sophic observation. Various rules may be given according to which a good composition may be produced, but laws there are to which every good composition, when produced, must conform; for they are as fixed as the laws of mind itself. Systems of rhetoric there may have been of which it may be said, as it was said of the ancient schools of declamation, the more one frequented them, the more unfitted was he for real life; but rhetorical laws there are to which every successful speaker conforms, though he may be wholly unconscious of their existence. These consist not in the trickeries of art; not in artificial tones and attitudes; but in the very soul and energies of speech. Many an obscure individual, whose soul has been on fire with a great subject, has, in his natural eloquence, unconsciously expressed himself with an exact conformity to those laws of speech, which more philosophic men have analyzed, classified, and denominated, in scholastic form, the art of speaking well. Important, indeed, to every preacher of the gospel, is a knowledge of that science, the principles of which, invariable as the laws of heaven, can never be contravened without entire failure. So far as a high state of religious feeling is serviceable at all to a preacher, as such, it is only as it leads him to conform more readily to those rudiments of rhetoric, which a less enlightened piety might affect to despise. Not antagonists are they, but allies. The secret of a religious life is an entire conviction of the truth of God. But self-conviction is the soul of all eloquence. What better definition can be given of eloquence than this: "the power of imparting to others the emotions with which we are ourselves agitated ?" "I believe, therefore do I speak," said the apostle; and herein lies the power of apostolic preaching. Earnestness, perspicuity, directness, simplicity and force are the natural products of an inward conviction. The attempt to convince others concerning that of which we are but partially convinced ourselves, is preposterous in the extreme. He who should aim at supporting an earnest oratory without earnestness at heart, is like the Spartan who studied long and hard to make a corpse stand erect; and the confession extorted from both'will be the same: it wants "ri evdov”something within. Frigid and powerless must that be, which springs not from the heart. The preacher must be convinced and impressed with that which he would impart to others. Hell and destruction must have no covering. The wormwood and

the gall he must have tasted; the demerit and wo of sin he must have seen; the fullness and freeness of the provision which mercy has made for the perishing he must have discovered; the glory of the cross he must have felt. Is not religion pre-eminently a matter of life and experience? and how shall one testify in respect thereto, if but half-convinced of its reality, and a stranger wholly to its power? We know, indeed, that the words of the gospel may be uttered; and the arguments of the gospel advanced; but something more than all this is necessary. An indescribable defect will still remain; for how can one preach not himself, but Christ, if he has not first seen and felt the preciousness of Christ? We will not stop to ask whether there be any correctness in the principle laid down by Cecil, that no man has the moral right to preach beyond his own religious experience; for it will be admitted by all, that he who speaks from experience, when he speaks at all, must speak with the greater force and effect. A celebrated Roman actor, we are told, when performing the part of a bereaved and disconsolate father, brought in his hand the very urn which contained the ashes of his own daughter, knowing well, that if his own heart was broken and melted, his natural manner must be forcible enough. When a man delineates religion not so much as the result of study and reasoning, as a matter of his own history; when he unfolds it with that inexpressible character of life and earnestness which accompany truths drawn from one's own bosom, he cannot be powerless. For consider the magnitude of those objects, with which religious experience is conversant; and the power and volume of that emotion which is enkindled by the verities of Scripture. Under such an impulse, what can prevent one from being eloquent ? Peter the Hermit was eloquent, when, under the power of an affectionate illusion, he roused the courts of Europe to regain the holy sepulchre; Patrick Henry was eloquent, when he struck the notes of freedom, his own soul exalted by the theme; but what are all the objects which ever elicited the fervid eloquence of soldier or patriot, compared with those vast, august and dread realities which swim before the eye, and crowd upon the heart of the minister of Christ? Convinced of these, he ascends the pulpit, bending under the burden of the Lord; and like the apostle, even weeping as he tells his hearers they are enemies of the cross of Christ. His own spiritual experience has left no indistinctness in his mental perceptions.

There is nothing vague or uncertain, nothing obscure or unintelligible in the speech of such a one. He presses earnestly towards his object. His heart's desire is that his hearers may be saved. The power of that inward emotion he cannot conceal. Chains cannot bind it. Mountains cannot bury it. It thaws through the most icy habits. It bursts from the lip. It speaks from the eye. It modulates the tone. It pervades the manner. It possesses and controls the whole man. He is seen to be in earnest; he convinces ; he persuades.

It is a most important service which religion has rendered not only to the eloquence of the pulpit but to every department of Christian literature, by putting the faculties under the pressure and power of a grand motive. The heart of man must be pressed and well-nigh crushed before it will give out its wine and its oil. "Wo is me," said Paul, "if I preach not the gospel of Christ." He who would preach with force and effect, must subject himself to that religious sense of responsibility, which is alone competent to bring into action every dormant faculty; and bear about with him the solemn and weighty reflection that he watches for souls as one that must give an acWhenever the heart and conscience exert their combined power in this direction; every talent will be employed; the whole man is urged to full and efficient action. Cast such a man into prison, and like Bunyan, " ingenious dreamer," will he describe the progress of the soul to God; confine him to a bed of sickness, and like Baxter will he sweetly muse and write of the rest of the saint in heaven; blind his eyes, in total night, and "celestial light" will shine inward, enabling him, like glorious Milton, to

count.

see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Fetter him with chains, and in the very presence of kings and governors, he will, like Paul, reason about a judgment to come; nail him to the cross, his heart will still palpitate with inextinguishable love, and his latest breath will be spent, like his Master's, in praying and speaking for others' good.

Great advantage has he, who is well experienced in religion, by understanding the right method of approach to his hearers. He who knows himself, knows all others also. It is not the wit of the Pilgrim's Progress, keen and fine though

it is, it is not the ingenious form of its construction, nor yet the religious doctrine which it contains, which has made that work the greatest favorite among all classes and ages. It is the consummate knowledge of human nature which it exhibits and discloses; a knowledge which Bunyan acquired, not from books nor from travel, but from his own bosom. In intellectual qualities great are the differences which exist among men. In the essential qualities of the heart all are alike. There is a conscience in every man's bosom. He, accordingly, who has explored his own heart, observed the movements of his own conscience, and disciplined his own affections, is qualified to preach with effect wherever he goes. He addresses those principles and properties which are universal in man. Whether he proclaims his message to the intelligent and refined, or the ignorant and rustic; whether he preaches beneath the domes and turrets of a city cathedral, or in the cabins and forests of the most rural retreat, he deals with man after the same manner, and with the same effect. Circumstances may change, conditions vary, but man is everywhere the same. Hence is it that skilful preaching to the conscience and the heart is not only pow erful, but always popular preaching. After Paul's first sermon in Antioch, the "Gentiles besought him that those words might be preached to them the next Sabbath; and the next Sabbath came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God." "Never man spake like this man," said the rude soldiers who were sent to apprehend our Lord. Doubtless he had been dealing with their consciences; and they dared not lay their hands on one who proved that he knew their very hearts. serve the conversation of our Lord with the woman of Samaria. Under a most simple and beautiful imagery, he informed her, while sitting at Jacob's well, that in him, the Saviour of the world, she might obtain that water of life, which her soul needed. She could not comprehend his meaning. Again was the same illustration repeated, and revolved yet again. Still she remained obtuse, and ignorant of the spiritual truth. Now we see His divine skill. He changes his mode of approach. He touches her conscience. "Go call thy husband." She was living in sin. "He whom she then had was not her husband." Her heart was smitten through by his words; and she went exclaiming: "Come, see the man who told me all that ever I did." No preacher can be popular, in the best sense of the word, that is, capable of reaching and moving all classes of men alike, who

Ob

does not speak directly to the conscience and the heart; for these are the qualities which, amid all the social and intellectual differences of men, are homogeneous and universal the world over. But to this power of speech, no man can attain, except through that intimate knowledge of himself which experimental piety is always sure to promote. The advice of Burns to a young friend is truly characteristic:

Conceal yourself as weel 's you can
Frae critical dissection:

But keek through every other man
Wi' sharpened, slee inspection.

The young minister of the gospel, who would know his fellow-men, must examine his own heart. A strenuous conflict with one bosom sin will teach him more than all reading and observation, for as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. In aid of this knowledge, so indispensable to every preacher, the Bible is the most wonderful of books. Of all books, it is the best for the study of human nature. It is the only book which gives unity to human history and human character. Uninspired men trust to fancy for their delineation of men in the earlier ages of the world. Hence with the beings with whom a fanciful mythology first peopled the world, we have no sympathy; they are not men, but demigods. But inspired history has given us a fresh, distinct and true impression of the human heart, ever since it first beat. We love to feel our oneness with the remotest antiquity. The past lives again when we look upon its emotions; it lives in our own. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are men like ourselves; and Sarah laughing behind the door of her tent, is the same as woman now. Send not the orator to the dramas of Shakspeare, for a knowledge of man, so long as inspiration holds up to nature its large, and true and perfect mirror. The Bible is the text-book of the rhetorician, as well as the exegete and theologian. Men, countries, nations perish; but the affections of the heart are independent of place and time.

There is a certain other effect of piety which is but little thought of, but which is of great price, both to the man and the preacher. We mean its tendency to promote a love for the simple and the natural. It distastes every thing meretricious. It revolts from that which is forced and artificial. The first principle of