The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-10

selves by the mouth, making every coms
| pany or single person they fasten ON 10 be
their PrOpontis. Such an one was Aneximi-
nus. He was an ocean of words, but only
drop of understanding" In his sermon on
the Mercy of the Divine Justice, we have this
passage:-"The Italian gentleman was GER
tainly q great lover. of his sleep who was
angry with the lizard that walked him when
viper was creeping into his mouth. When
the devil is entering into us, to poison our
spirits and steal away our souls when in
sleep, God sends his sharp messages to
awaken us, and we call that the enemy, and
use arts to cure the remedy" DIR. Rustin,
concluding his very eloquent eulogy upon
Bishop Taylor declares, "that he had the
good humor of gentleman, the eloquence
of an orator, the profoundness of phi
losopher, the wisdom of a chancellor,
the sagacity and beauty of an angel, and
the piety of a saint. Taylor's religion was of
too cheerful character to be shrouded by the
gloom of asceticism. He was too close a stu
dent of the springs and motives of the human
heart not to be aware that a religion thus
preached could never attain lasting lodg-
ment in the minds of men, or make anything
else than sour hypocrites. He therefore
essayed to win men to the doctrines that he
preached by comprehensive, cheerful dis
courses, illuminated with the light of a chaste
fancy, and mellowed by gentle, persuasive
humor that fascinated while it convinced"
Did space permit, we might further illus
trate our subject by numerous extracts
from the sermons of Andrews, Hooker, South,
and many of lesser fame. We cannot refrain
from giving quotation characteristic of
the humorous element of the early Eng
lish pulpit from Henry Smith, who was a
preacher at st. Clements, in London, and
who died about the year 1910. In discoursing
on the marriage tie, he thus settles the ques-
tion of equality or superiority of the sexes:--
NIo do 4Of Al.
side of Adam, not made out of his head to top
him, nor out of his feet to be trampled on by
him; but out of his side to be a support to
him, under his arm to be protected by him,
and near his heart to be most tenderly beloved.
God so ordered this matter between this man
and this woman, that this agglutination and
adhesion, the one to the other, should be per-
petual for by taking bone from the man,
who was somewhat monstrous by bone too
much, to strengthen the woman, putting flesh
instead thereof to mollify the man, he made a
most sweet complexion or agglutination be-
tween them, like harmony in music for their
amiable cOhabitation. 1t is specially to be
noted my brethren, that this bone which
God took from the sleeping man was out of
the midst of him, as Christ wrought salvation
out of the midst of the earth. The species of
the bone, too, is noteworthy; it is expressed
to be a rib, bone of the side, not of the head
for woman should not be domino, a ruler. Nor
was it of any anterior part, because she is not
pr9lafd, preferred before the man. Nor bone
of the foot, as she it not SerUa, a slave. But
mark it, brethren, it was a bone of the side
because she is Socia, the companion of the man.
For do they not walk side by side ard cheek
by cheek, as companions Finally brethren,
1t must be plain to the meanest comprehen-
sion that whenever man taketh a wife-and
every man, If he is a man, will do it-let him
remember the main made in his own side in
rO~flnT Af 1a,N .Jnn, -
it by healthy and delectable rib.''
Here we have homely but truthful and
natural picture of the relative positions it was
intended the sexes should occupy in this
world, in most striking contrast with those
wretched caricatures, so monstrous and shock
ing to every refined mind, thrown off by the
unsexed advocates of women's rights in this
strange age of ours. But Milton more deli
cately and beautifully sets forth the true,
natural, and beautiful relations of the sexes to
each other, in the following exquisite descrip-
tion OF the newly created in Paradise:-
mot equal, as their sex not equal seemed;
For contemplation ne, and valor formed;
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace;
he for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime
Declared absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders huge;
She as vail down to her slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
gentle sway,
By her yielded, by him best received"
1t will be well for the world if it leaves
these beautiful relations undisturbed. They
are the natural relations of the sexes, and any
attempt to change them must only result in
manifold evils to both. The early English
divines, judging from this extract suggesting
these reflections, clearly understood the true
distinctive differences In the relations of the
sexes; and often seized upon the occasions of
the marriage ceremonial to enforce them in
the quaint and humorous style of preaching of
that day.
The modern pulpit, in abandoning almost
entirely resort to humorous illustration, has
by so doing most certainly demolished the
force and efficacy of its teachings. Old Fuller
once most truthfully said ''that an ounce of
cheerfulness and humor was worth pound
OF sadness to serve God with" Say what we
may of this sad world in which our lot is cast,
sad because of sin and death, little of the
sherry must be mingled with the bitters of
life to make our condition endurabe. Our
gravers faculties and thoughts are much chas-
tened and improved by continued blending
and infusion of the lighter and more cheer
ful so that the sable cloud should continu-
ally be made to turn forth its silver lining
on the sight The preachers duties are
similar to those of the orator, as defined by
Cicero:-" Dixit quidam eloquens ct verum
dixit, ita deere eloquentem ut doceat, ut
delectet, ut fectat." Preaching, then, has
three ends, namely, that the truth should be
known to us, should be heard with pleasure,