02.08. MOTIVES TO EARNESTNESS contd

V. This state of mind and action is within the reach of every minister of Christ.

Some men, from natural energy of character, may be more prone to, and better qualified for, this fervid and devoted zeal, than some others. They are of a more mercurial temperament than their phlegmatic brethren, who creep while they fly, and who require more stimulus to rouse them into activity, than is necessary to keep the others at their full speed. This is constitutional to a very considerable extent; but it is after all, more of a moral than a natural inability in many; and the sinners whom they address and call to repentance, and to whom they declare that the only hindrance they have to true religion is an impotence of will, are just as excusable for their lack of penitence and faith, as any minister under heaven is for a lack of earnestness. He may never be able to be a scholar, or a philosopher, or a mathematician, though he may acquire more of all these attainments than he supposes is within his reach, if he will but give himself to early rising, make a good apportionment of his time, and adopt a well-arranged plan of study. His situation and engagements may be such, however, that he may not hope to rise to eminence in these pursuits. But nothing forbids his activity, zeal, and entire devotedness to the great work of preaching the gospel, and caring for men’s souls. He may not be a consummate orator, for perhaps he has not voice for this; but he may, if he pleases, use what voice he has with good effect; he may not have the ability required for finished composition; but he can, if he gives time and labor, produce sermons full of spiritual power—he may not be able to attract around him the rich, the literary, or the great; but he can interest the poor, and engage the children of the Sunday-school, and perhaps, their parents; he may not have ten talents—but he need not wrap up his one in a napkin and bury it in the earth. Every man has one talent at least, with which he can busily trade and acquire profit for his employer and reward for himself.

If the pride of some men over-estimate the number of their talents; the modesty, or in some cases the indolence, of others, leads them to make too low a calculation of theirs. There is a source of latent energy in most men, which they have been so far from exhausting, that they have scarcely opened it; they have in many cases to break up virgin soil. I knew a minister of Christ, and loved him well, who was in a situation where he had done little, and feared he never should do more. Everything was dull around him, and he was dull with it. It pleased God to remove him to a new situation, and then he became a new man. He revived from his torpor, and everything revived around him. He now evinced an activity and energy which surprised himself and those who knew him. He formed a new congregation, instituted a variety of religious organizations of a useful kind, and was one of the most earnest men I knew. All this energy was not a new creation—but a resurrection. So it might be with many other ministers. Principles of activity are within them, only waiting for the influence of circumstances, or their own will, to give them life, motion, and vigor. Away then with the excuses of indolence, the fears of timidity, the objections of modesty, and the opiates of conscience; for it is these which prevent a man from being zealously affected in a good thing.

Every minister can be an earnest minister if he so wills—he is earnest when anything in which he has a deep interest is at stake. Let his house be on fire, or his health or life be in danger, or his wife or child be in peril, or some means of greatly augmenting his property be thrown in his way, and what intensity of emotion and vehemence of action will be excited in him! He needs but the pressure upon his conscience of the interests of immortal souls; he needs but a heart so constrained by the love of Christ, as to be borne away by the force and impetuosity of that hallowed passion; he needs but a longing desire to be wise in winning men to Jesus; he needs, in fine—but a heart fully set to accomplish the ends and objects of his office, to possess that high and noble quality of soul which it is the object of this work to recommend.

There are the same constitutional varieties in tradesmen as in ministers, and yet we never hearken to the former, when in justification of their failure for lack of energy, they tell us they have no physical capacity for, or tendency to, activity. Our reply to them is, that what is deficient in them by nature, must be made up by reason and resolution. I say the same to the preacher of the gospel, and while by the representation I would constrain his conscience by a sense of obligation, I would equally aim to interest his heart by awakening his hope. He may never with his measure of talent be able to reach the success of some more gifted and more favored brethren; but he may have a measure of his own, far more than enough to recompense any labor he may bestow; and instead therefore of spending his time in envying others, or sitting down in despair and doing nothing, because he cannot do as much as they, let him rise up, and have the blessed consciousness and reward of doing what he could.

Young ministers of the gospel, and students preparing for the ministry, who may read these pages, you can possess and exhibit real earnestness—all its delightful excitement, all its blessed results, and all its eternal consequences, are within your reach. There is no lion in the street, except such as your own imagination sees there, and your own sloth has placed there. Make the effort, it is worth the making—try, you can but fail, and it is better to fail, than not to make the attempt. Think what a result may issue from new devotedness. We have never yet any of us adequately estimated the immense importance and momentous consequences of our work. How can we? They are eternal, and who can duly estimate eternity? Do we believe what we preach, that the conversion of a soul is of more consequence than the creation of a world? Is this sober truth, or mere rhetoric? Is this fact, or the mere garniture of a sermon; only a dash of eloquence, an artifice of oratory? If true, and we know it is so, how momentous it is! A soul, weigh it in the balances of the sanctuary, and settle its worth; appraise its value. Salvation! wondrous word, and more wondrous thing. One word only—but containing millions of ideas; uttered in a moment—but requiring everlasting ages, and all the amplitude of heaven, for the unfolding of its meaning.

Archbishop Williams, once uttered this memorable speech—"I have passed through many places of honor and trust both in Church and State, more than anyone of my order for seventy years before; but were I assured, that by my preaching I had converted one soul to God, I would therein take more comfort than in all the honors and offices that have ever been bestowed upon me." What a confession from an archbishop, that he did not know he had been the instrument of converting a single soul to God; what importance does the confession stamp upon the work of saving souls; and what a stimulus should it supply to us who are engaged in this divine employment!

How vain and worthless a thing is the popular applause which some receive for their eloquence, compared with the proofs of usefulness in the conversion of immortal souls? What are the flatteries of the foolish or even the eulogies of the wise; what the honeyed compliments, or golden opinions of the most distinguished circle of admirers, weighed against the testimony of one redeemed sinner whom we have been the instrument of saving from death—but as the small dust in the balance! How have some men, preeminent for their intellectual might, and accustomed to fascinate the spell-bound multitude by the power of their eloquence, yearned amid all their popularity for some more substantial, satisfying, and abiding reward of their labor, than that admiration of their talents, which they were accustomed to receive! They were not unsusceptible to the emotions of vanity, nor ungratified by the expressions of applause, at the time—but when they found that this was all the result of their labors, they sickened at the incense and the honey, and exclaimed in the bitterness of disappointment, and the anguish of self-reproach, "Is this all my reward? Oh, where are the souls I have converted from the error of their ways?"

We have a striking proof of this in the late Dr. McAll, whom it was my privilege to call my friend. It was impossible for this extraordinary man to be ignorant either of his great powers, of the estimate in which they were held, or of the effect they produced on others by his pulpit exercises. Nor was he by any means unsusceptible of the influence of applause. But how empty did this appear to him as compared with the abiding results of real usefulness; which if he had not enjoyed in such large measures as some others, it was not for lack of any concern to obtain it. "Deeply affected was he often," says Dr. Leifchild, "by the fear of not being useful in his ministry." "I have admiration enough," he would say, "but I want to see conversion, and Christian growth in the converts." He spoke of some other neighboring ministers, whose churches he said resembled a garden which the Lord had blessed, or whose spots of verdure were more vivid than his own; but added, that his emotions in making the comparison, partook of a character that absorbed or overwhelmed him with sorrow for himself. I remember on one occasion after a brilliant speech from himself he listened to a much plainer and less oratorical brother, whose address, however, seemed to be penetrating the minds of the audience, and produced on their countenances an appearance of being deeply affected. At that moment, the speaker hearing a loud sobbing behind him, turned round; it was McAll. "Ah," he said afterwards, "I would give the world to be able to produce that effect in such a legitimate way." Though the desire thus ardently breathed, was elicited on the platform, it extended to every description of pastoral address. "Oh," said he to Mr. Griffin, again and again, "I care nothing what the people may think or say of my abilities if I may but be useful to souls!" and once with a kind of swelling indignation, "God knows, I do not want their applause, I want their salvation." This is eminently instructive and impressive, and is one of the most convincing instances which the history of the pulpit can furnish of the worthlessness, compared with the salvation of immortal souls, of every object of pastoral pursuit, and every other reward of pastoral labor. This was not the confession and lamentation of one whose envy led him to depreciate the value of that which he had no hope of obtaining—but of one who was the admiration of every circle into which he entered, and whose surprising talents commanded the plaudits of all who heard him. How much of the power of that vast intellect, of that splendid eloquence, and of the admiration and eulogies which they drew upon him, would Dr. McAll have given up for a portion of the usefulness, which he saw was granted to the humbler but more effective talents of some of his far less gifted brethren. Let the men who are but too apt to envy such displays of genius, and who, when they see the spell-bound multitude listening in breathless silence, or dispersing with audible applause, fret because they cannot do as much with their enchantments, study the scene before us—let them follow Dr. McAll home from the crowded, fascinated, admiring congregation, leaving behind him the atmosphere perfumed and vocal with the delight of his hearers, to commune with God and his own heart in his closet, and there hear him exclaiming with a burst of agony, "Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has your arm been revealed?" Let them mark all this, and learn that, in the estimation of the most gifted minds, there is no object of pursuit so sublime, and no reward for pastoral labor so rich, as the salvation of immortal souls!

VI. We may next direct our attention to the fact that earnestness has usually been successful in the accomplishment of its object—and that little has ever been achieved without it.

I admit, and in the conclusion of this work shall more emphatically state, the necessity of a Divine influence to convert the soul; but still the Spirit works by means, and by means best adapted to accomplish the proposed end. We do not look for the Spirit to convert souls without the truth; it is by the presentation of this to the judgment, and by the co-working of Divine grace upon the heart, that the great change of regeneration is effected. It is evident, however, that this blessed result can take place only in those cases where the truth is really contemplated. The attention must be fixed upon it, or no result can take place. Attention, and to a certain extent abstraction of mind, may be said to be essentially necessary to the work of conversion. Hence those preachers are not only likely to be most useful—but are most useful, who have the greatest power of fixing their own attention upon the truth, and holding the mind abstracted from all other topics. When the attention is by their manner of preaching withdrawn from foreign matters, and fixed upon the truth then presented, the Spirit in a way of sovereign mercy gives forth his influence to change the evil bias of the heart towards the truth thus exhibited. We perceive in different preachers very various kinds of power to engage the attention—some do it by their commanding eloquence; others by their impressive delivery; others by their burning ardor; others by their melting affection; and some even by their eccentricity; but amid all these specific varieties of manner, we shall find power to arrest and fix the attention. A preacher may be immeasurably inferior to many others in the vigor of his intellect and richness of his imagination, and yet may be very far their superior in seizing and holding the minds of his hearers. We cannot hope to do good if we do not succeed in gaining the attention of our hearers, and our expectations of accomplishing the objects of our ministry may be indulged with much confidence, if we can so preach as to compel our hearers to listen to us. There is a striking incident mentioned in the "Life and Remains" of Mr. Cecil, that master of pulpit eloquence. He was once invited to preach in a village, where the joyful sound of evangelical truth was rarely heard in the parish church, and where he thought it probable he should have no other opportunity to proclaim it. To his mortification, when he got half way through the sermon, he perceived that he had not succeeded in gaining that close attention of the people which he deemed essential to the success of his sermon. The time was going by, the case seemed desperate, and it occurred to him that something must be done, or the opportunity was lost; and pausing for a moment where the subject admitted of his trying his experiment, he said with some degree of that impressiveness which pertained to him, "Last Monday morning a man was hanged at Tyburn!" and then went on to make the recent execution bear upon the subject of discourse. The expedient of course succeeded, the wandering eyes of the congregation were fixed upon the preacher, and their truant minds upon the sermon. He gained their attention, and it was riveted to him throughout the remainder of the discourse. Such self-possession is a noble qualification for a public speaker—and the lesson taught by the anecdote is, that we must have the attention of our congregations, or we can do them no good; and that the more we command this, so as to lead them to think of the truth, the more likely we are to do them good. The history of all successful preachers will prove that amid a vast variety of means of gaining attention, they each had the power of doing so, and in that power lay the secret of their success.

Let any one who is at all in doubt whether the importance of earnestness is overstated in this work, consider who among departed ministers have been, and who among living ones are, the most distinguished as successful preachers of the word of God. If he applies this to the fathers and founders of Nonconformity, he will find that in the first rank stand Baxter, Bunyan, Doolittle, Clarkson, Flavel, Heywood, and Howe—and when he has read their glowing, pungent, and powerful appeals to the hearts and consciences of their hearers, he will not wonder that such sermons effected the high purpose for which all sermons should be preached, that is, the conversion of sinners. Coming on to latter times, it is unnecessary, after what has been said, to mention Whitfield and Wesley, except to reiterate that in addition to other high and nobler qualities, earnestness was the great means of their extensive success. They lived and labored for scarcely anything else than the salvation of immortal souls. As a proof of the intensity of their zeal, reference may be made to the race of men into whom they breathed the fervor of their own souls, and whom they raised up to carry on their own great work. With here and there an exception, the present race of Methodist and Dissenting ministers are stiff, formal, cold-hearted men, compared with not only the leaders—but the immediate followers of those illustrious instruments of the modern revival of evangelical religion. How few of us are worthy to be mentioned with Coke and Fletcher, Rowland Hill, Berridge, and Grimshaw; with Cecil, Newton, and Romaine. What men were raised up in Wales by the Whitfield movement, Daniel Rowland, Jones of Llangan, Howell Harris, and their successors, John Elijah, Christmas Evans, and Williams of the Wern; men who caused the mountains of their romantic country to echo to their mighty voices, and who filled its vallies with the fruits of their impassioned oratory! If we look across the Atlantic, what a wonderful man do we discover in Jonathan Edwards, whose printed sermons, which were only in accordance with his ordinary ministry, are full of such earnestness as he exhibited in the specimen given earlier in this work, and whose ministry was so full of its successful results. Call to recollection Stoddard, Bellamy, Dwight, Davies, who in the land of the pilgrim fathers diffused abroad by their unreserved devotedness the savor of that Name which is above every name. In Scotland there have been the Erskines, the McLaurins, the Walkers, the Dicksons, and others of bygone days, whose remains tell us how they handled the word of God, and whose memoirs inform us of their success. In these venerated men we see the secret of all pastoral power; desire amounting to fervor for the conversion of sinners, and adaptation in their preaching to accomplish it.

If the illustrious company of reformers, who next to the apostles, present the most magnificent examples of burning zeal, be not referred to, if the majestic and mighty Luther, the profound Calvin, the heroic Zwingle, the intrepid Knox, the elegant and classic Melancthon, are passed over, it is not only because they are too well-known to need a mention—but also because they may be thought too high above the ordinary sphere of pastoral activity to be imitated—and yet if the pattern of the great Master himself is placed before us for contemplation and imitation, surely that of the most renowned of his servants need not be withheld. What singleness of aim, unity of purpose, and concentration of energy, were there in those rare and extraordinary men, and what less could have carried them on and through their noble career!

Descending to others, what men have been with us in the recollection of the present generation; the horizon has scarcely even yet ceased to glow with their radiance; the original and striking Fuller, the mighty Hall, the seraphic Pearce, and the lion-hearted Knibb; the intellectual Watson, and the masculine Bogue; the eccentric yet generous Wilks, the judicious Roby, the mild yet persuasive Burder, the pathetic Waugh, the wise and tender Griffin, the captivating and lovely Spencer, and the eloquent McAll. Honored be their names, fragrant their memories, and precious the recollection of their example! May we who survive cherish the recollection of their life and labors, and never forget that their greatness and their usefulness arose not more from their talents, than from their devoted earnestness in the cause of evangelical truth. But coming to other and living examples, more upon the ordinary level, it may be well to look around upon those by whom in our own day, and before our own eyes, the ends of the Christian ministry and the object of evangelical preaching are most extensively accomplished, and to inquire by what order of means this has been done. It would be invidious to mention the names of living men, and to select from among the multitude those who are pre-eminent above their fellows in usefulness, in popularity, and in the constant exhibition of evangelical truth. Two names, however, may here obtain a place, honored by us all, and an honor to us; the names of men widely differing, yet of equally conspicuous and acknowledged excellences, who are too far above us to excite our envy, and whose celebrity will defend this willing, affectionate, and admiring testimony, from the charge of invidious selection or fulsome adulation; and who, each in his own sphere, one in the northern and the other in the southern hemisphere, is shedding the luster of an evening star, and reflecting upon the church the glory of that great Sun of Righteousness, in whose attraction it has been his delight through a long, and holy, and useful life, to revolve—who yet live, and long may they live, that our younger ministry may learn in the holy labors of Chalmers * and Jay, how beautiful and how useful is human genius when sanctified by grace, and devoted to an earnest preaching of the gospel of salvation.

* Alas, that so soon after this paragraph was penned, one of these venerated names should be expunged from the record of living men, and added to the list of the illustrious dead! Yes, the mighty Chalmers is gone; and to quote the address, selected by Mr. Jay as his funeral text for Rowland Hill, we may utter the wail and exclaim, "Howl, fir tree, the cedar has fallen! "The very glory and pride of Lebanon has fallen, and every one who surveys the gap which his removal has made in the forest, feels that there is no source of consolation under such a bereavement—but that which is supplied by the consideration that the Lord lives. It is beyond my ability to describe or to eulogize this wonderful man, whose death has clothed the whole church of God in mourning; I would therefore only say that ever since his vast intellect was irradiated by the light of truth, and his noble heart was brought by faith under the constraint of love to Christ, he has exhibited one of the finest specimens of the character I have attempted to delineate in this volume; so that every student of divinity in our colleges, and every minister of every denomination, may be directed to Dr. Chalmers, as one of the most beautiful types and models of an Earnest Minister. Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander’s funeral sermon, which contains an admirable analysis of his mind and character, will well repay perusal. But we are not considering now what may be done, and is done, by the gifted few, who by their rare endowments are fitted, and designed, to enrich our theological literature by their valuable works, or to gather around our pulpits the literary or philosophical spirits of the place in which they dwell; they are the exceptions in all denominations to the general rule of preachers, even as those who listen to them are the exceptions to the general rule of hearers. Our remarks apply to the men who move the masses, who operate upon the popular mind as it is most commonly found; and what are they? not men of high scholarship, profound philosophy, or elegant composition; but men of energy and earnestness, men laying themselves out for usefulness, men of business and of tact in the management of their fellow-men, men of heart, of feeling, and perseverance. Where is a large congregation, a flourishing, well-compacted church to be found? There is an earnest man. Where, in what country, or in what denomination, does one such man labor without considerable success? Where has the faithful, devoted, energetic preacher of evangelical truth, to use in a figurative sense the words of the Lord’s forerunner, had to say, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness?" Where do we find small congregations, dissatisfied or declining churches, and empty chapels? Where do the ways of Zion mourn, and her gates languish, because none come to her solemn feasts? Certainly not where the ministers are as flames of fire. No matter where, or under what discouraging circumstances, one of these sacred flames may commence his labors, he will soon draw around him a deeply interested and attentive congregation; no matter what may be the denomination with which he may be associated, he will not only excite the indifference, or subdue the prejudice, by which he is surrounded—but will awaken interest and conciliate regard. Under the magic power of his devotedness, blessed as it will be by God the Spirit, the gloom, desolation, and sterility of winter, will be followed by the verdure and beauty of spring; and the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for him, and the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose. In some cases the change has been as sudden and as complete as in Russia, from frosts and snows to flowers and fragrance—churches that seemed only the repositories of the dead, and places for monuments and epitaphs, have become crowded with living and listening hearers of the joyful sound—and chapels once far too large for the last remains of a former congregation, have been soon found too small for the new one that has filled up its place.

It would be a profitable exercise for anyone to look round upon some of our most successful ministers, and after surveying the extent of their usefulness, to say to himself, "How has that man done this? What have been the means by which, under God, he has accomplished so much?" Unhappily there are a few, perhaps, who are so enamored by what is literary, intellectual, or philosophical, that even in great pastoral success, they see little to admire or to covet, if it be not associated with scholarship and science. This is a bad state of mind, indicates a worse state of heart, and proves that the man who is the subject of it, has totally mistaken the end of the pastoral office. Some of our most useful preachers are far more conscious of their deficiencies in literature and philosophy than these supercilious scholars may imagine, and would purchase, at almost any cost, if they could be obtained, by money, the attainments which their limited education never enabled them to acquire; but at the same time they would not give up their usefulness for all the literature of Greece and Rome, with all mathematics and philosophy in addition—and amid their deficiencies in all that would give them weight and influence in the world of letters, they feel adoringly thankful for all that other kind of weight and influence which they have acquired in the church. Their labors in the pulpit have gained them an acceptance which is far more surprising to themselves than it can be to others.

Peradventure also, they may have launched on the sea of authorship, and have had a prosperous course, where many expected they must soon make shipwreck. None can be more sensible than themselves of defects in their compositions, and often they have been ready to blame their presumption in taking up their pen, and to resolve to lay it down forever; when perhaps some instance of usefulness has come to their knowledge, as if to reprove their vanity, wounded by a sense of their own deficiencies, and to make them thank God, and take courage. They knew their own department of literary action, and aimed at nothing higher than to be useful; willing to bear the sneer of literary pride, and endure the lash of critical severity, so that they might accomplish the only objects of their ambition, the salvation of immortal souls, and the establishment of believers in their holy faith.

Such men there are among us, who owe their success not to a finished education, for it was their misfortune not to enjoy this precious advantage to the extent to which it is now carried; nor to high scholarship, to which they make no pretensions—but to an intense desire to be useful, and to something of earnestness in carrying out the desires of their hearts. In addition to the direct usefulness of their labors, they may be useful in another way, by showing that where great literary acquisitions have been precluded, still simple earnestness without them, may be blessed of God for accomplishing in no inconsiderable extent the great ends of the Christian ministry.

It has been said, in reference to secular matters, that a man who has decision of character enough to make up his mind to be rich; who has a measure of talent to uphold his resolution; and a rigid system of self-denying economy, will ordinarily succeed—and observation seems to support the remark. With far greater certainty may it be said, that he who enters upon his ministry with an intense zeal for God; an ardent passion for the salvation of souls; a well sustained, deep piety, a tolerable share of talents and acquirements; and a fixed purpose in humble dependence upon God’s grace, to be a useful minister of Christ, will not fail of his end. The failure of such a man would be a new thing in the earth. I know of no such case, and I do not expect to meet with one. In dealing with sinners and calling them to repentance, we tell each, he may be saved if he will—not intending by such an expression that he can be saved without the Spirit of God; but that he may secure that Divine power if he has faith to receive it—so we may also venture to say to every minister of Christ, it is his own fault if he is not useful; intending by such an assertion, that as the gospel he preaches is God’s own truth; as preaching is his own institute; as the minister is his own servant; and as He has promised that his grace shall be added to them, it would seem as if in the case of entire or extensive failure, a minister has himself only to blame. But we may look at the power of earnestness, as seen in the cause of error as well as in that of truth. It has as often served a bad cause as it has a good one. Islamism owes its existence and its wide dominion to this quality in its extraordinary founder. Mohammed exhibits one of the most amazing instances of this quality the world ever witnessed; and with what dreadful results was it followed in his case!

We may say the same of Popery; that stupendous fabric of delusion, which throws its dark and chilling shadow over so large a portion of Christendom, owes its erection and its continuance to the intense devotedness with which it has inspired its votaries—it is this that upholds a system constantly at war with the dictates of reason, the doctrines of revelation, and the dearest rights and liberties of humanity. It is the mysterious and indomitable earnestness of its priesthood, which has resisted the attacks of logic, rhetoric and piety, of divines, philosophers and statesmen, of wit, humor and ridicule; and which, in this age of learning, science, commerce and liberty, enables it not only to maintain its ground—but to advance and make conquests. The Church of Rome, which would in the hands of a lukewarm priesthood fall by the weight of its own absurdity, or be crushed by the hands of its constant assailants, is still strong in the hearts of its members—because each of them from the Pope down, through all its civil and ecclesiastical gradations, to its most insignificant member, is a type of concentrated and intensely glowing zeal. The pages of ecclesiastical history furnish us with extraordinary instances of the power of the pulpit, in the sermons of some Popish preachers. I do not now refer to the court of Louis the Fourteenth, which, with that imperious and licentious monarch at its head, was subdued into a transient frame and season of devoutness, by the sermons of Massillon—but to the preaching of far inferior and less known orators; and to effects less courtly—but not less striking. When Connecte, an Italian, preached, the ladies committed their gay dresses by hundreds to the flames. When Narni in Lent, taught the populace from the pulpits of Rome, half the city went from his sermons, crying along the streets, "Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us!" When he preached at Salamanca, he induced eight hundred students to quit all worldly prospects of honor, riches, and pleasure, and to become penitents in diverse monasteries; and some of them eventually became martyrs. Such was the power of earnestness; but being devoted in this case to the cause of error, being directed rather to the imagination than to the heart, and intended to correct mere ceremonial irregularities, rather than to lead to repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not surprised that the storm of passion soon subsided; that Narni himself was so disgusted with his office, that he renounced preaching and shut himself up in his cell, to mourn over his irreclaimable contemporaries. This striking fact is replete with instruction, not only as showing the power of the pulpit—but also the essential feebleness of that religion which does not aim at the renovation of the heart, and the transient nature of that effect which is produced by mere rhetoric, unaccompanied by a sober exhibition of the truth to enlighten the judgment, to warm the affections, and to awaken the conscience. But it is not only on this grand scale that we see the power and success of ardent zeal, even in a bad cause; for there is no system of opinions, and no course of religious practice, however remote, not only from the truth of revelation but from the dictates of common sense, and even the decorum of society—but if preached and propagated by men of intense ardor, will gain for a while disciples to believe it, and apostles to propagate it.

If men are really in earnest in ’blowing bubbles’, some will be found to look at, admire, and follow them. I have already said that earnestness is contagious—a man in this state of mind and action is sure to draw some others under the influence of his own example. If this is the case with a bad cause, how much more may we expect it to be so in a good one! Everything then combines to prove that our lack of success must be traced up rather to our neglect of the right means to obtain it, than to any backwardness on the part of God to give his blessing to intelligent, judicious, and earnest exertions.

Surely, surely, there must be, I repeat, a latent power in the evangelical pulpit, viewed as a moral and well adapted means of impression, which has not, except by Whitfield and a few others, been studied, discovered, and applied. Surely if we had more intense piety, stronger faith, more knowledge of the human heart, more concern to obtain an impressive elocution, more ardent longings after the conversion of sinners, we could and would by God’s grace, move and command the masses. There is, there must be, neglected power somewhere.

VII. The state of our denomination demands immediate and devoted attention to the subject. In speaking of our own denomination, I find in its general condition much cause for thankfulness and congratulation. In the number of our churches and the competency of a very large number of their pastors; in our colleges and schools; in our missionary and other organizations; in our periodical and other religious literature; in our public spirit and liberality, I see signs of prosperity, and tokens for good—and if we are true to ourselves and to our cause, we have nothing to fear. Our opponents cannot do us so much harm as we may do ourselves. With a system of doctrine which we believe is taken from the New Testament, and a system of polity which in all its general principles is derived from the same source, we may not only stand our ground—but advance, if we will present the former in all its fullness, and administer the latter with discretion and charity.

Everything, under God’s blessing, depends upon our ministry. This, which is important to every denomination, is especially so to ours. We go forth, not only unsupported by the wealth, power, and fashionableness of the Established Church—but without the aid of that elaborately organized combination which is to be found in some sections that separate from it. Our ministers, so to speak, do not contend in regiments formed in rank and file—but single handed, and should therefore be all picked men, each possessed of courage and of skill. Let us only take care to send none but such into the field, and we may hope for a still more abundant measure of prosperity than we at present enjoy.

There is room enough for all denominations in the vast wilderness of our neglected and unchristianized population, and we have no need to look at each other’s labors with jealousy and envy. Satan is ruining souls faster than all of us united can save them! It is a mark of deep malignity of heart, and a proof that it is the distempered zeal of bigotry, and not pure love to God and souls, that moves us, when we see with uneasiness, the success of other denominations of evangelical Christians—and rejoice over their failure. To seize with avidity any acknowledgments of, and lamentations over, a lack of usefulness, and then tearing them from their connection and exaggerating their statements, to hold them up exultingly to the world, and tauntingly to the denomination from which in frankness and in sorrow they have come, may suit well with the strategy of political warfare, and serve the cause of a party—but ill accords with the spirit of divine charity, and cannot promote the interests of our common Christianity. In many places of worship connected with the Establishment, even where the gospel is preached—but preached with feebleness, we find small congregations, and few souls converted to God. Do we rejoice over this? On the contrary, it is a grief and a lamentation. And is there a heart so envenomed with the gall of bigotry, as to rejoice in the confession now made, that many of our congregations are withering away under the effete ministrations of incompetent men? Such a withering is indeed going on in many places. The fact cannot be concealed, it is notorious. We have been incautious in the admission, not of bad men, for few of these ever find their way into our pulpits; not of heretical men, for we take care not to receive such; but of incompetent men—not always incompetent in intellect—but in talents for public speaking and the active duties of the pastorate. From this cause, combined with the increased energy and activity of the Church of England, our congregations are diminishing in some places, though multiplying and increasing in others. With the freedom of action we possess, unrestricted by parochial limits and ecclesiastical laws; with the world all before us, and Providence our guide; with a good feeling towards us on the part of the middle and lower classes, we have every ground to hope for success—if we can obtain an adequate number of energetic and earnest preachers. But we have not taken sufficient care to find out and educate the right sort of men, and in some places are certainly losing ground. Considerable towns might be mentioned where congregations once numerous and flourishing, are reduced down to mere skeletons, under the dull and deadening influence of feeble, yet good men. It is more easy to settle an incompetent minister over a church than to remove him. It is true we have advantages for such removal not possessed by the Church of England. The pastorate is not in our churches a freehold; yet it must be confessed that even with us, the difficulty of getting rid of a pastor, except for immorality or heresy, and only on the ground of inefficiency, is great. That a minister should wish to stay when he has preached away nearly all his congregation, breeds a suspicion of the purity of his motives, and is a reflection upon the integrity of his character. To reduce a congregation and scatter a church, first by inefficiency, and then by obstinacy in retaining the post in opposition to the wishes of the flock, and the advice of friends—is a serious matter to account for to God. Some such men talk of waiting for the leadings of Providence. One is at a loss to find out what rule of interpretation for ascertaining the will of God they have adopted—to everybody else but themselves, deserted pews and a dissatisfied, as well as a reduced church, are a sufficient indication that Providence is leading to their removal. In such a case one would suppose there needed no voice from heaven to say to the minister, "Arise, and go away!" nor any finger to come forth, and write "Ichabod" in flaming characters on the walls. It is sometimes said that the people must suffer the consequences of a hasty choice—and so far as they are concerned, they deserve it; but they suffer not alone, for the denomination suffers with them in its strength, character, and efficiency. The work of conversion, not only in our own denomination—but in the Church of England, and among the Methodists, goes on but slowly, and the spirituality of the great bulk of professors is too low. This is confessed and lamented by the Evangelical clergy, and by the Wesleyan ministers, as well as by ourselves. The Spirit’s influence seems in some way and from some cause obstructed—and in the absence of this, our denomination is more likely to feel and manifest the visible results of it than almost any other—and such a consideration should lead us to more serious thoughtfulness and earnest prayer for a revived and intensely devoted ministry.