The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-08-30

appointed channel of blessing to the
world. But its influence may be greatly
diminished by the mistakes of those who
occupy it. A good many men in the pull
pit are losing their power, some have al
ready lost it, and others are in danger of
losing it.
We sometimes hear of a promising
young man in one of our Theological
seminaries, from whom much is expected.
His preparatory training has been good ;
his talents are unquestioned his friends
say, He is going to make his mark in
the world" He graduates, enters his
field of labor, runs well for time, and
seems destined to satisfy all the highest
anticipations of his friends, but after all,
he never makes the promised "mark."
Why not? Simply because he finds the
thought of his easily prepared discourses
equal to the average thinking of the peo-
pie about him; they are pleased with
him as man; by his personal qualities
he endears himself to them; there may
be nothing in the community about him
to stimulate him to earnest, eager study
and forgetting the ideal set before him
by his faithful Professors, instead of stir
ring up the gift within him, and striving
after higher attainments, so as to educate
and elevate the people with him in his
own ascent to superior excellence, he re-
mits his efforts, and by imperceptible de-
grees falls back until By an inevitable
gravitation he finds his level in the ranks
of commonplace and dull preachers.
We find some older men in the minis
try who avow their contempt for what
they call especial preparation" for any
particular service. They plume them
selves on having laid a solid foundation.
They fancy that their large, acquired
stock of theological knowledge renders
them quite independent of the need of
any immediate preparation for any par
ticular discourse. They don't care to
select text before Sunday morning
not they With all that Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew; with all that didactic and
polemic theology with all that ecclesi-
astical history in their heads and at the
end of their nimble tongues, they scorn
your sermon got up for the occasion So
they enter the pulpit full of fuency and
conceit. They commence; and their in
PRODUCTION reminds one of the carrier
pigeon which always flies round and
round in big circle before it begins its
flights in any particular direction. But
here the parallel fails; for after its gyra-
tons the pigeon at last finds its bearing
and darts swiftly to the goal; while the
gyrating parson goes on circling through
his realm of ancient matter until at the
end of an hour and quarter, or so, he
YEARLY reaches his terminus. His YER
bose and pointless sermon makes no i'm
preston and leaves behind only the mem
DRY of something unsatisfactory and ex-
hausting.
Such preacher reminds US of what
some one said of Shelley, when he called
him "an Intellectual angel beating the
wind with luminous wings" with the ex-
ception that the voluble parson beats the
wind not with luminous but with .volum-
nous wings.
A good foundation and ample theologi-
cal stores are admirable preparations for
effective preaching, but the fatal error of
the man who fancies that the possession
of these makes him independent of spe-
cial preparation, as if the two were an
tagonistic, consists in his failure to OBJ
serve that it is by the alnion of the taoo
that the best sermons are produced, and
that he who despises either, will ulti-
mately fall into the category of dull
preachers.
We have in mind two other classes of
preachers whose want of success can be
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