strains in his preaching; but there was such a sense of the Divine authority, such a sense of the rights of Divinity, and such a sense of the sinfulness of sin, as amounted, not always, but frequently, to a species of inhumanity toward men because they were sinful. And there has been since his time, and since the times of other great men who preached revival sermons, what I may call a savage way of preaching man's sinfulness, which is not the Scriptural way. The Bible method of preaching the sinfulness of man is the parental way. The Scriptures are full of human feeling; they are full of considerateness; they are full of gentleness; they are full of variations of approach; they are full of differing modes of development; and what the pulpit needs more than anything else in preaching man's sinfulness is the feeling, on the part of those that preach, that they are joined to man by his sinfulness the same as by his sorrow, and that they are to be helpful to him, and to feel toward him as a father feels toward his son, or as a mother feels toward her daughter.

SYMPATHY WITH SINNERS.

It is not the man who has the most profound sense of the glory of God; it is not the man who has the most acute sensibility to the sinfulness of sin; it is the man who carries in his heart something of the feeling which characterized the atoning Christ, it is he that is the most effectual preacher. It is the man who has some such sorrow for sin that he would rather take penalty upon himself than that the sinner should bear it. It is not the man who is merely seeking the vindi

cation of abstract law, or the recognition of a great, invisible God; it is the man who is seeking in himself to make plain the manifestation of God as a Physician of souls, sorrowing for them, calling to them, and yearning to do them good. It is the compassion of men who, while they know how to depict the dangerousness of sin, oftentimes its meanness, and always its violation of Divine law, yet recognize that they can never bring men so easily to an admission of their sinfulness by representing God's wrath and producing in them a feeling of terror, as by holding up before them the Divine compassion and kindness.

Come here!" says a father to his child; "you played truant, it seems." "No, I did n't," says the boy. "You did n't? Now, don't undertake to deceive me; you did! You see that whip; you know what is coming; own that 5 you did it." "I did n't do it." "Well, how came you not to be at school?" I was sent on an errand." "Who sent you?" "The schoolmaster."

Suppose, instead of approaching the boy in anger, and driving him into a succession of lies through fear, the man had called him to him, and said: "Have you had a pleasant time, my son? You have been weak to-day. I am very sorry for you. I know you were tempted; and you gave way to the temptation. If I had been with you I could have helped you. Perhaps I can help you some now. I am very sorry that you did that. I don't mean to punish you; but I want to help you out of this weakness."

All the time the boy's tears are running down his cheeks; he does not deny the charge; and when his father goes on to point out the indecorum of which he

is guilty, the ruin to which it will lead him if he persists in it, and the bad example which he has set in the school, he feels worse and worse; and when finally the father asks, "What will your mother think of it?" he boo-hoos right out. He cannot bear to have his mother told; and the father says, "If you will try to do better, I won't say anything about it"; and he is exceedingly grateful to his father; and the next time he is tempted to play truant all his best feelings rise up to hinder him; and all in him that is generous and loving says, "I don't want to do it."

In the one case the father came to the boy with wrath and penalty, and the boy hardened himself and resisted. In the other case, the father came to the boy with the same charge, but he did it in such a way as to bring him into a condition in which his best moral feelings were roused against temptation.

Ought we not, then, to gather some lessons from things that are taking place through the providence of God in every Christian household, in every household that is controlled by Christian affections; and, above all, by that supremest of all inspirations, love? Are they not, in some remote sense, revelations of the Divine plan and the Divine methods? When we turn from these things to the New Testament, and see the way of our Lord, may we not understand that one mode of preaching to men so as to bring them to a sense of their sinfulness is to preach to them, I will not say excusatorily, I will not say in a manner which will make sin seem less sinful, but so that they shall not think of you as standing over them like a sheriff who has a writ to serve upon them, or who has a sentence of execution

which is to take them to the block? You are to preach so that men shall feel that the things which you say to them are spoken out of kindness and love. I do not think that ministers quite enough put themselves out of their profession.

KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO SYMPATHY.

A boy at the age of about ten or eleven years rather turns to the subject of the Christian ministry. He rather selects his company with the view that he may be a minister. He rather thinks he shall be. He knows that his mother is praying for it all the time, and he would like to fulfill her hopes. He reads good books, and goes with good boys, and is a good boy himself. When he goes to school, he is a model boy. He does not have any association with bad boys. When he goes to the academy, he is still rather remarkable as a good boy; and by this time he begins to know it. When he reaches the college, he goes right into the college prayer-meeting, and is soon made a deacon in the college church. He walks in the ways of the wise, and really does not know much about human life outside. He has very little acquaintance with what are the troubles of bad and high-spirited young men in college. And as soon as he gets to the theological seminary he is put to bed with Emmons and all the other excellent saints of New England. He lives with them. And when he is ordained as a minister he goes to all the associational meetings, and to all the councils, and is everywhere in close relations with his own kind and class. So it comes to pass that he is one of the most exemplary of all the men that go into the pulpit. But, really, he knows next to nothing

about the way in which ordinary men live in this world. He cannot put himself in anybody's place.

Jesus descended from the loftiest position, took upon himself the form of a man, humbled himself, became a servant, and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, or, as we should put it in our modern phrase, the gallows. He walked among men from the highest to the lowest, and made himself personally acquainted with every trial and sin. He was tempted in every faculty, and yet without sin. He knew what was in men, and he knew how to make allowance for them. He was their High-Priest, symbolized by the Jewish high-priest. Like ourselves, he knew what human infirmities were, and he had compassion upon those who were out of the way. This was the peculiarity of Christ, that he sympathized with sinners.

With how many young professional ministers is it the case that they do not know the great round of weakness and infirmity, as well as guilt, which prevails in the community! How men are born into life, - with what limitations; with what different degrees of opportunity; with what biases; with what partial education, wrong education, or excellent education! Some men are born with might and power of will and passion almost irresistible. Some men go mourning all their life long that their stream of success runs so slender, and is so full of shallows and sand-bars. Some men, in their feelings, are swept as leaves in autumn by the tempest; and some men never know what a breeze of feeling is. Some men are invincible by money, and others are vincible by it. Some men, in their pride, are like snow-capped mountains, grand, high, white,