Like "Optimi," says Luther, "ad vulgus hi sunt concionatores qui pueriliter, populariter, et simplicissime docent." But with the vular of our own land and time there are classed many strong, shrewd, inquisitive, speculating, reading men and women, who, as soon at least as the higher classes, will turn with loathing from any preachment that deals in puerile dilutions. We would by no means overlook the wise import of Luther's remark. many prescriptive rules in homiletics, it was made for the peasantry of the old world. The canons laid down for the instruction of English weavers and French vine-dressers are applicable to some auditories among us; but an undistinguishing application of them to our free, inquiring, well-schooled yeomen, merchants and mechanics, has imparted a hurtful air of common-place to many discourses. "There are always," says Fenelon, "three quarters of an ordinary congregation, who do not know those first principles of religion in which the preacher supposes every one to be fully instructed." Writing under the influence of such a statement, as if it were made for our own latitude and longitude, some preachers among us may attain their appropriate measure of simpleness; but others will grievously underrate the capabilities of their audience, will become trite preachers for children, but will be outgrown by men, and even the children themselves will soon look down upon such insipidness, leaving it for younger folks than they. Thirdly, a discourse need not always be so plain as to be intelligible to every individual in the audience. "A divine," says Dean Swift, "has nothing to say to the wisest congregation of any parish in this kingdom, which he may not express in a manner to be understood by the meanest of them." It is readily admitted, that when the subject and the occasion will allow, our sermons should be level to the most ordinary comprehensions. But is there not meat for strong men, as well as milk for babes? Does not one who is weak eat herbs only, and another eat all things? Shall not the most learned in the auditory receive his word in season, as well as the most imbecile? Shall the higher truths be entirely excluded from the pulpit, because all the hearers are not of the higher intellectual class? Are there not some sentiments which none but a pious man can fully comprehend, and shall * But they find no place in sermons, because the impenitent will denounce them as enigmas? When Pitt accompanied his friend Wilberforce to hear Mr. Cecil preach, the prime minister declared that he could not understand a word of the discourse; but the discourse was doubtless profitable to all whose susceptibilities had been quickened by the Holy Spirit. We would condemn all needless elevation, either of sentiment or style; we would acquiesce in the general remark of Augustine, "It is better for critics to censure than for the people not to understand." there are times when the improvement of a whole parish will be accelerated by the particular improvement of a few individuals. The higher intellect should sometimes, for the sake of the lower, content itself with a reduced amount of thought in a discourse; and the weaker intellect should sometimes, for the sake of the stronger, submit to a style designed for the masters in Israel. Every where, in such a world as this, there must be occasional accommodations between the high and the low. And the difficulty of making these accommodations is not always so great as may at first appear. Ignorant men are not always unwilling to hear an erudite discourse, and to be thought capable of understanding it. They are sometimes * It may be proper to notice here the distinction made by some between subjective and objective obscurity; between that which arises from a defect in the person addressed, and that which arises from a defect in the person addressing. Subjectively a work may be obscure, when it is objectively perspicuous. Thus, Euclid's Elements are unintelligible to a child, not on account of their bad arrangement or style, but on account of the child's want of discipline. Many, advocating the rule that a discourse be intelligible to every hearer, will yet justify a style of discourse for Christians which is unintelligible to the impenitent. The obscurity, they say, arises not from any fault in the discourse, but from a fault in the impenitent hearer, and therefore is no violation of the most rigid rule of plainness. But if a moral defect in a hearer will free an unintelligible sermon from the charge of obscurity, why may not an intellectual defect in the hearer have the same exculpatory influence? Why, then, would Clark on the Attributes be condemned as obscure to a common audience, since it is written as perspicuously as it well can be? The distinction between subjective and objective perspicuity, though valid, does not supersede the fact that all perspicuity is relative; and when there is a defect in the hearer, the discourse must be accommodated to that defect, in order to be perfectly plain. Reid's Philosophy is perhaps as perspicuous as need be for cultivated minds; but it is not so perspicuous as it ought to be, if it were designed for children. happy in praying that the logical discourse which overtopped their comprehension may be the instrument of good to those whose heart is haughty, and whose eyes are lofty, and who exercise themselves in great matters. Learned men, also, are not always unwilling to sacrifice their own tastes to those of the community. They sometimes consider that the Sabbath is the chief day for the instruction of the poor, and, unless this instruction be given them, ignorance will be their continued heritage; whereas the learned may consult libraries on theology, and have numerous avenues to religious improvement. They sometimes reflect that the gospel was originally addressed to the ignorant, and has peculiar beauties when applied to the relief of mental poverty. Besides, on the Sabbath, they sometimes feel unprepared for laborious analysis, and prefer such discourses as will give them a day of intellectual rest. They desire a change of mental occupation. Still further, learned men are often unlearned in divine truth, and feel their need of simple, didactic address. It is not asserted, that either the higher or the lower orders are so accommodating at all times. The preacher must occasionally leave one class unsatisfied, for the sake of benefiting another. And there are many parishes where he should consult the tastes of the multitude more frequently than the tastes of the select and erudite; where, in the words of Bacon, "he should be too plain, rather than not plain enough." But his preferences for the multitude should never be exclusive. If he always overlook the peculiar necessities of the learned, for the sake of always meeting the specific wants of the ignorant, he will unduly neglect the aggregate of spiritual worth in * There is an incident in the life of Edmund Burke, which illustrates, not only the religious character of the man, but also the general principle that literary men often wish an entire alternation of their mental habits on the Sabbath. "At church, one day, he was unexpectedly saluted with a political sermon, which, though complimentary to his own views of public affairs, was so little suited in his opinion to the place, that he displayed unequivocal symptoms of disapprobation, by rising frequently, taking his hat, as if to depart, and re-seating himself, with evident chagrin. Surely,' said he, on another occasion, the church is a place where one day's truce may be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.'"-Prior's Life of Burke, Ch. XI. So men often desire one day's truce from the severities of logical or philological discussion. his audience. In all places this is injurious; in some more so, in others less. We are therefore led to say, In the fourth place, the preacher should adopt that degree of plainness which will be fitted to secure on the side of piety the greatest amount of mental and moral strength which he can hope to secure in his congregation. It is not asserted, that he should invariably adapt himself to the greatest intellects in his congregation; for these have not always the greatest moral power, and they are sometimes beyond the reach of hope. It is not asserted, that he should immediately adapt himself to the greatest number of minds. This he should do generally; but the balance of spiritual value does not always lie with the balance of numbers. "Men are to be weighed, not counted." It were a dangerous error, to suppose that any soul is unimportant, and also to suppose that every soul is equally important with every other.* If the greatest amount of mental and moral strength is gained for the church, then the greatest amount of holiness is secured,the greatest sum of capacity for enjoying and glorifying God. Besides, the soul of a single individual sometimes sways a community. The public cast their judgment into the mould of his; his salvation is the means under God of saving a multitude. The preacher, who neglects the more vigorous and expanded mind, and devotes his whole time to that which is less susceptible of knowledge and happiness, is like a husbandman who neglects the verdant field for the sake of a rock-bound common. The field is the more infested with weeds, because of its richness, and the labor upon the arid plain will yield insufficient sustenance to the laborer. That soul which the minister neglects becomes a Voltaire or a Gibbon, tearing down more than all the minister builds up. The presence of several such minds in a congregation should modify somewhat the style of preaching to that congregation. The style should be adapted to them, not indeed more than to all others, but in many places more than to an equal number of minds less capable of exploits for God. We preach to the aged, and again to the young; to the * Such remarks as the following are more common than just: "Men of taste form a very small part of the community, of no greater consequence in the eyes of their Creator than others."-ROBERT HALL. 62 VOL. V.-NO. XX. recently converted, and then to the inquiring, and afterwards to the hardened sinner; why not preach occasionally to that class of minds which were made for extensive influence upon the community? If half of a congregation should be unlettered laborers, and half should be inquisitive philosophers, the major amount of spiritual strength would be with the philosophers; the preacher should, exceptions apart, follow the preponderance; he should give to the laborers their proportion of the bread of life; no less, no more. Instead of allowing the dominant influence in the congregation to be unregulated, he should address himself to the philosophers, that through them he may affect the whole parish. When a preacher, in his eagerness to benefit the most imbecile of his hearers, offends the taste of a few leading spirits, his policy often proves a suicidal one. The intelligent men rise against him; their opposition is a signal for general revolt; even the weak things of his parish are swept into the vortex of his opponents; and in striving for the small men, he loses both the small and great. When a sermon is addressed to mature minds, the child wrestles about, and whispers and plays, for he does not understand it; but at the evening catechising he sees the effect of that address in the motions and countenance of his parents; he reads that discourse in their example through the week. It was the means of a father's or a mother's conversion, and its influence upon them may be continued, even to the renovating of this impatient child. The discourse was adapted to him indirectly; if it had been accommodated directly to his wants, he might have wept for an hour or two, but his disaffected, disgusted parents might have trifled away his seriousness before the setting of the sun. The objection has been made to such an elevated style of preaching as is required by this rule, that it deprives the more ignorant classes of their appropriate Sabbath instructions. The first answer to this objection is, they are often benefited indirectly by what they do not understand. The spinster and the drayman slept under the sermon, for the sermon was over their heads; but the lawyer and the physician were subdued by it, and in their example this sermon still preaches to the inferior minds, who are thus illuminated by its reflected light. If the sermon had been levelled to the most degraded intellect, it |