be a priest, the great High Priest in heaven and his ministers on earth, "touched with the feeling of his infirmities," and so capable of speaking to his conscience and his heart. He cannot do this, if he be a mere theologian dealing in theory. He must draw largely on his own heart for knowledge. He must learn the avenues to the hearts of others. He must know how men feel, and how to appreciate their various trials, in order most successfully to adapt to them the truth. It is to be feared that there is preaching which grates upon the soul, and chills the struggling heart, because it comes to men with cold abstraction rather than appropriate truth; preaching that gives to the hungering soul a stone when it is asking for bread. There are doubts in many an inquiring mind, tending towards infidelity; there are difficulties of peculiar temperament, or peculiar business engagements, or peculiar domestic trials, which keep the soul from acknowledging Christ Jesus, and taking part with his people; and it will not do, it is often cruel, to meet these with the bare assertion, however true, that the heart is not right, that these doubts and hesitations and delays are wicked and dangerous. That is not the whole truth adapted to the case. let the preacher with a sympathizing heart enter into these circumstances and appreciate their influence, and then with his better knowledge, and from the higher position to which the grace of God has led him, let him seek out right words to meet the exigency. Let him select divine truth adapted to the peculiar circumstances, and present this to his hearers, that he may dissipate their doubts, and help them in spite of all opposing obstacles, however peculiar and however great, to become the disciples of Christ.

But

2. Such sympathy is requisite to enable the preacher to address his audience in a proper tone and spirit. It is demanded not only that the appropriate truth be selected, but also that it be appropriately presented. The manner in which an act is done is sometimes of equal influence with the act itself. Solemn and appropriate truths may be so addressed to the hearers as to be deprived of their due effect upon them. And here I refer not so much to the style of the preaching, in its relation to the intellectual condition of the hearers, as to the general spirit of the discourse, and to those indescribable evidences of the speaker's feeling, which reside combined in his words, his cast of thought, his tones, his gesture.

The minister who dwells much in his contemplation on the heinousness and enormity of sin, as committed against a God of infinite holiness and benevolence, and upon the hardness of the heart, the perverseness of the will in man, is liable perhaps to assume a tone of severity and of censure in his preaching. The position which he occupies as God's ambassador bearing messages founded on immutable truth, addressing rebels, and asserting the rights of his Sovereign, and calling them to re

pentance and submission, may give to him a tone of authority and rebuke. His own deep feeling and jealousy for God's honor may sometimes impart something of indignation to his address. But a little reflection will show that every thing like harshness, or assumed authority, or angry rebuke, is foreign to the spirit which should animate him in his ministrations. His own sense of sin, his experience of the infirmities with which he is encompassed, should teach him to speak with compassion, and a heart yearning with deep sympathy, to his fellow-man. "I also am a man," should be his feelings as he stands in God's name before them.

"I was born of women, and drew milk
As sweet as charity from human breasts.
I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,
And exercise all functions of a man,

How then should I and any man that lives
Be strangers to each other?"

"I also am compassed with infirmity, and therefore will I be compassionate to them that are ignorant and out of the way.": And deeply realizing this, he will be

Indeed, he who contemplates the misery of sin, who looks at the children of men not only as guilty, but also as wretched, must be moved with compassion for them, and have his tone softened and his manner filled with kindness. I would not be misunderstood as overlooking the great fact that man has a wicked heart, that he is a guilty rebel, that an appeal must be made to his conscience, that sometimes the wrath of the offended law must be made to roll its thunders over his soul, and the plain austere language of Divine Justice must be spoken directly to him. I should be sorry to be supposed to countenance that false philosophy, more correctly a mawkish and selfish sentimentality, which overlooks the claims of God, the demands of holiness, in sympathy for the offender. But whilst I would ever maintain the majesty of the Divine Law, and be jealous for the honor of God, I would always address man as a brother, guilty, and to be pitied because he is guilty. If I must be severe, I would never be harsh I would ever speak the truth in love. And when I use the awful terrors of the Scripture, charge home upon him his guilt, and hold up to his view in all its deformity his heart at enmity with God, I would do it with my own heart melting into pity for his miserable state, and longing for his redemption; and in such a way as to show him that what is spoken is of God, and not of man,-is immutable truth, and conveyed to him by a brother's lips that it may affect his heart. I would let him see, and make him feel, that my

spirit is not, "Stand by, for I am holier than thou!" but "Come thou, with me, dear fellow-man, to the fountain that has cleansed my own soul." I would give him no occasion to feel that he is regarded as an outcast, lawless, and not to be loved; but would rather address him as a wanderer whom Love seeks to bring back to the paternal home. I would not let him regard me as a stranger speaking to him merely officially, or professionally, but as one who knows what is in man, who has flesh in his heart, and is of like passions with himself, and is touched by the feelings of his infirmities. I would thus regard myself as occupying, in a certain sense, the place of mediation between man and Christ; and whilst deeply feeling on the one hand my responsibility to my Lord, and anxious to maintain his honor, Í would also feel deeply for my fellow-sinner. While conscious that he must be made to feel his guilt in order to secure his salvation, I would also remember that his condition is most pitiable, and seek by kindness to win him to repentance.

But the sympathy, or compassion of the preacher must not only be of this general nature: it must enter into particulars. And herein do I regard it as especially important. As already remarked, there is a great diversity in the characters and circumstances of men; and the preacher must learn to understand this diversity, to perceive the different shades of character, to appreciate the various influences which bear upon men. There may be harm done by sweeping, indiscriminate charges made against men. We must remember that we are speaking the most awful sentences that lips can utter, when we are charging upon men guilt against God, and telling them that everlasting misery is their doom. And we must remember what anguish our words may be fixing in the soul, or what scorn and hate they may be exciting, We must remember that what we say sweeps over the many hearts before us as a cheering, refreshing breeze, or as a desolating tornado, tearing and heaving the soul, or else as a cold north wind that chills and blesses not. Let me endeavor to illustrate my meaning. We sometimes hear wholesale denunciations of certain classes of men, without making any allowances for any peculiar circumstances. With some preachers it seems to be enough for every case to say, Your heart is all wrong; as if that alone were sufficient to make the heart right. With others it suffices to make the distinction between Christians and men of the world, and to look at men only in these classes, and to use the same language towards all who are not Christians. Now one who knows men, and truly sympathizes with them, will not. do this. He will know that in the vast class which "the world" comprises, there are some struggling towards the light, some manfully striving against doubts and various temptations, some moral and unblamable in life, some "not far from the kingdom of heaven;" and entering into their various circumstances, he will address them with

appropriate thoughts, and appropriate tones of tenderness. All infidels are not to be regarded as abandoned men. That a man has doubts is no evidence of a hopeless depravity. And yet how little sympathy is often entertained for such men! And how are they met with charges of dishonesty, and told simply and sternly, that they have wicked hearts! And how often may their hearts be steeled in wickedness, because they find not the sympathy and aid which their souls are almost breaking to receive! Here are men engaged in business; their duties occupying them from morning till night, their minds necessarily filled with thoughts of their worldly occupations: now, shall the minister overlook their peculiar circumstances, make no allow ance for their difficulties, and show no sympathy with them when urging on them their duty? Take the young; and forget the feelings of your youth, its joys and its sorrows, its temptations and its trials, when you are speaking to them; and will you do them good? Will you demand of them the heart and mind of advanced life? So there are domestic cares and trials, and the thousand little things of daily life which try the temper and test the obedience of Christians, and form the obstacles of the impenitent. All those the preacher should have in view, and his heart should go out kindly to the heart of his brother And so I might go on with countless illustrations to show in what direction this sympathy should be exercised. Just think of it for a moment. The merchant has his trials, and the farmer his; the clerk, the servant, the employer, the mechanic, the husband, the wife, the parent, the child, the man in authority, the man of the world, the rich man, the poor man, the scholar, the man of science, the physician, the lawyer, the church member, the amiable, the passionate, the high-tempered, the meek, the vain,-each has his peculiar difficulties. And what I mean is, that the preacher should not only have sympathy with human nature in general, but should endeavor, as far as possible, to enter into the particular circumstances of each, and treat them all with that moderation and kindness which their case demands.

man.

Again I say, let me not be misunderstood, as regarding sin merely as a disease under which our race is suffering. I would have a preacher ever bear in mind that it is a voluntary thing, a state of heart and life for which the sinner is himself responsible, and for which he must suffer if not delivered from it; and would have him plainly and forcibly as possible set forth the depravity of the heart and the claims of the Law. But I hold that he should also have due regard to the various phases which sin, viewed as a moral disease, does assume, and administer his remedies with the kindness of a physician, who understands the sufferings of his patient, and sympathizes with him.

And this should be so, in order to secure the highest measure of success in the ministry. For as preaching which is indis

criminate in its use of subjects, dealing simply in general truths without selecting such as are adapted to the particular case in hand, as such preaching, wanting directness, will be comparatively ineffectual, so he who fails to show in his manner of preaching that he has a man's heart and truly sympathizes with his fellow-men, will fail to exercise over them the highest degree of influence, and to attain to the most complete success. There is power in sympathy to affect the soul. Denunciation, indiscriminate censure, sweeping charges, are repulsive to the heart, and bar it even against the truth. Sympathy wins the soul. Men listen kindly to one who speaks kindly to them; and when they see that he understands their case and feels for them, they give him their hearts. The voice of coldness, of arrogance, of haughty censoriousness, falls heavily upon them, and they will cast it back if possible; but when the tones are full-freighted with the kind affection of a sympathizing heart, they melt and subdue, and are suffered to make for themselves a way into the soul, and there to apply the needed truth. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." "Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel." Let the people realize that the preacher feels for them, and seeks to meet their wants, and the sternest, most repulsive, most fearful truths of the Divine Word may fall from his lips and sink into their hearts.

3. Sympathy contributes to that earnestness which is a prime element of Pulpit Eloquence. Earnestness connected with valuable thought is power. It always affects the soul of the hearer. The earnest preacher, other things being equal, is the effective preacher. But no man can speak earnestly who does not feel deeply. The heart is the fountain of eloquence. He only speaks "as a dying man to dying men," who knows how to "have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." Sympathy with human nature, a deep conviction of the danger and misery of mankind, an appreciation of their true condition, and a longing desire for their deliverance and salvation,-this alone, together with the right regard for God, can produce the eloquence that is worthy of the pulpit; this alone can infuse earnestness, warmth, animation, affectionate appeal, direct address, strokes powerful, unswerving, carrying truth right home to the heart, into the discourses of the preacher; this alone can enkindle on the preacher's heart that fire, and send forth from his lips those burning thoughts which enkindle a fire in the soul of the hearers. This is the true Promethean energy, which, catching the spark of celestial origin, "creates a soul beneath the ribs of death." This by itself cannot give to the preacher all the graces of oratory; but it can give that which is worth far more than those graces, and without which all mere gracefulness of style and utterance will be but as sounding brass and a tink