Fine Preaching

The curse of the age is fine preaching; it is morbid and pestilential. The want of the age is plain, intelligent preaching,—preaching suggestive and illustrative,—preaching absorbing all that eloquence can offer, bat eloquence adapting itself (without which it ceases to be eloquence) to the wants and states of the people, availing itself of the lights of history for illustration, or of science for confirmation, or of philology for elucidation, and holding all so aloft that they may reflect their rays upon the genius of Christianity, and develop its superior lustre, adaptability, and power. To attempt to say fine things in the pulpit is a solemn sin; and fine sermons (like all other finery) are very evanescent in their influence. Let the finesermon system die out as soon as possible, useless as it is to God and man. It devolves upon a few men to show to those not gifted with so much moral courage, that there is everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by the adoption of a more honest system of instruction. Intelligence will ever hie away to the man able to teach.