But the preacher does not evolve truth primarily for the sake of selfexpression; he is not thus a creator, in the sense of the poet or painter with brush or pen. In one word, the evangelical preacher is to portray the truth as it is in Jesus; indeed, he is the medium through whom the truth of God is to be conveyed to the souls of men. Water is often colored by the soil over which it flows, and takes a peculiar flavor from the rock from which it springs. So the truth of God is colored by the taste and temperament of the preacher. This may or may not be the artistic temperament; for God uses all temperaments. Are we not constantly called upon to account for the moving power and success of preachers in high and low places who are lacking in "the elements of the successful writer of fiction," who have little invention, are unimaginative, undramatic, and by no means creative?

And the problem still remains unsolved on the side of art. Art has its meaning and message, speaking with nature, "its inseparable ally," says Ruskin, "a varied language." The preacher is in conscious experience and aim the messenger of the Eternal. He is an evayyehɩorns, a bringer of good tidings. To him God has given a message-one containing many, if you will-to a languishing world. Back of it is a tragedy and a triumph, that of the cross. Careful for the nice balancing of the parallel, our author says: "The scientist and historian may be said to speak of particular facts; the preacher and novelist, of general human facts." Let the preacher move a little away from the novelist and up nearer the cross, for on that cross is the divine-human fact of history, of whom even Renan, in an unwonted rapture, exclaimed, "Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed; his worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears without end." Here is the great center of attraction, the world's unfading charm. But the writer says, "The preacher and the novelist must charm while they instruct, or their work is futile." John Wesley did not charm much when they dragged him by the hair of his head through the streets; he could say with Paul, "This one thing I do," and he did it well. We cannot find where it is any part of the preacher's business to charm. One says, "If I be lifted up from the earth [I] will draw all men unto me." The preacher is to lift up Christ, the One "altogether lovely."

but

Finally, while the study of the "masters of fiction" is a delightful one, and helps in the cultivation of one's own invention and imagination, we cannot think that a preacher should peruse the great novelists to learn the need "of infusing a vital human interest throughout his sermons;" but rather, as the conscientious novelist goes to nature for his subjects, and studies them there, seeking to enter into their life with all their environments, so the preacher should study those over whom God has made him overseer. By so doing he may not catch "the secret of the successful novelist's art," but he will catch the secret of that art which is peculiarly his own-the art of catching men, that is, of saving them.

Thus we have one element in preaching that widely differentiates

it as an art from every other form of art—the element of persuasion. The preacher must not merely "charm," or his work may indeed be "futile; " but he must also, by "the terror of the Lord," "persuade men.”

We cannot more fittingly close this paper than by a quotation from that ardent lover of the good, the true, and the beautiful, John Ruskin. He is speaking of pulpit ornamentation: "If once we begin to regard the preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent with a message to us, which is a matter of life or death, whether we hear or refuse; . . . we shall look with changed eyes upon that frippery of gay furniture about the place from which the message of judgment must be delivered, which either breathes upon the dry bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of oratory in the mouth of the messenger; we shall wish that his words may be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people have gathered in their thirst." JETHRO B. COLEMAN. Quakertown, Pa.

IS CALVINISM DEAD?

A BOSTON minister affirms that "the chief doctrines taught by the great Genevan reformer are no longer held by any body of believers except in a formal way." Replying in the New York Observer, the Rev. Dr. Joseph D. Burrell, of Brooklyn, contends that "in all essential principles Calvinism is as much a living force now as at any time in the past." He admits that "ministers no longer preach the doctrine of reprobation and infant damnation; " but he claims that "the sovereign grace of God is the presumption of every sermon." However, instead of attempting to disprove the affirmation of the Boston minister he calls to his aid President Roswell D. Hitchcock, who says, "As long as there are thinkers men will be Calvinists." Yet it would seem that on the principle of charity the great educator would admit that there were just a few Arminians who possess the ability to think.

Dr. Burrell summons to his aid, also, such great thinkers as Huxley, Spencer, and John Fiske, whose philosophies of the world and of life in terms of science tend to confirm the Calvinistic conceptions of human destiny. Skeptical schools of philosophy, ancient as well as modern, have taught the doctrine of necessity in human conduct.

Two questions will always occasion controversy and unlike conclusions: (1) Is the destiny of moral beings determined before their birth, without reference to their conduct? (2) Are human actions the result of laws as fixed as those which govern the movement of the spheres ?

The poetic conception is that while the laws of matter are fixed, "bound fast in fate,” human conduct is the result of a personal volition. If John Calvin had enjoyed good health perhaps he would have possessed

the poetic conception. Under the old dispensation Jehovah inquired, "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" Would such a Being ask such a question if the agent was under the force of necessity? And in the Gospel age we are assured that God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Thus we see the attitude of the Supreme will is in the interest of human redemption. This zealous Calvinist has certainly failed to write down the statement made by the Boston minister, and without producing a single fact to confirm what he claimed he closes by stating that “what is needed is a readjustment of the truths stated in the past, and an interpretation in the thought of to-day." He assures us, "That is a giant task, which may well challenge and inspire some of our younger theologians." Who will come to the rescue ?

It is an evident fact that if there are Calvinists now living they do not preach Calvinism. Mr. Spurgeon manifested the courage of his convictions, but when he closed his famous discourses he ceased to be a Calvinist and became an Arminian. Within a year the writer heard twelve representative Presbyterian ministers of New York and Brooklyn preach in connection with the founding of a new church, and not one of them made a statement that would indicate they believed in the peculiar ideas of the Genevan reformer.

The incarnate Son of God did not represent the Supreme Being as possessed of an absolute will, but manifested him as a Father, equally interested in each of his offspring. C. W. LYON.

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, N. Y.

TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

IN the "Arena" of March-April Review T. M. Griffith, in discoursing on the atonement, said, "As to man's total depravity, it is nonexistent, save in the imagination of the most cast-iron Calvinist, . . . and is nowhere taught in the Scriptures." It is taught, at least by implication, on almost every page of the Scriptures. Wesley, Clarke, Watson, and Fletcher, who at least formulated Methodist theology, so understood, and declared the Bible to teach total depravity. Fletcher's Appeal to a Matter of Fact and Common Sense is an unanswerable argument for "total depravity," and he was not a cast-iron Calvinist either.

There is no doctrine in the Bible that was preached with more earnestness by our Lord and his apostles than conversion or regeneration. Man is not to reform himself, but is to be possessed consciously of a spiritual work in his soul that the divine Being alone can do. Some intelligible cause must exist in man's nature to require such a radical work. There is a necessity for being "born again." That necessity is in total depravity, and in nothing else. JASON YOUNG.

Van Wert, O.

31-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XIV.

THE ITINERANTS' CLUB.

CONSTANCY VERSUS SPASMODIC EFFORTS IN PASTORAL LABOR.

...

THE Protestant Churches of our country are greatly agitated over the small increase in the membership of the Churches during the last ecclesiastical year. The philosophical historian of the future and the careful student of the present must take account of the facts and inquire the cause. Much speculation has been indulged in on this subject, and theories more or less satisfactory have been promulgated. It must be assumed that there is no lack of interest in human salvation on the part of our heavenly Father. The Gospel of to-day is the same Gospel under which our fathers wrought so mightily in the conversion of sinners. The sword of the Spirit is just as "quick and powerful, . . . piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," as when the sacred writer penned those searching words. Church appliances are also just as numerous. Indeed, more sermons have been preached, more organizations have been at work, and more exhortations to duty have taken place during the past year than has been the case in any other period in the history of the Church. Nor is it to be questioned that ministers have as profound an interest in the salvation of men as they have ever had in the many centuries of Christian activity, and that the members of the Church are as keenly alive to the great work committed to them—the carrying of the Gospel to all the lands of earth. The zeal of the Church is not as great as it ought to be, but it is fully as great as in the years gone by, when great triumphs have been achieved in the conversion of men and women.

We venture to suggest a point which has been omitted thus far, so far as we have observed, in the discussion of this subject, namely, the too great dependence upon special activities and too little reliance upon silent, constant influence. This is the age of what is technically known as the "hustler," and it is not uncommon to hear presiding elders say that for the places which are open they need "hustlers." If the writer of this has not misapprehended the case it is the "hustler" that has done the damage. Hustling is, in the nature of the case, spasmodic. It consists in keeping everybody aroused and in endeavoring to see to it that this year surpasses the last, rather for the sake of external success than with a view to real progress. This has gone on to such an extent that unless a pastor is rushing something all the time it is not uncommon for many to suppose him indifferent, or at least unsuccessful. Unless crowds fill the church at every service it is supposed that nothing is being done. Yet a careful examination of the situation will reveal that the men who have worked steadily and quietly have accomplished more in the conversion of souls, putting the results of the year together, than

those who have depended on spasmodic effort. In these days when men think, when so many questions are being asked, when the very centers of religious faith are being questioned, men and women are not to be won to Christ by spasmodic effort, but by the steady influence of days and weeks and months and years. Every human soul is a prize to be won for Christ, and it is worth patient thought and anxious labor on the part of the minister and all those associated with him. If the unconverted people in a congregation were taken on the hearts of a minister and his workers, and gradually, as they were able to bear it, he should open up to them the truths of God, hear their objections, answer their inquiries, dispel their doubts, show them a brother's heart as well as a consecrated brain, much more would be accomplished for the Master than is being accomplished under the present method.

In order to do this the minister's time must be wisely distributed. He must go to his work every day as the business man goes to his work in the morning and comes home at night. There is a soul that can be seen to-day which cannot be seen to-morrow. He must watch over that soul. He must not be discouraged if even years find his efforts unrewarded and the person still indifferent to the truth as it is in Jesus. Though from the human standpoint this would seem a sufficient reason for disheartenment, he must not despair. The seed he has sown will in time bear fruit, if it is the true seed of the Gospel, and if it is watered, as it will be, by the dews of heavenly grace.

Far be it from us to diminish in the slightest way the intensity of Christian life or effort, or to underestimate the great revivals which have often been brought about by united prayers and united efforts at a given time and place. There must be a constant repetition in the Church of the Pentecostal times. A great revivalist, thoroughly consecrated to God, must not be lightly esteemed, but dependence on these things as the sole means of rescuing men and women from sin is a very grave error. It is not uncommon for churches, when they have made special efforts for a few weeks, to relapse into indifference for the whole year. For a time revival sermons will be preached, intense appeals will be made, and then the time comes when the service takes on a form destitute of at least apparent interest in the salvation of men. Instruction and exhortation must go hand in hand, and in every sermon people should hear something that will help them to a better life, and sinners something to incite them to turn to God for salvation. The "hustler" should not be dismissed, but assigned to a subordinate place. He has his function, and it is a useful one, but his function is not the chief one. The chief work of the Church is to be done by those who constantly devote themselves to the salvation of men. If such a concerted effort as we are now speaking of were to be made during the next year, if the souls out of Christ were to be sought none the less eagerly but more persistently, it is possible for us to believe that God's Holy Spirit would attend these efforts and that another year would witness the ingathering of a million souls for