Cura Pastorali" of Gregory the Great, valuable as it was in other respects, failed in imparting knowledge on this.

Gregory Nazianzen and Jerome have also left us views. upon this subject, not elaborated with treatises, but embracing much of real value. The "Ars Oratoria Eloquentiæ Divine" of William, Archbishop of Paris, and the "De eruditione Concionatorum of Humbert de Romains, both written in the thirteenth century, as well as the "Liber Congestorum, de arte prædicandi" of Reuchlin, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, gave no advance to the art of preaching. Since the Reformation, many works have been published.

Erasmus began the series by a work written in 1536, entitled "Ecclesiasta sive de Ratione Concionandi," a hundred years after, Bishop Wilkins published his "Ecclesiastes, or a Discourse on the gift of preaching, as it falls under the rules of art." Glanvil, thirty years later, sent out his "Essay concerning Preaching, with a seasonable Defence of Preaching and the plain way of it." That most worthy work, the "Pastoral Care," of Bishop Burnett, the eighth chapter of which contains much valuable and judicious advice, followed. To this, succeeded "The Preacher, in three parts," by Dr. John Edmonds; and since then, we have "The Accomplished Preacher" of Sir Richard Blackmore, "The Reformed Pastor" of Baxter, "The Preacher's Directory" of Enfield, and the several minor treatises of Jenning, and Watts, and Mason, and Doddridge.

The most elaborate treatise which America has produced, is the excellent one of President Porter, in his "Lectures on Homiletics," delivered in the Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. This work was republished in England, under the editorial care of Rev. J. Jones, M.A., incumbent Minister of St. Andrew's Church, Liverpool; but he took many liberties with the original work, and in attempting to add to its worth, really detracted from its value. The "Ecclesiastes Anglicanus" of Mr. Gresley, was published in England eleven years since. It is about two years since. Dr. Haight first introduced it to the notice of the American people. He calls it truly a "valuable treatise," and so it is in some respects, but yet, like all the works which have preceded it, leaves much to be supplied by oral instruction and a dear bought experience.

Mr. Gresley's work consists of thirty three letters, ar

ranged under four parts, viz: "Matter of Sermons," "Style," "Method of Composition," and "Delivery." Several of these as 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, pertain more to college than to theological students. The introductory letter strikes us as a very singular one. Its burden is "write your sermons," a direction suited in some respects to the English, but not needed in the American Church, where as Dr. Haight truly says, "the practice of delivering the sermons of others, has never prevailed, and would not be tolerated." Not only does the practice of preaching the printed sermons of others obtain in England,-not only are the cast-off sermons of distinguished divines bought up and re-sold to country curates-but we have even seen sermons lithographed in written characters, and so like a genuine manuscript, as to deceive, not only the overlookers in the gallery, but even the casual glances of the hangers on in the vestry. But it is a shame even to speak of such falsehood and deception in the Christian pulpit. What though it has the sanction of Addison? What though even the great Augustine justifies it in those who lack invention, yet can speak well? What though Ferrarius cites us instances in the primitive Church? Yet we repeat, that in our day, with aids and helps to Biblical learning, and profound education and rhetorical drilling, which abound; and which men with University degrees, ought to be ashamed not to use, it is a disgrace to the clerical profession that any of its members should thus make the pulpit a by-word for the jester, and a scorn for the unbeliever. We hope the time will never come, when the American Pulpit shall be thus dishonored by those who stand upon it as the watchman of our spiritual Zion. Nor can we pass this introductory chapter, without dissenting from the views of the author upon the subject of Aristotle. The rhetorical work of the Stagyrite does indeed, in one sense, lie at the foundation of oratory. His masterly analysis of the passions-his pointing out the spring of action-his knowledge of the mind and its faculties of the heart and its affections-of the will and its governing principles, has scarcely been surpassed; and therefore, as a teacher of secular eloquence, we do earnestly recommend him, dry and severe as his style is, to all who wish to excel. But the rhetoric of Aristotle is based on the researches of a heathen mind, among heathen minds; it is a compound system of mental and moral Pagan philosophy.

It is, therefore, radically defective, when we come to use it as the basis of the Christian preacher's art. This proceeds upon other principles of philosophy, both mental and moral. It finds man in other relations to his fellow men, to the world, to time, to God, than those in which the Grecian philosopher placed him; and brings his passions, feelings and emotions into exercise on themes, and in ways, of which he never dreamed. To make, therefore, a Christian preacher, by the rhetoric of Aristotle, is like the absurdity of the Romanists, who turn the image of the heathen Jupiter into the statue of a Christian Apostle. We know that Aristotle has had his fashionable eras in the Christian world. Displaced in the Church at first by the philosophy of his great master Plato, the influence of his system revived in the fifth century, was depressed during the sixth, came again into vogue in the seventh and soon became the triumphant philosophy of the world. The organon of Aristotle was the central point of intellectual gravitation, and the minds of men for centuries lay bound up by its laws, until a purer light in the Church than any which the "Angelic" or "Seraphic" doctors of the school men struck, a truer system of astronomy than his circular mechanism of the heavens, prepared the way for the instauration of the sciences on the principles of the Baconian philosophy. And now Aristotle, having passed centuries of honorable exile from the literary world, has returned, and under the auspices of the Archbishop of Dublin, been re-introduced to us as the basis of rhetoric, his "dictum de omni et nullo," as the corner stone of his logic.

But the sanction of names is not the sanction of truth, and we contend that sacred eloquence based on Aristotelian rhetoric, falls short of the expectance of truth and the demands of the pulpit. This is not the place to discuss, as fully as we should like, this matter; but we take the liberty of saying this much, that a careful comparison of the motives of the Christian preacher, the arguments and appeals of the Gospel, the purposes of its promulgation, and the passions and affections it addresses, calling out feelings, motives, thoughts which could have no birth but under Christianity-with the motives of the secular oration, and the ways and means and purposes of swaying a secular audience, will at once show the great modification and additions which the art of rhetoric, by Aristotle, must

undergo, before it can be made a teacher of sacred eloquence. It must be baptized by the spirit of truth, and christianized by the influence of the Gospel, before it shall speak out from the pulpit, as the vehicle of the revelations of God. There is deep truth in the remark which Coleridge makes in his Aids to Reflection, that "the fears, the hopes, the remembrances, the anticipations, the inward and outward experience, the belief and the faith of a Christian, form of themselves a philosophy and a sum of knowledge, which a life spent in the grove of Academus or the Painted Porch, could not have attained or collected." By the side of such a philosophy as this, based on the word of God, approved by conscience, wrought out in the inner life of the soul, and developed to man in its noble aspects, how infantile and impotent appear the curiously moulded systems of Pagan philosophy, which in their nearest approaches to Christianity, are only as a corpse is to a living body, and after every attempt to vitalize them, we, like the Spartan, who labored long to make a dead body stand erect, are obliged to desist, exclaiming, i vdov-something withinthe spirit of life is wanting.

We shall arrange what we design to say upon pulpit eloquence, under three heads-the Preacher-the Sermonand its Delivery. This arrangement is simple and comprehensive, and may be made to embrace the whole range of sacred oratory.

The preacher should have a religious heart, and an educated mind. A heart filled with love, furnishes him with motives for preaching, and support and delight in preaching. A mind well furnished, gives him the tools and materials for constructing and perfecting his sermons. The one constitutes the moral, the other the mental qualities of the preacher. The moral qualities of the preacher should be of a high order. He should have a personal and experimental knowledge of the truths which he preaches. He should have a soul at peace with God, and warmed and illuminated by the influences of the Spirit. He should have a heart glowing with love to the Master whom he serves, and the souls to whom he ministers. He should be zealous for their spiritual good, diligent in his labors, faithful in his dealings, "speaking the truth in love," that it may bring forth the fruits of the spirit.

The preacher should be a good psychologist. He should

know his own heart; he should be familiar with its moral mechanism; and knowing its structure, should know all other hearts by this self knowledge; "for as face answereth in water, so dost the heart of man to man." It was a good advice which Sir Philip Sidney gave to the poet-"look within thy heart and write;" and the minister of God who preaches from a heart "that holds communion with the skies," and is the habitation of God in the spirit, cannot fail of preaching "the truth as it is in Jesus." To this end, the advice of Augustine on preaching is very pertinent"on the approach therefore of the hour in which he is to hold forth, let him, before moving his tongue, raise his thirsty soul to GOD; that, having drunk himself, he may have a supply for others, and be able to pour out to them of the fulness which he himself has received. Since many things can be said upon every subject appertaining to faith and charity, that comes up for consideration, and said in various ways, by those to whom they are known; who but HE that sees all hearts, is thoroughly informed of what it is expedient for us to speak or listen to, at any particular time? And who can enable us to utter what we ought, and say it as we ought, but He in whose hand are both we and our words."

Gresley, with much propriety, brings forward the three fundamental points which Aristotle, in his second book, sets down as necessary in order to gain the good opinion of an audience, ager, euvola, ogóvnois, moral virtue, good will, and sagacity or intelligence. But it is altogether useless to devote four letters to this subject. The scope of what it was necessary to say, he has said in the fourth letter; and if a preacher has the qualities there set down, he will not fail of gaining the confidence of his hearers. If the preacher be a Christian-if he be duly commissioned to his office-if he speak with the utterance given him by the Holy Ghost, and illustrate his teaching in his upright life and conversation, he will infallibly gain the confidence. of his people; and if he have not these, no arts of rhetoric, not even the cunning of a skilled hypocrisy, can win for him their confidence, or insure their reverential regard to his ministrations. A high moral character is a necessary requisite. (the heathen themselves being judges,) for the orator; but this is not enough for the preacher. He requires an elevated spiritual character. Morality will do