is spent. Every house has now its library. Literature solicits the attention of every man on terms which it is not difficult for him to accept. The preacher is trained because the hearer is trained. The very air is full of information, suggestion, and stimulus of an intellectual kind. When, therefore, it is said that such and such a man has not been "trained" for the ministry, the main fact of the man's life may have been overlookt. Some people can only understand "training" within very special and even narrow limits. If a student has read so many books, past so many examinations, or taken so many degrees, he is said to have been specially "trained for the ministry." I can not admit this to be the case. A man may have undergone the

whole of these processes, and have received the whole of their accruing results, and yet may have had no true training for the pulpit. Of course, it is universally acknowledged that reading, study, and academical successes have a real value; the first two indeed not only having a value of a measurable kind, but being absolutely essential to intellectual culture. We are in great danger of having Scribes and Pharisees among us, tho not passing under those ill-famed names. He is a Scribe or a Pharisee who limits God to one way of doing things, and especially that one way which the man himself has traversed. We should beware in condemning Pharisaism lest we fall into the narrowness and bitterness of its essential spirit. Our safety will be in constantly remembering that there is great diversity in processes of training. All men can not be trained along the same lines. It may even be difficult to train two children to pronounce the letters of the alphabet with exactly the same accent and emphasis. Two brothers may The oak and the There are forests

be quite unable to accept the same kind of training. geranium may not be trained along the same lines. as well as gardens, and the way of culture may differ in both cases, yet each way may be right and best within its own limits. It would not be fair for a navigator to complain that the artist is untrained. Navigator and artist may have been trained in opposite ways, and yet each may have been trained in the only way adapted to secure the end which each had in view. The hand and the foot are both parts of the same body. What if the hand should abuse the foot because it had not been trained to the art of penmanship? What if the foot should sneer at the hand for wearing gloves instead of boots? In all these things we need the larger charity which in other words is the completer and nobler judgment.

Not only is there diversity of training, but there is a sad possibility of what I may call over-training. A blade may be worn away by the grindstone without ever having had the opportunity of cutting or carving anything. We have all met men who were so elaborately overtrained as to be absolutely useless in the common affairs of life. If I were in real difficulty as to crossing a dangerous thoroughfare, and if I could select as my guide either a senior wrangler or a shoeblack, I

should not be surprised if I declined the services of the former. Overtraining results in pedantry; in that attenuation of mental habit, or that super-refinement of intellectual taste to which its mother tongue is the least known of foreign languages. Over-training leads to faddiness, hesitancy of conscience, and cloudiness of practical judgment. The analytical chemist troubles himself about microbes and imponderable deposits of lead, while the ordinary man of business drinks his water and goes through life without the fears and scruples which can contribute nothing to the completeness and usefulness of life. For my own part, my judgment is that over-trained men have no business in the pulpit. It has long been considered unwise to endeavor to draw a cork by the aid of a steam-engine, and I believe it would be found in practise to be still more unwise to attempt to build a steam-engine with a needle. Congregations are not made up of Aristotles, Darwins, or Shakespeares. The plow has a work to do which a razor could never successfully attempt, tho the razor may be very much brighter and sharper than the plow.

Training for the ministry should contemplate more than one issue only. For example, it should contemplate more than literary scholarship. Such scholarship no wise man will undervalue. All knowledge should contribute to power. We have all, however, known men who were so scholarly that we had immense difficulty in understanding what they were talking about. We were deeply imprest with a sense of their enormous cleverness, but what the cleverness amounted to we could never clearly understand. On the other hand, training should contemplate more than preaching. I have sometimes thought that a man is only a true specialist in the sense in which he is primarily a true generalist, if I may invent a term. When the All is brought to bear upon the Part we have what I consider to be useful specialism. Everything a man knows helps to realize the one particular thing which at any particular moment he desires to accomplish. I am assuming, of course, that the man is master of his own acquirements and is not mastered by them, for I remember that Robert Hall described a certain contemporary of his as having so many books upon his head that his brain could not possibly move. We must never forget that some men have no talent of an acquisitional kind, and that mere length of time spent in cramming their memories does not insure any satisfaction of result. Judge every man according to his individuality. Some men are as sacks that can be filled, other men are as trees which can only grow. Which is the greater, the tree which grew the apples, or the basket which only carried them?

The point which I have specially in view is the training of true preachers. Immediately the question arises, With whom should the training of preachers be intrusted? I am afraid that upon this point I shall not occupy a popular position. The general opinion seems to be that colleges for the training of ministers should be presided over

by profound theologians. From that view I distinctly and emphatically dissent. Theology, properly defined, I should of course encourage as every other minister would certainly do. But having in view the fact that the college is created for the training of preachers, I would insist that a preacher should be the leading mind of every ministerial college. As much wise theology as you please, as much Greek and Hebrew study as is possible, as clear an apprehension of church history as can be secured, but over all, above all, and best of all, inspiration in the matter of pulpit service. It does not follow that I would have at the head of a college a man who is himself a great preacher. What I want in the head of a college is a supreme appreciation of the great work of the Christian ministry. One of the best tutors I have ever known, a man who did more to inspire the pulpit of his time than most of his contemporaries, was a man who could never secure a large congregation. It was a most curious instance of the want of coordination between aspiration and realization. My friend was a great scholar, an omnivorous reader, and almost an idolater of pulpit genius and power. Tho he could not preach himself he never tired of magnifying preaching in the estimation of his students. I would have ministerial students keep up something like continuity of pulpit ser

Of course, I am told that they ought to be studying for their degrees; but I do not accept this view; I have seen too much of the uselessness of degrees to assent to the doctrine that every man should make a point of securing them. When a man gives his heart to the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus distinctly calls him to the work of the pulpit, I should make training for the high office of preaching the predominating consideration and factor in every arrangement bearing upon the life-work of the man.

It seems to me more and more that ministers are neglecting to magnify their office. It would be a commonplace to point out that the Apostle did not magnify himself; the magnifying of personality is best rebuked by our magnifying the Gospel with which we are put in charge. The fear is that ministers will fall before the temptation to compare their function with the functions discharged by other public men. But as Jesus Christ Himself is not one of many, but a solitary King, so the minister is not one of many public men, but is distinctively and uniquely a man by himself. Distinctiveness is influence. Once lose the distinctiveness of the ministry, and the influence of the ministry is gone. "If the salt have lost its savor it is thenceforth good for nothing." It is still nominally salt; it would be mistaken for salt; it would weigh as heavy as salt; but inasmuch as the savor is gone the salt is worthless. It is the same all through and through the mystery of human life and service. When the singer has lost his voice he might as well have no knowledge of music so far as public reputation and social standing are concerned. He may know as much about music as can be known, but if his voice is dead his occupation is gone.

It is precisely the same with the Christian minister. His office is to preach the kingdom of heaven, to declare it in all its adaptation to human necessity, and to reveal its fulness and sufficiency as the gift of God. If a minister can do a hundred other things and do them well, and yet can not preach, his ministry is worse than futile. We have all known ministers who could sing a little, paint a little, play the flute a little, dabble in ferns a little, and do twenty other things a little, and by all these littlenesses they may have acquired a reputation for culture and all-roundness. I give them no such praise. They have betrayed the cause of Christ in the degree in which they have withdrawn from its exposition and defense any degree of strength. The preacher is not sent into the world to do a hundred little things. He is ordained of the Living Spirit to do one great thing. Consecration, then, must be the pledge and seal of a true training. A strong and cultivated mind set upon one grand object, and that object nothing less than the saving of souls, is the true ideal of the ministry.

The truly trained minister having seen the greatness of his office will be delivered from anything like fear of rivalry or competition. The inspired minister of Christ I hold to be the greatest man in the whole world. Why should ministers compare themselves with platform speakers, lecturers, and various caterers for public entertainment? The Christian minister need not dread even the influence of the press. The press can never supersede the pulpit any more than correspondence can supersede conversation. Literature and preaching are totally dissimilar. The speaker comes into direct personal relation with the hearer. The hearer, therefore, has the advantage of an illuminated countenance, a varying and impressive emphasis, and a subtile and influential sympathy. It appears to me that the preacher loses power in the degree in which he attempts to be literary. He puts himself into competition with literary men. Under his ministry a sermon becomes nothing better than a leading article read by its own author. The preacher can not be completely reported. The reporter may get his very words, but he can not get the light of his face or the music of his voice. Whether would you prefer a letter from your dearest friend, or a genial and cordial conversation? But the preacher who reads his sermon brings himself within comparative standards and measures. On the other hand, the man who speaks his sermon freely out of a warm and consecrated heart stands alone, so much so that it would be absurd to measure him by the canons and standards of literary composition. Rely upon it, the man who speaks his sermon freely has an immense advantage over the man who reads his sermon slavishly. If the writer of the sermon does not sufficiently remember it to repeat it without his manuscript, tho he has spent day after day in its composition, how can he expect the hearer to remember it on once hearing it read? To all ministers who are behind me in the race of life as to the number of years, I would earnestly say, Compose your sermons, write out your

sermons, thoroughly study your sermons, and when you have done all this, do not neglect to burn your sermons and go forth under the holy impression created by their careful and reverent preparation. I think the history of the Christian pulpit will sustain any of these suggestions and exhortations.

The final word is, of course, the important word in this paper, as it ought to be in every solemn address. That final word is that we are nothing, and can do nothing, apart from the power of the Spirit of God. We are in great danger of forgetting that this is the age of the Spirit, and that tho we have known Christ after the flesh, even Him we know no more under such limitations. The visible Christ has ascended, and has sent down the invisible Spirit. The Spirit of God is the gift of Christ; let us earnestly covet the best gift, for He gives value and force to every other gift. He who has the Spirit of God in his heart can make no mistake as to that inspiring and illuminating presence. Such a man lives and moves and has his being in God. He yields himself lovingly and unreservedly to all those impulses and movements of the soul which follow filial and constant communion with the Eternal. Let us pray that Pentecost may return; we want the wind from heaven, the eloquent fire, the spiritual power that can take up all languages and use them for the exposition and extension of the Gospel of Christ. "If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Let genius, learning, and accomplishment of every kind stand aside to make way for the incoming of the Holy Ghost, and He will in due time turn all our gifts and graces to their highest use, and lift up the lowly to eminence and dominion.

II. THE CASE OF THEOLOGY VERSUS SCIENCE. BY WILLIAM W. McLANE, D.D., PH.D., NEW HAVEN, CONN., AUTHOR OF "EVOLUTION IN RELIGION," ETC.

THE conflict of science and theology has long been a familiar phrase. The last book upon the subject, entitled "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," by Ex-President Andrew D. White, is an unusually interesting, readable, and instruct

It is full of information respecting scientific opinions which have been held in past times, the arguments for these opinions which have been drawn from the Sacred Scriptures, and the opposition made by theologians to the new theories which have been proposed and advocated by scientific men.

Without questioning the facts quoted by so intelligent a historian as Mr. White and arranged by so able a writer, one may take exception to the method of the book, and deny the truthfulness of the his

* D. Appleton & Co.