he exhibits in his later sermons not only keen flashes of insight, as he always did from the beginning, but much patient reflection, with greater maturity of thought and juster views of life.

5. He has shown a growing fondness for historical subjects, and great ingenuity in deducing from them interesting and wholesome lessons. This also is an adaptation to the changing taste of the times. Men who are averse to abstract thought often take great interest in facts and persons. The Bible abounds in these, and sermons upon Scripture scenes and characters will more readily command attention now than discussions of abstract doctrine. There is also a growing demand for well-managed expository preaching. Mr. Spurgeon has shown great gifts in this respect, not so much in his regular sermons as in the expository remarks with which he accompanies the reading of Scripture. These have been noticed by many persons as of extraordinary interest and value, and are often said by himself to have demanded more time in preparation than his sermons. Much of the fruits of this study may be seen in another form in the "Treasury of David." But it seems much to be desired that he should have many of these running expositions taken down, and published with the passages to which they refer.

6. He has always made many brief quotations. The chief sources are the Bible and the hymn-book, the Puritan divines and modern religious biographies. Of late years he is observed to quote more freely from secular poets, especially from Coleridge and Tenny

son.

7. Mr. Spurgeon has extraordinary power of illustration. He draws chiefly from nature and common life, from bistory, biography and newspapers, and from Scripture. His volume called "Feathers for Arrows" presents merely the overflow from a large collection of illustrations jotted down as they occurred to him, and which he has found no occasion to use in all the vast

In general, Mr. Spurgeon's power is not in single great sermons, but in a constant succession of good sermons. This also suits our time, in which men are rather impatient of "great efforts," but want always something easy to listen to and practically helpful.

III. Several things are also noteworthy in the arrangement of Mr. Spurgeon's discourses.

1. His sermons are nearly all textual or topical-textual, only now and then strictly topical. Even when interpreting loosely, he holds himself to those specific aspects of truth which the text, as he interprets it, presents; and the sermon throughout is colored by its text. From this practice his preaching derives an inexhaustible variety. He shows a perfectly wonderful fertility in developing a single seed of thought or expanding an image.

2. His plans are often quite ingenious, yet almost always simple. A few years ago it would have been necessary to say that his sermons exhibited an unpleasant sameness of general structure, but of late there has been greater variety of plan. It is quite possible that in this and some other respects the great preacher has profited by the preparation of his own "Lectures to My Students." A wise man is very apt to teach himself in teaching others.

3. He usually applies each point as he goes, but sometimes applies the whole at the end. Yet he never makes mere general exhortation in closing. When the distinct points of discussion or application are finished, the preacher quits promptly. If the earlier divisions have been much expanded, the last is apt to be greatly shortened, so as to bring the whole service within certain pretty exact limits. This is quite important now, not only because the age is restless, but because everybody car

ries a watch, and many persons have engagements for almost every half hour of the day.

4. As to style, Mr. Spurgeon is always clear and direct, and very often striking. He has always been remarkable for pithy phrases, and perhaps increasingly so since the production of "John Ploughman." While often familiar and not seldom homely, his style is never coarse or low, being saved from this both by reverence and by taste, and there are numerous felicities of expression, with occasional passages of extreme beauty. While never writing any part of his sermons beyond brief notes, he has gained much from the careful correction of the short-hand reports. It an exceedingly useful thing for one who speaks freely to notice afterwards, in cold blood, just what he did say. During the latter half of his active career, he has written numerous books and an immense variety of matter for periodicals. Such practice must have had a good effect upon his spoken style. Yet some of his earliest published sermons show very great force and beauty of expression.

5. As to delivery, Mr. Spurgeon would probably almost lose the sense of personal identity if he should attempt either to read or to recite a sermon. He is in every sense a speaker. In later years, overwhelmed with other engagements, and sometimes oppressed

with bodily suffering, he usually preaches with only an hour or two of special preparation; and both he and Mr. Beecher are wont to state freely that such is their practice. It is much to be regretted that they say so and that they do so. The example misleads many men who have neither their experience and attainments, their prestige, nor their native power. And not a few of their later sermons really fall quite below their own earlier standard. It could not be otherwise with such a method of preparation.

Mr. Spurgeon's action in speaking is, according to the usual English feeling and taste, quite inconsiderable, and

scarcely

a model for Americans, who

are naturally more vivacious and demonstrative. His voice has extraordinary penetrating power, so that, without seeming to speak loud, he is heard to a great distance. This is a native quality of voice, but may be cultivated by habitually seeking to produce pure sound and by distinct articulation. I remember once to have sat in the first gallery, at the farthest point of the Tabernacle from the preacher. Behind me, and twice as near as the pulpit, the great London omnibuses roared along the street. After the prayer, when the doors were reopened, a crowd of the belated came in, and were shuffling along in front of me and anxiously consulting with the ushers as to obtaining seats; while on my right a vigorous baby squalled, and anxious parents sought in nervously loud tones to quiet him. Yet, amid all this, the far-off preacher was quietly reading a hymn, and I heard every word.

6. In the conduct of worship, Mr. Spurgeon greatly excels. He reads hymns very impressively, and, in the absence of an instrument, makes an agreeable interlude by again reading each stanza before it is sung. Mention has already been made of his expository remarks in reading the Scriptures. As to prayer-well, it is real praying. To use a phrase of former days, he seems to "get so near the throne." Nothing about him impressed me so much as his prayers.

No space is left to speak of the way in which his pastoral work, conducted with extraordinary administrative talent, his varied authorship, his missionary and educational work, co-operate with and react upon Mr. Spurgeon's preaching. At least 1,500 of his sermons have been printed, not half of which are included in the ten volumes published in this country. Most persons have probably seen his monthly magazine called Sword and Trowel." He has made a good collection of hymns, entitled "Our Own Hymn-Book." This contains several hymns of his own composition, but they are hardly an exception to the rule that few great

98

The first post-apostolic sermon after the age of inspiration had passed away has only recently come to light, and is a matter of considerable interest. It bears the name of Clement, the first (or third) Bishop of Rome, a pupil of St. Paul and St. Peter, who died in the reign of Trajan between A. D. 98-117, probably about A. D. 100, at the time when St. John, the last survivor of the apostolic age, passed from this world. From this Clement we were long in possession of a Greek epistle to the Church of Corinth in Greece, which in the first four centuries stood in the highest esteem, and was read in public worship, but then disappeared until a copy of it was discovered in 1633 in the celebrated Alexandrian Manuscript of the Bible, which Cyril Lurar, patriarch, of Constantinople, presented in 1628 to King Charles I. of England, and which is one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum. In the same manuscript there was a fragment of a second epistle of Clement to the same church. But it is far inferior to the first in originality, power and unction. Hence some critics have conjectured that it was the production of another writer and the fragment of a homily or familiar sermon, rather than of an epistle.

This conjecture has been proved correct by a recent discovery of the whole document. In 1875 Bryennios, a scholar of the Eastern Church and Archbishop of Serrae (now of Nicomedia), found in a convent library of the Greek quarter of Constantinople (the Fauar) an old manuscript which contained a complete copy of both epistles of Clement. The second was found to be twice as large as the fragment previously known. Bryennios published both with learned Greek prolegomena and notes, in Constantinople. A copy of his edition is in the Union Theological Seminary library. The discovery created, of course, a great sensation in the literary world, and elicited a good deal of discussion. Gebhardt, Harnark and Zahn incorporated it in their latest edition of the Apostolic Fathers; and so did Professor Funk, of Tübingen, in the fifth edition of Hefele's Patres Apostolici. Bishop Lightfoot, who had published a commentary on the First Epistle of Clement, found it necessary to issue an appendix with the newly discovered portions.

The Second Epistle of Clement turns out to be a sermon from the first half of the second century, written and read probably at Corinth by an unknown Presbyter, or possibly by a layman, for the difference between clergy and laity was not yet sharply drawn at that time. As already intimated, it is not remark. able for strength or depth of eloquence, but it is a pious exhortation to repentance, and suited to the condition of the times when the Christians were a persecuted sect without any legal rights in the heathen empire of Rome. For this reason it has considerable historic as well as homiletic interest. We cannot give the whole sermon (which is composed in Greek), but we offer the first three and the last three chapters as fair specimens of the whole. We avail ourselves of the excellent translation of Bishop Lightfoot, of Durham:

1. Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ, as of God, as of the Judge of quick and dead. And we ought not to think mean things of our Salvation: for when we think mean things of Him we expect also to receive mean things. And they that listen as concerning mean things

COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES.

No. VIII.

BY WILLIAM ORMISTON, D.D., LL.D.

RECEIVING THE IMPLANTEd Word, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.-James i: 19-21. DIFFERENT READINGS: V. 19. of ore, the authority of MSS. favors ὥστε; one, ἴστε δέ. Alford, Westcott, Lachman, Lange, and Huther read óra This reading has been adopted by the Committee on Revision. Tischendorf, in his latest edition, gives the Rec. ώστε. Instead of ἔστω, some read ἔστω δε, and one has καὶ ἔστω.

Instead

COMMENTARY: The passage is an inference from what has already been stated. If the word wherefore be retained, the duty of receiving the word of truth is inferred from the statement that it is the instrument or means of our regeneration. If the other reading -and, consequently, a different reading is adopted, then the connection is: Ye know, or are aware of, what has already been stated, but be cautious, and receive that truth with meekness. The same word is used, in a similar way, in

Ephesians v: 5; Hebrews xii: 17, implying the recognition of well-known or admitted facts. Alford understands the word in an indicative sense, and as referring to what precedes. Huther thinks it better to regard the word as imperative and as referring to what follows. The word would thus correspond with "Do not err," in verse 16, and is, like it, followed by a direct address. The reference is most naturally and obviously made to the foregoing statements. Divine good gifts impose heavy human obligations. Privileges not only meas ure duty, but bind to its performance. The recipients of so many blessings are morally constrained to grateful obedience. Hence the tenderness and solemnity of the admonition, “My beloved brethren." The same affectionate salutation is repeated by James, and the term "beloved" is often used by the apostles Paul, Peter, John and Jude. (1 Cor. xv: 58; Rom. xii: 19; 1 Pet. ii: 11; 2 Pet. iii: 8; 1 John iii: 2; Jude 3.)

V. 19: "Be swift to hear. As this injunction is given to "every man," it is not necessary, as many commentators suppose, to supply the phrase, the word of truth. The sentence, though not a direct quotation, expresses a sort of proverbial truth of universal application. The intention of James, however, is clearly to inculcate on his readers the propriety of applying it to their conduct as Christians, "pertinet ad christianos, quatenus sunt christiani." What holds good in the case of all men, is, in this instance, peculiarly appropriate to Christian men. In that age, instruction in all branches of knowledge was mainly oral-so specially of the Gospel; hence all believers are enjoined to be eager listeners. The terms rendered swift and slow, found in this sense only here in the New Testament, form a direct contrast; the one, readiness; the other, reluctance.

"Slow to speak." The counsel is a good one, as hasty utterances, on any subject, are seldom profitable, and fre quently excite hostility and lead to angry strife. "A soft answer turneth away wrath." But the special reference