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 TWO DISCOURSES 
 
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 — IN — 
 
 Review 
 
 AND Criticism, 
 
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 G)0N1iF?BftL: 
 THE HERALD PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED. 
 
 1883. 
 
 • 
 
 Price, «5 Cents. 
 
 
A Review of Three Months, 
 
 ZION CHURCH, Montreal, 30TH September, 1883. 
 
 I have announced myself to speak to you to-night in review of 
 what has taken place and been discussed during the last three or four 
 months in England. Year by year, after my return from what has 
 become an annual trip, I do this. Generally much criticism of a more 
 or less carping kind follows. Some newspaper writers complain that 
 I secularize the pulpit, and go out of my way to be sensational; but a 
 somewhat prolonged acquaintance with these writers, and an intimate 
 knowledge of their personal, or rather impersonal, judgment, have 
 taught me not to attach much value to their criticisms. For I find 
 that after all, sermons must bear on living subjects — they must have re- 
 ference to the infinite Jiow in which we live and move and have our being. 
 T'le preacher should be a prophet expounding what is, and predicting 
 what must Jesuit, if certain lines are followed as to the guidance of public 
 and private affairs. I do not deny that what is called doctrinal 
 preaching is good in its way ; I am sure it is. Even controversial dis- 
 courses serve a great purpose and do permanent good ; but a practical 
 review of men and things as they are is also necessary, that we may 
 have an understanding of the times in which we live. And we, here in 
 this great colony, are bound by affection and interest to regard with 
 careful consideration all those great and varying factors which go to 
 make up the complex life of England. England is yet the nerve centre 
 of the Anglo Saxon race. We are dependent upon her in more ways 
 than we suspect. Her social life is reflectv "^ ; her profound love 
 of freedom is our noblest heritage ; her p I institutions are our 
 
 models ; her great men and women of past 9- resent, are our pride 
 and exemplars ; we are more than a colony, we are a copy of the 
 mother country. We look to England as the home of intellectual 
 activity. We know a little of the brilliance of the Frenqh mind, and 
 the depth and patience of G-erman thinking ; but, my judgment may be 
 warped by prejudices, to inind, we must still look to England to take ^ ^n^^ 
 the lead in all social and intellectual affairs. But the question has y^^ 
 
2 ^ 
 
 been forced home upon me this year, as never before : how long is 
 that to last ? will this grand position of pre-eminence be maintained ? 
 
 I think it is Bacon who said, that when n nation turns from arms 
 to commerce, it may be taken as proof of national decadence. I do 
 not exactly endorse the sentiment, for it admits too much. No sober 
 thinking man can approve the policy of France or Russia to-day, nor 
 the state of things which keeps Germany armed to the teeth. No 
 nation can do wisely in spending its life strength in the worship of Mars. 
 The god of battles is always on the side of dry powder and big bat- 
 talions, and the capricious deity makes large demands upon the indus' 
 trious poor. But then, it is just as disastrous for a people to devote 
 itself to merely Mammon and muscle. And that, it seems to me, is just 
 what the English people are doing. There are no theological discus- 
 iions now ; orthodoxy quietly hates heterodoxy, and heterodoxy quietly 
 sneers at orthodoxy, but both agree that open rupture entails too much 
 trouble. Science has but little to say, and the few words it now and 
 then utters sound in dull unheeding ears. That huge body called the 
 British public, is an investor of money, and the main enquiry is where 
 the most interest can be got. 'i"o r.iy thinking, the English people are 
 growing intensly selfish in this matter. They regard themselves as the 
 only authorized money makers in the universe It has got to be that the 
 main idea of political institutions, of Royalty, Lords and Commons, of 
 army and navy, is to protect and further the interest of British com- 
 merce. All nations who will uDt accept the British commercial econ- 
 omy are written down as fools and worse. When the Suez Canal was 
 but a project in the brain of a brilliant French engineer, the English 
 nation, with many a hard blow, sought to beat it into nothingness; 
 when Beaconsfield turned the nation into a stockholder, even his fol- 
 lowers seemed half ashamed ; but the other day in England, to judge 
 from the excited meetings held, and the tall talk in the papers, you 
 would have thought the world had formed a project to rob England of 
 her rights. There was small recognition of the French engineer who 
 had conceived and carried out the scheme in spite of English op- 
 position ; and when English statesmen endeavoured to concede what 
 they judged were the rights of others, English commerce rose en masse 
 in violent protest, and the Government yielded to the storm. The argu- 
 ment was simple : the canal is a paj'ing concern ; British commerce makes 
 it pay ; therefore we must own that canal or another .along side of it, 
 so as to protect British interests. That is only an illustration of British 
 
temper about money. And a sad temper I think it is. Mammon 
 is indeed lord of the ascendant. Nobility of birth, education in the 
 classics, literature, science and art, are all giving way before this up- 
 start god of money. A young country like our own may be excused 
 for holding Mammon in high esteem. If our rich men are our only 
 aristocrats, we may well be pardoned the small conceit, for we have a 
 hope and prospect of climbing beyond the level of money's throne, 
 where art, science, literature, personal worth, manly righteousness, 
 reach by gradient into the heaven of Godliness; but when an old 
 country of settled institutions and ways, turns from all that is lofty and 
 ennobling to the mere seeking and worship of money, then that country 
 has entered upon a period of decadence which must end in night and 
 nothingness. What is a man who gives himself to money grubbing ? 
 His mind is a calculating machine — his conscience a ledger — the in- 
 terest table is his paternoster, his decalogue and creed — his heart is 
 dead and damned — the heavens have no glory for him — those gorgeous 
 diagrams of fire that all night long blaze m the calm infinite blue, have 
 no power to kindle a high and manly aspiration in his soul ; no angel 
 visions come to bless his dreaming ; he thinks and dreams but of buy- 
 ing and selling and rates of interest. His life is not up, it is down — 
 it is not developement, it is decadence — the dry rot is there and work- 
 ing it way down to the roots. And so it is with a people. Where 
 love and worship of Mammon absorb attention and affection — where 
 worth is judged by the standard of money — where nobility of character 
 and force of brain and culture are reckoned as nothing by the side of 
 bags of money, then that people have entered upon a period of deca- 
 dence ; their greatness must soon be destroyed, and the days of their 
 power are numbered. England to-day is producing nothing great. 
 A great man or two still move in the world of politics, but they made 
 their greatness a generation ago ; and when they are gone, who will 
 take their place ? Poetry is silent, and even the Laureate can but feebly 
 sing a feeble, " Hands all round," or write a play the public will not 
 welcome. Science is doing nothing at all, but only harking back on 
 past adventures and achievements. The Royal Academy of Painting 
 is dull and common place ; the machinery of Parliament has broken 
 down under the pressure of vulgar self-assertion — the ears of the people 
 are filled with the dull chink of money. Men transcend their piles of 
 gold and silver, and swelter there in the blaze of the sim of prosperity, 
 or sink into the nothingness and burden of poverty. Oh I England, 
 
land of my love — so glorious in history — so great in possibilities— so 
 noble once in purpose ; God save thee from the degrading and damning 
 rule of Mammon. 
 
 One other thing I have noticed as marking a decadence — year 
 by year I have seen it grow— attention to inere muscular sports. The 
 daily press may always be taken as reflecting public opinion— their 
 one and simple aim is not to create opinion, but report it ., they 
 furnish the supply demanded by the market. Time was the 
 
 great dailies generally and at length discussed and criticir .stions 
 
 of public and international importance ; news of li stuff was 
 
 relegated to small print in an obscure comer ; but now, all that is 
 changed. Take up a London paper and you will find column after 
 column devoted to reports of cricket matches, with histories of 
 batsmen and analyses of bowling ; lawn tennis commands much 
 attention ; also byciclying and trycicling, and every other form of 
 amusement known to the British public. Let it be understood, I am 
 not an ascetic nor prophet of asceticism ; I am a firm believer in the 
 utility of healthy outdoor s])orts. I am sure that they are opposed 
 to meaness and what is unmanly ; they develop the body and give a 
 healthy tone to the mind. I do not even say that in England there is 
 too much of this practised, but what I do say is that public attention 
 is concentrated upon it over much. Little is heard of mind, but a 
 great deal of muscle. I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I 
 couldn't tell you who has passed the most successful examination at 
 Oxford or Cambridge, or Eton or Harvard ; but I could tell you who 
 are the crack batsmen of either university or school. 1 can tell you 
 who exhibited a skilful defence, who hit brilliantly, and whose bowling 
 analysi: iids best. Sermons never, hy any chance, get reported ; 
 lectuies, ev'en the most popular, are cushed into ten lines when noticed 
 at all; foreign telegrams are not much thought of; parliamentary 
 debates are boiled down to the lowest extracts ; but every hit a 
 cricketer makes is chronicled — and every public game of lawn tennis, 
 and all the marvellous doings of that lately developed and most interest- 
 ing raceof people, riders on two or ihree wheels, with no horse. You may 
 think I am carping and hypercritical, but, believe me, one cannot take 
 a glance at the main features of English life without being struck with 
 the prominence given to the achievements of muscle. A good runner 
 is better known and appreciated than a good writer ; a cricket match 
 will draw more thousands than the most learned of lectures will draw 
 
scores. Science oT muscle is more thought of than science of mind. 
 Robert Browning is not so well known as Lord Harris, or Steel, or 
 Barlow ; and, when a great man died, to whom I shall refer by-and-bye, 
 the daily press gave him less space than it gave to the winner oi ihe 
 Derby. And I think I am bound to take that fact as indicating a national 
 decadence. It is good to cultivate the muscle of youth, but it is not 
 good to do that at the expense of mind culture. I am glad to see 
 young men indulging in outdoor manly sports, but I want to see that 
 that they have also a care for books — an inclination to store their 
 mind with the facts of history and the laws of life. A sound mind in 
 a sound body is a happy union of forces, but a sound body with no 
 mind in it at all, is a poor thing for all else but show. Undue prominence 
 given to these things can but indicate a falling off" in the mental 
 activities, and a decadence of intellectual strength. And, after all, a 
 nation is built up, guided and sustained in power by its thinkers, and 
 not by its sportsmen. England has not been made by its skill in 
 cricket, by its racers and runners, but by brain power — by students of 
 art and science and political economy — by patient philosophers and 
 earnest statesmen — by speakers, and readers and writers ; and, if the 
 public have taken to neglecting these in order to give the more honour 
 to men of heels and arms, then the intellectual force of the nation 
 must pass into a state of decay, and, unless a change be brought about, 
 I am certain England will not hold her proud prominence among the 
 thinking nations of the world. 
 
 Something more I want to speak of as unhealthy, and giving no 
 promise of good. The English are a theatre-loving and theatre-going 
 people, and, so far as I can judge, noting thmgs year after year, the taste 
 is degenerating. But rarely can you see a good and healthy piece 
 advertised ; but rarely is a play commended for its moral teaching. 
 The most popular theatres are those where women are on exhibition, 
 or where society songs, of questionable morality, are sung ; or where 
 the spectacular display is most gorgeous. One single exception I am 
 bound to note and name — for one inan has most nobly fought against 
 the pollutions of the public mind by way of the stage. He has 
 demonstrated that the threatre need net be a hell, nor the way to hell. 
 By industry, by the force of genius, by honesty of purpose, by purity 
 of motive, by insisting on clean surroundings, Henry Irving has 
 earned and gained, and proudly wears the gratitude of what is 
 cultured, liberal and noble in British society. Irving is a great and 
 
patient preacher. Shakespeare never yet did harm, and the man who 
 can rescue people from the contamination of mere society plays and 
 sensational dramas, and give theni a taste for having nature mirrored 
 before their eyes in all her changing moods — her stormy skies and 
 sunny landscapes — is well deserving of praise. Close the theatres you 
 cannot. In a healthy community it will exist — I think it must exist — 
 because it meets the demands made by some of the most powerful of 
 our natural instincts. Exist it ever will, and the simple question is, how 
 and in what condition ? It may easily be made an outer-chamber of 
 hell. Let respectable people keep away; let parents forbid their chil- 
 dren from going, until the children become their own masters ; let fana- 
 tical preachers rave against it in a wholesale manner, and that way the 
 audience will be low, and demand that the stage come down to its level ; 
 and the demand will be met, and the stage will promote what is brutal, 
 and your children and all society will suffer because of the evil. On the 
 other hand, demand that the stage shall, at least, not teach immorality 
 — shall not pander to what is low and vulgar in humanity. Shun an 
 unclean drama as you would an unclean book or the devil. T^ach 
 young men and women to discriminate and choose only what is good 
 and elevated, and society will soon drag the stage up after it, until the 
 stage begins to react upon society, and give it benediction. The 
 theatre in England to-day presents a strange appearance. There is 
 that general demand for the spectacular, which even Irving has had to 
 recognise ; there is the demand for what is merely sensational and 
 often vulgar, and yet it has been demonstrated that the legitimate 
 drama pure and good, is acceptable, when industry, honesty and genius 
 combine to put it before the people. That is in proof that in society 
 there is the right kind of material to work upon, when the right kind of 
 men and women take the work in hand. And the right kind of men and 
 women will take it in hand, if society will respond and help them. As the 
 demand is, so will the supply be, as can well be seen there in England. 
 The lesson is big and plain before us. Let us purify the theatre by going 
 to it in pure-mindedness ; let us demand purity in the auditorium, on 
 the stage, and behind the scenes ; let us respect what is respectable, 
 •and not condemn a class for the sins of a few. The calling of an actor 
 is honest and respectable in the nature of it, and we ^should recognise 
 the fact. It was a fitting thing that, at that Banquet given to Irving 
 in London — where the notabilities of England's birth and culture and 
 goodness were represented— the Lord Chief-Justice should take the Chair. 
 
'J'he influence it had upon the country was noble and powerful. Not 
 an actor on all the group of islands but felt that the calling had been 
 honored, and that self-respect would command reward — not one but 
 looked upon his profession with clearer perception of its public value 
 and meaning, and I trust that such an upward impetus has been 
 given to the general stage, as shall rescue it from the threatening 
 danger of sinking into the bottomless black of unrelieved vulgarity. 
 
 I put it down in my programme to .speak of some controversies now 
 raging in .Scotland, but I cannot dwell upon them from lack of time. 
 Tliey present a quaint aspect of life, of course, as most things Scottish do. 
 Light and modern ideas travel but slowly toward the Highlands of 
 Scotland. I took a run into Scotland and found the Scottish mind ex- 
 ercised over modes of conveyance on Communion Sunday. From out 
 that antique quarter of the world, vhere only the Gaelic tongue has 
 power to charm, came eager protests against the " puffing fiend." 
 Parents solemnly affirmed that they could not hope to save their children 
 from hell, even with a firm grip upon the doctrine of election to help 
 them, if such an infernal devil as a railway engine should go panting 
 ever the rails on Sunday. And then it came out that those Commun- 
 ion Sundays were marked by sundry eccentricities of conduct, not 
 always pleasant to contemplate. For example : the Highlander finds 
 that travelling on Sunday is very dry work, and he accepts the dogma 
 that man cannot live by bread alone ; so he freely indulges in the dram 
 before the service, to prepare him to agree with the minister about the 
 degeneracy of the age ; and after the preaching further drams to keep 
 the mind steady on the work of reflection. It also came out that the 
 lovers of Communion, whose piety was so sensitive that it cried out in 
 fear at the sight of a railway train on Sunday, were in the habit of 
 making their own whiskey, and racing their horses under the influence 
 of it on their way home from Communion. I will not dwell on the 
 thing ; it is a phase of life we know very well. It is amusing as we 
 see it there in Scotland — so quaint, so antique — the people are so like 
 unto children ; but, you may shift the scene, and see the same in other 
 form ; a great and prominent professor of religion — champion of the 
 orthodox creed — a regular attendant at the church — hates all heresy 
 and heretics — is a pattern as to total abstinence ; in the church is a 
 bigot— in commerce a thief — in social circles a liar and slanderer — in 
 the house an ill-tempered devil — so what can you say? poor Highlan- 
 ders, with your medley of Commimion and drams and racing, and you 
 
■.;-.^■- 8 
 
 professors at Montreal and other enlightened centres, you do strain at a 
 gnat and you can swallow a camel. 
 
 But let me call to your mind how sad the last three or four months 
 have been, because of the work death has done,, and how powerful the 
 lessons taught us. The first news tl.at reached us on landing was of 
 that terrible Sunderland disaster, when hundreds of children were 
 beaten into lifeless pulp by their mates. Scarcely had the wild wail 
 of Sunderland mothers ceased to fill our ears than came news of 
 Cholera raging in Africa and threatening Europe ; then hurtUng thro' 
 the air came the grim message that beautiful Ischia had swallowed up 
 and destroyed its own inhabitants ; while the hot tears were blinding 
 us came tidings which drove them back upon the brain again, for no 
 honest man dared weep when the news of Carey's death was about, for 
 fear any should think he was weeping for a scoundrel that deserved 
 nor place nor name among men ; and then came the slaughter by fire 
 at Java, when 75,000 souls were crushed into the eternal silence. All 
 stood aghast at the strange and great harvests death was gathering in — 
 and then came news of a death which gave point and meaning to all 
 the lessons the tragic days were forcing home upon us. Robert Moffat 
 had died ; that herculean frame had yielded at last to the ravages of 
 time - that brain, so long active in the philosophy of goodness, had 
 ceased to command thought, for the fire had burnt itself out. Then we 
 remembered how this brave, good, grand Scotch Christian, with soul in- 
 flamed with love to God and men, had gone out to Africa, and with a 
 brave good wife to help him, had traversed deserts, and plunged into 
 jungles- had fcught his way through beasts and fevers, and heathen- 
 dom — had met hunger by taking in his belt a hole or two ; and all to seek 
 and save the souls of men — to save them to civilization, and to truth, 
 to righteousness and God. This man, in all the grandeur of his great 
 example, stood out before us again — a man to be copied — a man to 
 seek and fi'nd inspiration from — a man to be named with the magnifi- 
 cent Xavier, and the gentle, cultured Thomas Acquinas — aye, a man 
 to be called a very apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Manhood was 
 honoured by the manly life of Robert Moffat. Christianity was better 
 vindicated and justified by his word and work than by scores of tomes 
 of learned argument and subtle disquisition. And the lesson of his life 
 went home to thousands of hearts, winged with light and beauty from the 
 glory of his character ; the lesson that a good life is worth living ; that 
 in self-sacrifice is immortal honour ; that it is better to die respected 
 

 
 than rich ; that devotion to God and man is more noble than devotion 
 to Mammon. Learn that great lesson my brothers, and make covenant 
 with God and his Christ that you will bind yourselves with steadfast 
 purpose unto duty; that in faith, truth and' love you will ennoble your 
 own life, bless the world of humanity, and glorify your God. 
 
 • ■.ill 
 
 ■ J. 
 
 -f«W '. 
 
Preaching and Sermons. 
 
 TIG'S CHUECH, Montreal, 7th October, 1883. 
 
 I have called the subject of m}' discourse to-night Preachiag 
 and Sermons. My object is to clearly define, to myself and to you, 
 what I mean by the terms, and to say what I conceive the preacher's 
 function to be. And I use the two words, Preaching and Sermons, 
 because of feome general criticism which has been passed, declaring 
 that a certain kind of pleaching does not produce sermons, but only 
 essays or lectures. There is a pretty wide-spread notion among 
 church-goers as to what a sermon should be, and any departure from 
 the lines marked out by that notion is deprecated or disowned, 
 according to the temper of the critic. Let us see how this has 
 come about. • 
 
 It may very well be said that the Christian era introduced 
 preaching into the world. True, the Prophets of Israel were 
 preachers; they made proclamation of righteousness — they 
 criticised, they condemned, they denounced, they implored in the 
 great name of Jehovah. But they were not stated and appointed 
 preachers ; they were not a class set apart and consecrated to a 
 special oflSce and work, as the priests were. Their cry often startled 
 the people, for it broke upon them like thunder from a clear sky; 
 when they were most self-satisfied — most intoxicated by their own 
 wantonness, then came the Prophet's warning or rebuke, crashing 
 through the noises of their rioting and sin. That done, and the 
 preacher's work for the time was done^duty fulfilled, he went back 
 to work or prayer. The last of the Prophets was the first i-egular 
 preacher. John the Baptist undertook to inaugurate a social and 
 moral revolution; by great and startling sermons he heralded a 
 greater than himself. Jesus Christ was essentially a preacher; He 
 preached to the Jews, to his times, and adopted all the time methods 
 which the true preacher must always adopt to reach and influence the 
 hearts of his hearers. Peter was a preacher, so also was John — 
 80 was Stephen, and, in a still greater degice, was Paul, ^t after 
 their day preaching was not so much cultivated ; a few of the great 
 
11 
 
 fathers shine out in the contuiies — the silver-ton^iied Chiysostoni 
 and ethers — but even most of those were theologians rather than 
 preachers, and set themselves to define or defend doctrines, rather 
 than to exercise any moral and religious influence up?n the public 
 mind and heart. As the chux-ch became richer and firmer in its 
 hold upon the popular reverence, preaching became less and less 
 thought of, and the sacraments, and grace for man through them, 
 more and more prominent. While the Roman Catholic Church 
 has given birth and development to a few great preachers, it has not 
 developed a class of preachers, because, as I have said, the cliurch is 
 sacramental. But, with the protest of Luther and his follow 
 Protestants, came prcachii g ; it was a necessity of the hour. There 
 was an emergency which could only be met by the living voice in 
 fiery eloquence, protesting for human rights and personal libci'ly, 
 ayainst the grinding tyranny of instiiutions and organizations and 
 castes and classes. Preaching established the Reftu-mation. But our 
 reforming fathers, dazzled, perhaps, by the exceeding glory of their 
 great work, sought at first to develop Protestantism by means of 
 sermonizing. They succeeded for a time, but, by-and-bye, preaching 
 got to be painfully wearisome in its reiteration of well-known 
 doctrines and the platitudes of morality, and gradually, but very 
 surely, the church became again sacramental in its modes of worship 
 and mechanical in its methods tor reaching the souls of men to stir 
 leiigious emotion. < 
 
 The Puritan moveme'it brought preaching into prominence 
 again. By that movement the Protestant Church was divided into 
 two branches, the Episcopal and the Nonconformist as it is called. 
 The Episcopal Church is mainly sacramental. I say mainly, because, 
 while in great centres of population she encourages preaching — 
 while she pays most marked respect to eloquence and fervour — 
 while she is cai-eful to promote great preachers to commanaing 
 positions, she lays most stress upon her sacramental services. 
 The sacraments are the life and glory of the English Church, 
 and preaching is but an adjunct. But the Puritan movement has 
 been a long-continued effort to carry out the real ideas and 
 principles of Protestantism. For long it turned a stern uncom- 
 promising face toward all but the simplest sacraments — it would 
 have none of ornate display — no appeal to eye or ear — only the 
 beauty or thunder of doctrines. It partially succeeded, but only 
 
12 
 
 partially; forgradually it was learned that preaching was not enough, 
 except when preachers were exceptional, because of brilliance of 
 imagination or beauty of diction. Puritanism has not been able to 
 he'd its own, for it could not till every pulpit with a great, even a 
 uniformly interesting preachei'. Fathers and mothers kept their )'ews 
 from loyalty of soul, no matter how the preacher halted, but the sons 
 and daughters, having little or none of their parents fine chivalry and 
 self-sacrifice, went off to where the service had interest for their 
 mind or heart, or both. To meet that dem';nd of the times the 
 Puritan branch of the Piotestant Church is making an cflFort to 
 combine the sacramental with the preaching. In some antique 
 places, where the human mind develops slovvlj', a determined stand, 
 is made against the movement, and there are still congregations 
 where organs are not tolerated, although I believe the choir leader is 
 allowed the u>e of the sacred tuning-fork ; but such instances only 
 dot the area covered by the church, and, in the main, the churches 
 are seeking to combine an ornate service with popular preaching. 
 I think the effort is a failure, aud will fail yet more disastrously — 
 not because beautiful praj-ers in sublime language have failed to 
 interest and stir the heart — not because music has lost its charms in 
 places sacred to man's worship of Grod, but because that part of the 
 service, which our people have been to regard as the essential, 
 informing, and vitalizing force in the service, that is, the sermon, has 
 ceased to interest, and the preaching has failed to fulfil the general 
 expectation. ' . •' ^ , . . 
 
 It may be that preaching has not fallen into decay; I think it 
 has not. Sermons are as well conceived, shaped and delivered now, 
 as ever they were ; as great preachers live as ever lived; men live 
 and speak who are as keen in intellect, as subtle to analyse, 
 as bold in search, as eloquent of tongue, as the best men of 
 the best days gone by. We have men as fei-vent in piety 
 and as faithful in word as the christian pulpit ever knew. 
 No, there is no decadence in the preaching, but there is a 
 very marked decadence in sermon-liking on the part of the people. 
 Take what are commonly understood as sermons — that is, discourses 
 based on texts of Scripture, with their divisions and sub-divisions, 
 their general heads and exhortation — and how much interest have 
 they for the general congregation ? Little or none at all. They are 
 scarcely heard with attentive ears. Congregations are, on the whole, 
 
13 
 
 the most dull and languid gatherings of humanities to be found upon 
 the face of the earth. I have watched the effect of sermons upon 
 the audiences many a time, as the preachers went on to introduce 
 the subject, and then got to the text and unfolded its meaning, or 
 made show of doing it^ and then came the orthodox wind-up, with 
 exhortation and invitation, which nobody minded. Not a face that I 
 could see shone with interest; not an eye lit up with the fire of 
 newly-kindled emotions; not a prayer was wrung from silent lips, 
 but the people were dull as the preacher and his theme. I do not 
 mean to say it is always so; for there are preachers of sermons 
 who, by their fervour and strong, blight imagination, will gain 
 the ears an^i minds of all who listen. Whatever genius touches 
 becomes sublime. A candle is a dull thing; touch the wick with 
 fire, and the candle blazes, giving light. So a congregation 
 is a dull thing, but a genius in the pulpit will set it on fire. 
 Only the soil of church life is too poor to grow many geniuses 
 at a time, and we have to reckon with the ordinary and 
 common-place, and find the net value of their work. What are 
 sermons doing for the life of the world ? Very little, it must be 
 frankly confessed. 
 
 And why? Well, first of all, those sermons are not addressed 
 to the times in which we live — not to the people who hear them. A 
 man has been working hard all the week at his calling to make bread ; 
 he has heartache and headache, because of the ever-increasing 
 burdens of life — he is anxious for his family', their present and their 
 future ; it may be that he sees calamity impending, or good fortune 
 is beginning to smile on his working and schemes. Now what should 
 the Sunday service be to that man ? What should it do for him ? 
 Is it to soothe him ? Yes, let it do that. By lofty music and loftier 
 prayer bring a hush upon his spirit, that he may no more be 
 perplexed by having his ears filled with the jar and jangle of the 
 world's bread-making machinery; and then — what? Are you to 
 wrench him away from this world of work and sin altogether ? Are 
 you to comfort him for all his self-imposed afflictions and sins of 
 passion and pride, b}^ telling him that if he only can and will 
 believe certain doctrines he will have the righteousness of another 
 ascribed to him ? Are you to fill his mind with vain and vague 
 imaginings about a heaven he really has no desire for, and a hell he 
 is really not afraid of? Are you to tell him that he need not expect 
 
14 
 
 much result from good works and noble endeavoura against sin ? 
 To help him to be good and great, are you to take him back to 
 ancient times and Oriental scenes for his examples ? Well, you can 
 do that, and that is what the orthodox preachers of sermons do. 
 And what is the result? Dullness. A venerable divine told me a 
 while ago that he had preached for ten years at a time without being 
 thanked for u sermon by man, woman or child. I can very well 
 believe it. He got just what he had stipulated for and so earned — 
 nothing more. He had given them nothing to call out their gratitude. 
 He h:id doubtless given during that time a strong moral support to 
 the Creator, and expressed approval of creation generally; he 
 had defended Moses, the Decalogue and Pentateuch ; he had 
 repeated the thunder of Isaiah, and unfolded the dream of 
 Ezekiel ; he had explained the personality and Godhead of 
 Jesus Christ ; he harmonised the Gospels and interpreted the Epistles; 
 he had established the truth and beauty of all his own dogmas ; he 
 had done so much for the Church and the faith that his brethern and 
 friends at a distance, who had no chance to hear him preach, gave 
 him a diploma, but no man, woman nor child, during all these dreary 
 years, took his hand and looked into his eyes and said, "Thank you; 
 I am the stronger, and the better for that sermon." And no wonder. 
 He had only told them what they thought they knew and had 
 heard a thousand times befoi-e. You have heard professional 
 guides in abbey or tower. The first time it was interesting 
 enough, but you had to go again to take a friend, and 
 the story was rather tame ; and you had to go again 
 to take another friend, and then you begged to be allowed to 
 remain outside while your friend heard the story you wanted to hear 
 no more. So it is with the ijeneral run of sermons; the much 
 weai'ied hearers, metaphorically, remain outside by going to sleep, or 
 turn the attention to something other than the preacher's subject. 
 Speeches on politics get a hearing. I have heard most indifferent 
 speakers loudly cheered; their logic halted just like their tongue; 
 their argument was as disjointed as their sentences ; but they were 
 heard because they spoke to the hour and the souls there before 
 them ; they spoke of home, and not of Judea ; they criticised the 
 living ; they dealt with living subjects. 
 
 There can be no really groat preachei-, and consequently no 
 really great sermons, except at times of religioui^ agitation and 
 
15 
 
 revolutions. A great general is found, not in the piping time of peace, 
 but when the thunder of war wakes the dormant soul in him. The 
 great statesman is only made when his country is threatened or 
 overwhelmed with disaster. So the great preacher is only possible 
 when I'evolution is upon the Church — when somo protest has to be 
 launched forth in the name of God and man's rights. Luther's 
 preaching shook the Vatican until the walls heaved apart, and cries 
 and curses came out as the light of day went sti-eaming in. The 
 echoes aroused Cliristendom ; but those sermons are tame 
 reading now — the emergency is over. John Knox by pr'^aching 
 crushed Popery in Scotland and changed the face of politics, 
 but as we read those discourses now, we barely get beyond 
 wondering how the old man could have been so unkind 
 to so beautiful a woman as Mary, Queen of Scots. Wesley 
 and Whitfield were great preachers, and by their words wrought 
 mightj' things in their day. The best of their sermons would cause no 
 sensation now. They preached to their day, and vvith the passing of 
 the day passed the power of their sermons. And yet people tell us 
 we are not to preach to our day as they did. They had the advan- 
 tage of great and stirring times when words had a chance to effect 
 something — we have the disadvantage of mean and dull times, and 
 we are to be denied the right to preach even to them. With the ex- 
 ample of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jesus Christ, and Luther and Wesley 
 before me, I am told I must not speak about politics — my discourse 
 will not be a sermon, only a lecture or essay if I do. All such 
 things must be left to the press. I must not say much about philo- 
 sophy, nor science, nor commerce, nor social questions; I must only 
 come with my bag of chaff, and hand out firstly, secondly and third- 
 ly every week, just that you may comfort yourselves with the 
 delusion that you are recognizing religion. "Well, those who want 
 chaff must go to the jDrofessional and licensed vendors of the article; 
 only let them acknowledge that they seek after and have a liking 
 for chaff'. 
 
 We have no great revolutions throbbing around us, but 
 the now of life is always great with incident and surprise, and the 
 function of the preacher is to throw a strong religious light upon 
 that now — upon its manifold complexities and quaint perplexities — 
 its miracles of goodness and its mysteries of pain. All the week you 
 have looked at politics from under — from your place in the party — 
 
16 
 
 from your point of commercial or social interests ; now the Sabbath 
 has come, and I want to take you up the slopes of the mountain of 
 God's holiness, that you may see politics from over, and judge your 
 position as the light of truth and just ee flashes down upon it. I 
 spoke just now of the jaded man in church and what ho needs. He 
 needs to look at the life he is living from a religious point of view; 
 he needs to have the light of truth flooding his commercial 
 transactions, so that to-morrow, whan he sets his hand to the repeti- 
 tions of the blundering sin, he may hear the words of condemnation 
 ringing through the chambers of his soul ; he needs help for his mind 
 when it is struggling with grert problems in the philosophy of 
 religion ; he needs to be told what visions the seer has, what is 
 fleeting and what is permanent, enduring forever ; he needs to have 
 discussed before him, from a moral and religious point of view, those 
 things of earth and heaven, time and eternity, wliich interest him 
 becinise they immediately concern him. He needs those things, I say ; 
 I do not my that he wants them or demands then. The majority of 
 churchgoers think the minister, the ideal minister, should be " a little 
 mean man, with a little mind and a little conscience, and a little 
 heart, and a little small soul, with a little eff'eminate culture got by 
 drivelling over the words of some of humanity's noblest men — a man 
 who never shows himself on the hit^hways of letters, morals, business, 
 science, politics, where thought, well girt for toil, marches forth to 
 more than kingly victory, but now and then moves round in the 
 parlours of society, smiling upon the mean as upon the good, because 
 the pew rent of the evil will go just as far in housekeeping as that 
 of the good, and sneaks up and down the aisles of the church, and 
 crawls into the pulpit to lift an unctuous face to heaven, and then, 
 with the words and example of Moses, and Samuel, and David, and 
 Jesus before him, under his very eye, in a small voice whines out 
 his worthless stuff, which does but belittle the exiguity of soul 
 which appropriately sleeps beneath in the pews, not beneath him in 
 spirit, only below him in space. I know men who want such a 
 minister, who will " Preach the Gospel " as they call it, and never 
 apply the Christian religion to politics, to business, to the life of the 
 famil3', or the individual, not even to the church. A gospel ? Yes, 
 an admirable gospel for Scribes and Pharasees, and hypocrites — glad 
 tidings of great jo}'- to dishonest traders and politicians. Religion 
 nothing to do with politics ; the morality of the New Testament 
 
IT 
 
 not to bo applied to the dealings of man ; the golden rule too pre- 
 cious for daily use? Such a man will " save souls" — pi-eserved in 
 hypocrisy and kept on ice from youth to age. How he can call 
 his idolatry even worshipping the Bible I know not — for j'ou cannot 
 open this Book anywhere, but from its oldest to its newest leaves 
 there rustles forth the most earnest speech in protest against evil and 
 in proclamation of goodness — words which burn even now when tiioy 
 are two or three thousand j'ears old." . 
 
 But thank God, all men do not demand such meaness of soul and 
 dryness of stuff — they seek after what is sneeringly called the essay 
 or lecture in morals and religion, because their intelligence is not in- 
 sulted — their religious emotions are quickened, their reasonable 
 ardour is fired thereby. Friends, I counsel you to be of that brave 
 and earnest few. Choose to hear the man who will not put his own 
 soul into 3'our bosom, but will wake the soul that is in you; the man 
 who will give you great and swelling thougiits of ffod — not the God 
 of popular theology, whose face flames with the fire of anger, and 
 who made the world with predisposition to damn it for evermore — 
 but the God of Jesus — the God of the poor and suffering — :he God of 
 mercy and love, who made the world to bless it by saving all His 
 children into the eternal heaven of righteousness. Seek those 
 discourses — call them what they may, sermons, essays, lectures, 
 anything — that will make you ashamed of sin, and strong in 
 the righteousness of duty, that will make you true in all 
 the relations of life, true to yourself, to your family, 
 your neighbour, your nation, your. God. Put yourselves under 
 the influence of free strong manly speech — speech that will not 
 delude you with false hopes and ideas, but will inspire you to aim in 
 faith and prayer after lofty achievements ; speech that breathes such 
 holy thinking as to surround you with an atmosphere of truth; 
 speech that shall help you in your constant endeavour to complete 
 your manhood in the likeness of God. 
 
"(Dmnia sujjcrat "Uirtus." 
 
 Herbert Fairbairn Gardiner, 
 
 Hamilton, Ontario.