methods, personal appeals in private. There he argued, pleaded, conquered, and the outward demonstrations upon which so many rely exclusively were but the gathering in of sheaves. In Hanson Place, during the three years of his pastorate, nine hundred and twenty-five members were united to the church by certificate and profession. But instead of depending for success only upon accession by conversion, he attended to every detail relating to the finances, pastoral work, circulation of periodicals-in a word, everything naturally coming under the care of a minister. He owed this immense success to strict

obedience to the injunction of Soloman: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." His imperfections were only such as are liable to accompany a strong will and an exuberant emotional nature.

At his funeral, President George Edward Reed, of Dickinson College, melted all hearts by relating how, thirty years ago, Dr. Peck had for three hours in his study in Lowell argued and pleaded with him, a humble boy, to accept Christ, and how, when at last he yielded and gave him his hand, the doctor prayed until God and his seeking soul were reconciled.-Christian Advocate.

THERE could not be a greater delusion than to imagine that the influence and attractiveness of the Christian pulpit have gone. There never was in all Christian history a preacher who enjoyed a greater or more lasting popularity than Mr. Spurgeon. The crowds that used to throng St. Paul's Cathedral when Canon Liddon preached there have never been surpassed. The Pulpit, instead of being weaker, is really growing stronger and stronger. The impression to the contrary is probably due to the fact that, for reasons into which I need not enter now, the average newspaper reporter has not hitherto been friendly to the pulpit, and has not been in the habit of regarding sermons as ' good copy.' No class of public speakers in this country have been so persistently boycotted or disparaged by the Press as preachers. But there are signs that this state of affairs is passing away, and the Press and the Pulpit are beginning to realize the advantage of an honourable alliance in the interests of justice and humanity.

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The Press, consciously or unconsciously, has exerted a very beneficial influence over the Pulpit. It has influenced preachers, for one

thing, to talk English and to make themselves intelligible. It has been even more beneficial in dragging them down from the clouds where they had been too apt to sail in metaphysical balloons. It has mightily influenced them to deal with the plain, practical interests of actual men and women. All sorts of subjects, at which our grandfathers would not have dared to hint in the pulpit, are now discussed there. Preachers do not hesitate now to use illustrations drawn from real life. I need scarcely add that this is exactly what their Master did two thousand years ago. His illustrations were taken from the men and women of His own time, and from the phenomena of nature with which His hearers were familiar. But a sort of pulpit style had grown up which was exceedingly artificial, stilted, and unreal. One small but significant symptom of the change in the direction of simplicity and genuineness which has come over the Pulpit is the fact that the preacher of our own day does not speak of himself as "we" and "us," but simply as "I"

and

66 me.' I can well remember the horror of some members of my own congregations when I first substituted the singular pronoun for the

royal "we" in which I had been trained. Another remarkable symptom of the age is the fact that the old, artificial, elaborate, and exceed ingly florid rhetorical style is at a great discount. At one time ministers of religion used to prepare elaborate and brilliant sentences worked up into climaxes which produced a great impression upon half-educated audiences. But the age has become so much more earnest that it will not stand that sort of thing except occasionally.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the new method of preaching is its intensely ethical character. George Eliot would no longer be able to accuse Christian preachers of "otherworldliness." They trouble themselves less and less about the other world, and they take more and more to heart the sufferings and the needs of this. It is one of the most curious phenomena of history that what I may call the intensely secular character of Christ's teaching should have been so long overlooked. The idea arose very early in our era that Christianity was too good for this world; and men consequently thought they could attain its ideals only by living artificial lives apart from their fellows in monasteries or even by going to the further extreme of taking up their abode in some solitary cave in an African desert or elsewhere.

At the era of the Reformation the whole civilized world was well aware that neither the monastic nor the solitary life was morally one bit better than the ordinary life of society, that in some respects it was very much worse. But the idea that Christianity was too good for this world still clung even to the Reformers, so they transplanted the fulfilment of the Christian idea to another world altogether. I need scarcely say that this notion is flatly contradicted in every part of the New Testament. The angels who saluted the Nativity of our Lord sang of peace on earth and goodwill among

men.

In the same way our Lord Himself taught us to pray that the will of God might be done by men on earth as angels do it in heaven. In fact the whole of the Lord's Prayer

refers to this world and to this life. When St. John closed the volume of Revelation with a glowing picture of the ideal city of God he was not referring, as is so strangely imagined, to heaven but to earth. He tells us expressly he saw "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God."

war.

All this is becoming more evident to the preacher of to-day, and is giving his teaching an ethical flavour which has never been so conspicuous before. We hear a great deal in the pulpit now about the evils of drunkenness, sexual vice, gambling, and The sweating system is denounced, and overcrowding of the poor is deplored. We have entered, in fact, upon the Johannine period, and all the most characteristic religious teachers of our day are disciples of St. John. They realize with him that the very essence of real Christianity is brotherliness, and that we are to prove our love to God by our love to one another. The result is that the modern Pulpit deals very much less with metaphysical questions and protests loudly against the purely artificial distinctions that have too long been made between what is called " religious" and what is called "secular." This new development of teaching is what has given rise to the present strange dislocation of political parties, and to the much discussed "Nonconformist conscience."

Mr. Herbert Spencer has said, with only too much truth, that at present we have two religions in this country: one which we derive from the Greek and Latin authors and the other from the Old and New Testaments; one which we profess on Sunday and the other which we practise during the remaining days of the week. Mr. Spencer imagines that both of these religions must exist for a time, but significantly enough he prophesies the ultimate triumph of the Sunday religion. The modern Pulpit is increasingly alive to the calamitous contradictions and inconsistencies of nineteenth-century Christianity; and it is strenuously endeavouring so to enlighten and strengthen the Christian conscience

that twentieth-century Christianity may be of a piece and that men may apply the same moral principles to all the events of life, to business and civic duty and social intercourse as well as to so-called religious functions.

This has led to the development in the modern Pulpit of what has come to be known as Christian Socialism, or, as I prefer to designate it, Social Christianity. In a word, the modern teacher of Christianity believes that Christ came not merely to save individual souls-he believes that intensely-but also to reconstruct society upon a Christian basis. The Kingdom of God occupies a place in Christian thought that it has scarcely received before except in the teaching of some great Catholic preachers. We realize more and more how dependent the individual is upon his environment. We are not less conscious of the importance of individual regeneration, holding, indeed, with Horace Bushnell that "the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul." But on the other hand the very highest improvement of the soul is scarcely possible except in a favourable social environment. Hitherto the laws and customs even of so-called Christian countries have to a very great extent sacrificed the many to the few and made it quite unnecessarily difficult for men to live virtuous lives. But, as Mr. Gladstone once said, the ideal of the Christian statesman is to make it easy for people to do right and difficult for them to do wrong.

There is one other feature of present-day preaching which ought to be named it has become less and less abstract and more and more concrete. In other words, instead of setting before men certain qualities and virtues as commendable, it has presented the human life of Jesus Christ as the example we should follow. In the present day the ten

dency of the pulpit is more and more to teach that the true Christian is the Christ-like Christian, and to repeat everywhere, with John Stuart Mill, that there is no better rule of conduct than this: What would Jesus of Nazareth have done if He had been in my place? Men are becoming more and more impatient of mere controversy, and perhaps even perilously disposed to accept any kind of doctrine if it is associated with a good and unmistakably beneficent life. We are apt to overlook the fact that false teaching, even if associated with a beautiful career, may still ultimately do irreparable mischief. But in the present reaction from the ecclesiastical and theological bitterness of the past, and in an intense realization of the magnitude of the problem of sin and misery with which we have to struggle, men are very indifferent to doctrinal truth, and greatly appreciative of ethical service.

I have not ventured in this paper to express opinions with respect to the merits or demerits of the most characteristic features of present-day preaching. I have simply appeared as an observant witness, to tell what I know. It will, of course, be understood that I am speaking of those preachers in all churches who are most typical of the time in which we live, and who have the ear of the public. Moreover, the various characteristics that have been enumerated are distributed among many men in the various branches of the Church of God. I have not been thinking of any particular preachers or school of preachers. At the same time I am persuaded that the general conception of modern-day preaching which I have given is descriptive of the type of preaching which differentiates us from the past, and is becoming more and more predominant in all the churches.-The New Review.

In this volume our distinguished Canadian Christian scientist expresses the ripe conclusions of a life-long study of some of the most important problems which can engage the human mind. He discusses here, not merely the physical facts of the universe, but their relation to man as a moral being, and to God as a moral governor.

A unique feature is the dedication of these chapters to the memory of men whom the distinguished author has known and loved, and who, he says, would sympathize with him in spirit in his attempt to direct attention to these great works of the Creator.

Sir William Dawson has the courage of his convictions, and does not shrink from criticising the theories of material evolution. As regards the theory of the development of the solar system by the impact of two dark, solid bodies striking each other so violently that they become intensely heated and resolve into the smallest possible fragments, as maintained by Lord Kelvin and Mr. Croll, our author says, "It is rather more improbable than it would be to affirm that in the artillery practice of two opposing armies, cannon balls have thousands of times struck and shattered each other midway between the hostile batteries. It seems a strange way of making systems of worlds, that they should result from the chance collision of multitudes of solid bodies rushing hither and thither in space; and it is equally strange to imagine an intelligent Creator banging these bodies about like billiard balls in order to make worlds." In a series of interesting chapters Sir William Dawson discusses, "The Dawn of Life" and what may be learned from Eozoon Canadense, -The Early-Born Canadian,-the oldest inhabitant of this planet, whom the

learned Doctor has discovered and whose biography he has written. There has been a good deal of discussion about this organism, and it is possible that one earlier still may yet be found, but certainly it is hard to resist Sir William Dawson's conclusions when one looks at the portrayed specimens in the Geological Museum at Ottawa.

Other interesting chapters are on the apparition and succession of animal forms; the genesis and migration of plants; the growth of coal, of which Sir William has made a special study in the coal-fields of Nova Scotia, pre-determination in nature; the great ice age, which Sir William does not admit to be the formation of ice-caps at the poles through secular librations of the planet but largely the result of causes now operative, as we have shown in our recent review of his "Canadian Ice Age."

Chapters of special interest are those on distribution of animals and plants as related to geographical and geological changes, and that on early man, in which Sir William is much more conservative as to man's duration on the planet than most of the evolutionary school. The closing chapter on man and his place in nature notes the vast distinction between man and the other animals, shows where he is at war and where he is in harmony with nature, and points out the vast, unbridged gulf between the loftiest animals and man in the intellectual and moral endowments, the gifts of speech and reason which the latter possesses. We quote the concluding paragraphs of this noble argument, and trust that those of our readers interested in these august and important studies will avail themselves of the aid of this latest, but we hope not last, volume of one of the most eminent Christian scientists of the times.

By SIR WILLIAM DAWSON,