for lunch. There were no teachers of elocution, and the only preliminary practice was the reading at long intervals of a lesson in the College Chapel.

Latterly the students in our theological colleges have received helpful instructions in the composition and delivery of sermons; but these are comparatively few, and the majority of our clergy go to the prayerdesk, lectern, pulpit, and altar, with none of those aids and admonitions which they might have received from experts, as to the use or abuse of the voice. Much more ought to be, could be done. We want more technical schools for our candidates for the ministry, schools of the prophets, wherein according to their gifts they may be taught to prophesy, and to wait on their ministering. We want men like Mr. Henry N. Sage, of Brooklyn, who gave ten thousand dollars to the corporation of Yale College, for the foundation of a lectureship on preaching, to be filled by those who had been signally successful in this work of the Christian ministry. If this lectureship had not been established, we might never have had the excellent "Lectures on Preaching," by Phillips Brooks.

And now permit me one word of caution to you who listen, having spoken so many to those who preach "Take heed how ye hear;" don't be too critical. Remember George Herbert's words :

"Judge not the preacher

The worst speak something good;"

and Jeremy Taylor's, "Accept the message.

If the

preacher be a weak person, the text is the doctrine to be remembered;" and Sir Walter Scott's description, in "The Talisman," "of one of those men, through whom the rays of heavenly grace dart like those of the sun through a burning glass, while the glass itself remains cold and uninfluenced;" and Ruskin's words in "The Stones of Venice," "There are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as a human composition or as a Divine message." The harvest does not depend upon the skill of the sower, but on the condition and culture of the soil. He that doeth the will shall know of the doctrine.

Nevertheless, the preacher appreciates sympathy. He has many disappointments. A worthy brother, who was about to preach in St. Paul's Cathedral, went with his wife and her friends to inquire how long they should arrive before the service in order to secure good places; and they were respectfully informed that there would be ample accommodation, whenever they arrived, as the preacher was nobody in particular. I was honoured, as a dean, by an invitation to preach in one of our royal chapels, and I addressed a congregation of nine personages. was told by the verger, that it was an unusually large attendance, that royalty was represented, and that my informant and myself were the only persons not mentioned in the peerage; but I was much depressed, and when my friend, Sir John Hassard, who had the arrangements in this matter, invited me to repeat the performance, I wrote to him, "Dear Sir

I

John,―There is a strawberry called Arbutus Unedo, because no man, who has once tasted it, ever asks, like Oliver Twist, for more. I have preached at Whitehall."

I ask no consideration for those, who, having the most important of all work to do, are manifestly not doing their best. I ask no consideration for the blustering Sir Oracle, who, wise in his own conceits, makes his declarations, as though he were an œcumenical council. I remember the expression of mingled mirth and indignation when, at the meeting of a committee authorized to make preparations for an important function, a bumptious Boanarges intimated his willingness to take the place of a famous preacher, whom it was proposed to invite, should he be unable to come. His proposal suggested some pert little glowworm, intimating to the moon, that he didn't mind sitting up for the night, if she would like to go off duty.

I hope that it may interest you to hear a few recollections of our most famous preachers, from one who has heard them preach. When I was an undergraduate of Oxford, fifty years ago, the two great preachers of the University were Doctor Pusey, the Regius Professor of Hebrew, and John Henry Newman, Vicar of St. Mary's, and afterwards Cardinal of Rome. The eye was attracted and fixed, and an attentive interest was communicated to the mind, before a syllable was uttered in the church. You might have met either of them in the street, without

any special notice, but when they stood apart, and on duty, they were most remarkable men.

Pusey's demeanour, as he went to preach, was in itself a sermon. No actor could have imitated, no painter could have portrayed, the expression of humility, the sense of unworthiness, which was not meant to be seen, but could not be hid. The drooping head reminded of one who would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, or rather in this case of the old proverb, "The corn stalk which bends the lowest hath ever the most grain in the ear." The voice was soft and low, but the tone was so earnest, the utterance so clear, that it was audible and most impressive to all, and though sometimes his sermon lasted nearly an hour, it never seemed too long. The characteristics of his preaching were an absolute faith in the Saviour, the Scriptures, the Church, and the Sacraments, a terror of sin, but a most tender sympathy with the sinful, to whom he appealed with all the persuasive promises of Divine and Infinite Love. He was an accomplished scholar, a profound theologian, a skilful linguist, in those three languages, especially, which were inscribed upon the Cross, in letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, but he was never in his preaching and teaching, in his books and conversation, abstruse or obscure.

As to ritual, he said, "We have too much to do to keep sound doctrine, and the privileges of the Church, to be able to afford to go into the question about dresses." And again, "We clergy have often

need to forego in ritual, or ornament, or worship, our own tastes and inclinations, in that which we regard as beautiful, becoming, and reverent. Truth has suffered more from the immature introduction of ancient forms, which are misunderstood, and so to our congregations soulless ritual, than from the gainsaying of the world. It furnishes a plea for despising us, as engaged about externals, rather than as contending for eternal truth. We may not outrage the world, if we would win it. We have to exhibit the truth to it on the side upon which it will best receive it."

And this was the man, holy and harmless, who was denounced, silenced for two years, condemned without a trial by his brethren at Oxford, derided, caricatured, and burnt in effigy! I rejoice to remember that the prince of our humorist artists, John Leech, not only abstained from any bitterness of satire, but he besought his colleagues on the staff of Punch, too often, as he told me, in vain, not to bring contempt upon sincere religion. Where it was only a sham, he unmasked it as Dickens "The Shepherd ;

* "The accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself; he was refused the knowledge of the definite charges against him; he was refused, in spite of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence of his judges."-The Oxford Movement, by Dean Church. Mr. Gladstone wrote to express his surprise and regret, and was "quite at a loss to account for steps which seemed so groundless." Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Chancellor of England, "had a very strong opinion that what the Vice-Chancellor had done was quite illegal, and should be set aside by appeal." See Liddon's Life of Pusey, ii. 348.

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