Preaching
The power of finding the present in the past in the pages of the Bible is a great power, and is the source of much interest and originality in preaching. The absence of it makes Biblical exposition very wearisome. Some preachers would almost seem to count it a merit to spend their whole time on the Hebrew soil, or among the Hebrew people, as if their whole object were to reproduce a scene two thousand years old. This is little better . than a piece of dry antiquarianism. The real object is to illuminate the present by the lights of the past, and in some measure the past by the lights of the present. It is a power which may be given to some as an intuition, but, in the case of most, needs to be most diligently culti- vated. It depends much on sympathy, — one of the chiefest of a true preacher's qualities. By means of sympathy he will read his Bible with and for his people, and see, as he reads, what will meet their wants. His people will never be far from his mind, and by his sym- ...