incidental; but even from these we are fully warranted in feeling and proffering the most substantial consolation to those who mourn the loss of their little ones.

ARTICLE VI.-VARIETY IN PULPIT INSTRUCTION.

[BY REV. WM. C. CHILD, BOSTON, MASS.]

It is not only important that the Gospel in its purity should be preached in our churches; but also that such exhibitions of it should be made, as will commend it to the intellects of men, enlarge their views of it, elicit their admiration of it, and induce them to embrace it. The consideration of this subject belongs particularly to ministers. If they are what they should be, every means that can be employed to extend the influence of religion in the world will be tried. The personal interest which they are supposed to feel in it will give them zeal in their labors, and the spirit of God will crown those labors with success.

If there be any class of men in the church with whom the triumphs of Christianity would naturally be an object of strong, nay, intense desire, it is the ministry. They are placed upon "the walls of Zion," and on account of the very prominence of their position, the success of the Gospel, or the want of it, is intimately and chiefly associated with them. Being the professed leaders of "the sacramental hosts," they naturally feel that if they do not lead those hosts on to contest and to victory, multitudes will, whether justly or otherwise, attribute the blame to them. Besides, if they are men of piety, as the judgment of charity constrains us to assume, it must be to them a matter of deep solicitude that the objects to

which they have consecrated their energies, and with which they have become in a special manner identified, should be most effectually accomplished.

The peculiar and primary sphere of the ministry is the pulpit. To fit them for that sphere has been the grand aim of their previous preparation, both of mind and of heart. It is there that they come more immediately in contact with the understandings and sensibilities of men. To them the Gospel has been committed as a trust. They are to proclaim it to the world. However much they may do so in their private walks as pastors, they are to remember that "the great commission" that has been given them is to preach the word publicly, and in its entire extent, both for the edification of saints, and for the conversion of sinners. There is a sense in which every Christian is commissioned to publish the story of the Cross with his lips, while he illustrates the power of that Cross by his life; but we are accustomed to regard the ministry as a divinely appointed office, and the men who fill it as called to the performance of peculiar duties duties that come not within the province of any other class of individuals. In the present state of society, when Christian churches are permanently established, and one day in seven is, by common consent, observed as a day of religious services, on which multitudes repair to houses of worship for the purpose of receiving spiritual instruction, it is necessary that ministers of the Gospel should regard the duties of the Sabbath as the great duties to which they are called, and to which they should devote their chief attention. For it is manifest that if those duties are neglected, the interests of religion must suffer. The pulpit may be considered the forum of the church, where her cause is vindicated, and where her enemies are tried. Around it vast numbers gather, and on it innumerable eyes are fixed, Consequently it comes to occupy a lofty place in the respect and affection of those who are educated under its influence. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance that the power of the pulpit be preserved, and its demands be fully met. If its claims are unheeded, or are made to give way to others, it is verily causing the greater to yield to the less, allowing what

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was designed to be the principal agency in advancing the cause of the Redeemer, to be laid aside, measurably at least, and substituting inferior ones in its place. So that in the warfare of the church against sin, the minister of the Gospel should feel that he is in his appointed position, and performing his more appropriate work, in the pulpit, just as the general is occupying his proper sphere, and fulfilling his more specific duty, when at the head of his army, and leading his soldiers against the foe. This is the place he is called to fill. Stationed there, and in Christ's stead unfolding the messages of divine love, he is indeed a "legate of the skies.”

Such being the more particular field of the minister's exertions, it must be to him an inquiry of no ordinary interest, how he can invest his efforts with the highest degree of attraction, and thus most effectually secure — so far as human means can secure it—the legitimate and designed end of preaching. The commission that has been given him informs him definitely as to what he shall preach, and he is not at liberty to deviate a hair's breadth from its instructions. To fail as to the matter of his communications would, in our estimation, be a forfeiture of that commission, if he had ever received one; for we must suppose it to be a gross absurdity, that a man who has embraced great and fundamental errors should have been authorized by the Head of the Church to proclaim them. But while the truth to be taught is what is revealed, it must, or should, be a matter of solicitude with the preacher, how he can best declare it. In what forms can he present his messages, so that they shall exert the most perinanent influence on the minds and hearts of his hearers? What views can he take of truth that will render it most striking and most likely to arrest and fix attention? And since the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, or those which relate to the salvation of the soul, are few and simple, and constant familiarity with them is calculated to divest them of the charm and power of novelty, thus rendering those who are not at heart interested in religion comparatively insensible to its instructions and claims, how can the ministrations of the pulpit be made to afford a permanent pleasure, and thus increase

the probability of imparting real profit? We must suppose, other things being equal, that those minds which are most constantly kept contemplating truth, give the fairest promise of being ultimately brought to feel its saving energy. The preservation of a continuous interest in the Gospel hence assumes to the minister an aspect of no inferior importance.

We would not be unmindful of the fact, that it is "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit" of God, that the Gospel is to work its way to the hearts of men; but since the human mind is constituted as it is, and truth must find a lodg ment there before it can reach the soul, it must be a matter of some moment to ascertain how truth can be so adapted to the intellect as to meet the demands of the mind without creating a disrelish for it by familiarity with it. It is perhaps an evil incident to our present mental constitution and state, that we crave novelty. What is old, however valuable, does not seem to interest us long, unless it has enlisted our affections. Whatever we truly love is an unfailing source of pleasure; but what appeals to mere intellect, comes to be fatiguing to most persons, and ceases at last deeply to engage the attention. So, unless there is the charm of novelty thrown around the pulpit, its instructions are shorn of much of their power. Though the truths of religion are all-important, their reiteration, Sabbath after Sabbath, in the same manner, would fail to continue the excitement which their first enunciation created, even if they were proclaimed by angelic lips, and with the loftiest eloquence. It is surprising to see how the most stupendous of all concerns soon comes to be to the mind an object of indif ference, while the most insignificant trifle, whose origin and end are compressed within the limits of a brief moment, may excite an interest amounting even to enthusiasm. It is true, this peculiarity of the mind is more strongly marked in some individuals than in others; but all partake of it. Never do we discover, in perverted humanity, such a perfection of mental and moral adjustment as causes all things, at all times, to assert and maintain their true relative importance. Hence can be seen a powerful reason why the exhibitions of truth

made from the pulpit should be as varied as possible, and why the preacher should

"Try each art, reprove each dull delay,

Allure to brighter worlds, and lead the way."

We may be met here by the declaration that, in apostolic times, those who preached the Gospel evidently confined themselves to the simple announcement of Christ crucified, — that the fundamental and saving truths of religion are few and obvious, and that these constitute the staple of the commission given by our Lord to his disciples. But a moment's reflection will suffice to show us that the minister of the Gospel, in a Christian land, and pastor of a church, is situated very differently from the first propagators of Christianity. They lived in an age when this was a new system of religion, and they were called to expound its elementary principles. The rudiments of this sublimest of sciences were then to be taught. The true light had but just begun to shine in all its radiance; and falling first on their minds and hearts, the apostles hastened to reflect its beams on others. Their chief desire was, that the whole world might bask in its rays. Hence the simplest process by which this result could be secured was employed by them. They had many to enlighten, and a dense darkness to remove. Fixing their eyes on men as sinners, and as needing salvation, they made it their chief aim to proclaim the great remedy for sin, of which the world had not before heard, because it had but just been fully and clearly revealed. Or, in other words, they were, in an emphatic sense, reformers, and reformers always employ, in the execution of their mission, a few great fundamental principles, which, from their very simplicity and obviousness, more strongly impress the mind.

Besides, the ministry whose history is brought to view in the New Testament, was an itinerating ministry. They had no settled charges. Preaching from place to place, and gathering into churches the converts whom their preaching had made, they were compelled, from necessity, to reiterate the same great truths, in the same connections, and with the same