work of the Holy Ghost. And although we do not deny that God may bring in sinners by the instrumentality of men strangers to the power of Divine truth, it is His exceptional method of working. The man of God should be sound in the faith; he must "preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine;" he must be a man of prayer, a man of love, a man of earnestness. He must be the exemplar as well as the preceptor of his people: the father of the poor, the friend of the rich, the faithful witness to all. In a word, as St. Paul says, in summing up the qualifications of a bishop, he must be

VOL. XLII.

G

blameless . . . . . vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not ready to quarrel and offer wrong as one in wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient: not a brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity: not a novice (or one who has newly believed, much less a man who has no belief), lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good report of them that are without. But we must not omit to notice, that we are not to expect to convert the world by the preaching of the Gospel. The pulpit is doing a work, a great work, a glorious work; but yet it is but an instrument. The religious world, as it is called, occupies an anomalous position. There is no world without, so to speak: all are baptized: all call themselves Christians, whatever their belief may be. There is no persecution to sift the wheat from the chaff; both are growing together until the harvest. Inefficient, therefore, as our pulpit teaching avowedly is, we should not expect the preaching even of a Paul or an Apollos to be as successful now as formerly. We know some will point to Mr. Spurgeon, and ask, does not his success refute your position? We reply, wait and see. It is not by excitement, and the infection of popularity, that we estimate a man's work. Its true character remains to be tested by time and circumstances. But it is not so much with results we have to do; we must leave them to Him whose we are and whom we serve. The means of reaching the masses we are bound to employ; and to render those means as efficient as possible should be the earnest endeavour of every Christian.

It is with this hope we have considered this subject, and if it should in any way be the means of causing it to be seriously entertained by those in authority, to whom we must principally look for help in this matter, our labours will not have been thrown away.

ART. III.-Liturgical Purity our Rightful Inheritance. By JOHN C. FISHER, M.A., of the Middle Temple. London: Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1857.

WE have often advocated the great cause of Church Reform, and in the course of so doing have had to touch, and frequently to some considerable extent, on the revision of the Liturgy. We have shown again and again that if we are to