must utter certain things as a matter of course, and no otherwise are to be received; if I believed that it must stand thus isolated, that it must have a language of its own, that the very truths it utters are to be truths nowhere else, I would never have entered it. I would never stand here, a mere automaton preacher -to beat the air-to pour forth words, which should only be reverberated from these walls, and whose effect, like the echoes that return to me, should die at my feet: to declare doctrines on which there should be a sedulous attendance to-day, and, to-morrow, no more to do with them, than if they were uttered in a dream. I cannot consent to spend my life in such a formal, such a merely spectral ministration. I would rather take my stand by the way-side, or in the suburban groves where Aristotle and Socrates walked and discoursed; or become a lecturer-that noble calling of these modern times-in Lyceums and Library Associations.

But the more material question remains-how is the pulpit to minister to human welfare? On this subject, I must confine myself to two or three observations out of the many that present their claims to attention.

In the first place, then, the pulpit, in its ministration, must be at once comprehensive and practical. It should embrace every thing that belongs to the moral and religious welfare of society; it should show that it intimately understands every thing; it should assume, what I have maintained in general, that its province is, practically, to deal with every thing. Let me say a word more distinctly of this comprehensiveness of view. It is true that the pulpit holds its own

proper place in relation to human improvement; it is not a chair of philosophy, nor the porch of the academy, nor a studio of art; but it is nevertheless to acknowledge its connexion with these ministrations, and in a modest and liberal spirit to take its place among them. It is to assume no air of loftiness but that which its theme gives it. It is no more a place any other, where the

of decisions and oracles than human mind is the interpreter. It is not God that speaks here, save as he speaks every where; but it is a fallible man.

But particularly in regard to its comprehensiveness, let me ask, if it is not often left to be felt that the pupit does not recognise much that belongs to the moral interest and grandeur of life? Does it not coldly stand aside, or aloof, from the ardour of youthful affections, from the gushings of enthusiasm, from the pangs of the neglected and forlorn, from the infirmity and weariness of the beaten path of life? Are not men left to feel that the pulpit does not consider them -does not know them, in many of their most interesting emotions? The moral essay, the theological disquisition-what has that to do with the impassioned fervour which swells the human heart almost to bursting? The parent does not often enough consider that, in his child; he does not often enough consider the tears that fill the eye, the feelings that thrill that young heart. But still less does the pulpit consider all this in those who surround it. That band of human hearts should be like an electric chain to it. How many things, dear and lovely, are passing upon earth, and passing away from it, that should come to us here! -the lineaments of mortal love fading away into

-

heaven-the holy hand of maternal tenderness, laid upon the innocent forehead-the clasp of affection, that could die for its object-the calm and resolved brow, that is ready to sacrifice fortune, fame, life itself, for its dear integrity-the sense of all things beautiful, and brave, and heroic, breathing in literature, in poetry, in the marble, and on the canvass, and thrilling through the heart of the world!-yet does one thrill of all this touch the cold and stately pulpit?

Again; the pulpit must be practical. Its business is with actual, conscious, instant life, or it is nothing; or nothing but a barren negation of all true power. I confess that this practical end of Christianity is of such absorbing interest to me, that I am not able, and I do not think that I ever shall be able, to discourse much to you on controverted doctrines. They should be discussed, indeed; but for many reasons, I think that the printed page, and not the pulpit, is the place for them. Other things press upon me here. I see that men are chiefly erring, mistaking, and falling into misery and ruin, on far other than doctrinal grounds. And while I see this-while I see that actual life is the very sphere of salvation or perdition to them, I cannot be for ever drawing the lines of metaphysical distinction, that never cross the path of life. I cannot weave about religion the wire-drawn meshes of a speculative creed. I cannot set it forth, weighed down under the cumbrous drapery of scholastic times. I must deal with it as clothed with the flexible and familiar garments of modern and real life. That heavy costume brought from the middle ages to invest modern religion, seems to me fitted only to crush and to kill it. Or if it leaves any life, it leaves only a maimed,

pained, burthened, and shackled Christian life. It may be called the armour of safety, the garment of salvation. But I cannot account so, of what I call salvation. This great achievement is to be wrought out through free, energetic, spiritual action. It is to be wrought out, in the midst of life, and by the effect of life. It is not a church business, but a world business. The church is built for teaching, not for doing. It is built, doubtless, for excitement to doing; and for doing itself, if you please; but only for so much of the work as can be legitimately accomplished, within the time that is passed in it. To think to do it all up, here, is fatal to the end. It is treason to the designs of Providence. Life-life, I repeat, is the stage, the field, the battle-field, where the good fight is to be fought, and the glorious victory to be won. What is the religion worth, that springs up, and lives, and dies here? What sort of a Christian is he, of whose Christianity nothing but church-walls and church-meetings ever see anything? Nay, and what do church-meetings see of such a man's Christianity when his temper is tried, or his interest touched? I am afraid to tell you what they see. But this, at least, I am impelled to say, as I look at the effects of an isolated Christianity-I say, my friends, that I am afraid of churches; I am afraid of church peculiarity; I am afraid of every thing that is shut up within church-walls, with which common principles and common opinions are thought to have nothing to do. I am shocked at the pride, passion, and insincerity that can grow up in such places, when cut off from the world. I fear that, in some respects, the religious morale falls below the social morale of the country. There may be less of

gross vice admitted into it; but how is it with evil speaking, oppression, duplicity, and breaches of good manners? There are things said and done in religious bodies, which, I fear, can scarcely have any good report among honourable men in the world. It avails very little that men in such circumstance call one another brethren. It availed very little to Abner in the ancient story, that Joab "spake to him quietly,” and while doing so, "smote him under the fifth rib."

Official persons and bodies are always liable to err, just in proportion as they set at defiance public opinion; and, therefore, in this country, religious persons and bodies are, of all, the most exposed. Preachers are constantly saying in the pulpit, what they would never venture to say anywhere else. They utter denunciations, nowhere else to be endured. Or when the pastoral bond is broken-broken for good cause, perhaps broken at least very willingly-then both pastor and people utter commendations to one -another, in their official capacity, which every body knows to be insincere. And why? Because it was a religious connexion! A distinguished clergyman* said ten years ago, and printed the declaration, that the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was the most unprincipled court in Christendom. I do not pretend to decide whether this was true. But if if it were true, why was it? Because it was a Christian Assembly! It is because the Church thinks itself entitled to stand aloof from the judgment of all mankind. This presumption, I hold, must be broken down; these battlements of pretension must be levelled with the dust. The Church is not an imperium

* Rev. Andrew Thompson.