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MAKING WORD-PICTURES.-Dr. Guthrie, while visiting an artist's studio, ventured to criticise an unfinished picture. The artist, with some warmth, remarked, "Dr. Guthrie, remember you are a preacher, not a painter." "I beg your pardon, my good friend,” replied the clergyman; “I am a painter, only I paint in words, while you use brush and colours." One out of many occasions will prove the correctness of the Doctor's claim. In one of his sermons he described a shipwreck and the launching of the lifeboat to save the crew. So vivid were the colours of the picture that the appalling scene appeared actually to take place before the eyes of the audience. A young naval officer, who was seated in a front seat in the gallery, sprang to his feet and began to take off his coat, when his mother pulled him down. He was so carried away by the scene that he was ready to man the lifeboat, and it was some time before his mother could make him realise that he was in church.

HOME AND HEAVEN.-Home! Oh, the power of that short word, the world of meaning in it! Home to us is the place of all earthly places, the one to which we can retire from the busy, bustling, unfeeling world to find rest, confidence, and happiness-rest from all our cares and anxieties, and rest from the deceitfulness of others; confidence in the unselfish love of the dear ones at home, and happiness in the thought that we are a part of that home. But if our earthly home is so dear, what must that of the Christian in heaven be? of that glorious "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ?"

THERE is nothing that displays so great moral cowardice as for a man who has been wrong in his views, and knows he is wrong, not to dare to say so, and change his views.

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THE

"CONGREGATIONALIST" ON LAY
PREACHING.

THE

HE Congregationalist recently contained a long and able article on the work of Lay Preaching. We would gladly have transferred it to our pages in its entirety, but space forbids. Many of the remarks, however, are so pertinent that we cannot forbear giving copious extracts. These we leave, for the most part, to speak for themselves. "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets' is the prevalent sentiment;" the writer proceeds, after some preliminary remarks; " and there is no disposition to restrain any who have the prophetic gift from its free exercise. But all the Lord's people are not prophets, and it is worse than foolish to ignore the necessity of special qualifications for the work, and to talk as though every one who has a warm heart and a simple faith, and who is able to string a few sentences together, is competent to become a preacher. A notion of this kind has been sedulously encouraged in certain quarters of late, and men have undertaken to preach who were utterly destitute of capacity for exciting any interest in those who, unfortunately for themselves, were collected to hear them. They have managed to give forth a few elementary truths, which they have interlarded with some unctuous epithets and pious ejaculations, and this they have called preaching the simple Gospel; and there are those who tell us that this is exactly what the people need. The elaborate discourse, with its careful reasoning, its polished sentences, and its general air of culture and finish, does not reach them. They want, not fine language, but deep feeling; not hard logic, but earnest appeal; not clever essays, but direct and forcible addresses, which will go home to their hearts and consciences. Quite true. But why should it be assumed that where there is culture there cannot be passion, or that where there is a lack of thought the want is sure to be compensated by an intensity of feeling? Is it not possible that in some cases there may be the union of head and heart, of strength both in thought and sentiment, with simplicity of language and directness of purpose? And, alas! is is not certain that only too often there is a miserable absence of both? Where this is so the common people' are often even more quick to discern it than those in higher social position are to see through the platitudes occasionally served up to them."

It is next forcibly pointed out that the fact that uneducated men often prove most acceptable preachers among the masses is no justification of the idea that training and a degree of culture are not necessary to effective preaching among the masses. "What I deprecate," the writer continues, "is the notion that every one who is willing can do it, and still further, that it is the duty of every one to make the attempt. There is, perhaps, one advantage which results from the endeavour, as it helps to make those who fancy that preaching is a very simple and easy matter understand their own mistake.

There is a story told of a member of a church in the North who was somewhat free in his criticisms of the pulpit, and accustomed to talk largely of what he would do if he had the opportunity of preaching. His minister heard of the vaunt, and determined the opportunity should not be wanting. On the next occasion of his own absence from home he insisted that the talker should have the chance of proving his capacity, and though the good man was inclined to shrink from the service, he was unable to find any sufficient reason for escaping it. He mounted the pulpit, he gave out his text-'I am th' light o' the world '; he repeated it, but all in vain, for not a word would come. At length, a poor woman in the congregation, looking up, cried out, 'If thou'rt t' light, thou want's snuffing."' The poor disconcerted man, as he came down from the pulpit, was compelled to confess, ' I see there's a hart in preaching after all.'" The story is probably known to many of our readers, but the moral is so often forgotten that it will bear repetition. There is an art in preaching, understanding by art simply the knowledge of how to do it. Few things are more distressing than to see a man standing up to go through what he is pleased to call a sermon, but what is nothing more than a collection of dry husks of theology, or of the most feeble commonplaces, which he is pleased to dignify with the title of the simple Gospel, into the delivery of which he throws no force himself, and which therefore fails to reach his congregation. Perhaps he is in a tremor under the fear that he may not be able to complete a work which he has accepted as a duty, but in which he finds no real pleasure, or, perhaps (and this is the saddest case of the two) he talks on with a placid complacency which hides from him the fact that, for all practical purposes, he might just as well have been silent. In the former case he is to be pitied, since he is acting under a mistaken conception of duty, and doing his best to perform a service which ought never to have been imposed upon him; but in the latter he betrays a lack of a true conception of the work to which he aspires, and for the sake of which he neglects other service which he might efficiently discharge, thus inflicting a double injury on the Church by leaving undone what he can do and ought to do, and

CONGREGATIONALIST

endeavouring to do that which he cannot do and mars in his very attempts to do it.

"If I have written strongly on this subject, it is because I feel that the first condition to a larger and more successful employment of this non-professional agency is that there should be a higher ideal of the work to be done. There are men in the churches who could preach as able sermons-sermons as fresh in thought, probably more racy in illustration, and certainly as effective for the great end which preaching contemplates, as those of the regular ministry. It is pretty certain that they could not produce them continuously-two, or even three a week-unless they were to give themselves exclusively to the work. But this is not required of them. It is only for occasional discourses that they are asked, and these they can produce.

But if they are to do it, they must feel the importance of due preparation, and must, once and for ever, get rid of the idea that from the laymen, at all events, a little easy pious talk of the pietistic style is all that is desired. His sermon should be just as carefully thought out as that of the pastor. I do not say that it should be of the same type, for I believe the more any man puts of his own personality into his sermons, and so makes the hearers feel that he is not talking book, but is speaking out of the depths of his own spiritual nature and experience, the more he will tell upon them. If the layman allows himself to be governed by the routine of the pulpit, the great probability is that he will be an inferior type of the preacher. The regular minister is more familiar with laws for the composition of a sermon, and more able to apply them effectually. I have no love for those laws and their hard methods. They fetter many a man, and prevent him from filling the place for which God intended him, and which he would have reached had he followed the bent of his own genius instead of yielding to the conventional ideas of a profession, as set forth in elaborate text-books of rhetoric and homiletics. If they are to be followed at all, however, he who is most familiar with them, and who has gained a certain power for adapting and modifying them by long practice, is sure to excel one whose experience of them is very slight, and whose attempt to conform to them is pretty sure to induce a measure of formalism and stiffness."

We feel sure our readers will concur in the wisdom of these remarks, and that they will equally agree in what the Editor of the Congregationalist further says on the subject of systematic training for those who engage themselves in this work :-"Whether the lay preacher should be trained for his work is a question more easily asked than answered. In the first place, there is the difficulty as to the trainer. To say that pastors ought to do it is very easy, but already

many of them are over-weighted, and it would be impossible for them to undertake this fresh burden. Nor is it to be assumed that every pastor is equal to the task, which would be one of special difficulty ;: for the training must be extremely careful if it is not to do as much harm as good. We do not want young men to get a little smattering of Greek, so that they may get up and talk about the original in a style which would hardly be becoming in members of the Committee of Revision. It is in the first stages of education that a student is in most danger of priggishness, bumptiousness, and conceit; and as from the very necessities of the case the members of these training classes will seldom get beyond the preliminary stage, there is need for great wisdom in the method of conducting them. All that is necessary is some good instruction in the English language, and especially the cultivation of a familiarity with our great classics, from whom the student may get some lessons in perspicuity, directness, and force; a teaching of the cardinal principles of the Gospel, which may help to keep him from crude, exaggerated, and indefensible statements of doctrine; such a careful exposition of Christian evidence as may prepare him, when occasion requires, to deal thoughtfully with popular objections; and some general lessons as to the composition of sermons. Of course, a knowledge of the languages in which the Bible was written is desirable where attainable; but it is not to be regarded as indispensable. Above all, the training of the lay preacher ought not to be considered as a kind of second-class college curriculum, but ought to have a distinct character of its own. When this can be secured it will doubtless be extremely valuable. But it is not to be supposed that men equal to it grow under every bush; and, unfortunately, where there is the capacity there is not always leisure available for so difficult a work.” We have left ourselves no room to add to these extracts. Our own work, as editor of the Lay Preacher-all imperfect as we feel it to be -is designed to promote, in some slight degree, the preparation for the pulpit which the writer of the above-quoted article so strongly urges.. In this work we stand alone. Other serials devoted to pulpit preparation are provided for ministers; the Lay Preacher is the only magazine that specially caters for the class whose name it bears. Letters from many subscribers bear testimony to the service we have rendered them, and we have reason to believe that our labours are appreciated more and more. This magazine is not designed to save labour, but to assist: it—not to render study and thought unnecessary, but to suggest. material for private use. The Editor of the Congregationalist, in a review notice, generously bears testimony to the usefulness of this: magazine, when he says:-"Lay Preachers will find much in it that is valuable and suggestive in the way of thought and illustration."