acknowledgements, will still persist in unbelieving, I will then confess that real and deliberate incredulity is not a chimera."

The other name is that of the late Rev. C. R. Maturin, a name of deep and enduring interest, concerning whom it is much to be regretted that his high gifts were not uniformly laid on the altar of the Giver, and consecrated exclusively to the advancement of that religion, of which he was calculated to be so bright and so able an advocate. His five sermons on the errors of the Roman Ca tholic Church have been considered masterpieces. They attracted, in the course of their delivery, extraordinary crowds, and derive an additional and melancholy interest from the fact of their being (as I believe) the last sermons that man of eloquence and genius ever composed. The following are extracts from the concluding discourse:

"I have done with her doctrines (for the present at least), and I hasten to exhibit to you three distinct portraits of Papal Rome; what she was in the days of the plenitude of power; what she is in her present day of humiliation and decline; and what she yet must be, when the full counsel of God against her is accomplished, and heaven and earth shall exclaim, in the language of my text, "The hour of His judgment is come; Babylon is fallen, is fallen !' It is not four hundred years since her power exceeded all that was ever known by the name of power on earth. The sway of the most extensive conqueror, the despotism of the most absolute tyrant, were but bands of straw, compared with the chain of ada- : mant in which she bound the bodies and the souls of men. There was not a nation in Europe where she had not deposed or created a sovereign. She stood a Collossus, one foot planted in the cen tre of the visible globe, and the other in the shadowy regions of futurity; mistress confessed of both worlds; and all Europe, from Orcades to Calpe, from the western extremity of Ireland to the confines of Russia, bowed before her and worshipped. Europe! -what do I say? From Paraguay to China-from Labrador to Lapland, she claimed all power, and possessed all she claimed. So she sat in the palace and seat of the Cæsars, her foot on the necks of kings, and here triple crown mingling with the stars of heaven. Nor was her opulence less than her power; ever ship that traversed the seas brought her wealth; every horn that sounded at the gates of the seven-hilled city announced homage; every breeze that blew beneath the canopy of heaven, fanned the standard of the triple crown; and wherever that standard waved, it waved triumphant. Such, not more than four hundred years ago, was the Church of Rome in her day of greatness, glory, and crime. What is she now? The same-the same, cry her adherents; the same in spirit, if not in power. That she is the same in spirit, I readily acknowledge, and bitterly lament; but can the most desperate and blinded bigot close his eyes against the obvious and increasing decline of her power. She was, indeed, a proud and glorious galley, the burden and the terror of the great deep; but she lies on its waters now a dismasted hulk; her pendant sweeps

the seas no more; the strong blast of the Reformation hath rent away mast and mainsail, rope and rudder; the mighty rushing winds of heaven are abroad, and assail her from every point of the compass; England, Scotland, all the north, and half the east of Europe, hold her in chase, and every shot they send through her rotten timbers threatens to make her a wreck. On she drives before the storm and the foe, while her mariners, with desperate infatuation, run up and down her decks, crying, All's well! all's well!-we hold the true course; we are certain of the port; till she strikes! she strikes! and she, her mariners, and her passengers go down together for ever!

6

"Imagine the horrors of an interdict which Popery, in its day of power, laid on the country whose sovereign had happened to offend. The churches were shut; the elements mouldered on the altar; the priests fled the churches; from the bridegroom dropt the hand of the bride; the mourner left the body unwept-the corse rotted on the highway unburied; the mother viewed with horror her new-born babe, never to be named by the name of a Christian; and the child shrunk from its parent placed beyond the pale of salvation, and excluded from the rites of the church, Roman Catholics of Ireland, would ye wish-could ye bear the renewal of these horrors? Ye would spurn at the usurped and daring authority that would deprive you alike of the blessings of religion and the benefits of civilization. If Rome, in evil hour, presumed to assert her former power over you, ye would quit yourselves like men, and repel it-repel it as ye valued the property ye have toiled for, the wives ye have wedded, the children ye have begotten, the land ye love and live in, and above all, the memories ye must leave behind you. In addressing you thus, I forget the odious names of party distinction; I care not what ye denominate yourselves. If ye are Irishmen-if ye are men-if the baptism of humanity, in which God bathed your brows at your very birth, be not effaced by the searing finger of bigotryif ye have one honest, manly, natural feeling in your hearts, ye would exclaim, 'We will not have this man to reign over us.' Oh! my brethren, first in valour and genius among the nations of Europe, will you be the last in the mighty march of mind towards intellectual liberty? Shall history exult over the records of every other nation, and blush and weep only over yours? And when she writes, in characters that shall live for ever, the pames of patriots and heroes-add to yours, they might have been so, but they were the dupes of priestcraft and bigotry. I am reasoning with you from your own convictions; and as the Apostle said to the intelligent, but sceptic sovereign, King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." Oh! would to God that even one voice would answer, Almost thou persuadest me to be' what I would wish to be-if I dare."

These extracts are, I trust, sufficient to illustrate and establish what has been advanced respecting the Irish pulpit. In concluding this paper, I submit a few remarks to two classes of

persons those who propose entering the Christian ministry, or who have but recently entered it; and those who have the privilege of sitting under such a ministry.

I. It may not seem unsuitable here to offer, in the spirit of humility and affection, a few familiar suggestions relative to the ministrations of that solemn place.

First, then, I would say, that none can be eloquent, in the highest sense of the term, but such as have felt the truth in their hearts. Persons may be splendidly endowed with the powers of mind and command of language; they may have ever so clear a comprehension of the scheme of salvation, and be able to converse volubly and instructively upon it; yet, unless their knowledge be experimental-unless they have inwardly tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come unless they can, in a spiritual sense, say with the Apostle, "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life, declare we unto you,"--all their oratory will be feeble and frigid; or, if there be any fire at all, it will be false and constrained. It is when a man feels what he delivers; when he has first preached the sermon to himself; when he has come fresh from the mount of meditation and the communion of the closet; when he has been realizing the things of the eternal world, and got his lips touched with a live coal from off the altar, and his heart warmed with the Saviour's love, and zeal for the Saviour's glory, and he contemplates his audience as so many souls that must be converted to God, or else perish everlastingly,—it is then that he will speak in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power; then that he will preach from the heart to the heart; then that he will fling forth his appeal, like a mass of fire, among his people, to warm and impress, and, under God, purify and renew their spirits. Could Dr. Chalmers, with all his natural abilities, transcendent as they are, pour forth those vivid bursts, that so astonish and electrify his hearers, were it not for his piety? No; I venture to say it would be impossible. There is a spirit in them that is not to be feigned. Deep-seated religion lies at the very bottom of his powers, and, like the heat of a hotbed, gives vigour and vitality to his happiest effusions. Let piety, then, be the prime thing cultivated-cultivated, indeed, not as a stepping-stone to eloquence (that were a most unhallowed ambition), but for its own sake, and utility's sake. A minister is never so truly eloquent as when, totally forgetting himself and having a single eye to the glory of God and the salvation of men, he throws himself, heart and soul, into his discourse, and labours, to the utmost

We suppose the author does not mean to infer that all the preachers from whose sermons he has quoted, felt the TRUTH in their hearts. One, we believe, when awakened to behold and appreciate the TRUTH at a late hour of life, acknowledged that heretofore he had been BUT AN ACTOR.-ED.

of his might, to pull sinners out of the territory of destruction into the sanctuary of Messiah's kingdom.

2. Let the preacher be always on the search for materials. It is the great deficiency of young ministers especially that they want furniture. There is plenty of steam, plenty of wind, and their sails and colours are spread forth gloriously; but they lack ballast and freight. Even the most talented and learned preacher will not be long able to maintain his ground in his people's esti mation, if he fail continually to recruit his resources by reading and contemplation. "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed." The business requires study. Never was a learned ministry more necessary than at present: for, in the first place, never were the adversaries of the truth more daring, if so daring. They have ceased to act on the defensive; they now carry the war into "the camps of the saints." Again, never was the human mind so much awake. Intelligence is spread, and spreading amazingly. A thirst for information is universally diffused; and books, especially on theology, are, by the serious portion of the community, perused with an increasing eagerness. Thus, then, if the ministry do not read likewise, so as to keep pace at least with the laity, will it not ensue that the ungodly will gain the victory over them in argument, and that the people shall have more understanding than their teachers, and be tempted to despise them?

But especially must the divine be diligent in "searching the Scriptures." They are the vantage ground from which he ought never to descend; his credentials as an ambassador from heaven to earth; the armoury and magazine from which, pre-eminently, he must draw the weapons of his warfare; the directory both of his own conduct and that of his hearers; and the sum and substance of his message. What is recorded of Apollos should be the aim of every Christian herald, namely, that he was "an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures."

The preacher should have no "favourite doctrine." Some allow the subject of the Millennium, for example, so to run away with them, that they can hardly speak of any thing else. Let them commence with what topic they may, they invariably glide into this; thus allowing the Millennium to usurp the place of CHRIST, the sun to whom all the rays of doctrine should converge the focus wherein they should all centre. In short, preachers should endeavour to give every doctrine and duty that place and prominence in their instructions which the Scriptures assign them. They should study also the style of Scripture, the model of all styles, as chosen by infallible Wisdom. It seems not unlikely, that as the church advances in grace and knowledge, preaching will gradually approximate to the spirit and manner of the Bible; în which event there will, of course, be less of peculiarity in any one style of national sermonizing.

But while you make the oracles of heaven your main resource, the staple and marrow of your theology, you must not be negli

gent of drawing knowledge from other sources that may be rendered subsidiary to this. Much wisdom, that may prove of service, may be gathered from almost every sight and circumstance. Truths lie scattered around us as plentifully as was the manna on the ground of the desert, had we only the eyes to descry them. The volume of Creation may illustrate the volume of Revelation. As has been remarked, "the world's a system of theology." It ought to be the preacher's aim to place old truths in new and striking positions, and thereby to bring them home to the head and heart with all the raciness of novelty. To this end, let him be ever on the watch for elegant and appropriate illustrations and similes, which to a sanctified fancy, will be suggested, more or less, by nearly all we see or hear. "Condo, et compono, quæ mox depromere possim."

3. The preacher should habituate himself to meditation. It is from want of this habit that the minds of some are so lean, and their discourses so dry and meagre. The more you meditate, the more will " "your heart be inditing," or, as it is in the margin, "bubbling up with good matter." Meditation on Scripture will give your sermons weight and richness. Meditation on the world will enable you to detect and expose its emptiness. Meditation on your own heart will give you a mastery over the hearts of others. Meditation on "the terrors of the Lord" on the one side, and on the felicities of his kingdom on the other, will render you, if any thing will, earnest in beseeching men to flee from the former, and lay hold on the latter. A spiritual mind and much intercourse with the invisible world will add even to Irish preaching a forcibleness and fervour which all the warmth of mere natural emotion can ever attain to.

4. A preacher should strive to be judicious. Correct taste and good common sense are most essential ingredients in a good ser mon, Here, perhaps, it is that our national preaching is chiefly defective. Either there is an ill selection of materials, or expres sions are used too strong and uncouth, or else calculated to cause unnecessary offence, or, it may be, ridicule. Perhaps, also, the sermon is not unfrequently too long. As a general rule, Mr. Wesley's opinion seems a good one, that no sermon ought to be longer than half an hour. Many preachers continue hewing with the sword of the Spirit until they blunt it. It demands as much. consideration to determine what shall be left out of a sermon, as what to insert. All superfluous matter should be rejected. All that does not strengthen, weakens. Moreover, all needless and pedantic criticisms on the authorized text-these, besides being commonly uninteresting and unimportant, have a tendency to loosen men's confidence in Scripture. Let us remember that our translators were persons of no ordinary erudition, piety, and wisdom, and that they took the greatest possible pains in their work. The preacher should not lose time in tedions perorations, but plunge at once into the subject. Whatever he says should be to the purpose. Neither should he rest in mere generalities; particulars