manifestation of the winsomeness of the Christ. This the apostle brings out in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, . . . and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." Christ must be brought to those who dwell in

these homeless 'holds" by those in whom He dwells, if He is ever to secure an admission to them. This truth is being seen more and more clearly by His workers, and therefore we look with no hopeless eyes on the solution of the problem as a certainty in the not distant future.

The Moving-Point.

IN George Eliot's "Romola," the barber Nello is made to give it as his opinion of the sermons of Savonarola that they were a good while before they got to the moving-point, and this fact was one of the reasons why he, Nello, did not become a piagnone or convert. Perhaps the same criticism might hold against some more modern sermons. The old rule of delaying the application of the truth until the close of the sermon, and then formally announcing it, is one that can hold good no longer, if ever it was good. The application ought to be so diffused throughout the sermon that every part of it shall have its "moving-point." The very beginning of the sermon may be the crisis of a soul. The end should be seen from the beginning, for the true end of a sermon is not its close, but its purpose; and the purpose of the true sermon is always conviction, not the exhibition of truth, but the securing of an entrance for the truth. Truth will do its own work when it gets in. The example of the Divine Teacher and of His apostles may well be followed by those to whom is committed a similar work. Let the first utterance, like a well-aimed arrow, be a centre.'

"Eugène Bersier."

IT will interest our readers to know that the article recently published in THE HOMILETIC REVIEW on the great French preacher, Eugène Bersier, has excited attention in Paris. Madame Bersier, herself a writer of recognized rank and a competent English scholar, writes to the author of the article, speak

NOTES.

ing on behalf of a considerable circle of readers: "To our sentiments of pleasure the most vivid and the most grateful, we join our admiration of the work for its exceptional value, for the admirable translation of the passages quoted, which reproduces exactly the spirit of the French, and for the completely competent manner in which the criticism is conducted."

Inconsistent.

HUMAN nature is an interesting study. It is full of enigmas. Its unconscious inconsistencies are the perplexity of philosophers, the amusement of sceptics, the wonder of angels, the grief of a God. Among these there is none stranger than the tendency to ascribe insignificance to the familiar and importance to the strange; to overlook the near good or the near evil, and to fasten the eyes on that which is far distant as alone possessing magnitude.

It was an impressive sight which Chickering Hall saw early in November-an audience filling every available inch of room in that spacious auditorium to listen to the eloquence of distinguished speakers as they ar raigned the Louisiana Lottery before the bar of public opinion, and charged home upon it the numberless ills for which it should be held responsible. Nor was the interest unwarranted. The evil is a national one. It is not confined to the State with whose name it is unhappily associated, and to which is diffectly offered the enormous bribe for its permitted continuance through the next quarter of a century-$31,250,000, or $1,250,000 annually. We have no

criticism to make upon the position that was taken, but are in fullest accord with it. Ex-Mayor Hewitt told the exact truth when he gave the following as "a parallel case :"

"I read in the evening papers of the stopping of a railway train in Wisconsin last night by bandits, and the robbery of an express car of a large sum of money. Suppose those robbers should come to New York and say to us, 'You are paying so much in the shape of taxes and for the support of the Erie Canal and the like. Give us a charter by which we may stop all the railway trains in the United States and rob their express cars, and we will pay all your taxes and give you ten per cent of the profits. It is almost a parallel case." Now as to the consistency. Every word that was spoken in condemnation of the lottery might have been applied to the liquor traffic. And yet some of those who spoke so earnestly against the continued existence of the one would hardly have consented to raise their voices with a like eloquence against the continued existence of the other. That which they bastened to call a bribe in the one instance they vehemently assert to be a tax in the other. That the acceptance of which by one State they declared would be a sin and a shame, because the price of a permitted evil, they maintain should be demanded by other States as a righteous measure for the suppression of evil. Is it to be wondered at that, in the presence of such strange inconsistency, the devil, in the persons of his emissaries, congratulates himself and sees evidence of the triumph of evil?

logical. It was based on the rational position that what is wrong in itself and evil in all its consequences cannot be made right by legal enactment. It was the very strongest of strong protests against high license, which, of course, means a still stronger protest against low license. Let things be called by their right names. A license

fee imposed upon evil is simply a bribe demanded for its permitted existence, whether it be $1,250,000 annually for a lottery, or $1000, $500, or $100 for a saloon

With or Without MS.?

THE following passage from the biography of Wendell Phillips contains an instructive hint for preachers. "I once," he wrote, "spent the night with a clergyman, an old friend, who had the habit of reading his sermons. I asked him why he did so. He went on to give me the reasons, and became animated. Well,' said I, 'I am tired to-night, but I have been very much interested in what you have said. Nevertheless, if you had read your remarks I should have gone to sleep.""

The relative merits of preaching with and without manuscript are, of course, not determined by the opinion of any one man, even though that man be a Wendell Phillips; but such an opinion carries large weight with it. The influence of Dr. William M. Taylor and others who, like him, are in the habit of reading their sermons, goes to prove that even a written sermon has its sphere, while the experience of more than one preacher without manuscript goes to prove that in this method there is danger. At the same time, truth presented by one who looks into the eyes of his hearers will be far more apt to make a present impression and lead to instant decision. The eye has no unimportant part to play in the work of conveying and emphasizing truth; and when the eye is upon the paper instead of upon the face, there is danger that the truth will get no farther than the paper.

My Meanest Parishioner.

I HAVE met more than one, and to decide which was the meanest is at this distance from the facts very hard-the dear brother who snatched the dollar bill from his daughter's hand to "see if it was good," when she offered it to me in payment for a hymn-book, and then rolled it between his fingers till my blood ran cold at the sight, because I felt he was worshipping his god; or the second whom I call to mind, who with a squeaking voice says he can't tell for the life of him what a minister can do with more than $300 per year. Either would give me a theme for a good long story. I think, however, they cannot match Mr. Blankside, whom I met in the days of my inexperienced probation. I had a country circuit of six appointments, and averaged about twenty miles' driving and three sermons every Sabbath. This with my studies for an annual written and oral, examination kept me too busy to do much running away for "vacation."

However, it being Christmas, and having an invitation to spend that holiday with some friends fifteen miles away, I excused myself and went. While away, the wife of Mr. Blankside fell sick and died. A friend was despatched for me to return and bury her. On the morning before the funeral I started about twenty-two miles to the home of Mr. B. It was very cold-roads drifted full of snow, and before I reached my boarding place I was nearly frozen to death-so far gone, indeed, that the friends carried me from the sleigh to the house, but soon brought me around again. Thanks to a faithful horse and a kind Providence I was all ready for the funeral next day. I had only driven about three miles, when a friend met me and stated the funeral had taken place a day before. This fact, however, did not settle Mr. B.'s feelings, and he must have a funeral sermon on my appointment there the following Monday night. The night came, and I, full of one of my best and most pathetic funeral sermons, started for my work. I called on the bereaved before service, and he kindly informed me that he had a text all ready for me to preach from, and handed me the words of a text which I dared not as a young man preach from with such short notice. However, he decided I should preach from the text of my choice that night, and on my next appointment preach from his chosen text. And so I did, without hearing any comments from the bereaved.

At the appointed time the steward calling through the settlement for the annual subscriptions for the only minister in that section of county asked this good brother what he was intending to give toward my support. "Give !" said he "I give nothing-that's what I am going to give." "What!" said the collector, "nothing after the minister nearly lost his life trying to accommodate your wishes, and then preached two funeral sermons for

your late wife? If any man ought to give, you certainly ought." But the meanest man I ever knew turned from the collector and said, "What do I care for that; I don't belong to his denomination." And the two years I labored on that circuit he never gave a cent to me nor to any other minister or denomination.

W. JAY KAY.

General Clerical Anecdote.

SOON after I became pastor at L., in 1885, I was invited, with my family, to a family reunion, at which were two clergymen and one physician. At home, we repeat together a short prayer at each meal, always using the same words, and always ending with, for Jesus' sake, amen. All the words usually repeated by our little three-year-old Emma were the last four. When by request I began an invocation of blessing upon the reunion dinner, and proceede about the length of our short prayer used s home, little Emma said audibly and rapidly, For Jesus' sake, amen. The result can be more easily imagined than expressed. W. G.

WHEN I came to my present charge, the church officer was an old Scotchman, from Aberdeen, who had been for many years "a minister's man" in the Old Country, as well as here. By way of putting our relations on a proper footing from the first, he gravely informed me that "he had had many ministers under him in his time." The old man and I always got on firstrate, and many a good hit he gave me. Thus, at my week-day evening service I was taking a course on the Book of Acts. At the close of the service, on the evening I was upon the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas, he came to me and said, "You were gie hard upon the apostle the nicht." I replied, "I don't think any harder than he deserved." "Nae, man," said he; "but I wad like to have heard him and you at it!" He evidently thought that the apostle would be able to give a good account of himself.

In my previous charge in the country I had an old farmer who was "half-crazed" on the subject of the premillennial coming of Christ. Among the prophetic books which he used to read and quote from was Elliot's "Hore Apocalypticæ." The lastword was too ticklish a one for him, and so he used to speak of the 'Hora Appoplectica." I was inclined to accept the new title as fitly descriptive of what the experiences likely to result from an enforced reading of the volumes would be. Good old man! when I was leaving the parish, these volumes he presented to me. I have frequently dipped into them, but always, erelong, I have had shuddering monitions of the drawing near of" Hora Appoplectica," and had to return them to their shelves. W. G.