see.

Wandering Thoughts.

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performance will effect all this? Just try your hand and Select a good text give to your audience, by way of introduction, a brief history of the author, and the circumstances under which he wrote it. Then tell them how you are going to treat the subject. Announce your divisions in advance-I., II., III., and IV.; state your subdivisions and propositions, and argue them out by a process of abstract reasoning; prove your positions by judicious selections from the Scriptures, as "saith the prophet," or as "the apostle says." Let the people see that you are not a mere talker, but a first-class sermoniser. You will thus command their respect and confidence as a theologian. An occasional quotation from Young's "Night Thoughts," or Pollok's "Course of Time," will add interest and beauty to your sermon. Don't waste the precious time necessary to bring out the logical deductions of your propositions in telling anecdotes. That would lower your ministerial dignity. Don't descend to personalities in your delineations of character, for some of your hearers will think you designed it for them, and will take offence. When through your general divisions, and their appropriate subdivisions, then give a brief synopsis of the whole, and close with three or four additional divisions, by way of application.

Peep into the pulpit encyclopædias of this enlightened age, and see if the model I have given you an't according to Gunter. Follow it as closely as possible, and I'll warrant your congregation a good time for an undisturbed reverie, or any mental speculation into which their desires and habits may lead them; or a nap of sleep, according to their taste, till arrested by the joyful sound of "receive the benediction," and then they'll feel as did my little

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How to Preach a Sleepy Sermon.

Charlie on one occasion. I was leading my little boy through the wild wood, one bright spring morning, and said to him, "Charlie, wouldn't you like to kneel down with pa in this pretty grove, and pray?"

"Yes, sir! Here's a good place, pa."

When I got through with my devotions, I said to him, "Charlie, have you prayed any?"

"No, sir; but I kneeled down all the time."

"Don't you want to pray?"

"Yes, sir; won't you tell me how to pray, pa?"

"Yes, my dear boy, the Lord is listening, and I'll tell you what to say to Him."

The little fellow then repeated after me a prayer adapted to his years, with great seriousness, till we came to that solemn word, Amen, which he pronounced as the first of a list of about ten other words in a single breath; in the meantime springing to his feet, and running a rod after his dog. "Amen; where's my hat? here Trip, here Trip, here Trip;" and away he ran, in a chase after his little dog.

Before you have reached the closing amen of your benediction, half the men in the house have seized their hats, and stand ready for a move in double quick time toward the roast turkey, or other welcome sights awaiting them in the wide world without. As they press their way along the side walk, you may overhear the question, "Well, brother, how did you like the sermon to-day?" "O, very well. It was a good, sound, doctrinal sermon." -Taylor's Model Preacher.

Gabriel Barlette, the Neapolitan Dominican, has a parallel passage to the above quotation from the American Methodist. He wishes to rebuke the distracting

Dr Mason's Criticism.

279

thoughts which too often beset men in prayer. He illustrates the point by introducing a priest engaged in his morning devotions, and saying, "Pater noster qui es in cœlis-I say, lad, saddle the horse, I'm going to town today!-sanctificetur nomen tuum-Cath'rine, put the pot on the fire-fiat voluntas tua-Take care! the cat's at the cheese-panem nostrum quotidianum-Mind the white horse has his feed of oats!" These men did not mean to suggest irreverential ideas, but rather to rebuke the mere parrot-worship which is the besetting sin of formalists.

Dr Mason's Criticism.

On one occasion, it is related of Dr Mason, of New York, that after the delivery of a discourse appointed for the day, and which he and others were expected to criticise, he was observed to remain silent much longer than usual for him on similar occasions, apparently absorbed in thought, and hesitating whether to express his opinion of the performance or not. At length he was appealed to by some one, and asked whether he had any remarks to make. He arose and said, “I admire the sermon for the beauty of its style, for the splendour of its imagery, for the correctness of its sentiments, and for the point of its arguments; but, sir, it wanted one thing"-and then, pausing till the eyes of all were fixed upon him, he added "it needed to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to entitle it to the name of a CHRISTIAN sermon."

Long Pulpit Exercises.

Complaints against long religious services are very frequent. Few things appear so bad to some persons as to

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Long Pulpit Exercises.

be kept in the house of God more than one or two hours. Let us see how it was in the seventeenth century. Mr Howe was then minister of Great Torrington, in Devonshire. His labours here were characteristic of the times. On the public fasts it was his common method to begin about nine in the morning, with a prayer for about a quarter of an hour, in which he begged a blessing on the work of the day, and afterwards read and expounded a chapter or psalm, in which he spent about three-quarters of an hour, then prayed an hour, preached another hour, and prayed again for half an hour. After this he retired, and took a little refreshment for a quarter of an hour or more, the people singing all the while. He then returned to the pulpit, prayed for another hour, gave them another sermon about an hour's length, and so concluded the service of the day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, with half an hour or more of prayer.

ROWLAND HILL,

OR so many years the minister of Surrey Chapel, in the Blackfriars Road, London, was a strange compound of wisdom, good sense, drollery, and piety. Of these qualities Mr E. Sydney, his well-known biographer, gives many illustrations:-"When about to make a collection, he shouted out, 'There is a perpetual frost in the pockets of some wealthy people; as soon as they put their hands into them, they are frozen and unable to draw out their purses. Had I my way I would hang all misers, but the reverse of the common mode; I would hang them up by the heels, that their money might run out of their pockets, and make a famous scramble for you to pick up and put in the plate.' On a wet day, when a number of persons took shelter in his chapel during a heavy shower, while he was in the pulpit, he said, 'Many people are greatly blamed for making their religion a cloak; but I do not think those are much better who make it an umbrella." When he was told he did not preach to the elect, upon an early opportunity, in the pulpit, he said, 'I don't know them, or