shall be accomplished? Can you do better than study minutely the character of the Great Teacher himself, and also listen to those who are most efficient in promoting the extension of His Kingdom in the earth?

William Taylor, the Californian Methodist preacher, who has given great proof of his ministry in America, Africa, and India, as well as in this country, gives the following as the necessary elements of pulpit power:

First: Clearness.-Clearness of perception, and hence clearness of statement, illustration, and application.

Second: Earnestness.-Earnestness of thought and feeling burdening and thrilling the soul of the preacher.

Third: Naturalness.-Naturalness embracing posture, tones of voice, and everything pertaining to the delivery of the tidings of mercy to the souls of men.

Fourth: Literalness.-Literal facts demonstrating the truth and power of the Gospel; and literal figures from real life illustrating the grand principles of the Gospel.

Fifth: Appropriateness.-A wise selection and adaptation of truth to the various conditions of the hearers.

These, you will readily admit, are very useful suggestions. Permit us to add the following:

To possess power in the pulpit the grand instrument to be employed is the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ-not science, philosophy, metaphysics. These may serve to illustrate the grandeur of your theme, but in your ministry Christ must be all in all.

In addition to this your eye must be single to the glory of God. This single eye will make you forgetful of self, regardless of human applause. Like the Apostles, you will feel you must rather obey God than man, and this will give you a power the world cannot gainsay. Whitfield was a striking example of this. 'I eat and drink but little,' he said, ' yet am I continually employed for God from morning until midnight, and my strength is daily renewed. I long to do something for my Saviour. Had I a thousand lives, He should have them all.' This ruling passion was strong in death. When seized with fatal sickness and submitting to medical advice, he suddenly cried out, "Doctor, my pains are suspended. I will go and preach, and then come home and die.' He went, and said, 'I preached as a dying man to dying men. The eternal realities of another world lay open to my view, expecting to enter eternity and be with my Master before the

morning. I spoke with peculiar energy, and such were the effects which followed the Word that it was worth dying for a thousand times.' Another element of pulpit power is melting compassion for souls. One of old says he was willing to be torn to pieces if he could but persuade sinners to listen, repent, believe, and be saved. Another says he should feel amply rewarded if he were the means of winning one soul to Christ. Henry Martyn, when prodigal of life itself, upbraids himself for doing so little. Whitfield was full of this melting pity for souls when it impelled him to go into the Fair at Moorfields among the showmen and mountebanks. He says, 'I was singing, praying, and preaching for three hours. I received notes from about one thousand persons who were under conviction. I retired to the Tabernacle. Large crowds followed, and I received 300 into society.' John Smith, the Wesleyan Minister, prayed, 'Give me souls, or I die.' To read the lives of such devoted men, to meditate upon the value of the neverdying soul, to dwell upon the tears, compassion, and sufferings of Christ must surely fill your heart with tenderness.

Further, we remark, to be powerful in the pulpit, you must feel in your own heart the power of that truth you proclaim to others. Such a strong perception of truth was said by Luther to be like the opening of the gates of Paradise. We have read of a minister who said on the bed of death, O, if I had but had the same views of truth and of the eternal world as I have now, what a different preacher should I have been.' President Edwards says he felt the truth he preached to others to be spirit and life, to be life-giving to his own soul. An American preacher says that he felt truth to be a revelation. It thrilled his very being, and a glorious revival was the result. Such a deep sense of truth will make you come forth in the pulpit like an angel of light, preaching the everlasting Gospel to the inhabitants of the earth. These were the views of Baxter, who asks indignantly, Shall we preach a living Gospel in a lifeless manner?' These were the views of Augustine, who said he was never satisfied with a discourse unless it brought himself and his hearers to tears. Such is the example of the Great Teacher, who mingled his discourses and even the hosannas of the people with tears. You deliver truth as if it were fiction,' said a great actor to a great preacher, we deliver fiction as if it were truth." Let, then, the great and solemn truths delivered by the Christian ministry be but deeply felt, and you will be likely to induce the people to believe the message given and believe in the sincerity of him who delivers it.

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We mention one element more of pulpit power, namely, dependence upon the Holy Spirit. This is as needful in the ministrations of the pulpit as it is in preparation for it. However excellent your composition, however eloquent your delivery, however sonorous or musical your voice, however graceful your action, however convincing your arguments, however admired your discourses, let your dependence be upon the Holy Spirit. Let the truth never be for a moment lost sight of, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.'

5. If you would be a truly rising minister, you must pay everincreasing attention to pastoral visitation, the religious instruction of the young, and evangelistic efforts.

One point of pastoral work we would specially mention is the quarterly visitation of the classes. We fear many, both old and young, ministers are negligent here. We very much admire the persistence and constancy of our Wesleyan friends on this subject. We remember the precious seasons we enjoyed even among ourselves in our early days at these quarterly pastoral visitations. We cannot, we believe, too strongly urge the pastoral visitation of members in their affliction. Tell me,' said a minister when entering a new circuit, if any of the members are sick, and I will visit them.' A woman called upon him one day to inform him (as he had requested) that one of the dear flock was ill, and required his pastoral care. He allowed the thing to pass unattended to. Some time after he enquired how the sick member was getting on, when he was told she had been in heaven for several weeks. What a gentle reproof for his negligence.

We would urge the importance of giving untiring and well-directed attention to the young. Let your Sabbath afternoons, when not otherwise engaged, be given to the Sabbath-school. Seek with all your hearts the enlightenment and conversion of children in early life. You are, no doubt, aware that many who have been eminent for piety and usefulness were saved in early life.

To these duties add increased efficiency in evangelistic work, including open-air preaching and visiting from house to house. By this visitation the rise and progress of our Connexion was greatly promoted You will gather from such visitations materials for your sermons that no books could supply. Never was there a time when evangelistic work was more needed than now.

In conclusion, what shall we more say to you, the rising ministry of our denomination? We have great hopes of you. You commence the

work where we have to leave off; you seize the colours of the regiment when we have to lay them down. We bespeak for you a magnificent future. Are you resolved to be a rising ministry in every sense of the word--in intellectual worth, in largeness of heart, in breadth of kind and generous sympathies with all other sections of the Christian Church, in general efficiency both in the pulpit, the school, the class-room, the family, and the open-air? Will you rise in holy enthusiasm to do even greater things than your fathers have done? Shall the Connexion rise in your hands more gloriously than ever in the past? Will you, like the immortal Carey, attempt great things for God and expect great things from God? Then we may safely predict that you shall see of the travail of your Redeemer's soul, and He shall be satisfied; 'He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands.'

JESSE ASHWORTH.

X.-THE MYSTERIES OF CHRISTIANITY.

Ir is not at all unlikely, and, therefore, ought not to be a marvel, that the plan of salvation and the whole structure of the Christian system should be mysterious. The entire range of our knowledge embraces little or nothing but facts. What do we know of the real essence or nature of things? We know them as facts only; their essence is a mystery. The substances in nature, as gold, silver, iron, brass, wood, stone; the atmosphere in which we breathe, water, æriform fluids, as gases, &c., are things in certain forms, conditions, colours, and of certain specific gravities, and to which names have been given that they may be distinguished one from another as so many facts-so many things that are. But if we ask, What are they? we can only answer, We do not know. We denote them by their names, which serve to convey the ideas of distinction and quality that attach to them.

We are in a universe of mysteries. We live under a burden of mysteries, and gaze around on numberless mysteries. We are mysteries to ourselves. Our very existence is a mystery. We cannot explain it, though we are the subjects of it. And yet we know something about the mystery of being, of which we are conscious, and the facts which we apprehend. Though my own existence is a mystery, yet I know I exist. My existence needs no proving, because it is a subject of my consciousness. I am conscious of it, and, therefore, cannot doubt it. I know I am a conscious, personal existence.

Still, life is a mystery, though we are conscious that we live, and are convinced that other beings live. If asked, What is life? we must each say, I cannot tell. I cannot tell. It is a mystery. But, notwithstanding, we receive the fact that life is. The lovely flower there has grown from a tiny seed dropped into the earth. Its petals are of a certain shape and of variegated hues, while its beauty and odour regale the senses. How is it that this beautiful, fragrant thing has come from that little deposited seed? We know not. It's a mystery. So we might go on ad infinitum with illustrations from unnumbered facts, presented to our cognisance through nature's broad domain. We see wires stretched on poles for hundreds of miles. Their ends are fastened to a trough called a galvanic trough. That trough contains sulphuric acid and water, copper and zinc. Such wires now connect distant cities and