strength visibly declined, his appetite failed, and his spirits sank. He was attacked by his last sickness in January of the following year; it was a fever, accompanied with erysipelas. To the latter affection he had been subject for many years; but it now broke out with uncontrollable violence. Almost from the beginning he was under the influence of delirium, without any lucid interval of much length. Yet he once became sufficiently self-conscious to refer to his present state, and to avow his trust in God through Christ, for the pardon of his sins. Fifty days of helplessness and suffering, sometimes very acute, did he pass, during which his patience and magnanimity must have been drawn upon to the utmost, yet no murmuring accent ever escaped him. He died on Sunday, the 6th of March, 1825, being seventy-eight years of age. As we take our last view of the life and character which we have undertaken to delineate, we are involuntarily reminded of those half sportive but solemn verses of Cowper, in which he computes the value of a day's conversation, as too justly descriptive of the real worth of Dr. Parr's life and labors. Collect at evening what the day brought forth, ARTICLE III. THE IDEAL OF A PERFECT PULPIT DISCOURSE. By Rev. HENRY N. DAY, Professor of Sacred Rhetoric, Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio. We shall not be chargeable with extravagance or presumption, if we assume that pulpit oratory belongs to the highest grade in eloquence. Whether we consider its designs, its materials, or its occasions, we are constrained to claim for it an equal rank, at least, with any other species whatever. That the eloquence of the pulpit has actually risen to the highest excellence of which it is capable, may, perhaps, be a matter of doubt. We have, indeed, in our numerous collections of sermons, beautiful specimens of composition; we have brilliant effusions of genius and great richness of learning; we have, what is more perhaps, unsurpassed efforts in argumentation and persuasion. But where shall we look, in sacred eloquence, for those perfect models which we find in secular oratory? where is the preacher in whom stands forth embodied the idea of a perfect orator? Have we yet, indeed, attained a conception of a perfect standard of pulpit discourse? Where, in all our treatises on the homiletic art-where, in all our systems of æsthetics, is it presented in any such light as to show that the idea has been fully, distinctly, self-consciously grasped? Where is the living teacher, in our numerous schools of sacred rhetoric, who succeeds in infusing this idea into the minds of his disciples, so that they go forth fully possessed of it,-inventing, composing, speaking, under the control of it,-impressing it more or less completely in all their discourses? Has the mind any where been distinctly turned on this point, the possibility of conceiving a perfect discourse? Has the question been agitated, Can there be in sacred eloquence, as in sculpture, in painting, in the drama, a development of the essential idea of perfection? of the beau ideal in pulpit oratory ?-does æsthetical science embrace this field, also, in her domain, and can she establish here any firm, intelligible, and trustworthy principles ? Distinguishing, then, as we may, between the theoretical and the empirical-between what is ideally practicable in pulpit eloquence and what has already been attained, we may assume that there is here room for indefinite progress and improvement. But while in any art there may be tendency towards perfection without any distinct apprehension of the essential idea of the art, by which, as a perfect standard, every product of the art may be tried, so, until that idea is grasped and the standard ascertained, it is clear that tendency must be irregular, slow and fitful. Even if that perfect idea is not fully realized, if only approximations to that standard are attained, still, unless essential error be embraced, that imperfect standard will not be without its value in inspiring and directing effort. In the hope, therefore, of contributing something to the improvement of that most important art-pulpit oratory-we propose, at the present time, to attempt the development of the essential idea of a perfect pulpit discourse. Before entering directly on this design, it will be of use to indicate and justify the ground that is taken in the discussion, as well as more clearly and distinctly to define our object. It must have been observed, in what has already been said, that we regard pulpit eloquence as an art; and not merely an art in that more general sense in which none would deny it to be an art, a product of human skill, but in that stricter, more specific sense, in which it implies a definite aim or end, with a reference to which the whole product of the art is contrived and shaped. For the same may be said of eloquence which has been said with so much truth and beauty of the sister art of poetry. "There is an art, the child of a joyous nature, which sings from a mere inability to do aught but sing. Its song, as has been well said, is the voice of nature-the spontaneous outburst of its own and the national feeling. Very different is her sister art, which selects and considers, has views and follows aims; art, self-conscious of art." There is an eloquence which merely overflows; which issues at no prompting of reason, and follows no guidance of reason; which flows out spontaneously because the fountain is full, and falls, it knows not, it cares not where. Such eloquence is rational only inasmuch as it proceeds from a rational soul, all whose motions are tinged with rationality. Reason, however, in the exercise of its own proper prerogative, exerts upon it no control. This eloquence we sometimes meet with. There are those who court it. The uncontrolled outpourings of a feeling soul, the unchecked rovings of a restless imagination are with them the highest effusions of eloquence. Such effusions-they cannot be called productions—are sometimes poured from the pulpit. They constitute, it is supposed, nature's pure eloquence uncorrupted by art. This kind of eloquence, which is mere expression without further object or aim, is not oratory. For oratory, in its essential import, is address, and necessarily implies an end out of itself. Such eloquence, therefore, is excluded from the comprehension of art in our notion of the term. Art, in its stricter sense, necessarily implies the control of the reason; and reason never acts without an aim. Nothing, therefore, is worthy of the name of art in which there is not a definite end or aim proposed and pursued. Art is highest in its nature when the noblest aim is proposed. It is most perfect in degree, when that aim is most strictly and perfectly pursued. We shall not stop here, from these almost self-evident propositions, to establish for pulpit oratory the highest rank among the arts; or to demonstrate the erroneousness of that opinion which regards the attentive study of the peculiar aim of sacred eloquence and of the means of accomplishing it, together with all systematic training in the use of these means, as worthless or absolutely injurious, because it cramps the free movement of the spirit; or to expose the folly, we may say the criminality of those, who, to their preparations for the pulpit, apply no severe effort of reason, but leave all to passion, fancy, and a purely spontaneous intellect. But it seems necessary to dwell, one moment longer here, in defining and vindicating the ground from which the development of the essential idea of the art of eloquence must proceed, in order to throw in an illustration or two for the preventing of misapprehension. It is certain that different minds move very differently in the process of artistic construction. We may distinguish, particularly, two great classes, in this respect, not separated from each other in regard to the individuals which compose them by any well defined line, but represented rather by the extremes to which the one or the other of the individuals more or less approximates. In the one class, we observe the subject taking a firm and controlling hold of the producing mind, and, although working even in subordination to the final end or aim, yet seeming to proceed only from its own peculiar grounds, as if irrespective of any such end. In the other class, it is the end which seems to control; and the subject seems to be merely an instrument to that end, although never managed in violation of its own nature. We may easily perceive how minds from both these classes might produce, from the same subject and with the same end, essentially the same perfect result, when we consider the matter from this point of view, that truth in reference to a designated end admits, theoretically, of but one perfect development; and that a particular end to be accomplished by a specified truth can be perfectly attained only in one particular way, and these forms, being in the one case a development, in the other a process, are coincident. We could not desire happier exemplifications of this distinction than are furnished to us in the two great poets of Germany, contemporaries and intimates. Schiller is the representative of the first class. In him the subject seems the great thing. Every where we discover the earnestness which characterizes one wholly possessed of his idea which labors within him struggling for expression, and never resting till it has fully developed itself in objective reality. What that shall be, it seems little anxious. With him art is a travail, and its product is a birth. Goethe is the opposite of all this. It is the end which always seems uppermost in his mind. He seems to stand aloof from the subject, in respect to which he appears to be perfectly indifferent, and uses it only as a tool to the accomplishment of his object. With him art appears under the image of a sculptor, with the perfect form of an Apollo in his eye, taking almost with indifference his block of marble, and, under the controlling guidance of that ideal form, fracturing and chiseling till his idea is realized. Schiller's birth, it is however to be carefully remarked, is no shapeless monster, although living, nor is Goethe's product mere form without life. The birth and the product are identical. The mistake which we wish to correct or prevent is, that Schiller is not equally under the control of art as Goethe. The difference between them lies not here; but in the different manner in which art influences them. In both cases, there is a perfect conception of what art requires-of the definite end, and of the means of attaining it. In both there is a perfect observance of the end and adherence to the principles of art for its attainment. In the one case, art plants itself on the subject; in the other, upon the end or aim. În both it equally controls the production. Schiller's eloquence is the farthest possible removed from the socalled eloquence of nature. It would be idle to inquire which method implies the greater mental power; as to inquire whether perfection does not involve a blending of the two. It is evident that in oratory the end and the subject, for they must correspond to each other, the nature of a given subject determining the end, and a given end determining the character of the subject,—may, each, or both, determine which method shall predominate. In explanation, thus, the method of proceeding must be deduced from the nature of the subject. In persuasion, on the contrary, the method evidently must be more objective. Regarding, then, sacred eloquence as an art in the stricter sense of the word," art, self-conscious of art," a perfect product of this art, that is, a perfect pulpit discourse, must be strictly conformed throughout to the great end of all pulpit oratory. Not only must the end be seen and aimed at, but it must be undeviatingly pursued in every part of the discourse. It will be unnecessary for our present purpose to go into any exact determination of the essential idea of the art of sacred eloquence generally.* It will be sufficient to take the popular notion of a This point has been discussed at great length by Professor |