simple, common, honest, racy, idiomatic words and phrases are not only the strongest, but often the most eloquent. The cumbrous euphuisms of a

pulpit patois are neither pleasant to the taste, nor good for food. Doubtless many sermons which seem dry would be found to be really succulent if they could only be translated (though others, indeed, might suffer from such a process); but they are given in a language and in tones which no one ever hears at his table, or in his parlor, or in a railway car; and it is difficult to believe that a person who has anything to say would talk in such a fashion. Paul was as argumentative, as abstract, as learned, as theological, as any one need be, but his words were concrete and cleaving. I do not always understand him, but I feel confident that he understood himself. The line of his arguments sometimes seems to run zigzag, but you can see that he is in deadly earnest. He was so interested that he became interesting. Sympathy makes up for sense. Through all these eighteen hundred years his dead lips speak with a fire and fervor, his silent voice rings out with a clearness and power, that many a living voice and living lips do not attain.

It is a mistake to suppose that sermons on everyday life in every-day language require less study and thought than others. They require more. When you come down to matters which every one touches at some point, every one is plaintiff, de

fendant, advocate, and judge. A clergyman can write the learned lore of the schoolmen, and we are so little interested and know so little what he is aiming at, that he has things pretty much his own way. A man may build us a pantheon or a pagoda, and we cannot swear that it is not the one nor the other. But if he undertakes to build us a house to live in, we shall know whether he succeeds, and he must hit the nail on the head, or he will bruise his hands, besides driving the nail awry. Nor does the use of common language mean the use of vulgar language. Colloquialisms sometimes will illustrate truth, but they should be used only in a state of fusion. To go out of one's way to use them, is to abuse them. Vulgarity is always inadmissible. No fancied benefit can atone for the employment of such words and phrases as "scamp," "turn up your nose," etc., which I have heard used in Orthodox pulpits. A minister should be the last to countenance terms which are unbecoming in a gentleman.

Do these things seem trivial? But God, in ordaining his priesthood, would not be ministered unto by a man who had a flat nose. How much less shall one serve in his sanctuary with unclean lips!

I am afraid that I may seem to be making out the people to be a kind of injured innocent, and the pastor an ogre preying upon it. Not so. The

people have faults and to spare. With the wisest manipulation, there will doubtless always be some fault. But a people is not all fault. That is the point I wish to bring into prominence. If I have made it too prominent, it will only balance undue depression, and the average altitude will not be far wrong.

It may be said, also, Why seek to bring people to church, if church services are so deficient? Why? Because half a loaf is better than no bread. Because God commands us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Because experience shows that a community without a church is very likely to become a community without God. Because you always expect a church-going people to be more respectable, virtuous, and benevolent than one that is not, and you are seldom disappointed. But when you look at the other side, so appalling is the extent of practical heathendom, so shallow is the depth of practical Christianity, that it almost seems as if everything still remains to be done. We are as good as we are, because our ministers are so good; we are as bad as we are, because they are no better. Like people, like priest. A people must be as low as its lowest; it can be no higher than its highest.

I have not drawn any fanciful picture of parochial bliss. It is from ministers themselves that I have learned what ministers may be. It is in the

light of the pulpit that pulpit shadows deepen. If I had not known the influence which ministers may exert over people, if I had not known the love and respect which people may feel towards ministers, I should not have dreamed what that influence and that deference may be. I have mentioned no defect which has not fallen under my own observation. I have painted no grace which is not from the life. If the standard is set too high, it is not my hand that bore it. I have but pointed to its folds, floating far up in the clear, pure air, not without a hope that the sight may do somewhat towards inspiring the fervent battle-cry, "Forward! All forward!"

VI.

PRAYER-MEETINGS.

HEN they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it." But if the

Lord hearkens to everything that is said at our prayer-meetings, and if, beneath the words, he discovers the underlying motive and feeling, I sometimes fear that his book of remembrance will receive its largest accession of names from other quarters. Prayer-meetings,

meetings for prayer, - yet

how little real praying,

for that matter, how little praying of any kind. By way of illustration, let me mention one instance. At the instigation of certain missionaries, a prayer-meeting was to be held a short time ago, for several nights in succession, simultaneously throughout Christendom. At one of these meetings, which lasted three hours, there were two, possibly three prayers; not more. The rest of the time was consumed