accomplish little or nothing by it, that their best efforts result only in weariness and disappointment. "Why attempt anything further?" "Why spend our strength for naught?" the discouraged heart then cries. These suggestions have a paralyzing effect. The strongest and most energetic and courageous men, like Elijah and John the Baptist and the great reformers, Luther, Knox, and the most heroic missionaries, have all felt the depressing spell and been almost overcome by it, so as to sink down into a state of dull apathy and despair. At such times a good biography-with its thrilling account of noble and beneficent achievement-is a wholesome spiritual tonic. It energizes and inspires the tired heart and jaded spirits with fresh life and renewed vigor. The subject of it encountered similar obstacles and felt similar discouragementbut roused by the voice and strengthened by the power of God, he rose up and renewed the fight and won at last. Its effect is like that of martial music upon soldiers weary with long marches and faint with hunger. The trumpet peal revives their courage-rekindles their ardor and nerves them to a conquering pitch of endeavor. It is a familiar story of classic literature that Themistocles, the leader of the Greeks at Salamis, was stimulated to those daring efforts which gave them the victory by the remembered example of Miltiades the Greek leader at Marathon. So the leaders of the Church have often been incited to triumphant effort by the examples of those who had wrought righteousness in the service of God. This is one of God's

ways of inspiring man, a method of his providence. The coals from off his altar, by which his chosen ones have had their lips touched to eloquence and their sins of indolence and cowardice purged away, are the bright records of those who have laid themselves upon his altar and worked for his glory.

IV. In the reading and study of ministerial biographies, we receive interesting and valuable suggestions as to the best methods of ministerial work, and the best means of attaining the highest success in the ministry. Such knowledge is particularly valuable to ministers themselves, who more than any other class are likely to be readers of these biographies. The subjects of them were among the most eminent and successful in their sacred calling. But for their distinction in it, in some way or other, their biographies would not have been given to the world. The fact of a biography in every case implies that the subject of it was believed to be more than ordinary; that his life contained important lessons, or was marked by extraordinary achievements; or that he possessed a character of such beauty and moral excellence as make it deserving of general admiration and worthy of emulation. But his eminence and success may have been due as much to the wise methods he used as to his superior moral and mental qualities, or his genius. In respect to the latter, he may be probably is -inimitable; in respect to the former, his example can be profitably studied and to some extent copied. We think it may be truly affirmed that ordinary abilities trained and directed by wise methods will

often appear to better advantage and achieve more usefulness than extraordinary abilities ill-directed. This remark will be found true of the whole range of ministerial activity. Whether we consider his pulpit performances or his pastoral work, a good method counts for much. Such methods are often discovered or suggested in the biographies of eminent ministers. These methods were peculiar to the persons whose ministry they distinguished. There is wisdom in studying them and often great advantage in adopting them. By doing this, one is saved from mistakes and the loss of time and the toil involved in painfully and slowly groping for a way to success, when a clear and practicable way has been already discovered and its value well tested.

We venture to particularize some valuable accomplishments that may be thus acquired: Several things are involved in the art of effective preaching. Foremost among these are personal piety, a familiar acquaintance with the Bible, a good understanding of its teaching, the ability to reason soundly, and the skill to put one's thoughts logically and attractively together. Besides these, an opulent and forcible diction ready to the tongue, the power of apt illustration, of natural and easy gesture and a good voice, which the preacher knows how to manage so as impressively to express the varying shades of thought and feeling that occur in speaking; these are usual adjuncts of pulpit power.

As illustrating the value of a good voice, well managed, we quote what President Francis

Wayland, of Brown University, says of the preaching of Dr. Eliphalet Nott: "When settled in Albany, his reputation as a preacher was unparalleled. Those who heard his sermon on the death of Hamilton declared it was the most eloquent discourse they ever heard. So far as I can recall his manner, after the lapse of many years, the excellency which gave him so great power was in the tones of his voice. I would almost say they were so perfect that a man who did not understand English would, from his tones alone, have been able to form an idea of the train of thought he was pursuing. When he uttered a sentence, the emphasis, inflections and tones were so perfect that every part was distinctly connected with that to which it belonged and you never failed to comprehend his meaning precisely. When to this were joined the tones of emotion adapted to every range of human feeling, you may possibly perceive what must have been the effect." In the biography of Doctor Guthrie we have a similar testimony as to the power and charm of his voice: "He had a powerful, clear and musical voice, the intonations of which were varied and appropriate, managed with an actor's skill though there was not the least appearance of art.”

This power of the voice, characteristic of almost all eminent preachers and orators, is almost never a natural gift. It is largely the result of elocutionary training. It was so with Guthrie and Nott. Whitefield and Beecher, and a study of their biographies will reveal their methods of improving it. Guthrie thus tells how it was with himself: "When a

divinity student I paid more than ordinary attention to the art of elocution, knowing how much of the effect produced upon the audience depended on the manner as well as on the matter; that in point of fact the manner is to the matter as the powder is to the ball. I attended elocution classes winter after winter, walking across half the city and more after eight o'clock at night, fair night and foul, and not getting back to my lodgings until about 10:30 o'clock. There I learned to find out and correct many acquired and more or less awkward defects in gesture, to be in fact natural; to acquire a command over my voice so as to suit its force and emphasis to the sense, and to modulate it so as to express the feelings, whether of surprise or grief or indignation or pity. I had heard very indifferent discourses made forcible by a vigorous delivery, and able ones reduced to feebleness by a poor pithless delivery. I had read of the extraordinary pains Demosthenes and Cicero took to cultivate their manner of public speaking and become masters of the arts of elocution, and I knew how by a masterly and natural use of them Whitefield could sway the crowds that gathered to hear him at early morn on the commons of London."

Guthrie likewise possessed to an eminent degree the power of apt, impressive illustration. Joined to the witchery of his voice, it amounted sometimes to a power of enchantment. His auditors were then spellbound by it. An amusing instance is presented in the conduct of a Highland cattledrover one day in Guthrie's congregation in Free