it had been but sketched upon the minds of men, would have conveyed a much better idea of the truth than is produced by its elaborate painting and filling up. This is the secret of what is called "suggestive preaching," and it is also the secret of those sermons which are called "good, but heavy." There are no more thorough sermons in the English language, and none more hard to read, than those of Barrow, who was called an unfair preacher, because he left nothing for those to say that came after him. You must be careful not to surfeit people; leave room for their imagination and spirit to work. Don't treat them as sacks to be filled from a funnel. Aim to make them spiritually active, — selfhelpful.

EXPOSITORY PREACHING.

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Without unfolding and commenting upon the ordinary modes of sermonizing, I pass on to say that a much larger use should be made of expository preaching than has been customary in our churches. It is an admirable way of familiarizing the people with the very text of Scripture. There is an authority, which every audience recognizes, in the word of God as delivered in the Sacred Scripture, which does not belong to ordinary human teaching. Above all, the Bible is the best example in literature of the admirable mingling of fact, illustration, appeal, argument, poetry, and emotion, not in their artificial forms, but conformably to nature. The Bible is sometimes spoken of as a " revelation" in contradistinction to nature; but this is done by those who degrade nature, and regard it as something low and imperfect. I regard the Bible as the noblest book of

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nature that has ever existed in life. Its very power is in that it is an exposition of nature, wider and deeper than any that philosophy has attained to; that is one reason why the Bible is found, as philosophy progressively ascertains the truths of nature, to conform to them with singular adaptation; and that is a reason, too, why the Bible becomes more and more powerful as it is better interpreted and its innermost meaning is made clear by the discoveries of men in the great field of natural science. The Bible is like a field in which is hidden gold. Men who have ploughed over and over the surface and raised perishable crops therefrom have failed to find and secure that very precious ore which is its chief value.

It will surprise one to see what wealth and diversity of topics will come up for illustration in discussion, by means of expository preaching. A thousand subtle suggestions and a thousand minute points of human experience, not large enough for the elaborate discussion of a sermon, and yet like the little screws in a watch, indispensable to the right action of the machinery of life, can be touched and turned to advantage in expository preaching. There are many topics which, from the excitement of the times and from the prejudice of the people, it would be difficult to discuss topically in the pulpit, yet, taken in the order in which they are found in Sacred Writ, they can be handled. with profit, and without danger. The Bible touches all sides of human life and experience, and scriptural exposition gives endless opportunities of hitting folks who need hitting. The squire can hardly stamp out of church for a Thus saith the Lord."

While exegetical and expository preaching have elements in them which attract and satisfy the scholar and the thinker, they, at the same time, by a strange harmony in diversity, have just that disconnectedness and variety of topic in juxtaposition which seem best suited to the wants of uncultivated minds. I know an eminent pastor in Ohio, who, probably, never in his life preached any other sermon than an expository one. The Bible in his hands, Sunday after Sunday, was his only sermon. During a long pastorate, he went through the Book from beginning to end, and often, and the fruit of his ministry justified his method. It was proverbial that no people were more thoroughly furnished with knowledge, with habits of discrimination in thought, or were more rich in spiritual feeling.

GREAT SERMONS.

There is one temptation of which I have spoken to you before, but I must be allowed to give you a special and earnest caution on the subject of “ great" sermons. The themes you will handle are often of transcendent greatness. There will be times continually recurring, in which you will feel earnestly the need of great power; but the ambition of constructing great sermons is guilty and foolish in no ordinary degree. I do not believe that any man ever made a great sermon who set out to do that thing. Sermons that are truly great come of themselves. They spring from sources deeper than vanity or ambition. When the hand of the Lord is laid upon the heart, and its energies are aroused under a Divine inspiration, there may then be given forth mighty thoughts in burning words, and from the

formative power of this inward truth the outward form may be generated, perfect, as is the language of a poem. Perhaps I should have saids how sermons, rather than great sermons, sermons adapted to create surprise, admiration, and praise, sermons as full of curiosities as a peddler's pack, which the proud owners are accustomed to take in all their exchanges and travelings as their especial delight and reliance. Often they are baptized with fanciful names. There is the "Dew upon the Grass" sermon, and the "Trumpet" sermon, and the sermon of the "Fleece," and the "Dove and Eagle" sermon, and so on. Such discourses are relied upon to give men their reputation. To construct such sermons, men oftentimes labor night and day, and gather into them all the scraps, ingenuities, and glittering illustrations of a lifetime. They are the pride and the joy of the preacher's heart; but they bear the same relation to a truly great sermon as a kaleidoscope, full of glittering bits of glass, bears to the telescope, which unveils the glory of the stellar universe. These are the Nebuchadnezzar sermons, over which the vain preacher stands, saying, "Is not this great Babylon that I have builded for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" Would to God that these preachers, like Nebuchadnezzar, might go to grass for a time, if, like him, they would return. sane and humble!

A sermon is a weapon of war. Not the tracery enameled upon its blade, not the jewelry that is set within its hilt, not the name that is stamped upon it, but its power in the day of battle, must be the test of its merits. No matter how unbalanced, how irregular

and rude, that is a great sermon which has power to do great things with the hearts of men. No matter how methodical, philosophic, exquisite in illustration, or faultless in style, that is a poor and weak sermon that has no power to deliver men from evil and to exalt them in goodness.

STYLE.

Style is only the outside form which thoughts take on when embodied in language. Style, then, must always conform to the nature of the man who employs it; as the saying goes, "Style is the man." In general, it may be said, that is the best style which is the least obtrusive, which lets through the truth most nearly in its absolute purity. The truths of religion, in a simple and transparent style, shine as the sunlight on the fields and mountains, revealing all things in their proper forms and natural colors; but an artificial and gorgeous style, like a cathedral window, may let in some light, yet in blotches of purple and blue that spot the audience, and produce grotesqueness and unnatural effects.

It is desirable that the preacher should have a copious vocabulary, and a facility in the selection and use of words; and to this end he should read much, giving close attention to the words and phrases used by the best authors, not for servile copying and memorizing, but that these elements may become assimilated with his own mind, as a part of it, ready for use when the need comes.

He should also have an ear for strong and terse, but rhythmical sentences, which flow without jolt