DR. VAUGHAN'S MODERN PULPIT.

Ma. GEORGE &rams MANSFIELD, of Derby, was converted from indifference to seriousness through the instrumentality of his sisters; and, with their concurrence, he bequeathed at his death considerable property to found an Independent College for divinity students,—a bequest which, with future gifts added by those ladies, will eventually realize about 1,7001. per annum. The foundation of Spring Hill College, near Birmingham, originated in these en- dowments; the cost of the building and furniture, estimated at 25,0001., being to be raised by subscription. At an annual meeting of the Trustees and other Congregationalists interested in the sub- ject, Dr. VAUGHAN, it would appear, delivered a sermon on the in- dispensableness and Christian character of preaching, as well as on the necessity of an education which should form preachers adapted to the present state of society. The audience requested that the discourse might be published : "but the preacher soon discovered, that the theme which he had selected embraced too wide a compass, and too great a variety of topics, to admit of its being treated, with any approach towards justice, within the space allotted to him in the pulpit. He has accordingly recast and greatly expanded the whole matter of the discourse, in the hope of rendering it in some degree less unworthy of the subject to which it relates."

On a partial perusal, it may appear to some that The Modern Pulpit is a continuation of this author's Congregationalism, reviewed in our journal some months since : but the resemblance is merely casual or incidental. In considering the present phase of Dissent, Dr. Vemostax of course regarded the present state of the world ; and in alluding to the prospects of their churches, he touched upon the character of Dissenting ministers and their mode of preaching. But this was all general : The Modern Pulpit is special. Dr. Venouss opens his work with a disquisition on the importance of preaching, and the place assigned to it by the New Testament ; which enables him to point attention to the more Scriptural practice of Protestant Dissenters, compared with the Roman, and in some measure the Anglican Church, where forms and formal services preponderate too greatly over living exposition and exhortation. He then examines the characteristics of modern society, and of the three classes—the manual-labour, the middle,

and the higher—into which it may be divided : pronouncing at once that the old modes of preaching are no longer adapted to the new states of mind, and pointing out the general qualifications that the modern preacher should aim at attaining. "The Modern Pulpit, in relation to the past," enables the author to give a brief and rapid critical history of preaching in this country, a shorter sketch of French pulpit eloquence in its palmy days, and Conti- nental preaching in the present age. The chapter on a Self-edu- cated Ministry balances a notice of the occasional services such self-taught men may render against their general evils, with the judgment of a man of natural sagacity, whose mind has been raised by experience and philosophy above the narrow prejudices of sects. But, however general in tone, the utility of these remarks is limited to Dissenters ; the observations on the value of a good elocution and on the means of attaining it are applicable to all churches, and cannot be too widely enforced if preaching is to exist as a mode of influencing the public mind. The remaining sections of the book rather refer to religious than secular considerations ; except the con- clusion, in which Dr. VAUGHAN warns both preachers and hearers against aiming at or expecting the production of "great sermons,"— which can only be produced by great men upon great occasions, and scarcely then if they are called upon to be continually preaching.

Having been so often called upon to notice the works of Dr. VAUGHAN, we think it unnecessary to enter into any account of his literary character upon the present occasion. In a general way, The Modern Pulpit partakes more of the qualities of his Congre- gationalism than of his other works; because both publications have this generic resemblance—they treat of religion in relation to the secular character of the present times, and occasionally have some similarity of topic. The Modern Pulpit, like Congregation- alism, handles theological matters in a wise and worldly spirit ; the author knowing that ends require means, and that, since the age of miracles is past, the dull and the i5norant will not be otherwise from the accident of displaying their ignorance and dulness in a pulpit. There is a similar calm force in the more measured pas- sages of each production, rising when the subject requires it into eloquence : but The Modern Pulpit is free from the fault of occa- sional onesidedness that we noted in Congregationalism; because the principle of Establishment in opposition to the Voluntary prin- ciple is scarcely brought into question ; whilst the catholic nature of the subject affords full scope for the catholic character of Dr. VAUGHAN'S apprehension, and for the full exhibition of the broad and general manner in which his comprehensiveness of mind enables him to handle professional and technical topics. This rare quality is visible in all the passages we have marked for extract, and in many others, indeed with scarcely an exception, throughout the volume.

INTELLIGENCE OF THE PRESENT AND THE PAST.

No age has been so characterized by a diffused intelligence as the age in which we live. Its remaining ignorance and folly may be sufficiently humi- liating, but its amount of knowledge and culture is unprecedented in the history of the human family. If we look to past times, even to the spaces which have been rendered most conspicuous by the works of genius and the progress of ci- vilization, we see, in general, the civilization of a class rather than of a people, and the intelligence and dominance of a few, contrasted with the ignorance and subjection of the many. Such has ever been the state of things in the East ; and such, in a degree little apprehended in modern times, was the condition of society even in Greece and Rome. Throughout the ancient world, authors were a class, and their readers were a class—the people at large possessing little sympathy with either. Even the arts were aristocratic rather than popular, affording a better indication in respect to the wealth and power of men in au- thority, than in respect to the social state of the people subject to that au- thority. The majority were slaves, and a small minority only could read— need we say more?

The sketch of the masses has some resemblance to a passage we quoted from Congregationah:gm ; and the account of the middle classes, though comprehensive and keen, yields to the picture of the upper and educated classes,—which is one of the most striking estimates of modern mind we have met with in any theologian. Their case, too, is not merely adduced speculatively; it is grappled with to deduce a practical conclusion as to the mode in which the preacher must deal with it.

INTELLECTUAL CULTIVATION.

If we look to the scientific world, we see every department occuplut Is manner of which the history of science affords no precedent. The multhisd of persons devoted to such studies has supplied an augmented stimulus to ex ertion. Every branch of knowledge has been divided and subdivided ha a man- ner peculiar to our times, in order that the whole might be the better uncial, stood, as the result of a better attention to the parts. Acquirement and skill which would once have been accounted extraordinary, now have their place as so much moderate attainment. The men possessed of such attainment are found everywhere. Disciplined mind, accordingly, is everywhere; and the ever-increasing number of such minds is the constant diffusion of a power which cannot fail to distinguish between the instructed and the uninstructed, the skilful and the unskilful, in preaching as in other things. Such men may not have been students of divinity, nor have given much attention to the teaching contained in books on the subject of pulpit oratory ; but the mental training which has given them the power of clear and vigorous conception on one matter, is inseparable from considerable power of judgment in relation to many other matters, and especially in regard to finch qualities as are of the greatest importance in a sermon, viz, a real knowledge of the subject, together with order, precision, adaptation, and force in the manner of treating it.

In all these respects it is with the world of letters as it is with the world of science. Everywhere we find men capable of sympathizing with the spirit of

our general literature, and men who can themselves use our language in a man- ner fitted to meet the public eye. Even the men occupied in the regular craft of authorship would seem to be almost as numerous as the members of the most crowded professions. That easy, accurate, and effective style of writing, which secured so much fame to our Dryden. and Popes, our Addison. and Johnson', would now appear to be within the power ofalmost any man choosing to attempt it. Not only does the periodical press abound with compositions of that high order, but even the cheapest productions of that description, meant

for the humblest class of readers, frequently exhibit a literary power scarcely inferior to that displayed in the most costly publications. In this ready mastery of our mother-tongue, in this power over the material of thought, and in this aptness in all matters of arrangement, description, argument, and eloquence, we see the standard with which the intellect of our times is familiarized as re- gards the manner in which topics of discourse or appeal should be treated, and in which such topics must be treated in the pulpit if the pulpit is to be to the age what the age demands. In this aspect of the public press, very much is implied both as to the widely-diffused power of a highly-cultivated authorship, and as to the still more widely-diffused capacity to appreciate such authorship. Ignorance, dulness, feebleness, are nowhere—success is bound up with the re- verse of such things.

MODERN SCEPTICISM.

Since the year 1660, the educated classes in England have exhibited a con-

siderable bias towards scepticism ; and no one can need be reminded, that the more expanded and the much higher mental cultivation of our own time is by DO means without an alloy of this nature. The excesses of the Infidel faction during the heat of the French Revolution gave some check to such tendencies in this country ; but there is room to fear that the change thus produced, while real in some cases, has been often much more apparent than real. At present,

this bias in such quarters rarely betrays itself by any direct attempt to disturb the credence of the popular mind with regard to religious matters ; but it has its occasions on which it can hint as to what it might do in that way if so dis- posed; and many connexions in which the little that is written or said is meant to suggest that informed and thinking men, if believers at all, have very good reasons for not being such in the sense of the multitude.

In general, both the information and the thinking of these persons on the subject of Christian evidence are of no great amount ; but it happens com- monly, that in the case of each man, some real or supposed difficulty of this sort has arisen within his own department of study ; and though the power which has realized that difficulty might have sufficed to realize an abundant solution of it, the will so to employ that power has been wanting, and the ge- neral effect from this cause, and some others, has been to leave the mind without any thing deserving the name of religious belief, and possibly to occupy it with much secret or avowed hostility to all persons seeming to be in earnest in the profession of such belief. Such are the gentlemen whose after-dinner or evening conferences often assume the tone of a profound philosophizing about religions and religionists.

THE DUTY OF THE MODERN PREACHER IN REGARD TO MODERN

UNBELIEF.

Little reputable as the frequent scepticism of the higher classes may be to them, considered in what it indicates with regard to their general knowledge, capacity, and ingenuousness, the fact that such scepticism exists, and that it is nourished by much in the science, literature, and taste constituting the fashion of the age among those classes, is still before us; and a great social fact it is, of which the preacher must not be unmindful. In such quarters it is hardly to he expected that revealed truth will obtain even a hearing, except as it is pre- sented with the kind of ability which it would not be expedient to seem to despise. Knowledge must be opposed by knowledge, intellect by intellect, and religion be presented as the grand and the beautiful, in such forms as may leave little of grandeur or beauty to any thing beside. Religion is all this; the intellect of man is capable of so presenting it; and there are occasions when to give up his whole nature to such effort becomes the duty of the preacher. • • Concerning the dependence of all human effort upon a Divine influence for its success, we shall speak in another place. But in the mean time, we scruple not to say, that if the intellect of the scientific world is to be brought to the obedience of faith, we must be prepared to compete with it in the use of its own weapons, and after its own manner. And if the high-minded pretension which so often obtrudes itself upon us in the world of letters is to be effectually repressed, and to give place to the reverence with which the religion of Holy Writ should be regarded, this will only be in proportion as we shall know how to make such men sensible that the matters of which they judge so highly have not been excluded from our knowledge and scrutiny any more than from their own. It will be folly to hope that such men will be found assigning to re- vealed truth its proper place, if they are obliged to tolerate imbecilities in its favour which they do not tolerate elsewhere.

IMPORTANCE OF ELOCUTION TO A PREACHER.

In this view it (education) should not be more favourable to habits of read- ing and thinking than to habits of public speaking. The well-disciplined and the well-furnished mind should not be deemed more indispensable than the well-trained utterance.

In the experience of the Dissenting minister, the value of every thing within the range of mental discipline and acquirement must depend almost entirely on his ability to express himself in the presence of large assemblies with free- dom, appropriateness, and force. In the absence of a considerable measure of such ability, his career mast be a failure. Whatever may have been the coat incurred in his education, it must have been, in this case, incurred in vain. In proportion, also, as a man shall be at fault in this particular, and be in other respects a man of talent and attainment, two causes must operate strongly against his continuing to retain any place in the ministry among Dissenters : on the one hand, his superior and cultivated mind will not allow of his being satisfied while falling manifestly below mediocrity in his proper vocation ; and on the other hand, 'a consciousness that he might employ himself with much more effect in other ways, can hardly fail of disposing him to become so employed. Let the system in our colleges, therefore, be such as to make our students scholars without making them preachers, and before long you may expect to see.them dwindle rapidly from divines into private tutors or school- masters; or, perhaps, you will see numbers of them relinquish the ministry alto- gether, and give themselves wholly to literary or secular pursuits. * * * We speak thus strongly on this point, because there would seem to have been great deficiency in this respect in most of our collegiate institutions, and because there is special danger that this deficiency will become more observable, rather than otherwise, as we raise the standard of scholarship. Readiness in speaking is so much a natural gift, and consists so often with the superficial in almost every thing else, that men of real power and solid acquirement are often- times disposed to hold such talent in little estimation, and not unfrequently cease to be themselves men of ability in speaking, in the degree in which they become men of thought and learning.