proximation to which is certainly more than a mere hypothesis, —is peculiar to itself. According to this view, when pushed to this extent, the only end of preaching is to make manifest its own inefficiency, that God may have the glory,-first, of having appointed and employed, in order to the conversion of men, an instrumentality which has no tendency or adaptedness to the end; and, then, of interposing to perform, independently of all means, that to which in the nature of the case, no instrumentality whatever can contribute anything. Now where a man has wrought himself into this view, or into any view that comes pretty near to this, the most natural inference, and certainly the most practical, is, that the poorer the preaching, and the more signal and unquestionable its unadaptedness to move men and to bring their thoughts and wills into captivity to Christ, the more perfectly will the only legitimate end of preaching be accomplished; and, if any body is converted, the more impossible will it be to suspect that the preaching had anything to do with the conversion. Tell us, then, what sort of eloquence will be likely to proceed from under that man's old sounding-board? What drowsiness comes over us at the thought of one of his afternoon sermons! What physical appliances of fennel and dried orange-peel-not to speak of anything more pungent-are necessary to keep his congregation decently awake through the performance.

Can there be anything more deadening to effort-anything that strikes through the heart with a more complete paralysis of its energies than the conviction that what you are doing has no tendency to any desirable result? Could you discourse eloquently in your mother tongue, to a congregation of Chinese or Persians, not one of whom understands one word of your utterance? If you could do it once, by the force of imagination, could you continue to do it, twice every Sabbath, and still be eloquent? Could you preach, like the saint in the monkish legend, to a congregation of fishes, and preach eloquently, persuasively, thoughts, words, all burning from a burning heart? If not, why not? If the truths of the gospel have no intrinsic adaptation, as motives, to man's constitutional susceptibilities, and if I am perfectly convinced of it, why can I not argue out of the gospel with a shark, as earnestly and pointedly as with a lawyer, or with a shoal of mackerel, as eloquently and fervently as with the most enlightened congregation of unconverted men that ever crowded a New England sanctuary? Sup

pose it were your appointed duty, every Sabbath day, summer and winter, storm or calm, to take your station by the sea shore, and when, at the fit hour, the scaly troops and families have gathered in due order before you, to preach to that assembly. How terrible would be that bondage! How tiresome and tedious the labor of preparing and delivering those sermons! How somnolent the flow of your discourse! Old ocean, methinks, soothed by the sound, composes all his waves to slumber, and his perpetual murmur subsides into a snore.

II. Another, and a very different source of danger to the pulpit, is found in a common misapprehension of the nature of elo quence, and, consequently, of the manner in which it is to be cultivated.

True eloquence is nothing else than wisdom fitly uttered. Proposing to itself some worthy end, it brings out that which is pertinent to the end. Eloquence does not consist in words, but in the meaning of words, and in the fitness of the meaning as conveyed by the words, to move and control the minds of the hearers. The elements of such eloquence, or to speak more correctly, the qualifications necessary to the production of such eloquence, are everything which gives intellectual dignity or moral worth to man. The achievements of eloquence, are the highest achievements of cultivated mind. The action of mind on dead unconscious matter, taking advantage of the laws of matter to mold or wield the most terrific agencies of nature for the use of man, is majestic. Majestic is the action of mind on the vast arena of investigation and scientific discovery, penetrating the obscure, analyzing the complex, measuring the infinite, bringing up bright truth from the profoundest deep, and resolving all the appearances of things into their principles and causes. But more majestic is the action of mind upon other minds; intellect concentrating light, as reflected from a burning mirror, upon other intellects; feeling sending its electric impulses through other hearts; the soul rising to dominion over other wills, and swaying them with an imperial power.

The first element or condition of eloquence, is knowledge of the subject to be discoursed upon. Read any of the speeches of Burke, as for example the famous speech on conciliation with America, or that on the debts of the Nabob of Arcot;-read any of the best speeches of our own illustrious orators, as for example any one of those great speeches on constitutional questions that have made the name of Webster so proud a name for

all our country;—and the first and strongest impression on your mind is that of the mastery of the speaker over the subject of his discourse. You are reminded of that maxim of Cicero, which might well be the motto of such an Association as this, "Ex rerum cognitione, efflorescat, et redundet, oportet oratio." This "cognitio rerum" is what weighs in a deliberative assembly; this is what weighs with a jury, when addressed by advocate or judge; this is what weighs everywhere, except with fools. Whoever has occasion to speak where the "knowledge of things" is of secondary importance, may be assured that his speaking will be to little purpose, and may as well be omitted. Whoever undertakes to speak without the "knowledge of things," is himself a fool.

What then is, and must be, the first thing in the eloquence of the pulpit? Knowledge of the subject with which the eloquence of the pulpit is expected to be conversant; knowledge of the Bible, and of all that it contains; knowledge of the doctrines which the Bible teaches; knowledge of all the bearings of those doctrines, of all the perversions to which they are liable, and of all the arguments by which they are defended; perfect knowledge, familiar knowledge, knowledge at command; knowledge consisting not of confused and contradictory notions, but of clear and definite views of whatsoever is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, or for instruction in righteousness." Thus only it is that "the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work."

Another constituent of the power of eloquence, is the knowledge of men, of the state of men's minds in respect to the subject of discourse, and how they are to be reached and controlled by the speaker. "Nisi qui naturas hominum, vimque omnem humanitatis, causasque eas, quibus mentes aut incitantur aut reflectuntur, penitus perspexerit, dicendo, quod volet, perficere non poterit." He who is to speak with cogency on any subject, or to any auditory, must understand not only human nature generally, but the particular errors, prejudices, and infirmities, of those whom he is to move. Otherwise, though he understand his subject well, he is like an artist who, with excellent instruments, works in the dark, and does only ruin the materials that he works upon. His speaking will not be pertinent to his end, will not be wisdom, and therefore will not be eloquence. The speaker who, not knowing how to make a way into the minds of his hearers, begins by getting them into a pasSECOND SERIES, VOL. I. NO. I.

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sion, by needlessly irritating their prejudices against himself, or against that of which he wishes to convince them, by something as unsuited to the actual state of their sentiments as "vinegar upon nitre," or "songs to a heavy heart," will not be likely to carry his point. This is as true of the preacher, as of any other speaker. His knowledge of the Bible will be very inadequate ; his knowledge of objective religion will be of little avail, unless he knows also what kind of creatures his hearers are, and how they are to be instructed, convinced, and persuaded. This is what we call tact; and who does not know that tact is as important in the church as it is in the senate-house.

A third ingredient in that constitution and equipment of mind which makes the orator, is some degree of sympathy with those who are to be spoken to. Indeed that knowledge of human nature, of which I have been speaking, cannot exist in the mind that has not a living ready sympathy with human nature. What is called tact, is not so much art, as instinct-a quick inward perception, guiding the speaker, perhaps without his being aware of it. Conscious that his mind and feelings are the same with other men's, he knows that this statement, that argument or illustration, that objection or reply, that appeal to sensibility,— will strike other minds as it does his. Speaking from the human intellect and reason of his own soul, and from the human imagination and sensibilities within him, every word wakens a living echo. There must be such congeniality between the speaker and hearers; or eloquence is not.

Is it not on this principle that God employs the agency of men, of converted sinners, in calling sinners to repentance? Who does not believe that the gospel itself, passing through a human mind as the medium of its conveyance to other minds, spoken with the persuasive tones of human utterance, breathed out with the sweet modulation of human affections and sensibilities, and with the deep earnestness of human experience, is far more eloquent to men, far better adapted to the end for which the preaching of the gospel is appointed, than if it were sung on earth with angel harps and voices, or sounded out from the trumpets of the seraphim?

Nay, in those inimitable discourses of the Son of God, what is more striking than their strong sympathy with human nature. Every word is of one who took not on him the nature of angels, but was formed in fashion as a man. Every word is from a heart that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmity. It

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is humanity, stainless indeed, refined, exalted, refulgent with the incarnate Divinity, but still humanity, with its smiles and tears; our nature, with its quick strong impulses of affection, of sorrow, and of joy.

Would you be eloquent, as a preacher? Be a man—not a monk, but a man-not an ascetic, or a cynic, or a pedant, or an owl; but a man, with all the thoughts, associations, interests, relations, affections, sympathies, of perfect manhood. Be able to say, and every body will feel that you are able to say with the poet,

"Homo sum, et nihil humani â me alienum puto."

In addition to these elements of power, the eloquent man must have the power of illustration, which is nothing else than the ready perception of analogies, with an abundant store of various and familiar information; in other words, the ready perception of analogies and the possession of analogies to be perceived. How often will a man thus furnished accomplish more with one well chosen word, that goes like a live arrow to its mark, than another man will accomplish with hours of flowing and flowery declamation.

What more is necessary to eloquence? Words, you will tell me, the command of language. True, without words there can be no eloquence; for eloquence is not wisdom laid up in the mind, but wisdom in the act of utterance; it is power, not in repose, but in action. But how are words to be had. Not surely by committing a dictionary to memory. Not by being conversant with wordy people, whose flow of language without thought, is a disease, instead of an accomplishment. But by having thoughts. The living thought will seize for itself the winged word. Thoughts that breathe" will find, or will cre

ate "words that burn."

If now, this is the true idea of eloquence, and of the way in which the power of eloquence is to be cultivated, there is danger in our day of a vitiated and inefficient sort of pulpit eloquence. It seems to be supposed in some quarters that eloquence, for which the highest honors are claimed of course, is concerned only with words, and figures, and style, and gesticulation; and that the matter of a discourse has very little to do with its merits considered as eloquence. Such a man is said to be eloquent. Why? Why, what a beautiful speaker he is !—