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aging influence does he pour upon the heart of the preacher. I would, my brethren, you could understand how the spirit of the Pastor faints within him, at times, as he gazes upon empty seats-especially if they be seats which he knows have holders, but which are apt to lack occupants. Weary hours, perhaps midnight hours, he has toiled in his study. He has sought, like the "Preacher" of old, "to find out acceptable words," and "words of truth"-words which shall be " as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given by one Shepherd," even the gracious Shepherd divine. Hoping for the blessing of God on his message, he enters the pulpit. But lo, the persons for whose conversion, or for whose growth in grace he has been led peculiarly to long-persons of the very class to which his discourse is specially suited-are many of them not in their places. He would not think uncharitably of the absent, yet he cannot but think of them sorrowfully. So far as they are concerned he has labored in vain; and it is no marvel if the depressing conviction of it should impair somewhat his usefulness. to others. Ministers ought indeed, to be raised by faith above all disheartening influences. Yet they are but men; at the best they have not a seraph's fire. They need the influence of concurrent and enlivening ardors around them. Nothing is so great a help to them, short of the grace of God, as swiftness to hear. Scarce any thing is so like mountains of ice upon them as vacant

seats.

Nor is the influence unhappy upon the preacher alone. It is matter of common observation, that feeling, other things being equal, is likely to be deepest when the greatest number of persons are present. The reason of this fact it is not difficult to state; it comes of the natural play and interchange of human sympathies. Fully and felicitously has Archbishop Whately elucidated this point. "Almost any one," he says, "is aware of the infectious nature of any emotion excited in a large assembly. It may be compared to the increase of sound by a number of echoes, or of light, by a number of mirrors, or to the blaze of a heap of firebrands, each of which would speedily have gone out it' kindled separately, but which when thrown together, help to kindle each other." What then, I add, if half the echoing crags are taken away, or a large part of the mirrors are wanting, or a considerable number of the firebrands are removed? Of sound, light, heat, there must be a proportional diminution. Just so must feeling be diminished, if, while the case in other respects remains the same, you diminish the number of those who are expected to feel. Especially is this the fact, if hearers are absent whose presence was looked for. The heart is chilled the more by the force of contrast, and the feeling of disappointment. Let it never be forgotten, then, by him who is needlessly away from his place in the sanctuary, that as surely as the abstraction of fuel from the furnaces below us, tends to throw a wintry influence over our physical frames, so surely does his lack of attend

ance conduce to a moral frigidity in those who are present. The laws of mind, in this regard, are settled and immutable. I need only suggest, in addition to all this, the reproach cast upon a particular congregation, in the eyes of strangers at least, by empty pews, and a sparse audience,-the reproach upon its ministry, its brotherhood, its office-bearers, its private membersupon all that pertains to it.

VI. I remark finally, it is the saddest fact in the history of the half-day hearer, that he dishonors God. It is the temple of the Most High from which he turns away. It is the ministry of the divine Redeemer, he so lightly esteems. It is the blessed day of God, the day which commemorated at first the work of creation, and which commemorates now the greater work of redemption, he so grudgingly regards. Of all days, the Sabbath is fullest of God-it is ever, in a spiritual sense,

"The bridal of the earth and sky."

It is the grand audience day of the King of kings. Of all its privileges none bear more clearly the seal of Jehovah, none are more fragrant with the love of Immanuel, than the services of the sanctuary. It is not merely because the half-day attendant harms his own soul, and the souls of the people, while he fills with sadness the heart of his Pastor, that we would urge upon him the injunction of our text. It is because his Maker calls for his homage, and will not hold him guiltless, if he but sparingly renders it. "I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts." "Them that honor me, I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed."

But it is time, my hearers, I consign this subject to your private meditations. We cannot but be thankful, that whatever uses it may have among us, are to so great an extent of a merely prevenient character. Were they wholly so, it would be no lost labor to magnify, as we have now done, the blessed ordinances of the Sabbath. Let the young, in this respect, form their habits aright. Let us all see to it, that ours be no halfhearted, or half-completed observance of those ordinances. As, on the day of God, the New Jerusalem cometh down to us, its pearly gates glittering in our view, its seraphic symphonies floating around us, let us be eager to gaze, let us be "swift to hear." Instead of wishing to shorten holy time, or to abridge its privileges, let us be waiting and longing, rather, for its lapse into the everlasting Sabbath.

EIGHTY-FOURTH PSALM.

1.

LORD of the worlds above,
How pleasant and how fair
The dwellings of thy love,
Thine earthly temples are!
To thine abode
My heart aspires,
With warm desires
To see my God.

2.

The sparrow for her young
With pleasure seeks a nest;
And wandering swallows long
To find their wonted rest:
My spirit faints
With equal zeal,
To rise and dwell

Among thy saints.

3.

O happy souls that pray

Where God appoints to hear!

O happy men that pay

Their constant service there!
They praise thee still;

And happy they
That love the way

To Zion's hill.

4.

They go from strength to strength, Through this dark vale of tears,

Till each arrives at length,

Till each in heaven appears.
O glorious seat,

When God our King
Shall thither bring
Our willing feet!

SERMON DCXI.

BY REV. J. T. TUCKER.

HOLLISTON, MASS.

PROFITLESS HEARING.

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."JAMES i. 22.

The necessity of good preaching is well understood among The importance of good hearing is not so well understood. To render the message effective, it is not enough that the former be furnished. Some most excellent preachers have been very unsuccessful. Noah was a faithful bearer of God's message to the thousands of the old world; but his own little household alone heeded his warnings. Isaiah and Ezekiel were distinguished servants of God. Endowed with prophetic vision, with splendid powers of eloquence, enkindled to supernatural brilliance and force by the spirit of inspiration, they went forth on their arduous errand well qualified to meet its high demands. Like their noble compeers and successors they were fearless proclaimers of truth. The throned monarch, the oppressor amid his servile instruments of cruelty, the faithless pastors who devoured God's helpless flock, the doers of iniquity, wherever found, each heard the accusation of his guiltiness and ill-desert, without a word of smooth palliation or mistimed excuse. But the one of these most accomplished heralds from heaven was left to exclaim, over the stone-like apathy of his hearers, "Lord, who hath believed our report ?"-and the other, though to the children of his people "like the very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument," was compelled to carry back to his Master the complaint, "they hear thy words, but they do them not." And yet another preacher of salvation there was, who "spake as never man spake." From his divine lips truth distilled as the dew. The words of life were in his mouth, clothed in the perfection of clear illustration, conclusive argument, pointed application, melting persuasiveness. But did the crowds, who wondered after the miracles of Jesus, yield to his counsels, his claims? How radiantly did that "light shine in darkness; yet the darkness comprehended it not.”

Good preaching is important. It cannot be too faultless. But be it as faultless as was the preaching of the Son of God, a man may sit under it and go from it, totally unbenefitted. As in the

graphic similitude of the Apostle in our context-he may be "like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." So with him who is merely a hearer of the word. It leaves on his heart the impression, not of the seal upon the plastic wax; but such an impression as the face makes upon the mirror which for a moment reflects its features-transient as the glancing sunbeam.

In all unproductive hearing of God's word there is a delusion, a self-deception. Thus in the text, "deceiving your own selves." That is, as the great object of the preaching of Christianity is obedience-he grossly deceives himself, who supposes that to hear and not to obey can be of any possible use to him.

It therefore, becomes an imperative duty to keep clearly before the minds of our hearers their liability to the danger of rendering the gospel ministry wholly ineffectual for good to themselves. To give definiteness and individuality to this admonition, I shall now point out several classes of persons, who hear the gospel in such a spirit as to make it inoperative, and consequently useless.

I. The vacant hearer.

God's word is weighty truth. Its topics are God's nature, acts, the human soul, its condition, responsibilities, destiny. The subjects of its principal concern lie not on the surface of things, to be grasped without an effort. Religion has, indeed, its simple rudiments of truth: so has it too, and that of vital moment to us, its depths-and heights of most precious wisdom. But whether simple or recondite, its teachings will teach him nothing, who will not meet that demand of intellectual attention which instruction on any theme necessarily imposes on the learner. Teke your place in the lecture-room of the demonstrator of some section of natural science. Will a listless, half-averted, dreamy indifference answer to the comprehending of the wonders and beauties of a material philosophy? Are adepts thus made in the mysteries of earth? Open a volume, profound or even superficial, and some amount of consideration you must give its pages, if you will possess yourself of its contents. But men frequent the sanctuary, as though there were some power of local, mechanical sanctification within its walls, which makes needless any tax upon the energies of their spiritual nature. They leave all but their bodies elsewhere. You can see it in their whole appearance-heavy, inert, now asleep, now courting slumber by a more easy posture,-while vainly the preacher exhausts his resources to electrify their apathy with some arousing thoughts of God, of redemption, of eternity.

There are many such vacant listeners in God's house. With some, it is a constitutional mental sluggishness, a mind untaught

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