The Message and the Man Part 4

The answer to this question is, and must be, No. It cannot be done if the preacher look at man only through his own eyes and try to love him for himself alone. It will be found impossible to love one man because we do _not_ know him. It will be found even more impossible--if impossibility admit of degrees of comparison--to love another because we _do_! Our hearts have neither power to conceive nor life to sustain an universal affection.

And yet this love of man as man must be realised before ever we can hope helpfully to lift up Christ and goodness for his acceptance. The secret thereof must come as came the message itself; as came our call to declare it,--through another love warming our hearts into living heat. The pa.s.sion for humanity comes to the preacher as a result of his pa.s.sion for Christ. His love for Christ goes beyond its divine object to all who are precious to his Lord. The worst of men is, by right of redemption, Christ's man, dear to the preacher, because bought by the blood which is more precious than silver and gold. The heathen are His inheritance and the uttermost ends of the earth are His possession. Urged, sustained and comforted by this reflection, the missionary crosses stormy seas, ready to find, if need be, a grave in a foreign land far from home and friends that, so going, he may speak to His Lord's beloved concerning His wondrous grace. Here, and here only, is the true missionary motive, the one missionary argument. We do _not_ seek to save the heathen because of an eschatology which would consign them to the outer darkness. We cannot receive as true any conception of G.o.d which includes belief in a doctrine involving so terrible an injustice as that men should be eternally punished for refusing that which has never been offered for their acceptance. We think, rather, of the Lord as robbed of the love of hearts He died to win, hearts made precious by His death, and in the pa.s.sion kindled by our vision of the Master looking from His cross away over tossing seas to those far-off lands and including every son of savagery to the last moment of time in His dying pet.i.tion, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." We perceive upon every soul the sign of the cross; and this sign makes every man a brother to the ends of the earth. So the preacher is lifted by his love for his Master into a love for all for whom He agonised and died.

And this, from the beginning of his preaching to its end, and in relation to all the experiences into which his labours shall bring him, must be the true preacher's way of looking at his fellow-men. The social reformer has his way, too, the politician his, the scientist his. This is the preacher's way. Each and every man is sanctified to him by the sprinkling of blood. So he, also, will bear a cross for the saving of men; so he, too, will carry the sorrows and sins of humanity.

He will have a Gethsemane of his own, be led to a Calvary waiting for _him_, for every saviour of men must tread this appointed way. Every shepherd who is not an hireling "giveth his life for the sheep."

One word more. We have named the preacher's pa.s.sion for his Lord. We have also named his pa.s.sion for those upon whom his Lord has set the mark of His love. There is something more needed ere the flame of pa.s.sion burn with its fullest intensity. It is the pa.s.sion of the dream--the dream that is not a dream excepting to those who have only heard of it by the hearing of the ear. To the preacher it will be a _vision_. It is the vision of which we have already spoken, and may speak again in pages yet to come--the vision of the divine ideal at last triumphant. In this vision the preacher must live. To lose it is despair. No one has so many disappointments as the idealist; but it is the glorious fact that no one cares about his disappointments less.

Not that he does not see them, but because he sees _beyond_ them. The true preacher--_he_ is your incorrigible optimist. Some men form their expectations of the future out of material supplied in tables of statistics, ecclesiastical Blue Books, censuses of church attendance, returns and percentages. Not so the true preacher. He has "seen the King in His beauty and the land that is far off." Columbus like, he steers his barque toward the new world his faith has gazed upon, and, as with Columbus, the pa.s.sion of the coming victory holds him, heart in tune and head erect, while others mournfully prophesy the disasters always by shortsighted people seen.

So by the power of his pa.s.sion the preacher declares his message and this pa.s.sion gives power to every word thereof. In that same pa.s.sion is his own sustenance in all the divers contradictions that preaching may bring upon him. He needs it for his own preservation. Often the preacher who accomplishes the most is, more than those who accomplish less, rewarded with ingrat.i.tude, misjudgment, scorn. "The carnal mind is at enmity against G.o.d, and is not reconciled to the law of G.o.d, neither, indeed, can be." This means suffering for the preacher as it meant suffering for the Lord. What can keep him in countenance among it all? Love and the pa.s.sion of the vision. In these will he conquer ever! The prodigality of the younger son had long worn out the patience of the elder brother. Love kept the father waiting on and vision saw the lad's return while still he was far away. In this love and vision he went forth the door; in this love and vision he returned leading the late returning child back again to home and rest and peace and purity. The parable is for preachers as well as prodigals. Oh, for the pa.s.sion, the far, far sight of this old history! They are our greatest need to-day!

Pa.s.sion! How is it with us now? Have we this absolutely essential possession in our hearts, in our preaching, as we have had it aforetime, as our fathers had it? Are we so set upon giving glory to Christ that we long for the opportunity to come to speak His name in the congregation? Are we so given up to the enterprise of saving men that we rest not day nor night for very longing for their salvation?

Are we so full of the sense of the triumph drawing nearer that our hearts are already rejoicing with the joy of Harvest? These are questions for us all, and we may discover the quality of our preaching from their answers, if only we will whisper them to ourselves with faithfulness to G.o.d and men and our own souls.

BOOK II

THE MESSAGE:--

ITS ESSENTIAL NOTES

THEORY OF BOOK II.

The Effectiveness of the Message arises from the Completeness with which it Meets the Needs of Men. We believe that the Measure of the Gospel is the Measure of Man's Spiritual and Moral Necessity, and we plead for a Full Statement thereof in order that it may Prove its "Power unto Life."

_What are the Essential Notes of the Message?_

CHAPTER I.

The Note of Accusation.

In a purely heathen country the first business of the preacher must naturally be concerned with the publication of the great historical facts upon which the Christian faith is based. In such a land as ours, where these facts are already the subject of common knowledge, his first service to every soul to whom he is sent is to bring home the truth of that soul's condition and necessity. It is not a pleasant task. It is not an easy one. It forms a duty from which we instinctively shrink, but no ministry is complete in which it is neglected. No ministry that is incomplete can be effective and successful.

Now an examination of the history of preaching will reveal to us that all the great preachers have been examples of faithfulness concerning, not only the softer, but also the sterner portions of their message.

Before us are the Hebrew prophets. By them was Israel arraigned at the bar of G.o.d. Could anything be more fearful than the indictment they laid? Kings, priests, councillors and commoners--against them all was the testimony maintained. "Art thou he that troublest Israel?" asks a conscience-stricken monarch of the seer from Mount Gilead. Troublers of Israel they were, exposing, denouncing, declaring judgment against evil doers. Such was their mission. Troublers of Israel, they were sent to be.

After the prophets, when, at last, the fulness of time began to dawn, he appeared who was to be the great herald of the Redeemer. "In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." John, too, was an accuser. Hark, how he addresses the Pharisees; how he speaks of "the axe laid at the root of the tree!" Once more did Israel hear of her rebellion and transgression. Again was the veil torn from her heart, the trappings of ceremonialism, the rags of hypocrisy. Again were men made to tremble by warning of the doom about to break.

Wonderfully effective this ministry seems to have been--"Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins." To the preacher came martyrdom, and that as the direct consequence of his faithfulness. It is dangerous to play the accuser at the foot of the throne, and for this, in the lone dungeon of Machaerus, the Baptist dies, but not until He whom he announced, and of whom the law and the prophets did speak, has lifted up His voice to preach to the nations and the ages. To the world came Jesus also as an accuser, and such accusations were His as men had never heard--accusations founded upon an infinite knowledge of mankind, on an infinite hatred of sin, on a perfect vision of the end of all wrong-doing. To convince and convict the world--for _this_ first of all was He made flesh. Over the land His "Woe unto you" rang out as the thunder of a divine sentence, blanching the cheek and smiting the soul with shame and fear. For this testimony He died.

And after He had ascended up on high the apostles carried on this accusing work. Knowing "the terrors of the law" they persuaded men.

As Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come, Felix trembled." To him the prisoner of that memorable day spoke as the representative of outraged deity. In his voice the hardened Consul heard the echo of his own disregarded conscience, and was reminded of his "more perfect knowledge of that way" which would one day make all the deeper the blackness of his condemnation. The joints of his harness were undone.

And so in that time of beginnings was set forth for all after years on the stage of that Eastern land the pattern of Gospel preaching, and its great copyists in all subsequent generations have come forth bearing, as their first word to men, the message of accusation. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of G.o.d;" such has been their opening announcement. Sin is rebellion against G.o.d; such has been their all-embracing definition. "The soul that sinneth it shall die;"--this "certain fearful looking for of judgment" they have held up before mankind. "Thou art the man!" has been the constant challenge of the Christian amba.s.sador. It would be an interesting employment to journey back across the past and listen for this note as it fell from the lips of the great preachers of bygone ages. Our own Connexional fathers, however, as the figures most familiar to our minds, may remind us how faithful the pulpit used to be in the execution of this hard task.

Some of us are old enough to remember as common, a phrase which now we hear only occasionally and in the out of the way corners of our Church.

It was the expression "black sermon" as descriptive of a discourse in which the sterner side of the revelation was enunciated. Such sermons in those days formed part of every preacher's armoury. They were sermons of accusation; sermons about sin; sermons diagnostic of the state of the human heart. In these discourses the sinner was a.s.sailed through the gateway of his fears. The old preachers believed there was such a place as h.e.l.l, and said so,--sometimes with a great wealth of staking, figurative language which was perhaps used less symbolically than literally. They believed in a final and general judgment in which the dead, small and great, with such as shall be then living upon the earth, will be called to stand before the Great White Throne to give an account of the deeds done in the body. Clearly did they see this coming day and clearly did they proclaim that at any time its terrors may break upon a careless and prayerless world. Some of them gained celebrity by the vigour and colour of their descriptions. In the North of England they still speak of the sermon with which Joseph Spoor transported mult.i.tudes into the circ.u.mstances of that awful hour. Hugh Bourne, it is well known, gave himself to this kind of preaching to a degree which has made his name the more to be remembered on its account. His language was literal indeed! To our mind, at the moment of writing, returns something of the emotion with which in the days of boyhood we listened to a sermon on "The Pale Horse and his Rider" from a local preacher not long since pa.s.sed to his reward. Another discourse on "The Swellings of Jordan" has been with us vividly, though forty years have flown since we heard it in a tiny chapel among the Northern hills. We can remember, too, an expression now used no more, but which we have often heard as part of the final appeal with which such sermons were wont to close. "My friends," the preacher would say, "I have cleared myself this day of your blood." Sometimes this declaration would be followed by a challenge in which the unG.o.dly of the congregation were called to meet the preacher, "on that day when the books shall be opened and the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed," there and then to bear witness of his guiltlessness as to their d.a.m.nation. It was very terrible, no doubt, very harrowing, and often as unpleasant to listen to as to utter, but such preaching was justified by its results. Many a sinner trembled as his heart was opened before him. Many a strong man broke into cries and tears as he saw himself a rebel against divine justice and mercy. Many an one smote upon his breast in terror as the veil of the future was lifted, and he saw himself standing guilty before the last tribunal, and praying for the mountains to fall and hide him from the eyes of an angry G.o.d. In our time, however, such preaching has become a tradition. It might be centuries since it was a fas.h.i.+on in the land, for hardly does its echo reach our ears to-day. And concerning this fact there emerges a curious thing. Confessedly the effect of such preaching was often the offending of the hearer. It has ever been so--was so, as we have seen, with the prophets; the apostles; the Lord Himself--and yet there is complaint when accusation and warning are withheld, and that, strangely, from the very people who would probably protest the most against it. It is said, even by these very people, that nowadays _the preacher does not hurt_; that he fails to find the conscience. The fact is, there exists in the heart of man an instinctive expectation that the messenger of G.o.d will do these things.

It is one of the criticisms of to-day that sternness has died out of theology. The preacher is no longer the representative of a _judge_; no longer in G.o.d's stead the accuser of men. In every age the Church displays favouritism in her doctrinal attachments. In our time it is the doctrine of the divine Fatherhood of which the most is heard. This were well if the whole truth were told; but what manner of fatherhood is that of which we all too often hear? A fatherhood of colossal good nature, of blind, of foolish, indulgence; a conception of paternal wisdom and affection against which the conscience of the thoughtful instinctively revolts. The man in the street is not satisfied, and never will be satisfied, with a merely sentimental G.o.d. Some day, perhaps, it may be discovered that he is outside the churches, not because preaching, asking too much, has made him afraid, but because preaching, asking too little, has left him contemptuous.

And how has the change come to pa.s.s? Some say that the lack of the hour is a sense of sin. This sense, they tell us, has been lost as a result of our theorising about the origin of moral evil. There are some, indeed, who talk as if the tragedy of sin was not really a tragedy at all, but actually a blessing in disguise. We have been a.s.sured that the only hope for humanity lay in a moral fall which had to come to pa.s.s that the race might achieve its destiny through its experience of what is only called "wrong-doing," and of the suffering resulting from it. Only by this rugged and shadowed road, so are we informed, can we ever come to perfection and reach the golden age for which our hearts are sighing. Others see in sin a proof that man is struggling to be better. They regard his transgression as a hopeful symptom of divine discontent. Many _do_ see tragedy in it all, but the blame lies otherwhere than with the transgressor. Sin grows less terrible, but more hopeless, as they talk about heredity, as they transfer the responsibility from the criminal to his circ.u.mstances, his education, the conditions of his life or the state of society. Not a sentence of punishment but a vote of sympathy should crime evoke if all that is said along such lines be true.

But not in any one of these things, nor in all of them put together, lies the whole reason of our modern tenderness in dealing with sin.

Even preaching has its fas.h.i.+ons, and he is a bold man who dares to disregard the prevailing mode. The convention of the time may decide that it is not quite "the correct thing" to lay too much emphasis on the harder teaching of the Christian belief. Whether unpopular with the people or not, this teaching may be unpopular with the preachers.

We do not speak of these unpleasant things, for why be singular in direful prophecy? Of some preachers, to summarise, we will say that their need is a recovery of the sense of sin; of others that a deepened consciousness of every man's power to triumph over his inherited tendencies, his circ.u.mstances, his training and the temptations of his age, must precede the return of success. To others we would venture a reminder that the preacher might, perhaps, be all the better for a little more personal independence, and for the realisation that he is not responsible only to men for the manner in which his work is done, but to Him who sent him out to preach the whole message of His heart.

The thing for the preacher to do is to learn the truth and tell it, even though it be bitter to the hearer and bitterer to himself; even though it make short work of social respectability and conventional religiosity, bringing the blush of shame to the cheek and setting the pulses throbbing with the fear of the lightnings of G.o.d.

Faithfulness, then, is essential to the completeness of the message--faithfulness as to the true condition of the soul and its position in the sight of G.o.d. As Samuel stood before Saul in that fateful hour when the king, having disobeyed the commandments of the Lord, had brought of the sheep and of the oxen which he should have utterly destroyed; as the prophets, the apostles, the Master alike lifted up their witness against a corrupt and stiff-necked people, so the preacher of to-day must bear his testimony against the sins of men; must p.r.o.nounce the penalties of unG.o.dliness. A revelation of the transgression of the individual, of the lost state of every soul out of Christ, are part of the Word received from Him who sent him. This declaration must not concern the individual alone. To the age, also, he has a message of kindred truth. The pulpit is erected as a witness against the generations as they come and go. It is by the preacher that Jesus Christ speaks to successive centuries. He is the true oracle of G.o.d. Against the carelessness, the covetousness, the debauchery and corruption of the nations, G.o.d would speak through him.

Against the oppression of the poor, the robbery of the widow, the exploitation of the savage; against the crimes of the empires, the Almighty, through his lips, would make His anger known. He has done so often and often. Again and again has the preacher turned back the tides of national iniquity, again and again prevented the wrongful purpose upon which a people had set its heart. The need is with us still. This warning and accusing note of sternness must be regained.

To tell men of their sins and that they are lost unless G.o.d delivers them; to tell the age of its iniquities and that the sure end of national vice is national destruction--here is our work to-day.

So there needs something in the nature of a reversion to the methods of days that are no more. Yet a _full_ return to the mode of our fathers is impossible. Let this be acknowledged frankly and fully and at once.

Those "black sermons" to which we listened forty years ago can never be preached again. The day has gone, at least within the area of civilisation, for painting flaming pictures of h.e.l.l, for realistic and horrible descriptions of the tortures of the d.a.m.ned. That kind of thing has had its day and can be done no more. Preachers could not do it; hearers would not hear it. The misfortune has been that the pa.s.sing of our fathers' methods has not been followed by the discovery of others in which the truth they conveyed could be expressed in forms more suitable to different times. Even the man outside the Church has left behind him the literal understanding of those old figures of speech. Few now think of heaven as our grandsires thought of it; few imagine h.e.l.l as they imagined it. Yet is there still a heaven; yet is there still a h.e.l.l.

And, hard as it is to write it, it is to the preaching of h.e.l.l that we must return--the h.e.l.l of degradation and of loss and of sure retribution. That h.e.l.l is the latter state to which every path of wrong-doing leads with the inevitability of eternal law. Sin is h.e.l.l in the making. h.e.l.l is sin found out, perhaps, alas, too late. This word is needed in our churches this very day.

It is needed, it was recently suggested to us, especially by our young people. With good reason the churches are all anxious as to the young people, so many of whom, alas! show a disposition to leave the temples of their fathers. It cannot be said that the Church has not done her best along certain lines to keep the coming generation at home. Older men and women have been heard to murmur that too much has been done for the young person's sake, too many things sacrificed. Religion has been made very easy--too easy, it is said. Unpleasant demands have been kept, it is suggested, too much in the background. We all know parents who confess that their children are permitted to do things at home of which they, the parents, disapprove, lest they should go elsewhere and do worse. It is alleged that the same thing often happens in the Church for the same reason. Ah! you must be careful what you say lest you offend the young! This is an indulgent, a good-natured, a compromising time. Behind this solicitude the best reasons lie, but is there no danger to these young people in all this amiability? Is it _quite_ impossible for a young man to be put in peril by our very anxiety to save him?

Yes, there is such a possibility. It arises when we shrink from that plainness of speech which is, after all, friends.h.i.+p's best service. Is it not better to offend, even to wound deeply, than to speak only the smoother things, however kindly the intent, and, so speaking, fail to produce that great renunciation, that strengthening of bands, that strong grasp of the Eternal which alone mean safety in future years?

We know that the whole question is encompa.s.sed with difficulties. It is hard to write it, but the best friends of the young are not always those preachers who are most tender concerning their feelings.

And not for the sake of the young only is this note of sternness needed. It may be recalled that, some time ago, the columns of a well-known religious weekly contained a discussion as to which are morally the most perilous years of a man's life. The conclusion reached therein was startling, but bore the test of reflection. We have generally a.s.sumed that "the dangerous years" are those of early manhood, the years that lie between leaving school and marriage. In those years the youth has probably left the Sunday School behind him, probably hangs only loosely to the Church. He feels the vigour of his young manhood stirring within him. He is drinking his first draughts of the wine of life. Restraints are being relaxed and companions.h.i.+ps are being formed, while there is a sense of freedom almost intoxicating in its exhilaration. These are the days that we have commonly described as the most perilous of life.

Probably, however, we have been wrong in this conclusion. In the discussion referred to it was contended, perhaps established, that the period of greatest moral and spiritual danger lies a score or more years further along the road. From forty to fifty, and nearer fifty than forty, was maintained to be the fateful age. Youth has innocence, ambition, enthusiasm, ideals. Youth has generous impulses, has not yet been soured by disappointments, has not yet found out the cynicism of the world, has not become infected by the canker of covetousness. It has made no enemies, is not corrupted by success, is not daunted by failure. A score of years later some or all of these things will have happened to a man. Harder has become the world, fiercer the battle in which he is engaged, lower burn the fires of life; enthusiasm has faded as grey hairs have come. _These_ are the perilous years.

There is one thing the preacher must never forget:--That the men and women before him go in constant peril from temptation. Not of the avowedly non-Christian only is this true, but of all. Yonder man, known for his respectability, his regular attendance at the sanctuary, falters, perhaps, this very day on the crumbling edge of a moral precipice. Ever and anon some one is missed from the means of grace.

Where is he? Hus.h.!.+ Tell it softly and with tears. He has fallen who but recently bade so fairly to carry his cross to the summit of the hill. Can it be that he fell because in the House of Prayer no voice warned him? Can it be that he has committed the greater sin because no reproof was whispered in his ear concerning the beginnings of transgression? Was there no message committed to the preacher for that man as he drew near the parting of the ways? Did the messenger suppress the truth because it was hard to utter?

What, then, is it that is asked? Not, of course, a ministry of continual denunciation, of constant reproach, of endless accusation--not that, but a ministry in which the witness shall be not one-sided but complete. Let us hear, if you please, of the sweeter things; tell us again, _and again_, of that divine Fatherhood in which must be our final trust; whisper in our cars of the gentleness of G.o.d and the infinite tenderness of His Son; but tell us _all_, for so wayward are we, so presumptuous, so p.r.o.ne to go astray that we need to hear of chastis.e.m.e.nt as well as mercy. We must be reminded that "the way of transgressors is hard" as well as of the blessing that the Lord has in His heart for us.

To the preacher, then, we would say:--Here is a task which must not be neglected however hard it be. The word should be a hammer to break, a sword to pierce, an arrow in the heart. Here is something for us all to do:--To cultivate the arts of the counsel for the prosecution. In the exercise of those arts all our knowledge of human nature, all possible learning in the word will be needed to their very last syllable. It is not true that any one is qualified to wave the lamp that shall reveal the pitfall in the path of the over-confident disciple. He must be a wise physician who has to diagnose the sickness of the soul. He must be a lawyer learned in the law who has to explain the position of the rebel before his flouted Sovereign. He must have larger skill than most who has to bring home the broken will of G.o.d to the soul. A reflection, more important still, has yet to be suggested.

For this work the preacher will need to be a man of holiness, for, though he speak to his brother only as a fellow-sinner saved by Grace, he must speak as one who has escaped from bonds. Thus comes character into the business. "Woe is me," said the prophet, called to witness against the transgression of Judah, "for I am a man of unclean lips."

Only by prayer, by the cleansing of the fountain, by sustaining grace shall we be sufficient for these things. For this manner of preaching one man alone can ascend into the hill of the Lord:--"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up himself unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."

CHAPTER II.

The Note of Pity.

In the chapter just concluded we have tried to lay down that one essential of the preacher's message is the note of sternness, that the preacher is, on G.o.d's behalf, the accuser of his hearers, charging them before the bar of conscience, declaring to the soul its state and condition, p.r.o.nouncing, also, the punishment which must follow persistent rebellion against G.o.d. It becomes us immediately to say something as to another note which must be heard in unison with this of sternness, and that is the note of pity. It is time to insist upon this. Only that man can declare the terrors of the law who knows something of the spirit of the prophet who cried, "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Only he can cry out against Jerusalem who, when he beholds the city, weeps over it as he sees its crime and shame and notes the tempest gathering to burst over its "cloud-capp'd towers, its solemn temples, its airy palaces."

The preacher, like his Lord, must be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It must be true of _him_ that for "the hurt of the daughter of My people was He stricken." His heart must have bled for the tragedy of the world!

And into the delivery of the message this pity must find its way and have expression, if not always in word, certainly in tone. In tone, we say, for the tone of the preacher's utterance is almost, if not quite, as important as its words. Lacking the accent of pity, the accusations of the preacher will degenerate into scolding, and of all scolds the pulpit scold is the most objectionable. Without a pitiful heart his exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not set up to threaten but to p.r.o.nounce. We have heard preaching of this order. "I am not at all well to-night," said a clergyman of whom we once read, "and I shall give it 'em hot." Men are sometimes reminded of their sins, not out of a sense of duty borne in upon a reluctant spirit, but because the wind happens to be in the east, or the preacher's nerves are badly out of order. The Church is told of her coldness, her indolence and unfaithfulness, her narrowness, bigotry and greed, not because, after a struggle to win permission to tell a more flattering tale, the preacher comes forth under a divine compulsion to "cry aloud and spare not," but because his digestion is upset, or his temporal concerns are awry, or even because his personal ambitions have been disappointed and himself unappreciated. There is such a thing as bad-tempered, ill-natured preaching, in which the weapons of the Bible armoury are borrowed for the expression of the preacher's chagrin and spite. In a literal sense every word he speaks may be true, but the spirit of the message destroys all possible good effects and turns the word of G.o.d into an angry snarl. It might, therefore, be well to decide to preach along lines of accusation, exposure, judgment or warning only on those days when the heart is happiest, when life goes well and the cheek of health glows with its brightest bloom. Perhaps the resolution might take such a form as this:--_Resolved: Never to preach a hard sermon when I feel like doing so_.