WHAT TO PREACH.

BY THE REV. JOHN HALL, D.D., OF NEW YORK.

[A crowd of eager friends of the Alliance, unable | light, we see light clearly. But what shall to obtain admission to Dr. Adams's Church, having filled Association Hall, two of the speakers from the

former building were brought to give their addresses

in the Hall. At the conclusion of Mr. Beecher's ad

dress, there was a general call from the audience for Dr. Hall, who happened to be on the platform. Upon this being repeated persistently, he rose and said:]

I AM unwilling to occupy your time with any remarks which, as I did not expect to say any thing, must necessarily be desultory and inconsecutive; for one thing may be said regarding all public speaking, namely, that what has not been prepared with care is usually of little value, and what costs the speaker little effort does little good to the hearer. With the remarks of the eloquent speaker to whom you have just listened I substantially agree, although I should probably employ, in some instances, a different phraseology.

The sinners to whom we preach are to be pitied; and we can not show too much compassion for them: but they are also to be blamed; and we are bound to tell them that they are culpable for rejecting and despising the Gospel we are sent to proclaim. Their condition, until they believe, is dreadful in the extreme; and we should labor to make them understand and feel that; but it is the dreadful misery not of a misfortune that has come upon them, an evil chance that has happened to them, but of a crime which they are still committing, and willingly persisting in. Very likely this will not always gratify them; very likely, instead of soothing them, this will vex and irritate them, and make them secretly angry; and then we must go on and preach so, and live so, that they shall, by the blessing of the Holy Ghost, see that they have no reason to be angry with us, who only carry God's message, but that, in point of fact, they are angry with the truth-in other words, with the message which the Lord sends them concerning themselves.

We can not, again, feel too keen a sympathy with the people who hear us-some of them altogether in the dark, some of them opening their eyes a little, some of them seeing men as trees walking, some of them loving the light and craving for more, and some of them sorely beaten down and crushed by trials and difficulties in their life. We can We can not feel too keen a sympathy with them, especially when we remember our own struggles, and the dim twilight through which many of us have groped, if now, in God's

we do? What sympathy is best for all these varied conditions of the human spirit?

Here it is that the evangelical system-that is, the system which magnifies at every turn the objective truth regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ-gives, it seems to me, its true and proper power to the pulpit. My sympathy is good as far as it goes; but divine sympathy is infinitely better. what do I know, what can I present, of divine sympathy, but in Jesus Christ? What can I gather and disclose of this sympathy from general considerations regarding Deity?

And

The world-God's world-is a mystery to all of us. Even to Christians Providence is a perpetual puzzle, and they must wait to see how good and wise God is by seeing the end. But in the face of Jesus Christ, God's glory, ay, the light of the knowledge of it, shines. Him we can preach to the people; on his sympathy we can expatiate; him we can lift up and unfold, the personal Redeemer, Son of God and Son of man-divine-human, the might of omnipotence in his arm, even when it was nailed to the tree; him, the prophet for the ignorance of man, the priest for the guilt of man, and the daily recurring wants and sins of man, the king for the defense and government of man, the true and tender brother to the believer, the Captain of salvation to the Christian soldier, the good master to the disciple, the Lord and Saviour to the meanest and poorest believer, yes, to the weakest and least effective of his servants here, as truly as to the Apostle Paul!

When we preach this Jesus to men, and they receive him, it is not only that they get more light, are elevated, helped, carried forward beyond the lengths to which other forms of teaching carry them; it is not this only, nor, indeed, this at all. It is that they are now enlightened with this kind of light for the first time; and they find out that whatever they knew before, in this kind of light they were blind, and in this kind of knowledge they were utterly ignorant. Now they are the subjects of a change, more or less conscious; call it conversion, or regeneration, or illumination, or any other name you will, that is understood in its meaning by the people, and in the preacher's sense of it, which ought surely to be the Scriptural sense of it. Now they have par

Now as to this sensationalism in the pulpit, there is but a word to be said. When a minister, by the selection of odd and queer topics, in form or reality away from the Gospel-by unique or grotesque ways of putting himself, or putting his things before the people, by vulgarisms, or startling novel

don, they are accepted, they are in Christ, | in cleaving to whom the new life of believthey are in a new condition, and are set out ers is fed and strengthened. upon the attainment of a new character. It is not that this revelation of God's mercy, through belief of which they are in Christ, has made them better, has improved their manhood, or elevated them—a temperance society might do that —a literary society might do that it is that they are changed, that the secret springs of the will are touch-ties of expression, aims at making a sensaed. If any man be in Christ, he is a better man? No. A broader man? No. He is a new creature — made a new man by an act of God, by his word-as truly a divine act as when God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And that we ministers, ourselves thus enlightened by Divine grace, can preach this glorious Gospel of the blessed God, and in lifting up Jesus Christ produce, instrumentally, these results, this seems to me to be the real power, and, when done, the dignity and glory of the pulpitany pulpit, ancient or modern.

We who preach are poor creatures; but the word of the Lord is mighty. Of that word Jesus Christ is the sum and substance; and the sum and substance of any ministry of permanent spiritual power must be the setting forth of him, the living Christ for dead souls, the bread of life for starving souls, the water of life for thirsty souls, the one Lifegiver of divine appointment, in coming to whom the dead in sins are quickened, and

tion that shall terminate with the hour, or, at least, terminate upon the preacher, there is sensational preaching, which is offensive to true taste, as it is away from the spirit of the Gospel, and the dignity and power of the pulpit. That is not only contemptible as trifling-it is base and criminal, as trifling with the most solemn themes and for selfish ends. I hope there is not much such sensationalism.

But give us the ministers who go directly with Bible truth to the souls of men-who preach to them of their guilt in denying the Holy One and the Just, who urge this home on judgment and conscience with an earnestness begotten of the Spirit of God, and flowing out of souls set on fire from above, until the crowds, carried away, subdued, and terrified, cry out, "What shall we do to be saved?" Let us have sensations like this produced, anywhere, by any ministry, and I for one-if no part of this honor is given me— shall yet fall on my knees, and give thanks to God who hath given such power unto men.

FOURTH SECTION.-SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK-ITS GREATNESS— THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE FOR IT.

BY CHARLES REED, Esq., M.P., LONDON.

large, and the devotion of the teachers beyond all praise; yet, encumbered by secular processes, its success has not been com

I AM deeply sensible of my obligation to the Sunday-school, personally and officially, and, when asked to represent the Old World institution in the New, I was rejoiced to ac-mensurate with the effort put forth. The cept so honorable a position. The time allotted to me is too brief to allow of my indulging myself in an historical review of the origin and growth of this educational organization, and, while many paths are open before me, it will be my duty to select one, and that the practical, and up that path I propose to lead you by a direct course.

great nations, one in blood and in language, and bound by the closest ties of amity and Christian affection, with a vast agency, no

their aim the conversion of souls, and their standard the Word of God, will present to the world a spectacle worthy its admiration and imitation.

schools of America, on the other hand, have been mainly for the children of the Church, while in her noble mission schools the children of the poorest are found. The fusion of classes has been more marked, a higher class of agency has been secured, and the results, if not holier, have been greater. America has reaped the advantage of her Of the past I will only say, What has God system of common schools, in the habit of wrought? It is ninety-two years since order and completeness of secular teaching Raikes gathered his first school in 59 Cath- among the children, and in the creation of a erine Street, Gloucester, and through all those public opinion among Christian people in years, though suspected, frowned upon, favor of the Sunday-school. Great Britain abused, and denounced, the course of the is now about to realize America's great adSunday-school has been onward, its sup- vantage; henceforth the two countries will porters have never relaxed their effort, its carry on the work of religious teaching unadvances have been rapid, and its achieve-der more equal conditions, and these two ments marvelously great. Adam Smith, the author of "The Wealth of Nations," has declared that no plan has effected a greater change of manners, with equal ease and sim-ble, gratuitous, earnest, and pious, having for plicity, since the days of the apostles; and Chief-justice Marshall, your own distinguished jurist, says, "I can not be more firmly convinced than I am that virtue and intelligence are the basis of our independ- The question then is, not how to preserve ence and the conservative principles of na-peace and quiet in our streets on the Lord's tional and individual happiness; nor can day, not how shall neglected children be any one believe more firmly that Sabbath-taught reading and writing, but how shall school institutions are devoted to the protection of both." And that which may be said of the United States and of the British Empire may with truth be averred of the great European countries, represented by distinguished friends of religious education around me here. Having mentioned them, I shall not be misunderstood if my references are mainly to the schools of the two great Anglo-Saxon communities, with whose schools I am more familiar, by long experience, and by recent extended observation. Of the English institution it may be said that it has been benevolently intended as a mis-spring of the stolid, the vicious, the brutal, sion to the poor and the neglected, not embracing to any great extent the children of the congregations. The aim has been high, the numbers in proportion to population

we secure to our children a sound religious education. When I say our children, I mean the youth of the nation. The work is to be done not by the State, but by religious people; not in cities and towns, but in the Western territories and in scattered hamlets, and by the combined and systematic effort of Christian people.

Truly, this is a noble mission. It is to plunge deeper for the rescue; it is to strike higher for the prize; it is to embrace two classes, the richest and the poorest, hitherto neglected. Deeper down, to rescue the off

the blasphemer, and the drunkard. Higher yet, to win the children of our artisans, unfriendly to religion and bitterly hostile to what they deem cant and priestly device.

Higher still, to gain access to youth, excluded from the true influences of Christian life, shut out from the glad tidings of the Gospel message, members of families whose creed it is that it is not the thing to be serious, and that it is a crime to be religious, "where the doors are barred against the entry of any but the worshipers of this world." And is it possible that you are going to interfere with these, the upper classes of society? I say, yes, if it be possible; and I believe it is. By what right do you do this? I reply, by every right. Is the poor man's neglected child more dangerous to society than the profligate son of the wealthy man? If we are justified in lifting the latch of the poor man's cottage, why should we avoid the rich man's mansion? This we know, that "it is not the will of our Father in heaven that one of these should perish." I divide the constituency now outside the school into three classes. The first are our own children.

wish his dimpled little one to grow up as hard and as rough as he is, and the mother yields her child to the teacher whose visits bring light and comfort to their dismal dwelling. You take the infant to your school, and the elder sister can come too; and if the mother does not come to the house of prayer, we secure to her the opportunity of doing so. And who shall say that the little one will not bring back notes of music which may prove "heavenly notes" caught in the infant class? And here let me repeat, the earlier children are secured, the longer they are retained. At fourteen, the turning point of life, when boys claim a kind of independence, and girls are in the habit of asserting their own will, the special teacher, the separate apartment, the table, the chair, and the Bible attract and hold those who, but for these special arrangements, leave us at the most critical period.

The third section includes the youth of Our own peculiarly. I mean wealthy, worldly, and indifferent familiesby these the children of godly parents, children of the fashionable mother who sacrimembers of our churches and congrega- fices all for pleasure; whose children dwell in tions, and belonging to the middle class of the nursery and are seldom seen, except at society, that class which forms the back- dessert, to be admired, coaxed, and spoiled; bone of the strength, the virtue, and the whose great concern is brilliancy of comhonor of a community. Happily, America plexion, purity of teeth, and gracefulness of has laid hold of this class, and she has her carriage, but has no thought of the welfare reward. England has not. The children of the soul. In such a family it may be the of her respectable people, her "superior peo- mother or the father who is at fault-not ple," the children of her deacons and of her usually both-for my experience teaches me ministers, are not, as a rule, in the Sabbath- that one is frequently prepared to admit the school. Our poorest are wretchedly poor, crror and to accept help toward amendment our ragged are miserably clad, if clad at all, of life. The mother will favor the visits of and their habits and language beget a whole- a Christian friend, or the father will say, some fear that "evil communications cor- when the invitation of some pious neighbor rupt good manners." Before prejudice can comes, Before prejudice can comes, "Let the boys go." Is it wlrispered, be overcome, we must adapt our arrange- Who dare attempt this? The best answer ments to meet the proper expectations of is to say, Some have dared and have sucthe mother; and by such suitable provision | ceeded. A friend of my own, living in one we shall conquer her objections. Parents of the fashionable parts of London, took & must have satisfactory assurance of some advantage to be secured, some proof that good influences will be exercised. Fortunately, I have this assurance; hence I give my testimony in favor of it, and I press home upon ministers and deacons this question: Do they act wisely in withholding the influence of their example-do they not do an injustice, by this conduct, to the Sunday-school? Our duty is to create a public opinion, and when that opinion is begot-resolution to dare to do this godly work. ten fathers and mothers will hasten to com- Within the range of my own observation mit their children to our trust. The second I have known many such resolute efforts, class to be secured is the neglected, the hea- so that I am entitled, when any one chalthen-yes, the heathen of London and New lenges my recommendation, and says, "Who York. The easiest way-and the way is not dares?" to answer, It is dared and done. difficult is to get them early. Parents are Who does not know that in a religious comnot reluctant; it gives happiness to the lit-munion, where zeal knows no obstructions tle ones; and remember, those who come or hesitations, ladies of all ranks and men earliest stick the closest, yes, as ivy, their of all conditions relinquish every thing and young affections cling to the training-place become "all things" to accomplish their of early childhood. And the rough, untu- special object? This is a means scarcely tored parent, bad as he may be, does not used by us, and a potent one it is.

handsome house next to his own, and fitted it up for such a purpose. He issued his invitations to a Sunday afternoon meeting for Bible study. The result was many calls of courtesy, inquiry, and grateful acceptance. On the next Sunday nineteen youths, from fourteen to eighteen, came, and that Christian gentleman, a man high in the scientific world, is now at the head of an institution of influence and power, originated by his