exhibition of the utmost artistical skill. This is the true view of it, whatever men in general may say. Whatever crude notions may prevail, or however poorly it may be exemplified in the practice of the clerical profession itself, this is the true view of it. At least it should be the preacher's own view. It is not to be disputed, indeed, that there is some foundation for the common prejudice against sermons, - that they are proverbial for dulness. We allow that there is some justification of the contemptuous remark, which is so often heard - and which is made as if men felt it a peculiar pleasure, and thought it an indication of superior sense, to decry this class of writings—“O, we never read sermons." Nor can we wonder, or complain, that so many volumes in this department of composition are rotting in garrets, and on the shelves of old libraries, whose contents are explored only by the moth and the worm. Although we have not a doubt, that there might oftentimes be found within those unopened covers, labeled with their unpromising titles, not only the fruits of deep reflection, of large experience, of superior wisdom, of profound and varied knowledge, not only the fragrant memorials of a sublime piety and an unfeigned benevolence; but also fragments, at least, of the highest eloquence, fair specimens of a pure and noble style, and many passages, which if they were brought into the light, and the unmerited stigma of their origin were concealed, would be universally admired by men of taste, and receive even from logicians and rhetoricians the highest meed of praise. Besides, we are not willing to allow it to be a fact, that the stupidity and anility of former ages have embalmed themselves, so much more frequently and largely than elsewhere, in those "dumpy little quartos" entitled Sermons, which are packed away in unexplored alcoves of public libraries, like ranges of mummy cases in dark catacombs. Nor do we regard it as by any means so clearly demonstrated, as to be admitted without discussion, that there may not be found, in proportion to their respective quantities, quite as much (and even more) of dry, and unprofitable reading in every other branch of literature, as in this. Moreover, we have often thought that many of those youths and maidens who scout and hide the volumes of Sermons, 1846.] Importance of the Sermon. 237 which their fathers and mothers loved and reverencedwhilst they gathered from them food for their sweetest meditations and strength for their worthiest toils - have sometimes rejected therewith more wholesome, aye, and more savory fare for mind and heart, than could be found, after long searching, in whole heaps of the ornamented trash that commands the modern market. But however this may be, it should be regarded by the preacher himself as a point of professional honor, a principle of professional duty, to countenance no injustice, from whatever source it may be offered; to admit no insult, by whatever authority it may be sanctioned; to smile at no superficial sneers, however popular, directed against either his peculiar department of literary art, or the collective works of his predecessors and his contemporaries, who have cultivated, and are exercising it. He knows, or he ought to know-whatever he can do himself—that there is no species of composition, which admits of more grandeur, impressiveness, and beauty, than the sermon; or which can occupy a higher rank. He knows that there is nothing inherent in the nature of the themes which it discusses, or in the canons which regulate and control their treatment, that necessarily renders the sermon uninteresting, heavy, dry, or inelegant. He knows that its subjects are the most interesting and sublime that can occupy the thought, or inspire the pen of man ;- that all the heart, and all the life, all the inner and the outer world of humanity; the wide realm of nature; the whole circle of the sciences; the crowded history of the past; the perfections, revelations, laws and operations of God; the miraculous manifestation of the Deity in Christ; with all the spiritual glories and moral charms of the character of Jesus; all that is lovely and wonderful in his life, and venerable and heart-moving in his death, and consolatory and inspiriting in his resurrection and his promises; heaven and hell; time and eternity; that all these, and whatever else affects the interests, or concerns the destiny, or occupies the profoundest thoughts, or kindles the highest imaginings, or stirs the deepest affections of man, come within the range of the pulpit, and may be made tributary to the interest, the instructiveness, the splendor, the majesty, and the power of the sermon. He knows, moreover, or he ought to know, that although no preacher among the living, or the dead, has reached the highest conceivable point of excellence in this species of composition there have been many, in every age of the Church, even amongst those whose works are, through ignorance, set aside as unreadable and included in the sweeping condemnation of dulness, who have discoursed eloquently, and reasoned profoundly, and written beautifully, and whose literary merits, to speak of no other claims, are not a whit inferior to those of the best scholars and writers of the periods which they have enlightened and adorned. All this the modern preacher knows, or ought to know. If he does not know it, he can have little, very little professional spirit. He has a most unworthy conception of the dignity and power, the reach and the claims of the sermon. Nor can he have conversed with those divines of old, whom to read is to admire, to understand is to be wise, to equal is to be great, and to excel will task, to the utmost, the energies of the most studious and the most gifted mind. All this he knows. And with such knowledge, he cannot think meanly of his peculiar department of art. He cannot listen, unmoved, to the shallow, wholesale sneers of those, with whom it is the fashion complacently to ridicule a whole class of writings, of whose real merits they are incompetent to judge, and concerning the individual portions of which, with but few exceptions, they are utterly ignorant. And, moreover, what he may, from necessity, fail to do in his own practice, he will never forbear to attempt to do by the free expression of his earnest convictions, - to secure for the sermon its just and legitimate literary rank. Entertaining these opinions, it is certainly an evidence of the high esteem in which we hold the Discourses of Mr. Briggs, that they tempt us to compare them with the best models. There are innumerable sermons, in regard to which it would be almost ridiculous to institute such a comparison. They have their merits and their defects; but they are, obviously, so far below the highest standard of criticism, that one would never think of applying it to them. We pass judgment upon them per se; or we measure them with others of their own cast, and which are somewhere near their own level. But the sermons before 1846.] Want of Simplicity. 239 us come near enough to those which occupy the first rank, to be estimated by the same rules. In several particulars they will compare honorably with the best. Few are their superiors in freshness, elevation and delicacy of sentiment, in earnestness, animation and fluency of style, in freedom and fervor of thought. Few are more impregnated with the spirit of a cheerful and affectionate piety. But in all respects we cannot commend them so highly. Their style appears somewhat deficient in dignity, accuracy, and purity those solid graces of the written sermon the prominent characteristics of those of Buckminster and Channing. Their earnestness is a little too impassioned, exclamatory and unvaried. It might be equally as profound and impressive with a calmer movement, or if its fervent expression were occasionally intermitted. As an illustration of the reality of the defect to which we here allude, it may not be deemed too trifling to mention the fact, that, being struck with the frequency of the occurrence of the interjection ah! we were led to count the number of times it appeared in the sermon which we were then reading, and found it to be no less than eleven. A fervid utterance is natural to glowing thought, and both are immeasurably preferable to tameness and coldness. But when we turn over page after page, and find in every sermon, and in each separate sermon from beginning to end, scarce any perceptible variation of the temperature of thought; when nearly every paragraph, from the exordium to the peroration, appears to have been written under an equal excitement; when we discover no gradual kindling and no temporary lulls of emotion; no letting down, no unstraining of feeling; -though we may admire the ardor that can sustain itself so long and so well, though we may wonder at the fervor which is capable of protracting so elevated a strain, we cannot but sigh for an occasional change of modulation, and feel the want of more frequent opportunities of comparative repose. We have been somewhat similarly affected by the splendid sermons of Martineau, entitled, " Endeavors after the Christian Life." While reading them, we feel as if we must often pause and take breath. Replete as they are with profound thoughts and resplendent with genius, we miss in them that grandeur which would have been imparted to them by greater simplicity. If they had been. less highly wrought, they would have been more dignified, impressive and truly beautiful. The same impression was, to a less extent, produced by the first sermons of Dr. Dewey; whose more recent discourses, with no diminution of fervor, have gained, essentially, in variety, purity and strength of style. There appears, among some writers of the present day, to be a dread of nothing so much as of simplicity of language and sedateness of style. They mistake intellectual excitement, for intellectual power; ardor of imagination, for energy of thought; intenseness, for genius; what is extraordinary, for what is original and profound; that which is striking, for that which is effective; that which is highly wrought, for that which is really beautiful. Truth in a plain garb seems to them mere commonplace; and thought proceeding with sobriety of movement, is synonymous with dulness. We do not intend to apply this censure to the author of "The Bow in the Cloud," or to either of the distinguished writers whom we have named; although we will honestly say, that there is something in the style of Mr. Briggs, that has reminded us of the fault to which we refer. His sermons appear to us a little more highly colored than is consistent with a perfectly pure taste. They strike us as being somewhat too sentimental. They would please us more, with more manly directness. They abound in metaphors; which are in most instances appropriate and beautiful, but occasionally faulty; as, for example, in the following sentence. "The festival is kept, when the consoling hand of the doctrine it impresses is not only wiping away the tears of bereavement from weeping eyes, but when its sanctifying influence is transforming human hearts." It would be a stretch of his license in a poet, to employ such a figure as this. We cannot think it allowable in prose; or, if the writer considered it lawful and necessary to use so bold a metaphor, he should, at least, have been careful to relieve its singularity and correct the construction of the sentence, by giving a different position to the words "not only," which, as they stand, lead us to look, in vain, for some other operation of the hand besides wiping away the tears. We are happy to say, however, that such instances |