Two centres of Preaching.

is a new thing in the world's history. On the Areopagus and in the Forum thousands of men had assembled to listen to eloquent speech, but it was only of civil and secular things-nothing else would attract the masses. There had also been discussions on the gods and their nature, the soul and its essence, the supreme good and law; but these had been among the few, in the groves of Academus or on the brow of the Alban Hill"Others apart sat on a hill retired." But to find the multitudes eagerly listening to those questions, awake to the divine, the eternal, the burden of possessing an immortal soul-this was something new; this could only come from the Great Preacher, His life, His death, His risen power. It was the fulfilment of His own word, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."

In this period there were two great centres of preaching power-the one in the Eastern or Greek Church, represented by Origen, Basil, and, above all, Chrysostom; the other in the Western or Latin Church, represented by Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Of these, the most worthy of the attention of the preacher are Augustine and Chrysostom, and Chrysostom more that Augustine. Augustine was the greater man and divine,

Chrysostom the greater preacher. No one can read of the effect of his preaching in Constantinople without feeling that he was a mighty power. "As well want the sun from the sky, as want Chrysostom from our city," was the cry when he was banished; and yet he was constantly preaching to the conscience. The most accessible account of Augustine's idea of preaching is his own De Doctrina Christiana, especially the fourth book. The student who judges by modern standards will find indeed much imperfection. The form of the sermon has not been reached; it is rather a discursive lecture on a part of the Bible, with wide digressions. The treatise is also imperfect in doctrinal statements. Augustine is distinct on the broad questions of sin and grace, and powerful on the practical conscience. The life, the death, the resurrection of Christ, the Divine and human, are always prominent; but the ring of Luther, the jubilee trumpet of the Reformers, is not well heard. The interpretation of the Bible is not infrequently fanciful and far-fetched, though Augustine and Chrysostom are in this more sober than most of their predecessors. Exegesis was not the gift of that age. But they have a freshness and loftiness

of thought, a vigour and brevity of expression, a

high conception of the grandeur of Christian truth in its bearing on life, from which the preacher may always receive inspiration. They preached, moreover, to their own generation and to the conscience of their hearers; and, lastly, though they knew the Greek philosophy well, and had benefited by the training of its schools, they did not drag it into their preaching. They felt that they had found a far higher Master, and they preached Christ.

NOTE A, see page 48.

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In the Advocates' Library of this city (Edinburgh) you will find an old volume which contains the Instructiones Sancti Columbani"-not of Columba, but a later disciple of his school, who visited France and Switzerland and the north of Italy, and preached both in Latin and in the vernacular. The "Instructiones" are generally brief, giving probably little more than the line pursued, and are headed in this way :

Instructio VII. De caecitate hominis qui neglecto spiritu inservit corpori; he begins with this strong apostrophe, O te caecam insaniam, O te caecam foveam, humanam voluntatem, quae accepta celas et data non reddis.

Instructio VIII. Quod ad coelestem patriam, viae praesentis finem festinandum sit.

Instructio IX. De Extremo Iudicio.

XI. De Dilectione Dei et proximi.

There is not much of what we should call profound or fresh thinking, but it is very earnest, very practical, and close up to the condition of the hearers; and it must have sounded fresh enough to the ears of those wild Scots and, Picts who, not long before, had been practising barbarities upon poor provincials whose wailing cries have come down to us.

LECTURE IV.

Character of the period.

ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING

WE spoke last day of the character of preaching

in the Christian Church down to the year

200. It was of a simple and natural kind, not aiming at what is called oratory, but rather pious exhortation founded upon the portion of Scripture read in the assembly of Christians. It might be compared to the addresses given at the ordinary prayer-meeting, and was no doubt adapted to the time when Christians were gathered together in small companies, exposed to persecution or newly escaped from it. It has no lesson for us in regard to art, but teaches much in regard to earnestness and adaptation to circumstances.

The next period in preaching may be taken as extending from 200 to 600 A.D. The reason for selecting 600 is that about that time, the time of Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, we are at the