What a warm Sunday! and what a large church! I wonder if it will be half-filled! Empty pews are a sorry welcome to a pastor. Ah! no fear; here comes the congregation in troops and families; now the capacious galleries are filled; every pew is crowded, and seats are being placed in the aisles.

The preacher rises. What a young “David!” Still, the “stone and sling” will do their execution. How simple, how child-like that prayer; and yet how eloquent, how fervent. How eagerly, as he names the text, the eye of each is riveted upon the preacher, as if to secure his individual portion of the heavenly manna.

Let us look around, upon the audience. Do you see yonder gray-haired business man? Six days in the week, for many years, he has been Mammon’s most devoted worshipper. According to time-honored custom, he has slept comfortably in his own pew each Sunday, lulled by the soft voice of the shepherd who “prophesieth smooth things.” One pleasant Sabbath, chance, (I would rather say an overruling Providence,) led him here. He settles himself in his accustomed Sunday attitude, but sleep comes not at his bidding. He looks disturbed. The preacher is dwelling upon the permitted but fraudulent tricks of business men, and exposing plainly their turpitude in the sight of that God who holds “evenly the scales of justice.” As he proceeds, Conscience whispers to this aged listener, “Thou art the man!” He moves uneasily on his seat; an angry flush mounts to his temples: What right has that boy-preacher to question the integrity of men of such unblemished mercantile standing in the community as himself? He is not accustomed to such a spiritual probing knife. His spiritual physician has always “healed the hurt of his people slightly.” He don’t like such plain talking, and sits the service out only from compulsion. But when he passes the church porch, he does not leave the sermon there, as usual. No. He goes home perplexed and thoughtful. Conscience sides with the preacher; self-interest tries to stifle its voice with the sneering whisper of “priest-craft.” Monday comes, and again he plunges into the maelstrom of business, and tries to tell the permitted lie with his usual nonchalance to some ignorant customer, but his tongue falters and performs its duty but awkwardly; a slight blush is perceptible upon his countenance; and the remainder of the week chronicles similar and repeated failures.

Again it is Sunday. He is not a church-member: he can stay at home, therefore, without fear of a canonical committee of Paul Prys to investigate the matter: he can look over his debt and credit list if he likes, without excommunication: he certainly will not put himself again in the way of that plain-spoken, stripling priest. The bell peals out, in musical tones, seemingly this summons: “Come up with us, and we will do you good.” By an irresistible impulse, he finds himself again a listener. “Not that he believes what that boy says:” Oh no: but, somehow, he likes to listen to him, even though he attack that impregnable pride in which he has wrapped himself up as in a garment.

Now, why is this? Why is this church filled with such wayside listeners?

Why, but that all men—even the most worldly and unscrupulous—pay involuntary homage to earnestness, sincerity, independence and Christian boldness, in the “man of God?”

Why? Because they see that he stands in that sacred desk, not that his lips may be tamed and held in, with a silver bit and silken bridle: not because preaching is his “trade,” and his hearers must receive their quid pro quo once a week—no, they all see and feel that his heart is in the work—that he loves it—that he comes to them fresh from his closet, his face shining with the light of “the Mount,” as did Moses’.

The preacher is remarkable for fertility of imagination, for rare felicity of expression, for his keen perception of the complicated and mysterious workings of the human heart, and for the uncompromising boldness with which he utters his convictions. His earnestness of manner, vehemence of gesture and rapidity of utterance, are, at times, electrifying; impressing his hearers with the idea that language is too poor and meager a medium for the rushing tide of his thoughts.

Upon the lavish beauty of earth, sea, and sky, he has evidently gazed with the poet’s eye of rapture. He walks the green earth in no monk’s cowl or cassock. The tiniest blade of grass with its “drap o’ dew,” has thrilled him with strange delight. “God is love,” is written for him in brilliant letters, on the arch of the rainbow. Beneath that black coat, his heart leaps like a happy child’s to the song of the birds and the tripping of the silver-footed stream, and goes up, in the dim old woods, with the fragrance of their myriad flowers, in grateful incense of praise, to Heaven.

God be thanked, that upon all these rich and rare natural gifts, “Holiness to the Lord” has been written. Would that the number of such gospel soldiers was “legion,” and that they might stand in the forefront of the hottest battle, wielding thus skillfully and unflinchingly the “Sword of the Spirit.”