building,) conducted under his immediate auspices, we were told that Sir Walter Scott had bestowed the utmost care-are almost unrivaled, altogether unsurpassed, | as specimens of Gothic architecture. Under the east window we were shown the grave of the wizard Michael Scott, immortalized in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel;" and close by it, a small flat stone, about a foot square, under which our guide informed us lies the heart of Wallace. In one of the naves are seven niches, exquisitely ornamented with sculptured foliage, and reminding us of the lines in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel :"

Spreading herbs and flowerets bright
Glisten'd with the dew of night;

Nor herb nor floweret glisten'd there
But was carved in the cloister arches as fair."

Each glance at the lovely east window recalled in like manner the stanzas from the same poem :

"The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone,

By foliaged tracery combined; Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand, 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand,

In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone." The figures and heads which abound throughout the ruin are some of them very beautiful, and others singularly grotesque. There is a cripple on the back of a blind man, in which the pain of the former and the sinking of the latter beneath his unwieldy burden are expressed in stone as we do not often see anything of the kind in painting. Close to the south window is a massive-looking figure peering through the ivy, with one hand to his throat, while in the other he grasps a knife, and a figure below holds a ladle as if to catch the blood from his self-inflicted wound. Not far from these is a group of merry musicians; and blended with some of the most highly-wrought tracery in the windows is the figure of a sow playing the bagpipes.

The latter part of the day we devoted to Dryburgh Abbey. The scenery between Melrose and Dryburgh is exceedingly beautiful. The road overhangs the Tweed, fringed with rich plantations to the water's edge; and as it crosses the hill of Bemerside it commands a lovely view of the river winding round an island, with a solitary house upon it-the only

remain, our cicerone told us, of “old Melrose."

A low gateway at one side of a narrow lane, at the foot of which runs the Tweed, admitted us into the wooded grounds of Dryburgh; and after passing the residence, which we did not pause to examine, we came to a wooded fence around the Abbey. It is a beautiful ruin, embosomed in dense foliage, and having a very fine radiated window covered with ivy. It contains little, however, in the way of architectural remains, to attract the notice of those who have previously visited Melrose. Our thoughts were all upon the one spot, the aisle called St. Mary's, beneath the right-hand arch of which is the last resting-place of him whose spell had been upon us all the day. The spot is marked by a plain flat stone, about three feet from the ground, with the simple inscription, "Sir Walter Scott, Bart." Our hearts and eyes were full, some at all events to overflowing the mighty genius, and the broken heart-the lordly mansion, and the lowly grave-the contrast was painfully oppressive :

DR. WAYLAND ON THE PREACHING FOR THE TIMES.

PRESID

66

RESIDENT WAYLAND preached last anniversary sermon of the New-York Baptist Union for Ministerial Education." It has been published by Sage & Brothers, Rochester, and has produced no small sensation, especially in the ranks of the Baptist Church. We have been unusually interested in reading it. It has not the elaborate finish of some of his other published discourses, and will not compare with his well-known missionary sermon in rhetorical effectiveness. There are even noticeable inelegancies of style about it; but it is pervaded with vigorous, practical sense-that elevation and large application of common sense which is wisdom in its most sagely use. Breaking away, boldly, from the traditional ideas with which our rigid ecclesiasticism has overlaid and compressed the energies of Christianity, he propounds views of the Christian ministry which at first startle us by their apparent novelty, and yet commend themselves to our common sense, on a little reflection, as " apostolic," (for so he calls them in his title,) and prac-| tically wise-and, in fact, indispensable for the success of the modern Church.

We are, perhaps, the more pleased with the discourse, as it countenances generally the views we have advocated in our late articles on The Preaching Required by the Times.*

Some of our Baptist exchanges seem to fear the practical boldness of its views. The Christian Review, (an able Baptist Quarterly,) especially, gives an elaborate article on the subject, and deprecates their tendency to reduce the standard of ministerial qualification in the denomination. We do not share this anxiety. The common sense and utilitarian character of these views are a guarantee against any such tendency.

* Inexorable reader, as Dr. Wayland himself is in the pulpit, he sustains our late articles on preaching, even in the particular of extempore speaking. He says:

But suppose this train of thought to be thus prepared, shall it be written or unwritten? Each has its

advantages, but I am constrained to believe that the value of written discourses has been in this country greatly overrated. Speaking an unwritten train of thought is by far the noblest and most effective exercise of mind, provided the labor of preparation in both cases be the same. I cannot but think that we have been the losers, by cultivating too exclusively the habit of written discourses."

VOL. V.-24

A utilitarian standard will always ultimately recognize the highest ability; and continually tends to it. The higher forms of truth are never endangered by subjecting it to the conditions of common sense or practical use. And especially is this the case with a great utilitarian function like that of the Christian ministry; break down its technical restrictions-drag it out from its isolation—and you break away the barriers to its power, you let out its energies. Relieve it as much as possible of its professional exclusiveness, and you in the same proportion secure it additional adaptations, additional abilities. The popu larization of knowledge, of arts, of civil government, of religious labors, is the great distinction of our age, and all of them have gained by it.

Dr. Wayland would apply the same law to the pulpit, and, we doubt not, with a similar result.

We propose to lay before our readers an outline of his views, and to show their applicability to the actual wants of the Church.

His text is the apostolic commission: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' The first section of the discourse presents a rapid statement of what the gospel is. Man is a sinner; Christ has redeemed him, and now, by the most simple and most practicable process-abandoning sin by repentance and returning unto God with a trustful faith in Christ-the sinner may be saved.

gospel.

This is the summary idea of the

What is it to preach this great fact? What particularly is that mode of preaching it which was enjoined by Christ in the apostolic commission? Evidently the popular, the universal announcement of the great fact. This is the distinctive idea of Dr. Wayland's discourse. Critical defences of the gospel may be requisitedidactic essays, founded upon it-theological science, evangelical ethics, &c.; but these may be produced in the Christian seminary, they may constitute a Christian literature, they may be the productions of educated laymen. They have their appropriate relation to the Christian pulpit too, but they do not constitute preaching in its primitive and its legitimate sense. This is emphatically to announce and spread abroad, everywhere and incessantly, the "good news" of the grand

simple fact that Christ has appeared, and that men can be saved through him.

Such is the second proposition discussed in this remarkable sermon. It narrows the subject with a rigid logic, but thereby secures to it more distinctness, more prominence.

"The word preach, in the New Testament, has a meaning different from that which at present commonly attaches to it. We understand by it the delivery of an oration, or discourse, on a particular theme, connected more or less closely with religion. It may be the discussion of a doctrine, an exegetical essay, a dissertation on social virtues or vices, as well as a persuasive unfolding of the teaching of the Holy Ghost. No such general idea was intended by the word as it is used by the writers of the New Testament. The words translated preach in our version are two. The one signifies simply to herald, to announce, to proclaim, to publish; the other, with this general idea, combines the notion of good tidings; and means, to publish, or be the messenger of good

"This then is, I think, the generic idea of preaching conveyed in the New Testament. It is the proclamation to every creature, of the love of God to men through Christ Jesus. This is the main idea. To this our Lord adds,

according to the other evangelist, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' The duty then enjoined in our Lord's last command is two-fold: First,

In so

to invite men to avail themselves of the offer of salvation; and, secondly, to teach them to obey the commands of Christ, so that they may become meet for the kingdom of heaven. far as we do these, we preach the gospel. When we do anything else, it may, or it may not, be very good but in the sense here considered, it is not preaching the gospel. Hence we see that we may deliver discourses on subjects associated with religion, without preaching the gospel. A discourse is not preaching because it is delivered by a minister, or spoken from the pulpit, or appended to a text. Nothing is I think properly preaching, except the explaining the teachings, or enforcing the commands of Christ and his apostles. To hold forth our own inferences, or the inferences of other men, drawn from the gospel; to construct intellectual discourses which affect not the conscience; to show the importance of religion to the temporal wellbeing of men, or the tendency of the religion of Christ to uphold republican institutions, and a hundred topics of a similar character, may or may not be well; but to do either or all of them certainly falls short of the idea of the apostle when he 'determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified.'

in another gospel; it is not found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are, at once and always, to set before all men their sin and danger, and point them to the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.'”

To preach then, according to this discourse, is to proclaim the revealed truth. The French have the right name for it. It is prédication, affirmation, promulgation; and the preacher is the prédicateur, the affirmer, the declarer of the gospel. We are tempted to quote further from the author a graphic illustration of the subject:

"Allow me to illustrate the meaning of this term, as used by our Lord, by an occurrence of which I was an eye-witness. It so chanced, that at the close of the last war with Great Britain, I was temporarily a resident of the city of New-York. The prospects of the nation were shrouded in gloom. We had been for two or three years at war with the mightiest nation on earth, and, as she had now concluded a peace with the continent of Europe, we were obliged to cope with her single-handed. Our harbors were blockaded. Communication coastwise, between our ports, was cut off. Our ships were rotting in every creek and cove where they could find a place of security. Our immense annual products were moldering in our warehouses. The sources of profitable labor were dried up.

redeemable paper. The extreme portions of our Our currency was reduced to ircountry were becoming hostile to each other, and differences of political opinion were embittering the peace of every household. The credit of the government was exhausted. No one could predict when the contest would terminate, or discover the means by which it could much longer be protracted. It happened that on a Saturday afternoon in February, a ship was discovered in the offing, which was supposed to be a cartel, bringing home our commissioners at Ghent, from their unsuccessful mission. The sun had set gloomily, before any intelligence from the vessel had reached the city. Expectation became painfully intense, as the hours of darkness drew on. At length a boat reached the wharf, announcing the fact that a treaty of peace had been signed, and was waiting for nothing but the action of our government to become a law. The men on whose ears these words first fell, rushed in breathless haste into the city, to repeat them to their friends, shouting as they ran through the streets, Peace! peace! peace! Every one who heard the sound repeated it. From house to house, from street to street, the news spread with electric rapidity. The whole city was in commotion. Men bearing lighted torches were flying to and fro, shouting like madmen, Peace! peace! peace! When the rapture had partially subsided, one idea occupied every mind. But few men slept that night. In groups they were gathered in the streets and by the fire-side, beguiling the hours of midnight by reminding each other that the agony of war was over, and that a worn-out and distracted country was about to enter again upon its wonted career of prosperity. Thus, every one becoming a herald,

the news soon reached every man, woman, and child, in the city, and in this sense the city was evangelized. All this you see was reasonable and proper. But when Jehovah has offered to our world a treaty of peace, when men doomed to hell may be raised to seats at the right hand of God, why is not a similar zeal displayed in proclaiming the good news? Why are men perishing all around us, and no one has ever personally offered to them salvation through a crucified Redeemer ?"

We remark again, that in thus simplifying the main conception of the subject, Dr. Wayland does not detract from the value of theological science and religious literature; he would not deny that it "may be well enough" to give their results a qualified representation in the pulpit. We cannot infer from his reasoning, absolute and sweeping as it is, that he would very materially modify the modern style of preaching in these respects; but his object is to ascertain precisely what is the specific idea of preaching, taught in the ministerial commission-for on this depends the inference which constitutes the next and leading topic of his sermon, viz., Who may preach? Does the commission imply that a special caste, or class of men, trained with qualifications for all the multiform discussions of the modern pulpit, are alone entitled to the office? That is the point, all important in the argument. His definition of the passage asserts the contrary. If this simple promulgation of the fact of human salvation, through Christ, is preaching, then the divine authorization must include all who by their intellectual capacity and by their character and circumstances, are able to make the needed predication. He asserts that this is the practical showing of the primitive Church, -that some of the most signal achievements of the gospel in modern times sanction it, and that the exigences of the Church, actual and pending, irresistibly demand it. The subject here enlarges into its real practical importance and its most serious difficulties too. We regret that our limits will not allow us to quote the reasoning of the author in extenso. A few passages must suffice:

"Does any one say that this command was given only to the apostles? It may or may not have been so; but were they alone included in the obligation which it imposes? The address at the last supper was given to them alone, as were many other of the instructions of our Lord; but were they the only persons to whom the

words spoken apply? Is it affirmed that they and those whom they should appoint are alone to preach the word? I answer, that Jesus Christ never said so, and we have no right to add to this any more than to any other of his commandments. But let us see how the apostles themselves understood the precept. Their own narrative shall inform us. At that time there was a great persecution against the Church that was at Jerusalem, and they were scattered abroad throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.' 'Therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.' Acts viii, 1, 4. Then they that were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, traveled as far as Phenice and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to none but Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake also to the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.' These men were not apostles, nor even original disciples of Christ, for they were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. Yet they went everywhere preaching the word, and in so doing they pleased the Master, for the Holy Spirit accompanied their labors with the blessing from on high. The ascended Saviour thus approved

of their conduct, and testified that their understanding of his last command was correct."

Becoming more specific, the author describes two marked classes of preachers, not claiming for them, however, a more specific authority for the office, but more specific obligations in it, because of more specific qualifications or other advantages.

He admits that there are men who should be exclusively devoted to its duties :—

that some of his disciples should addict them"It seems plainly to be the will of Christ selves exclusively to the ministry of the gospel. Such men are called elders, presbyters, bishops, ministers of the word, or stewards of the mysteries of God. If it be asked, Under what circumstances may a believer undertake this service?-I answer, the New Testament, as it seems to me, always refers to it as a calling to which a man is moved by the Holy Ghost. No from the motive of solemn, conscientious duty. one may therefore enter the ministry, except It may be asked how a man may know that he is called of God to this work,-I answer, the

evidence seems to me to be two-fold. In the first place, he must be conscious of a love for the work itself, not for what in other respects he may gain by it; and also, there must be impressed on his soul an abiding conviction, that, unless he devote himself to this service, he can in no wise answer a good conscience toward God. This is the first indication of the man's duty. In the next place, he must exhibit such evidences of his call to this work as shall secure for him the approbation of his brethren, Of his own feelings he must be the judge; of his qualifications they must be the judges.