enormous difference lies in the manner in which each says it. The greatest effects recorded to have been produced by human language, have been produced by things which, in merely reading them, would not have appeared so very remark Hazlitt tells us that nothing so lingered on his ear as a line from Home's Douglas, as spoken by young Betty: "And happy, in my mind, was he that died." could thrill an audience by saying "Mes- pulpit, from any oratorical art which is likely to produce an effect. Sometimes, indeed, where better things might be expected, the most reprehensible clap-trap is resorted to. An English preacher is fettered and trammeled by fear of being thought fanatical and methodisticalable. and still worse, ungentlemanlike. He knows, too, that a reputation as a 'popular preacher' is not the thing which will conduce much to his preferment in his profession. The Scotch preacher, on the other hand, throws himself heart and We have heard it said that Macready soul into his subject. Chalmers overcame never produced a greater effect than by the notion that vehemence in the pulpit the very simple words, "Who said that ?" was indicative of either fanaticism or It is perhaps a burlesque of an acknowweakness of intellect: he made ultra-ani-ledged fact, to record that Whitefield mation respectable; and earnestness, even in an excessive degree, is all in favor of a young preacher's popularity; while a man's chance of the most valuable preferments (in the way of parochial livings) of the Scotch Church, is in exact proportion to his popularity as a preacher. The spell of the greatest preachers is in their capacity of intense feeling. This is reflected on the congregation. A congregation will in most cases feel but a very inferior degree of the emotion which the preacher feels. But intense feeling is contagious. There is much in common between the tragic actor and the popular preacher; but while the actor's power is generally the result of a studied elocution, the preacher's is almost always native. A teacher of elocution would probably say that the manner of Chalmers, Guthrie, or Caird was a very bad one; but it suits the man, and no other would produce a like impression. In reading the most ef fective discourses of the greatest preachers, we are invariably disappointed. We can see nothing very particular in those quotations from Chalmers which are recorded as having so overwhelmingly impressed those who heard them. It was manner that did it all. In short, an accessory which in England is almost entirely neglected, is the secret of Scotch effect. Nor is it any derogation from an orator's genius to say that his power lies much less in what he says than in how he says it. It is but saying that his weapon can be wielded by no other hand than his own. Manner makes the entire difference between Macready and the poorest stroller that murders Shakspeare. The matter is the same in the case of each. Each has the same thing to say; the Many of our readers, we dare say, have never witnessed the service of the Scotch Church. Its order is the simplest possible. A psalm is sung, the congregation sitting. A prayer of about a quarter of an hour in length is offered, the congregation standing. A chapter of the Bible is read; another psalm sung; then comes the sermon. A short prayer and a psalm follow; and the service is terminated by the benediction. The entire service lasts about an hour and a half. It is almost invariably conducted by a single clergyman. In towns, the churches now approximate pretty much to the English, as regards architecture. It is only in country places that one finds the true bareness of Presbytery. The main difference is that there is no altar, the communion table being placed in the body of the church. The pulpit occupies the altar end, and forms thousand pounds. No doubt all this the most prominent object; symbolizing results in some measure from the selfvery accurately the relative estimation of sufficiency of the Scotch character; but the sermon in the Scotch service. When- besides this, it should be remembered ever a new church is built, the recurrence that to a Scotchman it is a matter of to a true ecclesiastical style is marked; much graver importance who shall be and vaulted roofs, stained glass, and dark his clergyman than it is to an Englishoak have, in large towns, in a great de- man. In England, if the clergyman gree, supplanted the flat-roofed meeting- can but read decently, the congregation houses which were the Presbyterian ideal. may find edification in listening to and The English preacher generally wears the joining in the beautiful prayers proEnglish preaching gown. The old Ge- vided by the Church, even though the neva gown covered with frogs is hardly sermon should be poor enough. But in ever seen; but the surplice would still Scotland every thing depends on the minstir up a revolution. The service is per- ister. If he be a fool, he can make the formed with much propriety of demeanor; entire service as foolish as himself. For the singing is often so well done by a prayers, sermon, choice of passages of good choir, that the absence of the organ Scripture which are read, every thing, the is hardly felt. Educated Scotchmen have congregation is dependent on the preachcome to lament the intolerant zeal which led the first Reformers in their country to such extremes. But in the country we still see the true genius of Presbytery. The rustics walk into church with their hats on, and replace them and hurry out the instant the service is over. The decorous prayer before and after worship is unknown. The minister, in many churches, wears no gown. The stupid bigotry of the people in some of the most covenanting districts is almost incredible. There are parishes in which the people boast that they have never suffered so Romish a thing as a gown to appear in their pulpit; and the country people of Scotland generally regard Episcopacy as not a whit better than Popery. It has sometimes struck us as curious, that the Scotch have always made such endeavors to have a voice in the selection of their clergy. Almost all the dissenters from the Church of Scotland hold precisely the same views both of doctrine and Church government as the Church, and have seceded on points connected with the existence of lay patronage. In England much discontent may sometimes be excited by an arbitrary appointment to a living; but it would be vain to endeavor to excite a movement throughout the whole country to prevent the recurrence of such appointments. Yet upon precisely this point did some three or four hundred ministers secede from the Scotch Church in 1843; and to maintain the abstract right of congregations to a share in the appointment of their minister, has the "Free Church" drawn from the humbler classes of a poor country many hundred er. The question, whether the worship to which the people of a parish are invited weekly shall be interesting and improving. or shall be absurd and revolting, is decided by the piety, good sense, and ability of the parish priest. Coleridge said he never knew the value of the Liturgy till he had heard the prayers which were offered in some remote country churches in Scotland. We have not space to inquire into the circumstances which have given Scotch preaching its peculiar character. We may remark, however, that the sermon is the great feature of the Scotch service; it is the only attraction; and pains must be taken with it. The prayers are held in very secondary estimation. The preacher who aims at interesting his congregation, racks his brain to find what will startle and strike; and then the warmth of his delivery adds to his chance of keeping up attention. Then the Scotch are not a theatre-going people; they have not, thus, those stage-associations with a dramatic manner which would suggest themselves to many minds. Many likewise expect that excitement in the church, which is more suited to the atmosphere of the play-house. Patrons of late years not unfrequently allow a congregation to choose its own minister; the Crown almost invariably consults the people; the decided taste of almost all congregations is for great warmth of manner; and the supply is made to suit the demand. As for the solemn question, how far Scotch preaching answers the great end of all right preaching, it is hard to speak, No doubt it is a great thing to arouse the somewhat comatose attention of any audience to a discourse upon religion, and any means short of clap-trap and indecorum are justified if they succeed in doing so. No man will be informed or improved by a sermon which sets him asleep. Yet it is to be feared that, in the prevailing rage for what is striking and new, some eminent preachers sacrifice usefulness to glitter. We have heard discourses concerning which, had we been asked when they were over, What is the tendency and result of all this?-what is the conclusion it all leads to?-we should have been obliged to reply, Only that Mr. Such-a-one is an uncommonly clever man. The intellectual treat, likewise, of listening to first-class pulpit oratory, tends to draw many to church merely to enjoy it. Many go, not to be the better for the truth set forth, but to be delighted by the preacher's eloquence. And it is certain that many persons whose daily life exhibits no trace of religion, have been most regular and attentive hearers of the most striking preachers. We may mention an instance in point. When Mr. Caird was one of the ministers of Edinburgh, he preached in a church, one gallery of which is allotted to students of the University. A friend of ours was one Sunday afternoon in that gallery, when he observed in the pew before him two very rough-looking fellows, with huge walking-sticks projecting from their great-coat pockets, and all the unmistakable marks of medical students. It was evident that they were little accustomed to attend any place of worship. The church, as usual, was crammed to suffocation, and Mr. Caird preached a most stirring sermon. As he wound up one paragraph to an overwhelming climax, the whole congregation bent forward in eager and breathless silence. The medical students were under the general spell. Half rising from their seats they gazed at the preacher with open mouths. At length the burst was over, and a long sigh relieved the wrought-up multitude. The two students sank upon their seat, and looked at one another fixedly; and the first expressed his appreciation of the eloquence of what he had heard by exclaiming half aloud to his companion, "Damn it, that's it." The doctrine preached in Scotch pulpits is now almost invariably what is termed evangelical. For a long time, now long gone by, many of the clergy preached morality, with very inadequate views of Christian doctrine. We cannot but notice a misrepresentation of Dr. Hanna, in his Life of Chalmers. Without saying so, he leaves an impression that all the clergy of the Moderate or Conservative party in the Church held those semi-infidel views which Chalmers entertained in his early days. The case is by no means so. Very many ministers, not belonging to the movement party, held truly orthodox opinions, and did their pastoral work as faithfully as ever Chalmers did after his great change of sentiment. It is curious to know that while party feeling ran high in the Scotch Church, it was a shibboleth of the moderate party to use the Lord's Prayer in the Church service. The other party rejected that beautiful compendium of all supplication, on the ground that it was not a Christian prayer, no mention being made in it of the doctrine of the atonement. It is recorded that on one occasion a minister of what was termed the "High-flying" party was to preach for Dr. Gilchrist, of the Canongate Church in Edinburgh. That venerable clergyman told his friend before service that it was usual in the Canongate Church to make use of the Lord's Prayer at every celebration of worship. The friend looked somewhat disconcerted, and said, “Is it absolutely necessary that I should give the Lord's Prayer?" "Not at all," was Dr. Gilchrist's reply, "not at all, if you can give us any thing better !" Mr. Caird's sermon preached at Crathie has just been published by royal command. It is no secret that the Queen and Prince, after hearing it, read it in manuscript, and expressed themselves no less impressed in reading it by the soundness of its views, than they had been in listening to it by its extraordinary eloquence. Our perusal of it has strongly confirmed us in the views we have expressed as to the share which Mr. Caird's manner has in producing the effect with which his discourses tell upon any audience. The sermon is indeed an admirable one-accurate, and sometimes original in thought, illustrated with rare profusion of imagery, all in exquisite taste, and expressed in words scarcely one of which could be altered or displaced but for the worse. But Mr. Caird could not publish his voice and manner, and in wanting these, the sermon wants the first, second, and the wind." The preacher then speaks of the shifts by which men have evaded the task of being holy, at once in the church and in the world; in ancient times by flying from the world altogether, in modern times by making religion altogether a Sunday thing. In opposition to either notion, the text suggests: third things which conduced to its effect | alive in the open air in winter, or to keep the when delivered. In May, 1854, Mr. Caird lamp that burns steadily within doors from being preached this discourse in the High blown out if you take it abroad unsheltered from Church, Edinburgh, before the Commissioner, who represents her Majesty at the meetings of the General Assembly of the Scotch Church, and an exceedingly crowded and brilliant audience. Given there, with all the skill of the most accomplished actor, yet with a simple earnestness which prevented the least suspicion of any thing like acting, the impression it produced is described as something marvellous. Hardheaded Scotch lawyers, the last men in the world to be carried into superlatives, declared that never till then did they understand what effect could be produced by human speech. But we confess that now we have these magic words to read quietly at home, we find it something of a task to get through them. A volume just published by Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh, the greatest pulpit orator of the "Free Church," contains many sermons much more likely to interest a reader. The sermon is from the text, "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."* It sets out thus: "To combine business with religion, to keep up a spirit of serious piety amid the stir and distraction of a busy and active life, this is one of the most difficult parts of a Christian's trial in this world. It is comparatively easy to be religious in the church-to collect our thoughts and compose our feelings, and enter, with an appearance of propriety and decorum, into the offices of religious worship, amidst the quietude of the Sabbath, and within the still and sacred precincts of the house of prayer. But to be religious in the world-to be pious and holy and earnest-minded in the counting-room, the manufactory, the market place, the field, the farm-to carry our good and solemn thoughts and feelings into the throng and thoroughfare of daily life this is the great difficulty of our Christian calling. No man not lost to all moral influence can help feeling his worldly passions calmed, and some measure of seriousness stealing over his mind, when engaged in the performance of the more awful and serious rites of religion; but the atmosphere of the domestic circle, the exchange, the street, the city's throng, amidst coarse work and cankering cares and toils, is a very different atmosphere from that of a communion table. Passing from one to the other has often seemed as the sudden transition from a tropical to a polar climate-from balmy warmth and sunshine to murky mist and freezing cold. And it appears sometimes as difficult to maintain the strength and steadfastness of religious principle and feeling when we go forth from the church to the world, as it would be to preserve an exotic *Romans 12: 11. "That piety is not for Sundays only, but for all days; that spirituality of mind is not appropriate to one set of actions, and an impertinence and intrusion with reference to others; but like the act of breathing, like the circulation of the blood, like the silent growth of the stature, a process that may be going on simultaneously with all our idlest; in the church, in the world; in solitude, in society; in our grief and in our gladness; in our toil and in our rest; sleeping, waking; by day, by night; amidst all the engagements and exigencies of life." actions when we are busiest as when we are The burden of the discourse is to prove that this is so that religion is compatible with the business of common life. This appears, first, because religion as a science, sets out doctrines easy to be understood by the humblest intellects; and as an art, sets out duties which may be practised simultaneously with all other work. It is the art of being and of doing good: and for this art every profession and calling affords scope and discipline. "When a child is learning to write, it matters not of what words the copy set to him is composed, the thing desired being that, whatever he writes, he learns to write well. When a man is learning to be a Christian, it matters not what his particular work in life may be, the work he does is but the copy-line set to him; the main thing to be considered is that he learn to live well." The second consideration by which Mr. Caird supports his thesis is, that religion consists not so much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from "A man a sacred or spiritual motive. may be a Christian thinker and writer as much when giving to science, or history, or biography or poetry a Christian tone and spirit, as when composing sermons or writing hymns.' The third and most eloquent division of the discourse illustrates the thesis from the Mind's Power of acting on Latent Principles. Though we cannot in our worldly work be always consciously think "Like a secret atmosphere it surrounds and bathes his spirit as it goes on with the external work. And have not you, too, my friends, an Auditor-it may be, a 'great cloud of witnesses'but at least one all-glorious Witness and Listener ever present, ever watchful as the discourse of life proceeds? Why, then, in this case, too, while the outward business is diligently prosecuted, may there not be on your spirit a latent and constant impression of that awful inspection? What worldly work so absorbing as to leave no room in a believer's spirit for the hallowing thought of that glorious Presence ever near?" ing of religion, yet unconsciously, insensi- | earthly rest or relaxation, what the release from bly, we may be acting under its ever-pres- toil after which we so often sigh, but the faint ent control. For example, the preacher, shadow of the saint's everlasting rest, the rest of amidst all his mental exertions, has under- the soul in God! What visions of earthly bliss can ever, if our Christian faith be not a form, comneath the outward workings of his mind, pare with the glory soon to be revealed'? What the latent thought of the presence of his glory of earthly reunion with the rapture of that auditory. hour when the heavens shall yield an absent Lord to our embrace, to be parted from us no more for ever? And if all this be most sober truth, what is there to except this joyful hope from that law to which, in all other deep joys, our minds are subject? Why may we not, in this case too, think often, amidst our worldly work, of the house to which we are going, of the true and loving heart that beats for us, and of the sweet and joyous welcome that awaits us there? And even when we make them not, of set purpose, the subject of our thoughts, is there not enough of grandeur in the objects of a believer's hope to pervade his spirit at all times with a calm and reverential joy? Do not think all this strange, fanatical, impossible. If it do seem so, it can only be because your heart is in the earthly, but not in the higher and holier hopes. No, my friends! the strange thing is, not that amidst the world's work we should be able to think of our house, but that we should ever be able to forget it; and the stranger, sadder still, that while the little day of stage more rapid than the last; while to many the life is passing-morning, noontide, evening-each shadows are already fast lengthening, and the declining sun warns them that the night is at hand, wherein no man can work,' there should be those amongst us whose whole thoughts are absorbed in the business of the world, and to whom the reflection never occurs, that soon they must go out into eternity, without a friend, without a home! We shall give but one extract more, the final illustration of this third head of discourse. It is a very good specimen of one of those exciting and irresistible bursts by which Caird sweeps away his audience. Imagine the following sentences given at first quietly, but with great feeling, gradually waxing in energy and rapidity; and at length, amid dead stillness and hushed breaths, concluded as with a torrent's rush: The discourse thus ends, in orthodox Scotch fashion, with a practical conclusion. criticism. Some passages which were very "Or, have we not all felt that the thought of anticipated happiness may blend itself with the work of our busiest hours? The laborer's coming release from toil, the schoolboy's coming holiday, or the hard-wrought business man's approaching season of relaxation-the expected return of a long absent and much loved friend-is not the thought We think it not unlikely that the serof these or similar joyous events, one which often mon has been toned down a good deal beintermingles with, without interrupting, our com-fore publication, in anticipation of severe mon work? When a father goes forth to his 'labor till the evening,' perhaps often, very often, in the thick of his toils, the thought of home may start up to cheer him. The smile that is to welcome him, as he crosses his lowly threshold when the work of the day is over, the glad faces and merry voices, and sweet caresses of the little ones, as they shall gather round him in the quiet evening hours, the thought of all this may dwell, a latent joy, a hidden motive, deep down in his heart of hearts, may come rushing in a sweet solace at every pause of exertion, and act like a secret oil to smooth the wheels of labor. The heart has a secret treasury, where our hopes and joys are often garnered, too precious to be parted with even for a moment. And why may not the highest of all hopes and joys possess the same all-pervading influence? Have we, if our religion is real, no anticipation of happiness in the glorious future? Is there no rest that remaineth for the people of God'-no home and loving heart awaiting us when the toils of our hurried day of life are ended? What is effective when delivered, have probably been modified so as to bring them more thoroughly within the limits of severe good taste. Mr. Caird need not have feared hostile criticism from us. We most cheerfully acknowledge merit, even when found in a clergyman whose ordination has no more dignified source than " the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." We think Mr. Caird has deserved the honors done him by royalty; and we willingly accord him his meed, as a man of no small force of intellect, of great power of illustration by happy analogies, of sincere piety, and of much earnestness to do good. He is still young-we believe considerably under forty-and much may be expected of him. |