and perfect love dispel fear. Of this principle the preacher has many opportunities to avail himself. Thus, in order to correct the influence of worldly passions and attachments, it will generally prove more effectual to cherish a love for heavenly things, than to rail in direct terms against vanity and worldliness. To turn the hearts of men from drunkenness and vice you will best describe the comforts of a sober and religious life. To attack unbelief with greatest force, you should dwell on the blessedness of Christian hope.

Since the object of the preacher is not merely to convince and affect, but to do so with reference to something farther, to inspire an active principle of conduct, it is better for him to dwell principally on such topics, and awaken such feelings, as will elate and excite, rather than distress, the soul. Sorrow, fear, shame, are naturally dull and torpid; they depress the mind, and indispose it for enterprise: but faith, hope, emulation, love, joy, charity, elevate the soul, and prepare it for active exertion.

Such are the principal means whereby the preacher must seek to move the will of his hearers. But his object is not even then accomplished. For though the spirit of man may be willing, yet, alas! the flesh is weak. To have gained the will is much, but it is no security that you have changed the heart. "To will," says St. Paul, "is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good

that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do 1." While, therefore, the orator who addresses men on the affairs of this present world may boast that he can deal successfully with their spirit, and sway their passions, and work them to his purposes; the preacher, whose object is incomplete if he does not change their hearts, must, after all his most earnest and faithful efforts, still humbly look for success to that Spirit of truth who worketh as he listeth, and who alone can fashion and mould the hearts of men, and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God.

1 Rom. vii. 18, 19. See also South's Serm. on Matt. xiii. 52.

PART II.

LETTER XIII.

ON STYLE-GENERAL REMARKS.

It may appear to need some apology, that I should take upon myself to advise you on the subject of style. Having passed with credit through a public school and the university, it might be supposed that you were perfect in this respect. But, if things are managed as they were in my time, such a supposition would be far from correct. So little attention was then paid to English composition, either at school or college, that many a man of fair ability passed through both, without having turned his mind to the subject, beyond writing a few themes which were never looked over. Abundance of pains was lavished on verse

making, and some attention paid to Latin prose; which, though an excellent help, and a good foundation for composition in general, certainly is not sufficient of itself to teach the art of writing sermons.

Whether any improvement has taken place in these matters I am not aware. But even taking the other side of the question, and supposing every attention paid to English composition;-supposing that you have received instruction from a man of taste, and have been carefully trained up in all the mysteries of essay-writing, still I apprehend that a few hints on the sort of style suited for sermons will not be without use. Style may be too good, as well as too bad; too refined and polished, as well as too rough and homely. "Elaborate composition is so far from being necessary to the success of public discourses, that in many situations a person of delicate and refined taste will be obliged to maintain a severe conflict between his duty and his habits, before he can come to be useful from the pulpit 1." I do not know whether a young clergyman who has paid the greatest attention to style in essay-writing, and has distinguished himself by the beauty of his composition, would not perhaps be full as likely as any other to send his congregation to sleep, and that partly by the two great refinement of his style. Parochial preaching has a style peculiar to itself; and it is one of some difficulty to attain.

1 Bishop Sumner's Apostolical Preaching, pp. 9, 10. First Edition.

The young curate, fresh from the honours of his degree, has often much to learn, as well as unlearn, when he begins "the simple task of saving souls." The problem is, to keep the right medium between bad taste and too great refinement. In preachers of the Church of England there is a tendency to the latter fault their style is often so smoothed down and polished that nothing impressive and striking is left. The following is Johnson's opinion on this matter :— "I talked," said Boswell, " of preaching and of the great success which those called Methodists have." Johnson: "Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain familiar manner, which is the way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregation; a practice for which they will be praised by men of sense. To insist against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common people; but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and show them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, religion will soon decay in that country' This opinion, though in the main just, will require some qualifica

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1 Boswell's life, vol. i. 357. Oxford Edition.