age, where shall it find fitter utterance than in the pulpit? What excuse has the liberal preacher for his vocation, but the duty of speaking to the people his private insights? Surely it is robbing the ministry, not only of its independence, but also of its moral dignity and its chief claim upon the respect of mankind, to prohibit instruction from the pulpit in the highest thought and the best wisdom of the age. If the institution of public preaching has its sole raison d'être in a desire to eternize the ideas of less cultured times; to prop up old forms of worship, which bear no relation to the living spirit of the present; and thus perpetuate a cultus which has become less a help than a hindrance to the most highly developed religious consciousness, it will soon enlist in its support only men of inferior ability and uninfluential character. Commanding power and profound moral earnestness will wear no such fetters. Expect conformity, and obtain mediocrity. Under such an administration of religious institutions, the rising generation will not be educated in the Church, but out of it. Religious instruction that is abreast of the hour must and will be had; if not from the pulpit, then from general literature. The age is too religious to lend its ears to ordained parrots. It has deep faith in an ever-living and ever-speaking God, a God that never speaks without saying something; a God that never deals in stale repetitions, but utters a new word to every listening soul; and, by his fine hearing of the "still, small voice," it unerringly distinguishes the prophet from the pulpiteer.

Never was there greater need of pulpit instruction than today; never was there greater craving for spiritual truth, or sincerer hospitality towards it. By his position, the preacher gets the readiest access to human hearts, if only faithful to his opportunity. Men are bewildered and dazzled by the new ideas and magnificent discoveries of the age. In its whirl through space, the world is cutting the orbit of a brilliant army of meteors, that stream across the skies of thought in fiery swarms; and, while its heavens are thus ablaze with distracting lights, it has great need to be instructed by a science worthy of its name, -that, of all these flying and flash

ing hosts, God is the one radiant point. The old problems are dropping into oblivion: new problems demand solution. The intellectual activity of the age is intense; and can any one believe, that, while the intellect is thus stirred to its depths, the heart can remain unstirred? The pulpit may adjourn these questions of the intellect, if it will, and seek to move the heart alone; but a surgeon might as well stop a gushing wound with lint, when a severed artery needs to be tied. If the heart-faith of the age is disturbed, the disturbing cause is quite as much in the intellect as in the will. Many a noble nature is distressed by a secret decay of faith in the reality. of religion, caused by the influence of modern thought and science in destroying old beliefs. Appeals to the heart, which are based on these very beliefs, only exasperate the disease, and turn earnest questioning into bitter rejection. In almost every congregation there will be many such. When, out of sluggishness, apathy, policy, or fear, the liberal preacher eschews all discussion of living issues, and confines himself to moral platitudes, and soft, little sentimentalities, he lets slip his grandest opportunities, and simply runs a machine.

It is of infinitely less moment, both to him and to his hearers, what truth he sees, than what character he shows. It is far easier for a man of moderate ability, but sturdy sincerity, to hold the attention of the most highly cultivated audience, than it is for a man of genius, without moral cour age, to hold the attention of a congregation of mechanics or farmers. It is the manner in which the minister approaches or shuns the exciting questions of the day, that in great measure determines the weight of his word. The people expect outspokenness and candor, -especially those of them who already know the existence of such questions; and they quickly see through the minister who dares not discuss them. The silences of the pulpit are the secret of its lessening power. If frank speech drives away some, timid or politic non-committalism keeps away others. And we venture to believe, that among those thus kept away are many of the ablest and noblest in the community. In the majority of

pulpits, the traditionary ideas, undermined by advancing knowledge, are still quietly taken for granted, or defended without any appreciation of the real issue, or perpetuated not honestly in phraseology, signifying one thing to the speaker, and another thing to the hearer. There is too little frank and earnest instruction in the pulpit of any kind. Whatever his opinions on important points, whether in favor of the old or of the new, the preacher owes them an unreserved and unambiguous expression; and his usefulness, especially to the young, will depend much on this absence of reserve and ambiguity. A young man, for instance, takes up one of our commonest periodicals, and reads Professor Tyndall's essay against "Miracles and Special Providences." If he has been already instructed that religion has nothing to do with miracles, but rests on its own evidence in the spiritual nature of man, no harm ensues; but if he has heard nothing on the subject from the pulpit, and has grown up with the notion that miracles are the great proof of Christianity, it is ten to one that he loses faith in miracles, Christianity, and religion itself, all together. If, on the other hand, he has heard the question of miracles honestly discussed in its modern aspect, and answered in harmony with the received theologies, he is certainly able to form a more valuable opinion on the subject for himself, than if he had heard nothing of the sort. In any case, instruction does good, and the want of it does harm. The thoughtful and the thoughtless alike are confronted with questions affecting profoundly their deepest faith. A single illustration will suffice. In the paper by Sir John Lubbock, on the "Early Condition of Man;" and in the report by Mr. Pengelly, from the Committee on the Exploration of Kent's Cavern, Devonshire, - presented at the annual meeting of the British Association at Dundee, only a few weeks ago, ideas are advanced and facts established which are utterly subversive of Christianity, as popularly understood; and yet these papers, in full or in abstract, have been published in the newspapers throughout the civi lized world. Through countless other channels, the same influences are pouring into the minds of the common people.

The press teems with books which treat the greatest and gravest questions of religion in wholly new lights; and publishers say that no books sell more rapidly than these. The public mind is fermenting with new ideas, which, entering through the intellect, sink into the heart, and most powerfully move the feelings and the life. Christianity is not today what it was yesterday; nor will it be to-morrow what it is to-day. The world's innermost faith is shaken by modern thought, and the only hope of peace lies in more thought; the only cure for agitation is more agitation. A spasmodic plunge into sentimentalism, or into the soulless clatter of "work," uninspired by ideas, will in no wise mend matters. The cause of good thinking is, after all, the cause of good living. Religion can no more dispense with theology, than theology can dispense with religion. Distinct as religion and theology are, and all-important as it is never to lose sight of the distinction, yet it is ruinous to make this distinction a practical separation. They endlessly act and re-act each upon each; a change in one ultimates in a change in the other. The two great and equal human needs of edification and instruction are the two pillars upon which the pulpit, as a permanent institution, rests: and, if either of these is shattered, the pulpit falls. In the present state of society, let the liberal pulpit least of all disown its high obligation to instruct the people to come into full sympathy with the grand currents of modern life, and thereby help the world to put a religious interpretation upon the times. If it shall prove

recreant to its task, it will yet be supplanted by the lyceum and the free platform. Intelligent men and women have ears for intelligence alone.

Instruction, therefore, - imparted, of course, in no jejune, didactic perfunctory manner, but rather with the glow of deep and intense conviction, must be conceded, we think, to be a main function of the pulpit. Quite free from the oracular tone and temper of the dogmatist, the prophet of to-day will quote no authority for his teachings but his own inward vision, and ask no acceptance of them that rests not ultimately on the inward vision of his listeners. So far forth as

instructor, he must be content with setting other minds to work, and giving the best material he has for them to work upon. True instruction is not so much to impart results, as it is to educate the faculties, and train them in right directions. To instil into the minds of his people a profound love and reverence for the truth, to deepen their thirst for it, and to substitute the freedom of candor and courage for the slavery of timid prejudice, is a better fruit of preaching than the most successful propagandism; for, while this may enlighten the mind, that also ennobles the character, and makes possible the sweet grace of charity. It is idle, however, to expect this fruit from any but the boldest and freest preaching. There is no avenue to the heart of this age, except through the gateway of the intellect; yet no man can reach its heart if he halts in the gateway. The chief reason, we believe, why the preaching of Frederick W. Robertson has made so deep an impression on the world, lies in the fact, that, with manly earnestness and courage, he grappled publicly with the problems of his day; not with his heart and conscience alone, but with his brain as well. It is true that he died before working out any real solution of those problems; but because he threw his whole soul into the work of instruction, and poured forth the finest gold of his thought, fused in the best fire of his heart, he has enriched the age with nobler and higher aims. Not a dry and passionless rehearsal of speculative theories, however true in the abstract; but rather the clothing of strong, hard bones of thought, in the warm flesh of feeling and imagination and moral earnestness, such was the instruction that has immortalized the pulpit of Robertson, and such only is the instruction for which we plead.

The great work of religious instruction is not lightly to be assumed. No man is fit for the duties of pulpit instruction whose soul is not aflame with fresh and original inspiration, - who is not convinced in his own heart, that he has some. deeply needed message for the people. The very idea of instruction implies that the instructor sees truth not seen by the instructed,-else how instruct? Simply to cater for

VOL. LXXXIV. -NEW SERIES, VOL. V. NO. I.

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