the energies of a dozen energetic amateurs for the next decade. Let any such provide themselves with Dr. Wright's "Ice Age," President Chamberlin's papers in the "Reports of the United States Geological Survey," and any special report that may have been made upon the district or state in which they reside, and they will possess the literature needful to start them upon original investigations.

ARTICLE VII.

THE USE OF MOTIVES IN PREACHING.

BY THE REV. professor E. 1. BOSWORTH, OBERLIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

THE great problem which confronts the preacher is how to make bad men good and good men better. He looks out over his pulpit and sees before him human beings in a certain frame of mind, with certain beliefs and controlling purposes. He desires to produce in these human beings. a certain other frame of mind with different beliefs and purposes. The query is, How shall the change be secured? It is to the study of this question that his life is devoted.

It seems evident that the pastor who would be successful in prosecuting this study must have a reasonably clear conception of three things: (1) The existing state of his parishioner's mind and heart in each case. This is not the work of a moment. It sometimes requires months or years to get possession of the previous connections and family history which indicate the real attitude of the man whose case is under consideration. (2) The state of mind and heart required. There must be nothing hazy in the pastor's conception of what it is to be a Christian. (3) The means to be employed in securing the passage from the given to the required moral state. These statements seem to be almost truisms, but there are many things in the machinery of modern church organization which tend to obscure them. It is to the last of these three that special attention will be given in this article—the means to be employed in producing changes in moral character.

We suppose moral character to consist in choices and the result of these choices upon the entire personality.

The only way to influence choices is to present motives; so that this part of the preacher's study consists in a consideration of what motives are best adapted to produce a desired choice, and the best method of presenting them. It is, of course, understood that this conception of character as being influenced by the human presentation of motives, in no sense eliminates the work of the Holy Spirit. No presentation of truth moves the unregenerate heart to right choices without his influence; but he has chosen to respect the nature of the human mind, and work upon it through motives. Upon some proper knowledge of motives and how to use them depends the preacher's ability to co-operate with the Spirit of God.

Perhaps there is sometimes a tendency to underestimate the importance of a skilful use of motives in influencing human conduct, and to displace it by vigorous, direct exhortation. When a shrewd man desires to influence men to action he first presents a motive, and waits for it to accomplish its result. If it fails, he tries another; and if he finds no motive which will lead to the desired choice, he spends very little time in direct exhortation. The proper place for eloquence, illustration, and ingenious rhetorical expression seems to be in the presentation of motives, rather than direct appeal. A study of the Pentecostal sermon reveals the fact that the excited outburst from the audience, "Men and Brethren, what shall we do?" was the result of a vigorous, skilful presentation of motives; and it was not until the motives had begun to produce their legitimate result, that the preacher exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." Since, then, so much depends upon a skilful use of motives, how shall the preacher determine what motives to use? Doubtless there are various sources of information such as a careful study of the motives in view of which he finds himself acting or a close observation of his fellowmen in history and everyday life. There is, however, one pre-eminently conspicuous source which will give direc

tion to the farther thought of this article. It is the word of God. Here God himself solves the great problem which confronts every one of his preachers. He has before him a world made up of unregenerate hearts and imperfectly developed Christian characters. He desires to produce a different moral state and in his word we find him using just the motives which are best calculated to produce the change. He made the heart of man and he knows just what motives to employ in order to produce in it desired results.

What motives does the divine Intelligence bring to bear upon the unregenerate man?

In the first place, the Bible presents constantly a line of truth which is to be intellectually apprehended. It teaches that all men are sinners; that they are so fixed in sin that they will not quit it without the persuasive influences of the Holy Spirit; that all sinners are condemned to everlasting punishment; that the Son of God came into the world, lived, died, rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God; that because of this life and death and resurrection, any sinner who exercises faith in Jesus Christ will be saved, adopted into the family of God, and be sanctified through the Spirit and word of God. With this system of great facts to be intellectually apprehended, the Scripture appeals to the reason of men. The great sermons of Acts are distinctively doctrinal sermons and reiterate constantly the one line of doctrine which filled the mind of the early church. He who would move men to the desired choice must get a firm grip on these great doctrines of Scripture and be able to teach them to others out of his own experience as well as out of the Book.

The preacher who contents himself, however, with a cold, dry statement of these truths, appealing simply to the intellect, will find his people apathetic and will fail to solve the problem which the great Master has set before him. He must in some way make men feel these truths. Here again the skill of the inspired writers is conspicu

ous. These great facts which are simply objective motives, they so state and restate in parable and illustration as to arouse emotions which shall be subjective motives resulting in the desired moral action.

What are the emotions which the Scripture seeks to arouse by the use of these great doctrinal truths? In the first place, it presents certain of them in such a way as to arouse the fears of the human heart. There is a certain false sentimentality abroad which deprecates any effort to make men act from a sense of fear. Fear is supposed to be a low motive and to have no large place among the antecedents of that choice which constitutes virtuous character. We may induce men to hope; we may appeal to their desires for the glorious and the noble but we must not let them be moved out of their present position by the fear of disastrous consequences which may result from remaining in it. The inspired writers do not seem to share this sentiment but appeal very freely to the fears of men as motives to right action. They seem to produce this fear in two ways,-by the charge of specific sins, and by a vivid portrayal of the punishment of sin.

This is conspicuously evident in the preaching of that great mover of men, John the Baptist. He has his immense, heterogeneous audience before him in the Jordan valley. He apprehends clearly the action he desires. every man in it to take. He wants each man of them to repent. In order to produce this result he strikes squarely at the actual prevailing sins of the different classes of his audience. There is the haughty, self-righteous Pharisee trusting in his Abrahamic descent for salvation but without any of Abraham's righteous faith. The preacher's words startle him. "Begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father; for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." He sees a group of dishonest, unscrupulous tax-collectors and says to them, "Extort no more than is appointed you." The brutal, mutinous sol