The ministry to the congregation; lectures on homiletics

Front matter

THE MINISTRY

TO

THE CONGREGATION

Preface

The following lectures represent the homiletic instruction given during the last ten years in the Biblical Department of Randolph- Macon College.

Every teacher of practical theology is asked for his opinion or advice concerning the choice of books, — an entirely reasonable request, but often hard to comply with. I have tried to do something toward answering such inquiries, by mentioning, at the close of certain lectures, one or more suitable books for reading on the topics discussed. No part of my work has received more careful attention than this apparently easy task.

I had also prepared a series of Questions and Exercises — such as have been used with what seemed to be good results in the class-room — to accompany the treatise. This I afterward decided to leave out. But I cannot refrain from reminding my readers, that to know, even perfectly, the contents of any mere course of instruction, is not to know homiletics. As Simon the son of Gamaliel said of the Law, " Practice, not study, is the principal thing." The several arts embraced in the supreme art of preaching must, like all others, be done before they can be truly known.

Amid many hesitations and heart-failures, a word of Dr. R.W. Dale to an audience of theological students has brought me no little encouragement. " Some men speak contemptuously," he says, " of lectures on preaching and treatises on the vi PREFACE

science and art of rhetoric. For myself I have read scores of books of this kind, and I have never read one without finding in it some useful suggestion. I advise you to read every book on preaching that you can buy or borrow."

These familiar Lectures, with all their defects, contain the best that I have ever known of homiletic thought and Christian experience. My heart goes with them. If they shall prove to be a word fitly spoken to kindle the enthusiasm and rightly direct the energies of any ministerial student or young preacher into whose hands they may fall, one of his older brethren and co-workers will be made exceeding glad.

Randolph-Macon College, September I, 1897.

Contents

THE PERSONAL AIM

The sermon and the man.— Elements of Perfection: Health; Taste; Knowledge and thought; Sympathetic sensibility ; Spirit and character .

Part First THE MINISTRY OF WORSHIP Lecture I

A ministry. — Better than to hear preaching. — Not an emotion. — Uses: Mutually helpful to worshipers; A larger offering to God ; A testimony to the world. — Hindrances : Vanity ; Formalism ; Mental preoccupation ; Sensuousness ; Disorder viii CONTENTS

Lecture II Forms of Worship— The Scripture Reading

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Necessity of forms. — Written formularies. — For the earlier rather than the later Christian life. — History of present rituals.— Antiquity of the custom of Scripture reading. — The English Bible. — Is it worship? —What is it to read?— What is God's Word?— Fallacy of accent.— Sources of Power in Expression : Knowledge ; Imaginative realization ; Sympathy and determination.— Comments. — Miscellaneous hints . 28

Lecture III

Music and prophesying. — The Reading of the Hymn: Need not always be read; Sympathetic realization of sentiment; Sense and rhythm. — The Singing: Who shall sing? — Congregational singing — The choir — The soloist — The minister; What shall we sing?— The Psalms— Classification of hymns- History of hymns, examples— Hymns of different eras and stages of culture— Catholicity— History of the hymn-book— Objectionable sentiment— Highly poetic hymns— Favorite hymns . . .46

Lecture IV

Prayer and preaching. — A priesthood. — General Preparation: The daily life; Pondering the devotional language of others.— Specific Preparation : An objection ; Writing prayers. — Qualities: Reality— Favorite phrases— Extravagance— Significance of the divine names; Reverence— Too frequent utterance

CONTENTS ix

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of the name of God— "You" for "thou"— Amatory words — Praying at the congregation — Rhetorical finery— Speaking of God— Violence of tone- Hasty closing — Attitude; Explicitness — Two cautions; Sympathy; Order— An order suggested— Length of prayers.— The concluding prayer.— The Benediction : Scripture examples ; Not sacerdotal ; A prayer and an assurance ; Shall it be mechanical? 66

Lecture V

The prayer-meeting and the pulpit.— Preparation; Personal interest.— Physical conditions.— Begin promptly. — A meeting of Christian communion and service : New Testament prayer-meetings ; Illustration from home-life ; The people's meeting ; Christian testimony. — Should be devotional; Must not despise prophesyings. — Unity in variety: Serial topics ; Sources of variety 84

Part Second THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING Lecture I

Use: As to the underlying principle— The text the subject; As to the advantages — An intellectual stimulus — Spiritually helpful— Reminder of the preacher's commission — Promotive of variety. — Choice:

x CONTENTS

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As to origin— Genuine— Correctly translated— Distinction noted — Proportionate; As to number and length— One or more?— Long or short?— Epitome texts 101

Lecture II

As to language — Perspicuity — Beauty — Grotesqueness — Familiarity; As to contents — Fruitfulness — Completeness. — Methods of Treatment: Topical; Textual; Textual-Topical 118

Lecture III

Preaching and sermons. — The Bible a testimony to be interpreted. — The original languages. — Reading and reading. — Principles: Must be natural— Figures — Literal language— Popular and literary language — Theological pre-judgments — Homiletic distortions — The local and the essential . . . .131

Lecture IV

Must be contextual; Spiritually true; Homiletic— Expository Sermons: Not uninteresting; No lack of materials; Unity of thought; Unity of purpose . 144

Lecture V

Estimate of the value of argument. — Latent argumentation.— Limitations: Not distinctive of Christian

CONTENTS

PAGE preaching; Controversial sermons; Definition of terms.— Positive Principles: Real; Constructive . 159

Lecture VI

Colloquial; Select and brief; Truthful; Just— Analogy

— Induction — Deduction 173

Lecture VII

Its Nature and Claim : Two motives to preach ; Conscious and unconscious testimony; Variety. — Its Validity : Consciousness ; Not a peculiar experience ; Misinterpretations. — Its Authority: Official authority; Personal; Spiritual 185

Lecture VIII

The imagination. — Details should not be given. — Examples of biblical description. — Get possession of the facts. — Look upon the scene. — Not an antiquarian spirit. — Description for the sake of truth. — Narration . . .198

Lecture IX

What are illustrations : For realization ; Illustrative figures ; Symbols ; Examples ; Rhetorical and logical. —Where to Find Illustrations : Not in the unknown ; The common stock ; Books of illustrations ; General reading ; The Scriptures ; One's own life . . 209 xii CONTENTS

Lecture X Illustrations— Discovery, Use

PAGE

Common observation; The assembled congregation. — How to Find Illustrations: The faculty of seeing resemblances ; Get first-hand knowledge ; Be sure of your facts; Note-book. — Use of Illustrations: Not too many; Not too long; Literary form . .219

Lecture XI

Supremely important. — Reasons for action and feelings prompting action. — Suitable Motives : Self-love ; The sense of duty; Love. — Principles of Choice: Adaptation; Comparative excellence. — Natural affection. — The way of Access to the Motives : Through the intellect; By the help of the emotions . . .232

Lecture XII

Sometimes not needed; Formless sermons. — Its Contents : Admissible propositions ; Perfect ; Good — Embodying the most striking truth — Evolving principle from instance; Allowable — Embodying subordinate truth— General principle to be specifically applied — Too general a truth — Merely naming the text 247

Lecture XIII

Inadmissible Propositions : No connection with the text ; Merely suggested by the text— Accommodation ;

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

Degrading to the text.— Its Form: As to structure —Declarative— Titular— Interrogative; As to language 258

Lecture XIV

Disparagement of divisions. — Principle: Necessity of order to thought and speech; Objections— "Scholastic "— " Obstructive "— " Unfavorable to unity " —"Not oratorical"; Example.— Discovery : A matter of interpretation 271

Lecture XV

Making unreal distinctions ; Making too prominent distinctions; Ascribing fanciful meanings; Disproportionate elaboration. — Invention: Finding divisions and materials together ; Choosing the point of view —Examples; Concentration of thought . .282

Lecture XVI

The Divisions— Requisites, Minor Topics

Original; Apposite; Coordinate; Few in number; Strong and suggestive ; Precisely expressed ; In oratorical order. — Announcement; Similarity of structure ; Subdivisions 299

Lecture XVII

Intellectual acts : Memory ; Imagination ; Logical insight; Verbal expression.— Action of the will: Materials already gained ; After-thoughts ; The upxiv CONTENTS

PAGE

lifted heart; Attention; Reading. — Materials: Explanation ; Argument ; Description and illustration ; Exhortation and practical inference. — The Product : Relevant; Continuous; In oratorical order; Adequate; Proportionate 312

Lecture XVIII

The classic doctrine. — Objects: Explanation; Gaining good will; Exciting interest; Rendering teachable. — Relation to the subject. — Qualities : Specific ; Distinct from what follows ; Easily intelligible ; Varied ; Proportionate 327

Lecture XIX

Necessity and Difficulty : Self-application ; Preaching is persuasion; Why the conclusion is slighted. — Relation to the whole Application : Distributed throughout the sermon ; Compact at the close ; Both distributed and compact; The application of the last division the conclusion. — Materials and Forms: Recapitulation ; Illustration ; Inference ; Exhortation . . 340

Lecture XX

Its inevitableness.— Importance of its cultivation.— All-comprehensive quality. — Means of Development: General development of the man ; Conversation ; Familiarity with one's own language ; Constant writing and speaking; A full mind.— The true mental attitude 358

CONTENTS 3

Lecture XXI Literary Form— Effects of the Mental Attitude

Naturalness ; Clearness ; Ease and fluency ; Picturesque

PAGE

$v

Lecture XXII

Danger of formality.— Humanity : A Christian spirit; Man as man; The unearthly style of preaching; Scholastic seclusion.— Spirituality : Sympathy; Response of the human heart; Unction.— Mingled humanity and spirituality ; Jesus as a preacher . 384

Lecture XXIII

Order— Repetition— Some Special Occasions

Order: Required by the teaching element; Serial sermons ; Considerations — Doctrine — Circumstances and outward conditions — Experience — The people. — Repetition of Sermons: To same congregation; To different congregations ; The old sermon to be retouched, not burned. — Special Themes and Occasions : Funerals ; Missionary preaching . . -397

Lecture XXIV

Temperance; Pauperism; Trade; Government; Industrial conditions and movements . . . .412

Lecture XXV

The Opportunity : Reactive effect ; Effects on parents ; Possibilities of the child; The Sunday-school. — Conditions of Success: Good methods; Preparaxvi CONTENTS

PAGE

tion ; Sympathy ; Vivacity ; Imaginative power ; Moral earnestness ; Knowledge and discrimination 425

Lecture XXVI

Principles of Revivals: Times of fullness of life; The power of personal presence; Repetition of impressions ; The times and seasons in the power of God. — Promotion and Conduct of Revivals: Plans; Purity of motive ; Personal work ; The preaching ; Acts of committal ; Guidance of the penitent ; Determination and hopefulness . . . . 441

Lecture XXVII

Preparation of the Sermon with Reference to its Delivery General or habitual preparation only.— To prepare a general outline only. — To write and read. — To write and preach memoriter.— To think out the sermon verbally and preach memoriter.— To prepare a full outline and preach extempore. — To write in full and preach extempore 455

Lecture XXVIII Personal Preparation

The sermon not yet made.— The man in the preaching. —The natural and the acquired.— Elocution.— Specific personal preparation: Physical— Rest- Food; Spiritual 471

Lecture XXIX The Twofold Action in Speech Agent and instrument.— The body: Voice; Facial expression, attitude, and motion. — The Soul: Self-abandonment; Embarrassment . . . -485

CONTENTS xvii

Lecture XXX

The Action of the Soul— on Subject, Audience, Object

PAGE

On the Subject— On the Audience: The writer, the speaker ; The lawyer ; Eloquence is colloquial ; The apathetic hearer ; In touch with hearers ; The conversational basis ; Individualizing the congregation ; Examples; Testimony. — On the Object: Pleasing the hearers ; Subjects and objects ; The exertion of will-power 495

Lecture XXXI

What is extemporaneous preaching? — The preeminence of this method.— Suggestions : Be content with your present self ; Discriminate between relevant and irrelevant thought; Irrelevancy better than silence; Will to utter the thought; Let the soul be impressible to the audience; Press on ; Reserved force; Know when to quit; Trust yourself to God . .509

Concluding Lecture

God in the natural world. — In human life. — In the spiritual life. — In the preaching of His own Word. — Prophets, apostles, present-day preachers. — Conditions : A sincere and holy life ; Faithful use of natural powers; The prayer of faith.— Success.— The present opportunity 526

THE PERSONAL AIM

WE cannot too well remember that what a man does is the expression of what he is. To be is first, both in the order of thought and of fact; then to do. Every act shows some attitude of the soul. Not only the general course of our conduct, but also the special work of our various callings and pursuits, is the inner life taking outward form. This is eminently true of public speaking, and preeminently true of the preaching of the Gospel. The carpenter builds himself into his house, the work of his hands bearing witness either for him or against him. We hear the musician's soul in his music, and read the author's in his book. But the human soul has come into possession of an incomparably fuller and finer art of expression in speech. True, the orator speaks a few times and then is silent, while the author writes for the years or the centuries ; but no such glowing and penetrative life-forces flow from the pen as are poured forth from the gates of speech so long as these are open. And no speaker is under necessity of declaring the life that is in him so completely as the Christian preacher. He must speak as a good man out of the good treasure of his heart, and may keep back nothing. Knowledge, thought, sensibility, will-power, spiritual experience and character, — in all these must he submit to stand revealed before the congregation, if he would preach not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord. Preaching, it is true, when reduced to its simplest terms, is 1 lifting up the Cross, that sinful men may look and live. But does it matter nothing how this shall be done ? If so, write out the message in a few impersonal words, print it along the highways, and the end is gained. Why has the Lord ordained that His disciples' faces and tongues and souls shall declare His Gospel ? Human selfishness has no place whatsoever in Christian preaching, but the human self must enter into it wholly.

Homiletics, then, is more than the theory and art of sermon-making. It does not begin even with the preacher as such, but with the man himself. There is no escape from this requirement. Were we intrusted with plenary apostolic inspiration we should still be, as the Apostles were, not God's telephones or speaking-tubes, but His speakers. The word of salvation, indeed, is not the preacher's own, and he should receive it, through meditation, prayer, and study of the Scriptures, immediately from God ; but it is his part to receive it, and the utterance of it is his own human and personal act. Only through each man's own personality can he know and communicate the truth. So, what manner of men we are, even in our secret soul, will appear in our preaching.

Very appropriate, then, is the prayer, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to be ? "

What is the Christian ideal manhood? The answer is much too large to be given here, but the chief directions in which it will be found may be indicated. Personal perfection is to be sought :

i. In health. Whatever may be true of pietism or asceticism, Christianity does not undervalue the body. How could it when, through the mysterious unity of our nature, neglect or maltreatment of the body tends to injure the soul, and when it is only through their bodies that souls can become known to one another?

" Let us not always say, ' Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.'

As the bird wings and sings,

Let us cry, 'All good things

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.' "

A call to preach is, for one thing, a call to have as perfect physical purity and vigor as possible. For the preacher's body must enter no less truly than his soul into all his ministrations. Ten thousand sermons every Sunday are made feeble by feeble nerves, or heavy by heavy limbs, or repellent by acidity of the stomach. Ten thousand are sweetened and vivified by the pure tone of physical vitality in the preacher.

What is health ? Not muscular agility, nor stature, nor fatty tissue. It is not even strength, though promotive of it. The brawniest man is not always the healthiest, and an unmuscular man may have perfect soundness of body. Health is that physical state in which all the organs harmoniously perform their functions. Above all things else it is nervous energy ; to be prodigal of which is suicidal. " Better to lose a pint of blood than to have a nerve tapped." Health is painlessness and vitality. We want enough of it not simply to keep us off the sick-list, but to make it a joy to live. Think of Wesley on his eighty-fifth birthday making the record in his journal that he feels " no such thing as weariness either in traveling or preaching," and that he is able to write sermons as readily as he ever could, and ascribing it in part to his having had so little pain in his life, and having never lost a night's sleep, sick or well, on land or sea, since he was born! I noticed in my paper this morning that Mr. Gladstone, in the same year of his age, has resigned his office as Premier of England; not however because of any impairment of his general health or intellectual vigor. On meeting a man of this type it is not worth while to inquire about his health. He never complains. There are others of whom it is equally unnecessary to make the inquiry; the answer may be anticipated: "Something of a headache, indigestion, nervous prostration, overwork." They are never well. Ordinarily it is their own fault, and instead of unmanly calls for sympathy, the case demands penitence and reformation.

To nurse and coddle one's health, to take a womanish pleasure in referring to one's ailments, to think it interesting to spend one's life in a state of chronic valetudinarianism, is a wretched sort of self-exaltation. Susannah Arnold, sister to Arnold of Rugby, through a daily martyrdom of twenty years of pain, " adhered to her early formed resolution of never talking about herself." Before which womanly strength and sublimity of soul many a one who claims the reverence due a man and a minister of Christ appears at a shameful disadvantage.

The measure of physical energy of which you find yourself this moment possessed may be kept or wasted, increased or diminished. In food, in sleep, in breathing, in exercise, in all physical habits, honor the laws of God in your body. Cultivate a disrelish for late hours. Sleep for recuperation, not for self-indulgence. Encourage the appetite for the pure air of heaven and do not fear taking it too freely. Conscientiously abstain from lounging and all bodily inertness. Less food and more exercise would be good advice to many ministers and ministerial students.

Let it be admitted that even with impaired health a good day's work may be done. The number is not small of great souls, mighty in word and deed, embarrassed by feeble and ailing bodies. The Apostle to the Gentiles had his " infirmity in the flesh," and Timothy his " often infirmities." Of Calvin, Baxter, and Tholuck it has been said that they " did their work along the brink of the valley of death." Bernard of Clairvaux was a man of incessant activity, the most influential Christian of his day, and yet with health so broken by the severities of self-discipline as to have been " really a wretched invalid during all his public life." Robert Hall was a sickly-looking child, and much of his life was spent in heroic endurance of disease and pain. Fletcher of Madeley was a consumptive. Francis

Asbury had " headaches, toothaches, chills, fevers, and sore throats for his traveling companions." Moses Stuart was not strong enough to study more than three hours a day. Spurgeon was hardly ever physically well, and sometimes hobbled in agony to his pulpit. Still we should be very blind not to discriminate between instruments and obstacles, between through the use of and in spite of. God may make His strength perfect in weakness, but we are to set no thorn in our own flesh. Choose to live — in the widest sense of the word, to live — for Christ, while it is always your earnest expectation and hope that Christ may be magnified in your body, " whether it be by life or by death."

2. In taste. The sense of beauty is universal. One of the first words the child learns to say is the word pretty. The Spanish adventurers in America were surprised that the Indians should so readily barter a lump of silver or gold for a little hawk's-bell; but the Indian showed surprise that the Spaniard should be willing to exchange so charming a toy for a lump of gold. The earliest form of literature is poetry, with its inevitable accompaniment of music ; both of them attempts to give sensible expression to the spirit of beauty.

Internal craving is met by external fact. There is nothing more common than beautiful things. What is their deepest meaning? What word of God do they bring us?

They symbolize the glory and excellence of the spiritual mind. These things are an allegory. Whoever has skill to read it has found a language in which to speak of the interior life of the soul. How are we affected in contemplating a cruel or a treacherous or a fleshly character? Sickened and repelled, as if our eyes had fallen upon some loathsome and disgusting object. But to witness an act of moral heroism, of disinterested kindness, of self-renouncing pursuit of truth, of highsouled purity and uprightness, — with what peculiar admiration and gladness does it thrill the heart! We have seen the spiritually beautiful. " Whose adorning, ... let it be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."

Moreover, is there not in these broken lights of earthly beauty a prophetic hint of the heavenly world? For, according to the very law of our minds, we pass upward from the imperfect to the complete, from the type to the antitype, from the real to the ideal (which is most truly the real) ; and so we learn that this strange glory that rests upon the earth must be the exponent of that unutterable and unimagined glory " within the veil." No man, not even the extremest Puritan or Quaker, has ever pictured to himself an ugly heaven.

Is not the beautiful in material things an expression even of something glorious in God's own nature? While Charles Kingsley lay on his death-bed he was heard repeating to himself the words, " How beautiful is God ! " It was no irreverent familiarity. For what has the Psalmist said? " Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us." The fountain of beauty is in the heart of the Eternal, and the fair and lovely things of creation are one of the lines of light along which the reverent and imaginative mind ascends to Him.

The glad interpretative perception of beauty in nature and art, and its close congener, the sense of the becoming in manners and conduct, is good taste. It does not follow the fashions, but is often in antagonism to them. Like every other natural endowment, it is given to some persons in larger measure than to others, and in all it may be either appreciated and improved or despised. Not infrequently it has been prostituted to vile uses, as when it casts the charm of poetry, music, painting, or graceful manners about the desecrated objects of vice. It served the tempter's purpose in Eden, but its true spirit and purpose is divine. Can we imagine our Lord as doing an unrefined or unseemly act?

3. In knowledge and thought. Beginning life, as we do, absolutely ignorant, and having so few years in which to learn, it is very little we shall ever know in this world. And for the start that can be made, — the knowing "in part" and "in a mirror darkly," — we are largely indebted to teachers whom we have never seen. Even in such a library as you may soon gather you will keep company, heart to heart, with the gifted and good of your own and of long-past ages.

Surely no Christian can speak slightingly of books, since it has pleased God that His self-revelation in Israel and in Jesus Christ should be recorded and sent down to all subsequent ages in the books of the Bible. In all true literature, philosophy, and science the Eternal Reason is speaking, and those who have ears to hear receive His words. But through the Apostles and prophets, and above all through the incarnate Word, God has given the perfect revelation of His law and His love. Are all other books rendered thereby insignificant or valueless ? I have heard some such sentiment expressed in the pulpit, but it is more Mohammedan than Christian. It is similar logic to the famous dilemma by which the burning of the great library of Alexandria was justified : " If the books contain the same doctrine as the Koran they are useless ; if their doctrine is contrary to the Koran it is false." The Bible adds a new significance to all good and true books. They cannot but enlarge our knowledge of that God whom we know as Father and Saviour through the Book only.

But for none of these must the Bible itself be neglected. Read it and think it, on various methods, through and through.

Some persons show a love of letters which is a lifelong passion. They read, not because they must, but because they may, and not with the puerile ambition of being able to ask, " Have you read such a book? " but with the insatiable desire for knowledge and intellectual stimulus. They are likely to feel painfully their limitations, for it has been estimated that to read those books only which were the standards of their times would require three thousand years. But though it were possible, it would not be profitable to read even all the " standards." None but the best, new and old, and these wisely chosen with reference to each man's noblest purpose, may be taken as the rule.

But there are dangers besetting the reader's path. He may become a bookworm, which, as I understand it, is one who has sunk the end in the means. Or he may lower the tone of his own thinking by submitting too constantly to that of other minds. Suppose a man should keep listening all the time to some other man's talk, with hardly a word or a thought of his own. Would he not dwindle into a mental weakling? And what is reading, at least as commonly practised, but listening to an unseen talker? The preacher is sometimes heard complaining that he has to speak so much in comparison with the time that he has for reading. But this necessity is really an opportunity. Here, as elsewhere, it is better to give than to receive. The preacher has the inestimable advantage of making his knowledge immediately available in his ministry. Thus it becomes truly his own ; knowledge deepens into thought, and the mental powers are developed through their higher and more original processes. For what is the mind? Not a cup to be filled, but an eye to be cleared, an arm to be strengthened. The question is not so much, Have I read what has been written on this subject? as it is, Can I think the subject? It was said by Mrs. Browning in a letter to a friend : " I should be wiser, I am persuaded, if I had not read half so much ; should have had stronger and better-exercised faculties, and should stand higher in my own approbation."

Or, still again, it is possible for the reader to degenerate into that wretchedly contracted state of mind in which it is hard to care for any truth or fact unless it be written in a book ; whereas it is important that we should keep our eyes as wide open outside the study as within. Are we not as truly in God's wonderful world, surrounded with objects of knowledge innumerable, as were any of our cherished authors in their day? Learn from everything. Be interested in men, not merely in character, but in characters. Said a ship-builder to a preacher : " When I listen to some preachers I can build a whole ship, but this morning, I declare, I could not lay a single plank." "How is that?" "Because you spoke like one who knew just what I needed, and I could not withdraw my attention from you for a moment." The words of the woman of Samaria are homiletically suggestive : " Come, see a man, who told me all things that ever I did." He is an ignorant minister who is ignorant of human nature. Do not ignore the newspaper. Be men of your time. Know its virtues, its faults, its needs, its possibilities ; and thus learn how to approach it with that which it needs more than anything else, the truth about Him who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." It is not especially if at all important that you should be what are called " learned " men ; but it is of the highest importance that you should have first-hand views of Scripture, of nature, of the soul, of the dispositions and doings of your fellows, of each man's relations to God. To help us in this, to cause us to "believe in life rather than in books," is one of the chief functions of learning.