separately each place to which you are in the habit of going, these inconveniences will be avoided. Procure, therefore, a quarto book for the purpose. Rule proper columns on the left-hand page, leaving the right-hand page plain, for the insertion of observations and remarks. Enter each place separately, leaving three or four of those double pages for each place; and you can also leave halfa-dozen leaves at the end of your book for miscellaneous entries of places to which you may be called out of your own neighbourhood. In this systematic manner you may, with very little trouble, keep a record of several little interesting things, according to the following plan, taken from my own Sabbath Journal.

MISCELLANY.-(Six leaves from the end of the Book.)

Year. Day. Place. Locality. MA. E. Book. c. v. Remarks.

Extracts from Dr. Adam Clarke's "Letter to a Preacher:" I will now add to my own remarks some quotations from those who were themselves wise master-builders.

"There is a power as well as form of godliness; a soul as well as a body of religion; and to produce this, is God's extraordinary work; and to produce it, he not only communicates, but employs extraordinary means.

In

this work God often chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world, to confound the things that are mighty; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, hath he chosen to bring to nought the things that are, that no flesh might glory in his presence.""

"Ever remember, God is the Fountain of all good; whatever comes from him will lead to him. His blessing is on his own productions, and his curse on every thing besides. Son of man,' saith the Lord, 'receive the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.' Deeply consider that to be successful in bringing souls to

God, you must

bring the spirit of the gospel into the work of the ministry. In order to this, see that you retain a clear sense of God's pardoning mercy to your own soul, and of your call to the work; and while you feel his love in your heart, it will not only support you in all trials and difficulties, but it will induce you cheerfully to spend and be spent for the salvation of those for whom Christ has died."

"Never take a text which you do not fully understand, and make it a point of conscience to give the literal mean

ing of it to the people. solemn importance.

This is a matter of great and To give God's words a different meaning to what he intended to convey by them, or to put a construction upon them which we have not the fullest proof he has intended, is awful indeed.

"Seldom take a very short text; because a short one may not afford you sufficient matter to entertain and instruct your congregation. There are not many to be found who have the ability to use a few words of Scripture as Addison and Steele did the Greek and Latin mottos of their 'Spectators;' and those who have the ability should not use it in this way, for this plain reason: that, in preaching, God should be heard more than man. But where imagination and invention are put to the rack to supply the place of the words of God, the hearers may admire the address of the preacher, but they are not likely to be fed with the bread of life. In such cases man speaks most, God least. Such preaching must leave the people ignorant of the Scriptures. With many, at present, preaching has become more of a human art, than of a Divine science; and, when this is considered, we need not wonder that the pulpit is so often employed without becoming the mean of salvation to them that hear."

"There is another species of preaching, against which I would most solemnly guard you; namely, what is termed fine or flowery preaching. I do not mean preaching in elegant, correct, and dignified language; as every thing

* The subjoined sketches are designed as examples of the simple, easy style of preaching.

of this kind is quite in place, when employed in proclaiming and illustrating the records of our salvation; but I mean a spurious birth, which endeavours to honour itself by this title. Some preachers think they greatly improve their own discourses by borrowing the fine sayings of others; and when these are frequently brought forward in the course of a sermon, the preacher is said to be a flowery preacher. Such flowers, used in such a way, bring to my remembrance the custom in some countries, of putting full-blown roses, or sprigs of rosemary, lavender and thyme, in the hands of the dead when they are put in their coffins. And may I be permitted to say, that the unnatural association of words and sentences in a fine dignified style with the general tenor of a discourse which is often of a widely different character, is to me as ridiculous and absurd as the union of a cart-wheel with elegant clock work."

"But the principal fault in this kind of preaching is the using a vast number of words, long and high-sounding, to which the preacher himself appears to have affixed no specific ideas, and which are often foreign, in the connexion in which he places them, to the meaning which they radically convey."

"Go from your knees to the chapel. Get a renewal of your commission every time you go to preach, in a renewed sense of the favour of God. Carry your authority to declare the Gospel of Christ, not in your hand, but in your heart. When in the pulpit, be always solemn; say nothing to make your congregation laugh. Remember you are speaking for eternity; and trifling is inconsistent with such awful subjects as the great God, the agony and

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