is doing its work, it seems to me can not be denied. What we need and must have is a revival of living faith in the great truths of the Gospel that Christ and Paul emphasized, and when we have that in both pulpit and pew, then may we expect a great revival of religion and also a more faithful prosecution of the work of evangelizing the world. If skeptical France is "about to recall her exiled Christ of the fathers," surely it is time the American churches should see to it that He is not exiled from among us. THE HOMILETIC REVIEW has lately been doing noble work to bring us all back to the true Gospel and source of power. T. S. SCOTT.

MIDDLETOWN, OHIO.

Is "Commonplace" the Same as
"Homely ?"

IN "Seed-Thought Section" in this month's (May) HOMILETIC REVIEW, p. 440, middle of paragraph 3, it is said that "commonplace" illustrations are among those which are to be avoided in the pulpit.

If by "commonplace" the writer means "homely, "I differ very widely from him. Isaiah says: "The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it." "The Lord will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country.” The Lord said: "I 1 will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down." "I am prest under you, as a cart is prest that is full of sheaves." Christ says: "Men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick." With few exceptions, His parables are all illustrations of the same nature.

Now, what illustrations could be more homely than those above mentioned? Yet there is nothing at all low about them. They are very expressive, yet at the same time dignified. The common people can, in a moment,

"The style or manner of delivery has much to do with effective preaching. A good sermon may be, and often is, spoiled by a poor delivery, while a sermon which is even below mediocrity may be pronounced excellent, from the manner and gesticulation of the speaker."

Now every word of the above excerpt is true, and ought to stimulate the ministry to a greatly improved delivery, and I shall be truly rejoiced if it produces that much-to-be-desired effect.

I am not sure, however, that H. D. S.'s personal fondness for written discourses has not led him into an unintentional unfairness in his illustration of the relative merits of the written and the extemporaneous address. He says:

"But suppose a sermon is what it ought to be-full of divine truth, logically arranged, clearly exprest, illustrated by appropriate metaphor or anecdote, and well delivered-we say a written discourse with such characteristics is much more likely to prove effective before an intelligent audience of cultured people than impromptu and incoherent platitudes on the one hand, or than memorized sermons which fall like ice morsels with cold mechanical frigidity on the other hand."

Now the seeming unfairness to which I allude is his comparison of the effects of the best written sermons by a master, to those of the very poorest extemporaneous sermons by a man of

DID any one ever know a minister who was worth a rap who did not have some hobby-some thus-far-and-nofarther in his conscience? Is it not a moral necessity for one who must, in the nature of the case, yield on a thousand points, to have at least one point on which he will not yield? To be sure that he has a backbone must he not sometimes test its rigidity? Is it possible that this is a fair scientific explanation of many a disagreement between pastor and people?

Some ministers find parishes whose members realize so far their own (or each other's) failings as to say, “Our minister has a good deal to put up with, and he bears the odium in case of failure; it is only fair to let him have his way as far as possible." But many fall into places vacated by some one whose faults are so fresh in mind as to blind the eyes of the parish to those of the newcomer perhaps for several years. But the blindness is only temporary. As the failings of the last pastor gradually fade from mind and the new one resists, with what grows to seem obstinacy; their demands in some direction, they suddenly realize that they are victims to a new form of tyranny, and leap to battle once more.

The pastor sees that the struggle is on. He has been entirely conscientious in his course, and has not anticipated trouble. Now that it confronts him he begins to ask whether the point must be held, whether he can perhaps yield in part? He is more than ever convinced that he is right. And now

he begins to review his five years' pastorate. He recalls the different instances in which he has accepted advice; the plans he has carefully thought out and then given up,-plans which he is sure would have succeeded if he had been helpt or even permitted to carry them out. He remembers one after another the members of his congregation he has conciliated, now in one way, now in another; the times he has been persuaded to try this or that plan against his own judgment, and whose failure has been charged upon him. He thinks of the hours he has wasted calling here and there and everywhere at some one's request; the "functions" he has attended, the committees he has served upon, the hours lost from his study to call on chance visitors in his parish-all which he half-condemned himself for doing. And now an organized attack is made upon him, to force him to do what he honestly believes is not right. It is not a question of policy, but a question of right and wrong. He is askt to do what he has never done, what he has always thought he would not do if he stood contra mundum.

Suppose now his wife, in whose judgment he has always confided, comes to him in her attachment to the people and her dread of being again torn up by the roots and set down in strange soil - suppose she comes to him in his fire-lit study, when the house is still, and says:

"John, lots of people think differently from us. Are we sure we are right and they are wrong?”

And John, with an et tu, strides across his study and declares that he will be a man and stick to his conviction once, if it sends him to Perth Amboy! If William has to leave college, and Mary (here his voice trembles a bit) be sent to a charity hospital for incurables! He has given up business hopes, set aside temptations to enter other professions, has workt through his early manhood, receiving in return his daily bread. He has

friendly. You should have seen the enthusiasm when Moltke appeared! He was quite accessible, and familiarly addrest us as 'Jungens' (boys)." The same great cause and the similarity of fortune as soldiers united them.

99

The follies of the rich are used with great effect to nourish the discontent of the laboring classes. Before me lies a paper which puts a selection of these follies in one column and the sufferings and suicides caused by poverty in the next column, both under the heading "Social Contrasts. In the first is an account of a silly party of eighty grown persons who all appeared drest as children under ten. This spectacle of fashionable society at which decency blushes is followed by a description of an opera gown by a lady in high life. "A rough estimate of the entire cost of the gown, including the jewels, is $50,000. " In the next column are accounts of one suicide, of three attempts at suicide, and of two cases of insanity, all the result of non-employment and destitution, and all depicted in such language as to make the effect most powerful. The influence on those whose discontent is already at fever-heat can be better imagined than described.

The same journal gives another specimen of the means of promoting discontent. An account is given of the fight among capitalists respecting the tariff bill. The cattle-raising bosses want heavy duties on cattle; the corn-raising bosses declare that such duties would ruin them. The canners want fruits admitted free of duty, among them pineapples, but the pineapple-raising bosses in Florida protest and insist on protection. The shoe bosses want leather to be free, but the farmers say that their welfare demands duty on hides. The tobacco raisers want a duty on tobacco, but tobacco manufacturers oppose. Thus capitalists are represented as at war, intent on defeating one another, their

conflicting interests leading to bitter antagonism and actual anarchy. The enemies of capital look on and see in the warfare among capitalists the proof that the present industrial order has had its day and is approaching that doom which Marx prophesied in his historical law, the end of the reign of capitalism.

One reason why Germany is making such rapid strides in industrial progress is the fact that the state does so much for technical instruction. To its excellent schools for this purpose others are being added, and vast sums are appropriated to secure their utmost efficiency. The following, from the recent report of the Royal Commission on Technical Education, gives some idea of the interest taken in the matter by the state and municipalities :

"Nuremburg is erecting a technical schoolbuilding at a cost of $225,000, and will also have a $250,000 textile museum. A textile museum opened recently at Stuttgart cost $1,000,000. Darmstadt has a new $600,000 technical school; a new electro-technical institute has been added to the Hanover School; extensions to the Berlin Technical High School have been made at a cost of $225,000, and $75,000 has been spent on extensions to the Crefeld School, which cost originally over $200,000. Many of the cities have lectures on all new inventions likely to prove useful for trade purposes, which are attended by large numbers of artisans. Collections of carefully tabulated patent specifications are open to all inquirers, and in the laboratories a staff of professors and assistants are employed in chemical research, and always ready to give gratuitous instruction to students desiring to conduct experiments in special applications of science to trade purposes."

Mistakes Respecting the Situation of Laborers.

In many respects the general condition of laborers has improved, and wages, as a rule, have increast. There has been humane development among employers and in the community at large, which, together with the power of labor organizations, insures better treatment to the wage-earners than formerly. With the fierce greed for

gain as the sole consideration, there is, however, still too much brutality; but it is now liable to exposure and to resistance. Never before have laborers received so much attention, never before have such earnest and persistent efforts been made to better their condition.

It is considerations like these which lead many to think that laborers ought to be contented, and that a continuation of their agitations must be due to envy or prejudice or disinclination to work. Sometimes this is the case; but those who have no other interpretation of the situation do not take all the facts into account.

Laborers have had some share in the general progress of culture and in the development of the conception of human rights. Hence there has been a growth of their ideals of what they ought to be and ought to have. The pivotal question is whether their condition is what it ought to be. They answer that it is not, neither in the industries, nor the opportunities for culture for themselves and their children, nor in politics, nor in courts of law, nor in society, nor in the church. With this conclusion social students agree, and with the progress of humanity the cause of laborers increasingly becomes the cause of society.

In spite of all the improvements in the condition of the laboring classes, numerous things have aggravated the situation. No one can blame them if the improvements themselves make them thirst for more. Most keenly and most painfully do they feel the ever-growing contrasts between rich and poor, fostering distinctions hostile to republican notions, and making the gulf between the social grades more impassable. Luxury and extravagant display have banisht that simplicity which formerly constituted a common bond between the social classes. Then chances to rise are not the same as when business was in a formative stage. Now great establishments threaten the smaller ones, and keep men

with little capital from becoming manufacturers. Where once a few hundred dollars sufficed to enable a man to become an employer, now thousands are required. The chances of rising are diminisht and hope is palsied. The best and most accessible land is gone, and it is difficult and expensive for laborers to become independent farmers. Workingmen realize that they and their children are doomed to subjection to capitalism. But the worst feature of the situation is the competition among laborers themselves, due largely to immigration. Foreigners with a low standard of life cooperate with women and children in driving men with a higher standard out of their places. In times of business depression multitudes are thrown out of employment. So terrible is the condition that a labor leader assured the writer that it can be appreciated only by laborers. Men of strength and skill, anxious to work, are forced to idleness and reduced to want. Some must accept alms, others resort to pawn-shops, many in this land of plenty suffer from lack of food and clothing and comfortable homes, some resort to crime, others end in despair and suicide. These facts must be taken into account as well as such as show improvements in the condition of the laboring classes. When all the facts in the case are considered, we can appreciate the view of intelligent laborers that the situation is in many respects worse than formerly and rapidly becoming intolerable.

This will enable us to understand the recent Memorial to the President, Cabinet, and Congress of the United States by the Executive Committee of the American Federation of Labor. They say: "Multitudes of our working people-American citizens-at this hour are suffering humiliating poverty and countless privations. . . . With industry half paralyzed, trade stagnant, values deprest and shrunken; with enterprise stifled and the productive powers of labor palsied; with