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the truth. He cared for nothing which did not stir the soul to some good practical end. The simplicity and sincerity with which he yielded himself to this end, and intensely stretched his powers for it, was what characterized him as preacher and pastor, gave profound effect to his ministrations, and finally wore him out in the service. And when he assumed the professor's chair, in the height of his reputation, and amid high-raised expectations, the critical eyes of Cambridge students could discover nothing but the simple, unambitious, earnest desire of the highest usefulness in preparing them for the same work; a conviction which could hardly fail to produce upon their minds, as it had done upon the popular mind, a profound impression in favor of the man, and of the justness and moment of his object.

With regard to the means by which Mr. Ware tried to meet an object so high and arduous, he was correct, almost to singularity, in his high estimate of the importance of superior religious excellence in the minister. This opinion was uniformly acted upon, and frequently expressed by him, at all periods of his life, and was constantly enjoined upon students in theology under his instruction. It is expressed very fully in a letter to his own son, then about to make choice of his father's profession. "To make a good and happy minister, a man must be such from taste and affection; he must be a religious man first; he must be a minister because impelled to be so by his religion, and not be religious because impelled to be so by his profession. I could be happy, therefore, in encouraging you to this great step, just in proportion as I had cause to believe, that an interest in religious things had become the chief and moving concern in your mind." No minister, we suppose, was ever more free from professional airs and assumptions, than Ware. None we believe was ever more successful than he in performing his ministerial duties, simply as a religious man speaking to his fellow-men, and telling them of that which he himself had experienced, and summoning them to embrace the same faith, to taste the same joys, gain the same victories and pursue the same objects. In his judgment, all of the professional which there should be in a Christian minister, consists in his being a leader and example in those Christian qualities and enterprises, to which he summons his fellow-men. He felt how necessary it was to the successful discharge of his duties, that he should possess in a superior degree those qualities of character which he inculcated upon others, just as it is needful that the successful general should possess superior courage, skill, energy and endurance.

Ware frequently and earnestly deprecated a tendency, which he thought he detected, in the public estimate of ministers, to exalt intellectual above moral qualifications for the office. In his own theory and practice he reversed the order. In his view, the

genuine power of the pulpit lay not in the superiority of the spoken to the written word, nor in the tones and manner, and impressiveness of style, and weight of thought, but in the man who spoke. If he uttered his own experience truthfully, and without exaggeration, there was genuine power. Then there was truth, not merely transmitted through a mouth-piece, but received, digested and acted forth as the product of the living man. Of course the more impressively this was done, the better. But when the material itself was wanting, or fell short of the preacher's representation, then all the arts and tricks of oratory were a poor substitute, unworthy of the high office.

And in our own judgment, no preacher has truer dignity, deeper or more wholesome efficiency than he, who, in his representations of faith, declares just what he himself believes and no more, and in the shape in which the truth presents itself to his own mind; who sets forth that style of Christian character, which he himself exemplifies and seeks to perfect, and no other; who urges those motives which he finds it practicable to be governed by; whose preaching, and whose prayers are in deed and in truth, the just, faithful and living expression of the practical views and notions of the man, and not of some abstract traditional and mooted style of piety and religious duty, which it may be every body is praising, but in which no body sincerely believes. The work of such a man will abide. Succeeding generations may build upon it as a foundation. The Christian preacher who dares not be thus true to himself and to his own religious experience, through fear of some phantom of orthodoxy, or some idol of the religious public, acts unworthily of the plain dignity of a religious teacher, and forsakes the only source of the truest power. The Christian preacher who dares thus utter himself, or rather the working of God's grace in himself, will find a fountain of thought and feeling fresh and perennial, the flowings forth of which can not fail to cheer, refresh and render fruitful in good words and works, the hearts of his hearers.

At the same time, who does not see and feel, as Ware deeply and solemnly felt, the obligation imposed, in this view, upon the minister who would be at once true to himself, and efficient in his ministrations, to engage with diligence in the work of selfculture, that he may first be and do all that he would lead his people to be and to do.

Having this idea of religious character and experience as the true source of ministerial efficiency, Ware regarded the private intercourse of the minister with his people as not less important than his work in the pulpit. Not that he was much inclined to religious conversation, or had a high opinion of its utility. But he would bring before his people familiarly in its every-day expression, the power of a Christian character. He sought to make

that power as pervasive as possible in its efficiency. He would thus lead his people to receive the words of the preacher with the same unhesitating confidence, with which, in private intercourse, they had learned to trust in the man, and to yield to his influence.

It scarcely need be added, in speaking of one so just-minded as Ware, that he went for his faith to the great and common source of all true piety, the Bible. In distinction from all theological dogmas, instead of the uncertainties of human speculation, he rested, and loved to rest his faith upon the simple verities of revelation, especially on Him who is revealed as the way, the truth and the life. He early saw and shunned those tendencies in his own denomination to exalt human reason above revelation, which have since issued in such pernicious vagaries. Did our limits permit, we should love to lay before our readers a letter of his, to one who was lost in the blinding mazes of human speculation, which shows the child-like simplicity of his own faith in Christ. His faith and integrity were equally evinced, in his promptly calling to account his cherished friend and successor, Emerson, for some of his lawless, and as he viewed them, unhallowed and anti-scriptural speculations.

The word of God, not as a dead letter but in proportion as he had made it to live and abide in his own heart and character, he sought to urge upon the faith and the practice of others. So far as he himself was a living epistle of the truths of the Bible, so far did he proclaim them with felt and living energy. Regarding them simply in their practical aspects, he presented and urged them so far as he himself had practically felt their power, on the hearts and consciences of his people, and according to their wants. In the practical realization of them consisted his progress as a preacher of the word. Herein lies the true profiting of every minister. In proportion as he can make the word of God live and abide in himself, is he fitted to minister to his people, and to profit them by his ministrations. It is not the idolized book, but the principles of the word living and abiding in the soul, which is the true source of life and power in the preacher and to the hearer. So thought Ware. And accordingly while none was more steadfast than he in his implicit belief in God's word, none was more true to himself. While also none was more strenuous for the substance, none was more free and untrammeled in the mode of presenting and applying divine truth. In doing this he found a place for the highest literary culture. Studiously regarding even the prejudices of his people, and careful in his treatment of the Scriptures, to say nothing that might shock their cherished associations, he yet made himself, by assiduous culture, master of a style, which for beauty, purity, simplicity, taste, freedom from theological technicalities, and suitableness to the common mind, challenges

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the highest admiration, and seemed to give to the other elements of his power, and influence, an unbroken transmission into the hearts and minds of those whom he addressed.

Says his friend and classmate, Mr. Loring, with whose words we may fitly conclude this notice

"As I have listened with intense interest to his discourses from the pulpit, and none ever went deeper to my heart, I have often wondered how he could produce such astonishing results upon the minds of his audience, with the apparently simple materials he had collected. His exordium and the early portions of his address would seem almost trite and common-place, but for the beautiful transparency of the style, and the apostolic simplicity of his manner: ere long, however, these seemingly quiet, inert elements were, by some sudden yet perfectly natural and almost unperceived combination, collected like scattered rays into a focus, shedding the brightest light upon some topic of moral duty, or exhibiting in a broad glare the hideous deformity of some common sin, or kindling the flame of earnest devotion, throughout the whole assembly. And I delight to trace the beautiful analogy of his life and writings; his widely extended fame and beneficial influence on society, a light shining far and wide, the beaming combination of all those quiet and unpretending yet most earnest Christian graces and virtues, which marked him from the cradle to the grave."-Vol. II, pp. 273, 274.

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ART. VII.-CHRISTIANITY APPLIED TO SOCIAL

QUESTIONS.

Conférences sur le Christianisme dans son application aux Questions Sociales. Par EDMOND DE PRESSENSÉ. Paris: Imprimerie de Marc Ducloux et Comp. Rue Saint-Benoît, 7. Librairie Philosophique de Ladrange. pp. 335, oct.

1849.

THE Author of this work is co-pastor with Rev. Louis Bridel. of the chapel Taitbout, Rue de Paris. These Conférences, or familiar lectures, were delivered in that chapel in the months of April and May, 1849, to a large and very miscellaneous audience, attracted by the theme at a time when Socialism was threatening to engulph the new republic in a sea of blood. They were thought by the friends of evangelical religion in Paris to be timely and useful; and yet we find the author in his preface, a few weeks later, raising the question whether the lectures were still opportune, "since in these times weeks amount almost to years" -a striking comment on the fluctuations of French politics and French opinions. But there is no subject the discussion of which could be more opportune, not only in France, but in this country, than this very subject of the application of Christianity, the spirit and the principles of the Gospel of Christ, to all questions relating to the organization and the economy of society. It demands just now the special attention of the Christian patriot and

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philosopher. These grave questions should not be left to be determined by theorists who discard Christianity as antiquated or effete.

In the present article our object will be simply to introduce the subject and to indicate some of its bearings by giving an outline of Mr. Pressensé's lectures, with occasional comments.

His first lecture is on the "Connection between the Religious Problem and the Social Problem of the Age." In showing this connection he treats of the pre-eminence to be given to the principle of love both in systems of religious faith and in social institutions; of the necessity of solving the first or the religious problem before the second or social problem, through the rejuvenescence of religious systems; and of the general position of different schools with respect to this double problem. The problem of society is not yet solved. The goal of political progress has been reached in democratic institutions; institutions the most favorable to the moral development of a people, and having sufficient suppleness or elasticity to admit of the free movement of national affairs, and even of the inevitable oscillations of a crisis, without breaking a constitution or invoking a revolution at every step of progress. But the grand question of the true organization of society remains unsettled. Interests and not principles have hitherto been consulted in all attempts to solve that problem, the frequently conflicting interests of classes. But the progress of society is always by means of ideas. And in this view religion. may be regarded as the pivot of society; for as is religion such is society. The great movements of history have sprung from movements of the religious sentiment for better or for worse. What is needed therefore for the renovation of society is a religious renovation, a renovation in the religious ideas of the age corresponding with the external changes in society which the times demand. From the religious principle or sentiment must come the motive power in a new order of things. But what is the state of religion itself as related to this work? Neither Catholicism nor Protestantism, as these systems now exist in Europe, is adequate to the wants of society. Since the revolution of February, Catholicism in France, instead of addressing itself to those spiritual wants of the nation which that revolution disclosed, has only sought how best to maintain itself by alliances with the government in its successive changes. By its incessant intrigues for secular power it has lost all moral authority, and has forfeited the respect of the people. Nor is the Protestantism of France much better. With more of true dignity and self-respect than Catholicism, and with a party of progress earnestly seeking in the truths of the Gospel a solution of the questions that agitate society, it has yet looked more to its own conservation than to the remedy of existing evils.

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