Where this is not the case-where a free division of the subject appears to have the advantage of enabling a man to treat it in a more thorough manner, or introduce a greater variety into his discourse, it should certainly be preferred."

To the arrangement of his sermons, succeeds a consideration of the manner of their composition, or, briefly, their style. Reinhard acknowledges many imperfections in this respect-which are amply extenuated, when we remember the multiplicity and extent of his daily and hourly occupations. Yet to a paltry objection, which regards the accident of several of his sermons commencing with two or three short syllables, he answers by citing the example of Cicero, who began one of his most fervent orations with the word venio. The imperfections he confesses to are of a very different order-and the statement of them is given in terms of a rare and admirable candour. "The expression is not always so excellent, definite, and intelligible, as it ought to be; is not rich enough, and does not contain sufficient variety. Sometimes it is too brief, and not sufficiently clear; at others it is too verbose, and contains something that is superfluous. It is often destitute of that easy movement, that ready flow, in which everything seems to spring naturally forth of itself. Sometimes the ear is offended by a disagreeable location of the words; at others it is displeased or filled with one that is defective. And, finally, the transition from one part to another is not always sufficiently easy and natural, too often recurs, and exhibits too great an appearance of uniformity."

That, in the use of certain words and phrases which are commonly liable to the charge of pedantry, Reinhard was perfectly excusable, is obvious, when it is remembered of what character generally his audience consisted. In Wittemberg it was almost exclusively scholarly—while at Dresden it was composed, in a great measure, of men of well-educated minds; and hence there was even an absolute call for the use of thoughts and language of a standard much more elevated than those which ought to be addressed to assemblages purely popular. The preacher, it is therefore to be concluded, whose charge lies in a walk of life, the great proportion of which comprises intellects of an ordinary stamp and education, ought to be careful in the avoidance of trains of argument or reflection, and even turns of phraseology, which, because they soar much above the grasp of his audience, must be worse than vain and out of place. There is, however, a false simplicity which many, on the other hand, employ in their discourses to ordinary congregations, that is, at once, meagre, barren, and vulgar. This is the case when, as Reinhard says, a man speaks to grown persons as he would to children." The preacher should, by no means, lower himself in his attempts at clearness of expression; for it is perfectly possible for him to expound sterling thoughts in pure and simple diction, without their being shorn, in the smallest degree, of their vigour. And one important end gained by thus presenting them, is that of insensibly elevating the minds of his audience to his own level, instead of its being necessary that he should stoop to their unimaginative pitch.

The difficulty of a modern orator accommodating himself with entire

success to those very mixed assemblies he may require to address, is one which, it must be allowed, did not encumber the orators of ancient times. Strictly speaking, there were no mixed assemblies in ancient times. They were exclusively of a popular cast-perfectly familiar with the subject on which the speaker expended his eloquence; and they listened in anticipation of none but ordinary, and, of course, fully intelligible forms of expression being used in its exposition.* With the modern speaker the case is different. The invention of printing has created a reading public, who are familiar with books and their phrases; and thus has arisen the mixed assembly composed of such individuals on the one hand, and of men of uneducated understandings on the other. The orator, therefore, who addresses an assembly of this character, cannot employ the simple phrases of ordinary usage, but at the risk of disgusting that portion of his hearers who belong to the polished east-while, if he should launch into a diction elaborated by all the sound and ornament of book language, he puts to certain hazard the chance of his being at all intelligible to the other and commoner portion of the assembly. The difficulty, therefore, unknown amongst the ancients, is so to temper his language into a middle style between the two extremes, that the preacher shall satisfy both without offending either. And the attainment of such an art is perhaps the most decisive evidence of the presence of that earnestness of Christian spirit, too little desiderated at the present day we fear, but before which there is hardly a barrier of human prejudice and ignorance, but must, sooner or later, give away.

In Reinhard's sermons, it will be noted, in addition to what has been remarked as to his diction, that he uses, more frequently than is advis able, the two forms of interrogation and exclamation. The former, when well employed, lends point and vehemence to the expression; but, like most weapons of great effectiveness, in the very rarity of its use consists its strength. When profusely introduced, it becomes blunted, and strikes without piercing. A sermon, moreover, lavishly furnished with the point of interrogation, because requiring a continued strain of the lungs in its delivery, will prove exhausting beyond measure. The figure of exclamation should also be sparingly used; it involves an emotional state of the mind, and all emotion is of that delicate texture, which, by repetition, loses its fine and penetrative essence, while there are left behind the mere dregs of insipidity.

There is room for much art being exhibited in the transitions from one division or sub-division of a sermon to another. Reinhard compares these parts to the limbs of the body, and the points of transition to the joints uniting them, which, unless hinged on the principles of the easiest and most natural flexure, would result in a being indescribably stiff and angular, and painfully racked throughout, on the simplest movement

* Had the orator of Greece or Rome introduced into his declamations either poetical imagery or philosophical terms unintelligible to the multitude, he would have been greeted with ridicule and censure. Hence Cicero frequently apologizes when he found himself under the necessity of using expressions of a philosophical or scientific import.-Pro Archia Poeta, c. 2; the conclusion of the same Oration; and Pro Morena, c. 29.

being necessary. In his own sermons he did not succeed in this secret of transition, so fully as to realize his idea of perfect ease and grace. He blames himself for being frequently unnatural in passing from one main division of his subject to another; and he exhorts every student to spare no pains in attaining such a mode of evolving these parts, as that the one shall rise in sequence from the other, of its own accord, as it were. In his subdivisions again, he animadverts on a prevailing uniformity of transition. "Often, indeed," he says, "these transitions are quite easy and natural, especially when the words with which a division closes remind the reader of the succeeding one, and prepare him for it,-when the grand division is of such a character, that one division follows from another,—and, finally, when there is a gradation in the parts. If, however, any person reads a number of my sermons in succession, he will find these easy and natural transitions frequently returning, and too little diversified. This is a subject also upon which those must reflect, who wish to render their discourses highly perfect."

He was tempted moreover to adopt, in his transitions from one division to another, that mode of rounding off a point called by the ancient rhetoricians, complexion. It may be used with advantage, when a subject having been carefully and accurately divided, it is wished to impress each with force and exactitude upon the hearers' memories; the speaker then concludes each part with a precise repetition of the argument he has just used, generally in the same phrase in which at the outset he stated his proposition, so that it can hardly fail in securing the attention desired. This instrument of complexion likewise gives an air of finish to the several parts of a discourse, besides rendering the whole progress of the argument, and the transitions from one stage to the other throughout, perfectly obvious and natural. But, by its constant use, the preacher will err in burdening his productions with a uniformity, which is often destructive of an audience's interest. "Here then," adds Reinhard, "is another imperfection, which every one should seek to avoid in working out a discourse."

In a proper use of pronouns in his sermons, Reinhard acknowledged considerable difficulty, frequently feeling at a loss how to arrange his sentences, so as to leave no chance of reference being made to a wrong antecedent. In many cases, the obscurity resulting from this difficulty cannot be avoided, except by erasing the whole sentence, and recasting the thought in an entirely new form. In English, the philosophical use of nouns in regard to gender, and the liberty allowed us of personifying neutral objects, save us from much of the embarrassment attaching to the German language in the above particular; but, as every writer of this country must know, we are by no means exempt from the difficulty specified. The sense, it is true, may usually guide us to the proper references; but we must remember, that, in listening to a discourse, there are few who can, on the instant, exert a reflex effort in grasping the true meaning, and the effort is one that must be made on the instant, or abandoned altogether.

In now concluding his Confessions, Reinhard transcribes a paragraph which presents, in few words, a genuine portrait of that trait of unaffected

modesty, which we have several times had occasion already to remark, as distinctively belonging to him. "I must acknowledge," he says, "that I never sit down to read any of my sermons with a critical eye, without finding single expressions, turns, and even whole periods, which might have been written far better. Indeed I never arise from such a reading with any real satisfaction; but generally with pain, on reflecting that, with all my labour and diligence, I have come far short of satisfactorily and truly representing what my mind had conceived, as my own feelings required it should be; and, even now, with all my experience, I come far short of the standard of excellence to which I wish to attain. The venerable Blessig has expressed a wish, that, out of my numerous sermons, a selection of a few volumes of the best might be made, and published as a kind of legacy to posterity. I doubt whether posterity will care anything about such a legacy. And then who would make the selection? And if it were made, as it would contain nothing new, who would print it ?"*

In these words does Reinhard end his interesting Confessions. We may say of them, in the words of Terence-Nosse hæc omnia salus est adolescentulis. Their value does not consist in opening up a talismanic spring, which every hand may touch with success: they merely point to principles on which the mighty machinery may be worked with great and harmonious results, but not without the application of arduous and unceasing efforts on the part of the student. It cannot be too often repeated, in the apt phrase of Seneca-Non est ad astra mollis à terris via.

An example of unwearied diligence from his early youth, Reinhard remained one till the last hour of his existence, though his decline was through a long tract of dark and dreary days of pain and sickness. Indeed, during his whole life he bore the burthen of broken health; and it is therefore the more remarkable, that his achievements should have been so numerous, varied, and splendid. That he was reprehensible, however, in according too little attention to his bodily health, we think may decidedly be inferred. In heedlessly prosecuting our mental occupations at the expense of that curious and sensitive structure in which the mind is sustained, it is obvious we are distinctly violating a principle of nature-if so, one of God's laws-and we are, therefore, morally and most gravely culpable. This fact is too little attended to in many cases, as, in looking around us on the circle of a studious class, we have sad enough reason, each year as it passes, to remark. And what we must consider as a high offence in eulogistic writers, is the frequency with which this practice of overworking the brain, till it is brought prema

* Many of Reinhard's sermons may be perused with the greatest profit; and a judicious selection of them would constitute a valuable production in this country. A translation of sixteen Family Discourses has already been executed, in one 8vo. volume, (M. MACPHAIL, Edinburgh,) the subjects of which, as well as their admirable treatment, and the fidelity and judgment conspicuous in the translator, ought to commend them strongly to every class of theological as well as ordinary readers. Let it be constantly borne in mind, however, under what peculiar circumstances Reinhard wrote and delivered his sermons, if it be thought there is a difference between his productions and what has been styled our "revival sermons."

turely to the dust, is applauded as heroism of the noblest kind; and with how little consideration it is implied, nay, directly insinuated, that where the glow within is too ardent and self-consuming, the bands that confine it must give way, that the spirit may be permitted to soar to its native empyrean. Now, in our opinion, a man may, in an excess of zeal on the side of truth, trample, perhaps unconsciously, on certain rights or sound principles that may lie in his way as he presses on, and be as little blamable, in the eye of righteous judgment, as he who thus wastes, madly and uselessly, the rich and precious gift of a wise Creator, under the plea that the sacrifice is made in His service. It is a poor mockery and self-delusion to dream that such a sacrifice can be acceptable. Nay, even taking it to be a question of greater or less service done in the sight of Heaven, how many young heads lie mouldering in the dark sepulchre, which might be rising even now in the midst of the congregation of God's people, crowned with honour and reverence, but for the ignis fatuus that burned so fatally in the "heat-oppressed brain!" But the truth is, that we are inhibited from tampering with the marvellous system of our outer frames, as clearly and pointedly as from the infraction of any other divine injunction, or the transgression of any other law the finger of God has traced in our constitution. To labour incessantly, ere we can attain great moral or intellectual eminence, is the lot, as it may be made the privilege, of our nature; that it may prove the latter, it must be mingled with a pervading recollection of those tempered principles of harmony, which shine in all the features of the moral administration of the Most High-and that just consideration which neither despises nor neglects anything, as too earthly or unworthy, which that Great Being has stamped with the fiat of His ordination.

But in the instance of Reinhard there is much palliation in the circumstance, that his diseases were in a great degree constitutional, rather than self-induced. And in the midst of their oppressive load, his Christian patience and equanimity never gave way, to the very last he was found to bear his burden with a cheerful spirit. Indeed, to transcribe the incidents of his life, from the period of his attaining the dignity of Court Preacher till his death in 1812, would be, in effect, to write his highest eulogium, so distinguished were his services in the cause of truth -especially of evangelical truth-and so exemplary was his minute and regular discharge of every duty his office entailed upon him. We need hardly do more, therefore, than refer our readers to those sources whence they can easily obtain a fuller estimate of his life and character, than it lies within the range of our present subject to exhibit.

As a writer, however, he claims one or two additional observations. Besides contributing largely to periodical literature in a spirit of the most enlightened criticism, and furnishing the world with upwards of thirty volumes of sermons, as already mentioned, he produced an important work, stamped with his own peculiar character, and on which his reputation must permanently rest-we mean his Christian Ethics. It has been considered a repertory of his vast array of sermons. At all events, it is the offspring of a mind fervently built up in the sound philosophy which is based upon faith alone.. Writing without bias towards any