PREACHING AND PREACHERS. HAVD AVING consented to the publication of the foregoing "Address," several friends suggested to me the desirableness of appending to it some further observations on The Style and Manner of Pulpit Ministrations, than were compatible with the necessary brevity of the Address itself, and limits of the public service. It was urged by them that this was second only in importance to the subjects themselves of pulpit discussion; the remarks which had been made upon them being incomplete without some special reference to the style of their delivery. These observations, therefore, I have deemed it best to present in the form of Addenda. They will be taken, I am persuaded, by the readers of them, as the results of experience. I can entertain no doubt of their acceptableness to my younger brethren in the ministry, seeing they are made in the most friendly spirit, and are sincerely directed to aid them in attaining to eminence and great success. They may hereby trace the steps by which the most efficient preachers have reached such eminence, as well as observe the causes of failure in others. I assume that the great object which these younger brethren have in view is to become acceptable, useful, and, in the best sense of the word, popular preachers; and it will afford to me a gratification of no mean order to have assisted any of them, in however small a measure, in the attainment of the great object to which they have devoted their life and labour. The natural qualifications requisite to form a good preacher are not difficult to be found combined in the same individual. He must, of course, be possessed of fervent piety, an ability to acquire and communicate knowledge, a heart susceptible of tender emotions and full of ardent affections, cherishing a glowing zeal for the glory of God in the salvation of the souls of men. Thus endowed, he enters on a course of preparation for his office : to improve by diligent application his native talents, and to add daily to his already acquired stores. He will give himself wholly to these things-to reading, meditation, and prayer, that "his profiting may appear to all." It is of incalculable advantage to a preacher to possess a familiar acquaintance with the sacred Scriptures. "From a child," says Paul to Timothy, as if congratulating him on that precious advantage, "thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus." To have had large portions of the Scripture impressed upon the memory and the heart in early life, must be considered in all cases, but especially in that of a public teacher of religion, an enviable distinction. He will thus be able to quote from the sacred books readily and with verbal accuracy; and, what is of still greater importance, with pointed application and appropriateness, certain passages that will illustrate and enforce, in the best manner, the sentiments he is advancing. They will then be seen to have the sanction of a divine authority, and their import will be signed and sealed upon the heart with a heavenly impress. The late Mr. Jay owed much of the acceptableness and usefulness of his discourses to the practice here commended. He did not indeed overlay them with scriptural quotations, although but for their aptness and obvious sequence to what he was advancing, there would have been the appearance of excess. He says himself in his autobiography -"I am sure of this, that I never used quotations from Scripture merely to fill up and lengthen out a discourse, and I trust that I have never introduced any fancifully or regardlessly of the mind of the Spirit; and if I have been more abundant in the use of the sacred treasury, it has resulted from my familiarity with the language of the Bible, having, before many other books came in my way, read it much, and committed much to memory." The late Robert Hall was indeed sparing of this direct introduction of Holy Writ into his discourses. He observed, that the formal quotation of Scripture, with a reference to the chapter and verse, causing the hearers to turn to their Bibles as if they doubted the correctness of the preacher, had the tendency to break the thread of a discourse, and to lessen the force of a conviction that was coming home to the heart. But the infrequency of his quotation of Scripture was compensated by its remarkable pertinency when it did occur, showing his familiar acquaintance with the sacred treasury, so as to bring out of it that which was exactly needed, and probably the most appropriate in the whole book. The comprehensiveness indeed of Scripture, and the applicableness of some portion or other of it to every purpose of |