PULPIT.-The Power of the

The pulpit, although abused and vilified, possesses immense power, because it is honoured, and influenced, and swayed by the Almighty. The sword has had great power it has influenced many; it has banished kings from their thrones, and raised, in their stead, beggars from the dunghill; and it has also spread woe, and terror, and desolation through a land. Tyranny has had a mighty sway over the destinies of men. Superstition has chilled with fear thousands of the human race; she has frozen the genial current of the soul. But the pulpit is possessed of a far more gigantic influence, when it is influenced by the love of Christ.-Douglas.

PULPIT.-The Pre-Eminence of the

The pulpit is a place worthy of the highest talent and the holiest piety—it is a place fit even for an angel's intellect and a seraph's fire.-Dr. Guthrie.

The pulpit can never be superseded. It is pre-eminently Heaven's instru mentality in operating on men's minds and hearts; and so it will continue to be. By this the battles of the Lord must be fought, darkness and error driven back, and the "kingdom not of this world" extended.-T. Pearson.

PULPIT.-Preparation for the

I study and prepare for the pulpit as if there were no Holy Ghost to help me there, and when I enter upon my public work, I cast my preparation at the feet of Jesus Christ, depending upon divine influence as much as if I had not premeditated.-Longden.

PULPIT.-The Purpose of the

Essentially it is, and ever has been, a popular, not a scientific instrument. It belongs to the "congregation" rather than to the "schools," addresses itself to the indiscriminate many rather than to the select few. Its sphere is life, not speculation; religion, not theology. Its business is not to solve problems, but to stir and quicken souls; and it does so not by the development of a philosophy, but by the delivery of a message. What it was in the days of Paul, such is it essentially still the proclaiming of certain great facts concerning human sin and the divine remedy, which require not so much to be proved as to be manifested, and which, when so manifested, are themselves their own witness: and so its speech and its preaching are not with excellency of speech or man's wisdom, but by manifestation of the truth commending itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. In one way, indeed, it deals, and often effectually deals, with speculative problems too; but it deals with them not speculatively, but practically. It relieves the pressure of intellectual difficulties not so much by solving them, as by superseding them; by placing the soul on such a sure vantage-ground of tried and experienced truth, that it can quietly and patiently await the solu tion of still outstanding questions, imparting to it such an assured sense of the reality of the divine, as that it may well meanwhile meekly endure its mystery.— Dr. Burns.

PULPIT.-Religion's Influence on the

Wherever religion is a matter of course, the pulpit must be conventional and formal. It lacks the high powers of rebuke and persuasion, the main elements

of the noblest and most effective pulpit oratory. When practical religious life is reduced to a system and becomes a routine, according to a natural law, the pulpit is shorn of its reasons for animated appeals and deep spiritual convictions. Its voice then becomes a measured song, and its power is simply intellectual and aesthetic.-Dr. Lord.

PULPIT.-Spiritual Force in the

We want a spiritual force exercised in the pulpit which shall be correspondent to bodily force in its efficient energy, its promptness, power, and variety. But look yonder! See that fragment of broken glass! It throws up in our faces a solar glory. Now, shall that fragment have a glory for the beholder,-shall it witness of the sun and make his power known, and shall you and I, poor fragments of humanity though we be, never have a light in our speech and upon our faces that witnesses of God that He is great and good? If a man have a soul that never brightens in heavenly light, let him not be a preacher; and if preach he will, let all men bid him come down. He is a mere pinnacle of darkness, and the chill shadow of death lies around him.-Lynch.

PULPIT.-Themes for the

From the pulpit there should now and ever flow a pure river of water of life clear as crystal. The grand doctrine of justification by faith only should be uplifted as a beacon on a thousand hills. Hearers should be distinctly taught our grand verities:-the Father's eternal love-the terms of the unfailing Covenant-the Son's perfect and finished work-the Spirit's indwelling-the beauty and simplicity and purport of our Sacraments-the evidence of faith-the might of prayer-the delight of praise-the labour of love-the patience of hope-the loveliness of purity-the high walk of uprightness-the solemnity of worshipthe happiness of godly life. Where such faithful teaching abounds there is no room for fear. Them that honour God, God will honour. Holy lips may shout in the courts of our Church-" God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early."-Dean Law.

PULPITS. Varieties of

What varieties there are! You have possibly seen pulpits of all degrees, from the huge erection piled up against a pillar in the nave of a great foreign Cathedral, down to the rickety box of deal stuck against the wall of a little country Church, unpainted, undraped, and worm-eaten. Then there are pulpits of wood and of stone, the latter sometimes of one block of freestone, gracefully carved over its surface; sometimes of marble, a costly piece of inlaid work,-sometimes resting on a clustered shaft of porphyry or granite, and displaying panels enriched with figures in high relief. Sometimes those stone pulpits are warmly padded inside with crimson cloth; sometimes they are cold white marble within, unrelieved by a vestige of drapery, very chilling to look at, and to preach from.-Dr. Boyd.

PUNCTUAL.-Not Easy to be

It may seem an easy thing to be punctual, but it is not so. It does not come to us naturally. No habits of order do. Hence, punctuality is something we have all to learn; and of every profession-of all work,-it is one of the first lessons.-Professor Tullock.

PUNCTUALITY.—Clerical

I much wish you to acquire a habit of punctuality with respect to time, as the want of this is very inconvenient in the person who fails, and gives trouble to others. If you follow my example, you will find the advantage long before you are as old as I am. I began to aim at this almost fifty years ago, and I have seldom, if ever, been five minutes behind my time, unless unavoidably prevented, for nearly fifty years past.-J. Newton.

QUESTIONS.-The Accumulation of

Q.

One object of life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eternity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philosopher, and the divine; none can tell: but we will open our series to other respondents,—we will ask angels, God!—Foster.

QUESTIONS.—Unanswerable

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can, in this state, receive no answer :-Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? And since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?—Dr. Johnson.

QUESTIONS.-Vain

Some have a great deal more desire to learn where hell is, than to know how they may escape it; to hear what God did purpose before the world began, rather than to learn what He will do when the world is ended; to understand whether they shall know one another in heaven, than to know whether they belong to heaven.-H. Smith.

QUOTATION from the Scriptures.

We may quote Scriptures to those senses which they can well serve in a question, and in which they are used by learned men, though we suppose the principal intention be of a different thing, so it be not contrary. For all learned men know that in Scripture many sayings are full of potential significations besides what are on the face of the words, or in the heart of the design; and therefore, although we may not allege Scripture in a sense contrary to what we believe it meant, yet to anything besides its first meaning we may, if the analogy will bear it.-Bishop Taylor.

QUOTATIONS.—Christ's

Our Lord makes quotations from, or direct reference to passages in, twentytwo out of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. In Matthew, He quotes nearly one hundred passages from nineteen books; in Mark, fifteen passages from thirteen books; in Luke, twenty-five passages from thirteen books; in John, eleven passages from six books. If we may make such comparisons, we may say that Deuteronomy and Isaiah were His favourite books. In Matthew alone, there are eighteen references to Deuteronomy, and three in the other Gospels; to Isaiah, there are twenty in all; to the Psalms, there are sixteen; to Daniel, fourteen; to Exodus, fourteen; to Leviticus, thirteen. In the eighty-nine chapters of the four Gospels are one hundred and forty direct allusions to specific passages of the Jewish Scriptures. Our Lord never makes a single quotation

from the Apocryphal books, nor can we gather that He had ever read them. It is remarkable that His quotations are much more literally from the Septuagint than those of the Evangelists, when they quote for themselves, or of the Apostles, as found in the Acts and the Epistles.-J. C. Gray.

QUOTATIONS-in a Sermon.

These jewels of eloquence, taken from the cabinet works of some "master in Israel," when introduced into a sermon in a fitting place, not only reveal their own superlative beauties, but they impart not a little of them to the material in which they are set.-Dr. Davies.

READER.-An Incessant but Imperfect

R.

He who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself,

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys

As children gathering pebbles on the shore.-Milton.

READER.-A Judicious

The man who reads for profit "marks, learns, and inwardly digests" what he finds. He examines the particular view of his author, his arrangement, and his arguments and illustrations, and particularly what are the qualities predominant in his author. His keen and steady eye suffers nothing to escape him: he would rather read a little upon this plan, than reckon the value of his studies by the quantity of pages he has perused. Like the bee, he rests long enough upon each flower to extract its virtues. He marks particular parts with his pencil, or makes some extracts to throw into his common-place book, or notes in the margin of his Bible what book to refer to on particular passages, the volume and the page. In the course of time the broad margin of his Bible becomes a little treasury.— Dr. Sturtevant.

READING.-Advice on

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.-Lord Bacon.

READING-Defined.

The key of knowledge.-Lytton.

READING.-Desultory

Desultory reading is indeed very mischievous, by fostering habits of loose, discontinuous thought, by turning the memory into a common sewer for rubbish of all sorts to float through, and by relaxing the power of attention, which of all our faculties needs most care, and is most improved by it. On the other hand, a well-regulated course of study will no more weaken the body, nor will a strong understanding be weighed down by its knowledge, any more than an oak is by its leaves, or than Samson was by his locks. He whose sinews are drained by his hair must already be a weakling.-Archdeacon Hare.

READING. The Effects of

It is most curious to watch a person in reading an exciting narrative or some stirring appeal, and to see how these dead letters lord it over every inward faculty. At this black spot of printer's ink they weep, at another they laugh, at another they are angry. This line touches one feeling, that line another, and line after line they reach in, and, like the fingers of a musician, touch the chords and bring forth all the soul's activity.-H. W. Beecher.

READING-Enjoined.

Take care constantly to keep replenished your well of information. Let it never run near the bottom; for then you are sure to give your people muddy instead of clear water.-Archdeacon Evans.

READING.-Insufficient

How few read enough to stock their minds! And the mind is no widow's cruse, which fills with knowledge as fast as we empty it. Why should a clergyman labour less than a barrister, since, in spiritual things as well as temporal, it is "the hand of the diligent that maketh rich?" Does the conscience, in fact, never whisper upon any topic in theology-" Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?"-E. Bickersteth.

READING.-Public

In public reading, the accentuation, emphasis, tone, modulation, are certainly to be regarded, yet in a temperate manner only. Action with the hands, so suitable for oratory, must, in reading the Scriptures, be dispensed with, except gently laying the hand on the book to give a little increased effect to an emphasis. The animated passions cannot be admitted in this kind of reading; but there should be a feeling of reverence and veneration engaged in the exercise, because the subject is the Word of God; and this respectful feeling will give a suitable seriousness to the countenance.-Dr. Sturtevant.

READING.-Purposeless

Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from one book on which the thought settles for a definite end in knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king's garden none to the butterfly.-Lytton.

READING.-Questions when

An inquiring spirit is not a presumptuous one, but the very contrary. He whose whole recorded life was intended to be our perfect example is described as gaining instruction in the Temple by hearing and asking questions: the one is almost useless without the other. We should ask questions of our book and of ourselves; what is its purpose; by what means it proceeds to effect that purpose; whether we fully understand the one, and go along with the other? Do the arguments satisfy us; do the descriptions convey lively and distinct images to us; do we understand all the allusions to persons or things? In short, does our mind act over again from the writer's guidance what his acted before; do we reason as he reasoned, conceive as he conceived, think and feel as he thought and felt; or, if not, can we discern where and how far we do not, and can we tell why we do not?-Dr. Arnold.