ARTICLE IV.-UNIVERSITY SERMONS. [BY AN OLD CONTRIBUTOR.] 1.—Sermons delivered in the Chapel of Brown University, by FRANCIS WAYLAND, President of the University. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1849. 2.—The Christian Life, in two volumes. I.—Its course, its hindrances, and its helps. II.-Its hopes, its feurs, and its close. ByTHOMAS ARNOLD, D. D., Head Master of Rugby School. [From the fifth London edition.] Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1856. 3.-Christian Believing and Living. Sermons by F. D. HUNTINGTON, D. D., Preacher to the University, and Plummer Professor of 4.-Twelve Sermons, delivered at Antioch College, by HORACE MANN, President of the College. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861. 5.-Sermons delivered in the Chapel of Harvard College, by JAMES WALKER, D. D., President. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862. SEVERAL of our older and larger colleges and universities find it convenient, and, as they think, useful to secure the usual ministrations of the Sabbath and the sanctuary in their own chapels, and to a great degree separate from ordinary mixed assemblies. Accordingly the president, the chaplain, or whosoever may be the preacher selected for this service, is expected to make the peculiar age, character and destination of his audience a specialty, or at least to hold all these very prominently in view in the selection and discussion of his themes. Discourses of this character have considerably multiplied of late, and the teeming press has sent forth ample specimens of them. Nor can it fail to be recognized as emi nently suitable to subject such of them as fall in our way, to careful and candid review. Such discourses are indeed no novelty. President Appleton of Bowdoin College, Prof. Tappan of Harvard, Dr. Dwight, the bright particular star of Yale, Witherspoon of Nassau Hall, Davies of William and Mary, and Maxcy, successively President of Brown and Union at the North, and of the College of South Carolina at the South, among the men of a generation passed away, all preached to students, and gave more or less of their discourses of this character to the press. Some of them-as Dwight, Appleton and Tappandelivered courses of sermons embracing a complete system of Theology. Such a course was more needful before Theological Seminaries existed among us. So far as we are advised, such a complete system of Christian doctrines is not now attempted in any, or very few at most, of these institutions. It is rather the aim of such sermons now, to secure the Christian instruction and edification of the young men to whom they are delivered. Religious culture, in the broad acceptation of the term, is the noble object to which such discourses are directed.* On the very threshold of our theme, its magnitude and sacredness impress us. To preach the gospel efficiently, to any human being, involves consequences of unutterable moment. The poorest, the humblest, the least influential have souls, and to rescue and recover such from the bottomless pit, instrumentally to imbue them with the new life and hope, the purity and peace which Jesus gives to all who believe the gospel message, is indeed a work of transcendent interest and importance. But how obviously are these enhanced, when the hearers of this gospel message are those preparing to exert on the community of this and future generations the greatest influence. To become the moulds into which many others will be cast, the pattern which myriads *Of course this view does not embrace such courses of lectures as the Bampton and Hulsean in the English Universities. These latter have a high and worthy aim; but it chiefly regards the graduates, the fellows and other friends and teachers, not the undergraduate students. will imitate, the seed which is to be resown and produce its thirty, sixty, and hundred fold. Who can reckon up the good results of the influence produced by the university sermons. of Dwight on the young men of Yale, or the very similar influence of the discourses of Arnold to his pupils at Rugby! All this is adapted to impress the mind with the immense responsibilityinvolved in such services. Along with this view, it is very proper to consider the peculiar facilities which preachers to such an audience have for the discharge of their duties. They are sure of their congregations beforehand; may know with definite certainty their number, their character, and hence need not draw their bow at a venture, or be hindered and perplexed throughout the whole time of preparation, for fear of such casualties as do so often keep away from the ordinary assemblies the very individuals for whose benefit they would choose out and press home the most appropriate truth. Much more on a common level of intelligence and mental training, are these university audiences, than we may expect to find elsewhere; thus enabling the evangelical instructor to have a common aim. The bond of sympathy is more strong, or at least is less hindered in its operation, than in promiscuously gathered assemblies. Their common circumstances of separation from home and family kindred, their own common aims and destinations, and their exposedness to similar dangers, all give advantages to him who would so address them as to win them to Christ, guard them from their insidious foes, and build them up in faith and holiness. Moreover, the preacher having before him the same audience from week to week, accustomed to the mental processes of proceeding from one point already secured, to another dependent on it, he can rely on what has been proved already, and without unduly presuming, can more effectually prosecute a series of mutually dependent topics. Such being the facilities, the adventitious but reliable aids which preachers of university sermons enjoy, it deserves a moment's consideration, what are the qualities most requisite in such a preacher, and what should be his leading aim in the themes and the composition of his discourses? While all preachers should be good men, evincing in their lives the sincerity of their utterances, and conforming their practice to their precepts, there are special reasons why he who leads the daily devotions, and on the Sabbath discourses from the pulpit to those who are continually in close contact with himminute observers of all his daily life-history-should be most consistently a living epistle, known and read as thoroughly imbued with the gospel which he proclaims. Weighty reasons are obvious why no inconsistency should here be tolerated, nothing incongruous with the main design be admitted to mar the symmetry of that truth which such an advocate is the channel of communicating. A warm and sympathizing heart, if sufficiently guarded and restrained from the weak drivel of a mawkish sentimentalism, will also be an advantage. The thorough mastery of his subjects, with a broad margin of both particular and general knowledge, beyond what is implied and required for the statement, the proof and the illustration of his themes, will also be of immense advantage here, from the peculiar character and habit of the minds to which he ministers. Young men of aspiring dispositions are not content to be fed out of a nearly exhausted measure. They very soon tire of, and lose respect for, a guide nearly as limited in knowledge as themselves, and seems on the point of selfexhaution. Then, too, in the themes selected; while there will be ample space and verge enough for the most fertile invention, there is no need that this should be constantly on the rack for either novelties, or too exclusive a specialty. Let such an one, when sitting down to contemplate the need of those he is to address, remember first and chief of all, that they are a part of that fallen, depraved humanity, for every one of whom the one only Saviour lived and died. That for them, just as truly as for the rest of the race, there is salvation in no other. Hence in the general plan of these discourses, let it be the one chief aim to shut up the intelligent, inquisitive, ambitious youth to the prime indispensableness of counting all things loss and dross in comparison with the infinite blessedness of having Christ formed in them the hope of glory. It has been the common verdict of those who have had largest experience in these things, that a common and grevious fault with those preaching to a particular class-as sailors, soldiers, prisoners, mechanics, merchants or professional men -is found in the attempt to laboriously adapt the subject or the treatment, or both, to the narrow specialty of each. There is a double infelicity in this; for the landsman in endeavoring to baptize his message into the nautical vocabulary of sailors, ordinarily mistakes and bungles in such a way as to win no admiration, but pity and contempt rather, for his verdant awkwardness. Or even if more successful in this respect, this very success, by fixing attention on itself, withdraws it from the weightier import of the theme, and thus becomes an embarrassing hindrance instead of an aid to the main design. Now this is all as true and as important to be remembered in addressing students as any other class. The common salvation and its immediate claims should stand forth in uncompromising clearness. So, also, as to the endeavor after, or the affectation of originality and the invention of novelties,—that prince of pulpit orators, Robert Hall, has pithily said, that to an honest man seeking advice in an important exigency, originality is about the last thing desirable. So, too, of abundant classical allusions and superfluous ornament, they will not aid but rather retard the religious effect of such discourses as we are now considering. The nervous style of Archbishop Whately is preferable to the elaborate antithesis, the sparkling glitter, and euphonic fulness of Macaulay. Still there may be room and demand for some positive peculiarities in university sermons. Well chosen, strictly correct, and even sententious language, chastely beautiful, is here more important than in other pulpit performances. So logical accuracy of statement and reasoning, and a lucid, natural arrangement, which, without making too prominent the different parts and passages, the articulations and transitions of the discourse, shall yet show the beginning, the middle, and the end, and shall bring all parts and processes in the discussion to bear on the end, are here important. Hence erratic waywardness and spasmodic impulsiveness, will here |