When your hearers go away, saying, "What a grand sermon! What an eloquent preacher!" depend upon this, that you have failed. The object of preaching is not to fix attention on the preacher, but on the subject of the preaching; not to lead men to admire the servant, but to adore the Master; not to lead them to say, "What a fine discourse we have had!" but, "What a sinner I am! What a Christ I have! What must I do to be saved? Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

I ask you, my brethren, not to suppose, from these remarks, that I recommend carelessness in preaching, or depreciate genius and learning. All I mean is, that the object of preaching should be to make the hearers then and there feel the power of gospel truth; and therefore that your genius and learning should be devoted to this end. Your powers are perverted when they exhibit themselves rather than Christ. Indeed, it often happens that mere smatterers are much more grandiloquent and obscure, and pass with the superficial as more learned than men of real culture. It is easy to cram big terms into a sentence. Any fool can do this. It is not so easy by plain and simple words to make great truths understood and felt, and old subjects to be ever assuming some new phase. Cultivate learning, but do not parade it. Employ all your resources of criticism to discover the true meaning of your text, but do not waste precious time in the pulpit by giving the names and conflicting opinions of commentators. Give the results of your study, but not the process. Put forth the burning truths you have arrived at in your meditation, but do not weary your hearers with fencing them on all sides against all the subtile objections which occurred to you as conceivable. Would a man keep up the scaffolding when the house is built, just to show his ingenuity? This would be to hide the house: and thus many preachers hide the Savior. There is no

learning, no genius, no imagination, no logical power, no rhetorical art which may not be consecrated to the great work of preaching. Cultivate every power of thought and speech to the utmost, but let all these powers have this for their chief aim and glory to make saving truths understood and felt by all people. Was Christ, as a preacher, superficial because "the common people heard Him gladly"? Was He not worthy to be listened to by the learned, because His speech was that of the multitude also, and because His illustrations were drawn from familiar scenes? Abjure, then, the false ideas too prevalent both in the old country and in the new, in regard to "Intellectual Preaching." Be as intellectual, and as learned, and as eloquent as possible, but be sure that it is inferior intellect, and inferior learning, and inferior eloquence, when it fails in the great object to which it should be devoted.

Do not misunderstand what I say respecting simple preaching. I don't mean that you are to preach without preparation. I don't want to give a pretext for laziness. Read hard think hard if you please, write hard. Do your very best; put forth all the powers you possess. But let the object of all this effort be to make truth simple and forcible, so as to be understood and felt by all. I've no patience with indolent preachers, who think anything will do for the pulpit, however dreary, stale, wordy, and then, as an excuse for pouring out mere Bible and water, say it is the simplicity of the gospel! No! Do your very best every time you preach, but let your object be to exalt, not yourself, but the Savior; to save, not your reputation, but men's souls.

The great interests at stake should forbid trifling in the pulpit. Remember you are preaching to dying men. How often there is some one before us listening to the last sermon he will ever hear! Sometimes the hearer of

one Sunday is dead on the next, as was the case with a merchant in Boston, who heard me preach the other day on the words, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise," and who was in eternity before the week was ended. But besides such cases, it is constantly happening that persons are hearing their last sermon; for before the next Sunday an illness may begin from which they will not recover; or they may thenceforth neglect altogether the house of God. We may always feel that it is very probable there is some one before us whom we have the opportunity for the last time of warning against sin― for the last time of directing to Christ for salvation.

Let, then, the value of the immortal soul stimulate us to zeal and fidelity. No work can be more important than to "save a soul from death." It is worth the longest life, the largest powers, the most devoted labors. No other work suggests such motives for diligence. And "the love of Christ constraineth us." Let us then "watch for souls as those that must give account," and strive and pray that at the great day, our Lord and Master may pronounce this benediction on us "Well done, good and faithful servant."

XIX.*

RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND

WOR

AMERICA.

WORDS fail me to express what I feel of the kindness, the more than kindness, with which I have been received in American homes, and, I trust, in American hearts, during my visit to this country. This kindness I accept, not as a personal compliment to myself, so much as a mark of the love you feel and wish to show towards the nation of which I am a humble representative. But for the absence of those dearer to me than my life, I might forget that a vast ocean rolls between the two countries. When seated at your hospitable tables, when gathering with your households round the family Bible,the same dear old family Bible of my childhood, - when worshipping in your churches the same God and preaching the same gospel, I might well be in doubt whether I was in America or England. And the localities I have visited have also made me feel at home. I have been on a pilgrimage to the home and grave of Washington Irving a household name so familiar to us that most English

* The introduction and the close of a lecture delivered in Steinway Hall, New York, November 6, and afterwards, in Washington, under the presidency of Chief Justice Chase, and in the presence of the principal members of Congress, General Grant, and other official persons.

men would claim him as their own. On Plymouth Rock I could exult in the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers; for if this land received them, ours nurtured them; and the tyranny that drove them forth is execrated by us as much as by you; while both nations may say, "They labored, and we have entered into their labors." When I had the honor of a reception at Bunker Hill, the flags of both countries were draped in embracing folds, the band played the national airs of both nations, and, as an Englishman, I could exult in the memories of that sacred mount; for it was not America that in the struggle there begun conquered England, but it was English courage and English liberty that triumphed over the stupidity and tyranny of a faction in whose defeat all England now rejoices.

At Niagara-sublime beyond expression, yet even more beautiful than sublime - I was ravished with many visions of transporting loveliness; but one scene beyond all others will ever be impressed upon my memory. I saw a rainbow spanning the entire river and hovering above the fall. One limb of it rested on British soil, the other on American. Just there the river divided, and the waters plunged, and foamed, and roared. But a little way beyond, both streams reunited, and flowed on in harmony towards the placid lake. Emblem, I thought, of our two nations. For a time it seemed as though they were divided; but they soon unite again, while even over the angry roar of differing judgments there is the pledge of heavenly peace and enduring love.

[Mr. Hall then proceeded to prove that the sentiment of Great Britain towards America during the war was more friendly than is supposed by many persons. He first explained that the majority of those who advocated the cause of the South did so from misapprehension of the causes of the war, and not from ill feeling towards the United States. Then he showed that some very distin