own material and domain. The conditions of their power are, in many respects, the same. Now it is well known that the tyranny which drove in ancient eloquence from its rightful domain, aimed the first and the fatal blow at its power. Alexander struck it down when he struck down Grecian liberty; Cæsar stabbed it when he stabbed his country. And to-day, the power of secular eloquence is withering beneath the despotism of France.

In closing, then, the discussion upon this division of my theme, let me sum up, in a word, the result to which both reason and facts seem to have brought us, that with other conditions equal, the pulpit is most powerful when it proclaims the truth of God, "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Yet it is evident that the whole of revealed truth may be so presented from the pulpit as to be deprived of much of its force. Let us, then, advance to view the relation which the development of this material sustains to the power of the pulpit. I use the term development, because a sermon, in the highest sense of the term, is truly and properly a development of a religious truth. It is an unfolding of the divine thought, the germ, wrapped up in the words of the text. It grows out of this thought of God as legitimately as does the oak out of the germ within the acorn, and receives from the thought both its own nature and the law of its growth. The truth in the text is not so much the subject-the thing lying under the sermon, and upon which as a foundation the discourse as an edifice is built, as the material, the essence of the sermon itself. It grows up into the discourse, sending all through it, its vital forces, and blooming out and filling it with its own fragrance. The truth in its process of development does, indeed, like the germ in nature, reach out on every side for that which may assist its unfolding, but the law which prescribes what shall be selected, and into what converted, proceeds from the germ, the divine thought, enveloped in the text. Thus each religious truth builds up around itself a body which it as a soul inhabits, sending through the discourse its living energies, and being the channel through which the divine

"To

efficiency flows. Hence, as no two truths are exactly alike, so may no two sermons be fashioned in the same mould. every seed is given its own body."

Now it is characteristic of a discourse thus produced, that it is full of unity. It begins and it ends in unity. Unity presides over its origin, its movement, and its aim. It comes forth from one thought, one proposition, and it goes right on to the attainment of one object-the production of action. At every point of the development this end is in view, causing all the material to fall into proper order, and making it all converge to the one result.

Such a discourse, too, is full of logic. It is the logic of nature itself presiding over its processes of growth, and building up its material in regular sequences. Each growth of the tree does not less depend on the preceding growth, nor less determine the following, than does each proposition of a well constructed discourse depend on its predecessor, or give law to its successor. In such a discourse there is no incongruity of material, no backward or side movement, but thought follows thought with the rigor of demonstration. The discourse throughout is ribbed with strength, for the thoughts lie not together in isolation, but are linked to each other by the bands of a relentless logic.

Moreover, such a discourse is full of simplicity. It has no complication. Its subject is simple, its order is simple, its logic is simple, its style is simple. Like a production of nature, it has no waste of material, nothing for mere ornament, but everything to bring forward the bud, the blossom, the fruit.

Now a discourse thus abounding in unity, in order, in logic, in simplicity, is, in the highest degree, a discourse of power. Man is made to be affected by truth, and, most of all, by religious truth. But he must apprehend a truth before he can feel in view of it. One can evidently have no emotion respecting that of which he knows nothing. And it is equally clear that a truth which perceived tends to produce emotion, will most powerfully tend to awaken emotion, when most clearly perceived. If it stands forth like the sun, it will have the sun's power to produce heat. Since, then, the emotions have their

ground in known truth, or what is conceived to be truth, and the will has the occasion of its action in the emotions, it is evident that the more vividly truth is presented to the mind, the more powerfully will it tend to move the will and the man to action. Hence, the method of most profoundly moving the emotions and the will resolves itself into the method of bringing the truth to stand forth in full stature and luminous before the mind, that it may put forth upon the mind its inherent force.

The discourse whose outline has been given, is the embodiment of such a method. It presents to the mind one idea, one truth, and it goes right forward to produce one result—one act of the will. The mind is not permitted to lose sight of the truth that is coming forth into stature and strength before it. Each successive division, each argument, each turn, each illustration, brings the truth nearer and nearer, until the mind is in its immediate presence, and feels the power of the truth coming over it and subduing it. One need only to contrast the effect produced on himself by such a discourse, with that made by one strikingly deficient in the characteristics which have been named, to be convinced of the power of the one method, and the feebleness of the other. The mind, in viewing truth, delights in unity, in order, in logic, in simplicity. They are, as it were, the steps by which it rises to the plane of conviction, emotion, action. Hence the mind, if it be a thoughtful one, searches for them in every discourse to which it listens. It first attempts to find unity in the theme, then organized unity in its unfolding, logic in every movement, and simplicity in the whole. If now the discourse be greatly deficient in these qualities, the mind can do nothing with it. If it be without unity of subject, the mind is confused at the start, knowing neither whither it is to go, nor why it is to go. If, however, it finds the path of the discourse, it either soon loses its way amidst the tangled net-work, or it comes to a chasm which it cannot leap. The movement of the discourse is backward, and oblique, and sidewise, and every way, but straight onward to conviction and persuasion; and the mind, ever on the rack to put order and logical continuity into it, at length gives over

the hopeless task, and is in any other state rather than in that of being persuaded.

And such has been the experience of the human mind in every age. The discourses, both secular and religious, which have had most power over men, have been those the most rigidly constructed in conformity with the principles I have noticed. Let me refer you to the greatest oration of the greatest orator of antiquity. History has recorded its effect. We wonder not that it had such mighty power, when we read it ourselves, for though we hear not that voice which, like the wind, swept over the sea of passion, heaving it into billows, or playing upon its smiling surface, though we see not that action which was itself persuasion, nor are moved by the occasion, yet in that silent speech there still lives a power which, for more than twenty centuries, has swayed the most gifted minds of earth. It is the power which comes from one idea-one propositionthat flames before the mind, not merely as a truth which demands assent, but a truth which demands emotion, action. And what language can fitly portray the manner in which this result is effected! Amidst the most surprising diversity of parts, and arguments, and illustrations, what simple unity and order reign throughout the whole! What logic and progress in every movement! And then how irresistibly does the logic pour itself into rhetoric-conviction into persuasion! How skillfully, like a great general, does the orator marshal his compact masses of argument, and sweep the plain around his impregnable position, and then, like Napoleon, hurl his grand army of forces on the staggering columns of his adversary! Such is the power of a well disciplined army of great thoughts.

And if we descend to modern times, we shall find that the same conditions of power in discourse prevail. Take the ablest and most effective speech of the great New England statesman, analyze it, and you shall find that beneath the rounded form and graceful outline, there is a structure built up by the severest logic, and framed throughout into one symmetrical and perfect whole. Or, turning to sacred discourse, take in pieces one of those sermons of President Edwards, which are said to

have produced such remarkable impressions, and you will find that the conditions of power are much the same in the sermon as in the oration. What'uninspired preacher has developed a divine truth into such breadth and fullness, and with such order, logic and simplicity, as did that "Goliath of theologians," as Chalmers was wont to call him? The truth towering into its divine majesty, confronted the sinner at every point. He could not escape it. He quailed and fell before it. Sit down and analyze calmly, if you can, the discourse of Edwards, entitled "Sinners in the hands of an angry God," from the text, "Their foot shall slide in due time," and when you are through with your analysis you will be quite prepared to receive the account of the effect which the sermon produced, when preached in a neighboring town. "He began," says the historian,* “in the clear, careful, demonstrative style of a teacher, solicitous for the result of his effort, and anxious that every step of his argument should be clearly and fully understood. As he advanced in unfolding the meaning of the text, the most careful logic brought him and his hearers to conclusions which the most tremendous imagery could but inadequately express. His most terrific descriptions of the doom and danger of the impenitent only enabled them to apprehend more clearly the truths which he had compelled them to believe. They seemed to be, not the product of the imagination, but, what they really were, a part of the argument. The effect was as might have been expected. Before the sermon was ended, the assembly appeared deeply impressed and bowed down with an awful conviction of their sin and danger. There was such breathing of distress and weeping, that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence, that he might be heard."

Examples such as these might be multiplied at pleasure, in confirmation of the view which has been taken. Thus has it ever been true both in secular and sacred discourse, that the more perfectly a truth has been developed, the greater has been its power.

*The Great Awakening, by Joseph Tracy, p. 216. Trumbull's History of Connecticut, Vol. II, p. 145.