tening to a dry sermon? Who does not remember the beatings of his little heart, as the speaker began, "Once on a time?" But one-third of our congregations are children and youth. Should not our sermons reach them. Is it wise, is it right, to pass over the most impressible part of our hearers?

If our congregations were gathered to a weekly feast, would they send the children away starving? How often do they go from our churches without one morsel of truth? And is illustration essential to children and useless to adults? In manhood, the perceptive faculties are neither lost nor weakened. They are modified by the growth of other powers. They are there still, keen and bright. And the preacher who neglects them, most unphilosophically, relinquishes one mighty weapon of his warfare. For moral painting before every thing else, arrests attention, awakens emotion, and stamps its images upon the memory. The world act upon this principle. You may show the vileness of our novels, but what multitudes devour them. You may prove the deleterious influence of our theatres, but what numbers throng them? They are borne away by fiction and drama. They shun our churches, or nod at our preachers and weep at our actors. But Christ moved the throng, "For he spake many things unto them in parables."

3. Moral painting adds point and force to the argument. If it is said that stern reasoning is alone appropriate to the pulpit, I answer that reasoning and illustration are both essential. We must of course have argument. It is the grand foundation. Every man of sense, every child demands the reason of things. The profound metaphysics of the Bible meet this demand, and every preacher must meet it. Rebellious hearts and wicked hands are covering the doctrines of the gospel all over with webs of sophistry. Logical reasoners must tear off these coverings, and set forth these doctrines, clearly stated and ably defended. In this day of kindling intelligence, the pulpit should become a centre of light, the purest and the brightest on the face of the earth. The preacher's artillery should be so weighty and so well directed at the enemy's fort, as to demolish its foundations. Not one stone should be left upon another. Even God says to his creatures, "Come now let us reason together." But is man all reason? Has he no imagination and fancy? Does he certainly love and obey acknowledged truth? Does his heart melt with the convictions of his understanding? No. It may be as cold as icebergs, hard as adamant. A mountain of reasoning might neither increase his convictions, nor move his heart. He wants the burning image to move his feelings.

Pictures of truth appeal to the fervid part of our nature, and reach the heart. No truth is effectual, without God's Spirit. But we are to present that which is best adapted to move men. We

are to be wise to win souls to Christ. Beside, God charges men with stupidity, impenitence, madness. "They are mad upon their idols." Do mad men always yield to reason? No. They must be lured. Solomon tells us that "the preacher sought to find out acceptable words," to win the wanderer. When argument fails, illustration will often prevail. This is in accordance with the complex nature of man. A flat plain is important to him, but he wants some other prospect. Bread is his staff of life, but he is not to live by bread alone. Argumentation is essential-it is the foundation of his convictions, but it is insufficient.

There are some who believe in stories for children, illustration for the ignorant and argument for the cultivated. But God did not reason with David. Had Nathan come to David with a profound argument, he would probably have failed. But no, he takes him away from himself. He comes to him with a tale of sorrow. Here is a rich man with flocks and herds exceeding abundant. And he had a neighbor, a poor man, and he had one little ewe lamb. He had bought it and nourished it; it drank from his cup and ate from his hand. He had cherished it as a daughter. "And there came a traveller unto the rich man," and he, sparing his own flocks and herds, sent and tore away that little ewe lamb, and he killed it and he dressed it. Till David, burning under the brightened image, sware in his wrath, "As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die." Four words, with their explanation, made this one of the most pointed arrows that ever entered the heart of man. The mighty results may be learned from the 51st Psalm.

But this was a simple story, out of place, amid the refinement and intellectuality of some modern congregations. Was David uncultivated? Was the royal David a dolt? He, who, by his brilliant genius, rose from the "sheep-fold to the throne"-he, the "sweet singer of Israel"-he, the great moral painter of antiquity-the inspired minstrel of all kindreds and of all tongues?

Moral painting, then, gives point and force to argument. Indeed, there is no perfect eloquence without it. You may pour the light of reason all over the gospel system, and it may prove the glare of the ice-mountain, amid eternal frost and death. You may build up anatomical structures of truth,-but there must be flesh upon those bones, before the Spirit of God may be expected to give them the pulsations of life.

4th. I have only time to urge the use of moral painting from the example of men, who have deeply moved the human heart. Poets have used it. Homer, Dante, Milton, still live. The naturalness and brilliancy of their pictures will render them immortal. Advocates have often gained their cause by some touching scene of truth. Orators have used this instrument with thrilling power. Cicero had his Cataline and his Gracchus, Demosthenes had his Philip. His picture of that man was terrific. "The Athenians

saw his black deceitful heart. They heard him thundering at their gates. They saw themselves enslaved, chained, murdered-and the very slaves cried out, War with Philip."

And shall the children of this world be wiser than the children of light? Shall Christians reject this power? The wisest and most successful have used it. Inspiration is full of it. Think of the gospels, of Peter's pentecostal sermon, of Paul's remarkable conversion. Some of Paul's letters were chains of reasoning. They were aimed at stupendous errors, where unanswerable argumentation was indispensable. But nothing can be more lifelike than his popular addresses. The vividness and grandeur of Chrysostem's images explain his magic power. He dealt in living, breathing truth. What but this power enables us to talk of the immortal Bunyan? We track the foot-prints of his poor Christian from the slough of despond, clear up through the gate of the celestial city. What but this faculty made Whitefield the prince of preachers? "His pictures," says his critic, "were bold, graphic, colored to the life. His hearers seemed to live now on earth, now amid the radiant verities of an eternal weight of glory, and now in the soul's great charnel-house, amid the horrors of the second death." In the midst of his preaching, the exclamation burst from Lord Chesterfield, "By heaven, he's gone;" and from the poor sailor, "Rush to the long-boat ;" and from thousands of sinners, " Have mercy, mercy, mercy on my soul."

So with Edwards and Payson. Some men give us words about Heaven and Hell. (But Edwards opened to his hearers the bottomless pit, and so painted the declivity on which their feet were sliding there, that they cried out, rose to their feet, and hung to the pillars of the church. Payson took his hearers to heaven. The last star disappeared. The unearthly light and music of heaven poured down through the celestial gate. They enter there. They walk those streets. They are introduced to the throne of God and the Lamb. And so with those men most wise in winning souls to Christ. They have humanized and dramatized the truth.

But what toil for the preacher. It is not all froth and shallowness. For there is nothing that requires such imagination, taste, judgment, originality, emotion and prayer, as the logical argumentation, and the forcible illustration of truth.

II. The kind of moral painting to be used.

Discredit has been brought upon this style of preaching. But we are not to abandon moral painting in sermons, because by some it has been badly done, and by others over done. A good thing is not to be abandoned because it has been abused. Great condensation is essential to a good picture of truth. Nothing can be more distasteful in a sermon, than a long diffuse story. The parables of Jesus are brief and pointed. Illustrations should be

used sparingly. A discourse made up of it is weak and frivolous. There must be deep thought. There must be solid argument. There must be something illustrated. And if the picture of truth emanates naturally from the point discussed, it will enforce the argument and engrave upon the mind the train of thought. Above all, sacred truth should be illustrated with deep emotion. Christ's gospel is a weeping, thrilling message of glad tidings to the perishing. No other presentation of truth is gospel. If coldly uttered, it belies the beating heart of Jesus, and caricatures his yearning message. Unfeeling argument may be borne, but cold illustration is intolerable. The very foundation of moral painting is emotion. Hence such pictures from the passionate East. When the heart is struggling to convince and move, it seizes some illustration that will flash conviction at once upon the soul. This makes moral painting so natural and appropriate to the pulpit. The preacher crushed with the love of Jesus, and the burden of souls, warms and moulds and dignifies and makes effectual the simplest incident. How did Jesus make the brooded chickens so effective? He stood gazing down upon that doomed city. He saw those millions who might have been sheltered, sinking in agonized struggles, under the wrath of God. And he wept. Those tears of the Son of God have elevated that hen and her gathered chickens into a deathless and celestial picture. Like Christ, my brethren, should we give vent to a tearful heart. The vastness of

our work is enough to make an angel weep. But with Christ's help it can be done. And he will do it best, who determines under God that he will do it-whose whole heart is fixed on doing it-whose crushed spirit bows before God, and laying hold of some promise, cries with an importunity that will not be denied, "Oh! Lord give me these souls"-who rushes into the field of conflict-who stands the shock of battle-who sinks down at last with his armor on, and wiping away the sweat of death, yields up to God his joyous spirit.

In this glorious work, we ask the co-operation of our brethren, the elders and members of our churches. With this melting spirit and determined will, how much may you accomplish. You remember the pious lawyer who despondingly said to his Pastor, "I believe our Infidel friend is given up of God to believe a lie. I have been all over the gospel system with him, and he has laughed me to scorn." In that same town, in a little room, bending over his grated fire, was an aged Christian. All the night long he was pleading for that Infidel. The next morning, as the Infidel describes it, I saw the aged man approaching my shop. He took my hand, and in deep agitation exclaimed, "Sir, I am greatly concerned for your salvation." He tried to speak again, his bosom heaved, the tears rolled down his cheeks and he silently

and slowly rode away. There I stood, and forgot to bring my hammer down. "Greatly concerned for my salvation!" It rung through my ears like a thunder-clap. If he had reasoned with me, I could have confounded him. But here is a new argument. What shall I do? I went and told my pious wife. She urged me to go and see the man. As I entered his little room, I said to him, "My dear Sir, I have come to tell you that I am greatly concerned for my own salvation." "Praised be God," said the aged Christian. "And there we kneeled down together, and yielded our broken spirits up to Christ." Go forth, my brethren, and with the same emotion and prayer and earnestness, present God's truth, by the fire-side and the way-side, and how noble will be your co-operation.

One word, in closing, to my venerable fathers and brethren in the ministry. How stupendous the weight that presses upon us! What can equal it? The glory of God, the destiny of souls, and our own last account. I cannot, my dearly beloved, instruct you, but I can weep with you, over the desolations of the past, and the gloom of the future. I can go down with you to the shore of eternity, and there look out upon the interminable waste. Scowling tempests are gathering there, and dark spirits from the bosom of our people, are going out there. They will wander, and never find rest. They will miserably perish. Our people are to be divided. We stand with them at the last tribunal. "No creature breathes." The voice of God pierces every soul. "Come ye blessed." "Depart ye cursed.". And now they are mounting up. Every saved soul shouts for joy. He honors God. He sparkles, as a gem, in the crown of Jesus. But here they are sinking down. The gate of hell grates harshly as they enter. And now the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And is there one here whose heart is untouched by such scenes? Do you struggle feebly for your people? Beware, my brother, lest yon be found wanting in the benevolence of Christ. Christ loved these souls. Christ died for them. if any man, be he elder, bishop, or pope, "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." God does not promise heaven to the faithless preacher. His doom of all others will be most terrific.

And

"What scene is this, (says Griffin,) that I behold in hell? A lurid shape, more scarred with thunder than the rest, around which a crowd of dreadful beings, with furious eyes, and threatening gestures, are venting their raging curses. It is an unfaithful Pastor. Those around him are his wretched people. My soul turns away, and cries, Give me poverty-give me the curses of the wicked-give me the martyr's stake. "But oh! my God, save me from the doom of the unfaithful minister." But are you suit. ably affected by the guilt and hazard of your people? Does their wail of woe freeze you? Does their burst of joy thrill you? Does