great teacher: for the preaching of the gospel neither a pulpit nor a set audience is necessary; God himself is setting the example, and correcting our opinions, in preparing his highways ere he pours out his Spirit. In this country a race of preachers has been training, Sabbath Schools have been in operation; Biblical literature has been advancing; the Spirit of God has been poured out in revivals; a great practical school for missionaries afforded; bands of missionaries provided; the Seamen's Friend Societies in successful operation; Tract and Temperance Societies established prosperously; all the elements of missionary power and greatness gathering together. Our commerce has been extending, and abroad, the enterprise of travellers, and the researches of missionaries already in the field, have increased our geographical knowledge, and from regions hallowed as the birthplace of the Scriptures, have brought back new light for their illustration. In all things the prediction of God is fulfilling, that the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people.

As the increase of light upon the Scriptures is one of the modes of preparation for the work of missions, a vast accession of light and knowledge for their illustration will doubtless result from that work; it will follow the application of the mind of those nations, to the study of the Scriptures, in the midst of whom the events transacted and the scenes recorded in the Scriptures had their origin. The whole oriental mind is yet to be awakened and disciplined by the Bible, and is then to turn upon the illustration of the Bible the peculiar powers so prepared and directed. Such an era would be somewhat like the application of a new speculum in the telescope, to carry the range of our vision still further than it has ever yet travelled among the heavenly bodies. When the Jewish mind, redeemed and returned from its waste and dispersion, purified from the blindness of infidelity, and armed with the power of faith, shall be concentrated, amidst the lovely hallowed plains and hillsides of Judea, upon the adoring study of those wonderful prophecies, so long veiled, and that wonderful subject of prophecy, so long rejected, can we possibly think that no new light will issue from the change? Or that, when the Indian mind, delivered from

the thraldom of its caste, its Vishnus, and its strange, prodigious superstitions, shall be turned with the same heavendescended discipline upon the same heaven-inspired records, there will be no results of interest in the quickening of our religious studies into new life? Or that, when a nation tinged by the mysterious peculiarities of thought and feeling induced by an abode of ages on the borders of the Nile, shall be employed with the same believing zeal upon the same holy volume, there will arise out of this order of students nothing to contribute to our store of knowledge, nothing to enlarge the horizon of our views? If each individual human mind is like a prism, that throws the clear sunlight with some new shade of beauty over every object on which it is turned, the individual mind of nations is so too; a prism vast and magnificent enough to reveal new wonders for the world's admiration. And as the Bible is God's book of instruction and education for the world in all its generations, and for nations, with all their distinctive peculiarities of character and habits, there is probability in the idea, that many a mount of vision is to be scaled, as yet unmeasured, and many a valley of thought to be laid open, as yet completely hidden, for the discovery of which we wait the application of particular national minds, or of minds formed under particular national influences.

England and America have taken the lead in the work of missions, but it is not these nations only, by whom God is now moving in these mighty arrangements. The Protestants in France and Switzerland are rising to the work. In that very nation, where, a few years ago, the sun and the stars seemed blotted from existence in the spiritual firmament, where infidelity was worshipped as wisdom, and death publicly proclaimed an eternal sleep, so great a change even now is witnessed, that Bible, Tract, Evangelical, and Missionary Societies are not only formed, but in energetic operation. The sons of them that afflicted the Church come bending unto Zion, and the picture in the 60th chapter of Isaiah's prophecy seems destined, even in its minutest details, to a visible realization.

It is not possible to look upon a more sublime spectacle than that which rises to the mind of a spiritual observer at the present crisis. A voice like the archangel's trumpet is crying, Cast up, cast up the highway, gather out the stones,

lift up a standard to the people! Event rolls on after event. Nothing in haste, but all with an awful deliberation and grandeur, becoming Him, to whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day. As the purposes of God are advancing nearer to their completion, ten thousand significant incidents sweep onward in the train. The convergency of all things to the point becomes more and more rapid. Meaning begins to appear in movements before shrouded in mystery. An omnipotent plan, it is manifest, is in operation, and the trains laid with Divine wisdom are fast completing. They connect, it has well been said, with piles of combustible materials all over the world; it is only for the fire of heaven to fall upon them, and suddenly the whole scene will be lighted up with a transcendent spiritual glory. The way is preparing for nations to be born in a day; when the materials are once in readiness, there is no reason to suppose that the world's conversion may not take place suddenly, with great rapidity. The preparation being made, as before the coming of Christ in person, the Lord, whom we seek, shall, as then, suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom we delight in. I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land, saith the Lord of Hosts; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall

come.

For the complete fulfilment of prophecy, but one thing is needed; a baptism of the Spirit, commensurate in extent and glory with the extent and greatness of the preparatory movements in the providence of God. Already it seems to have commenced, and we hear from the Islands of the Sea, and from Northern India, of effusions of the Spirit almost, if not quite, equal to those of the day of Pentecost. That the gift may be continued, one thing is essential,—a spirit of grace and of supplication in the Churches. The movements of God's providence, and those mighty revivals of religion, are a voice to every individual Christian, Enter into thy closet, and shut the door about thee, and pray to thy Father which seeth in secret. When this is done faithfully, prophecies will speedily become realities, and when prophecy is all fulfilled, when the prayers of saints, from generation to generation presented before the throne of God, are completely answered, then will be a scene of God's

glory, such as neither prophecy nor description can fully paint, and such as our minds at present can reach but with very dim and inadequate conceptions.

Blessed is he, praying, laboring, or suffering, whose heart is in the work of the advancing kingdom of the Lord. He shall see its glory, consummated, if not in this world, from a post of observation amidst

-"the sanctities of Heaven."

ARTICLE IV.

MANNER IN THE PREACHER.

By Rev. George Shepard, Prof. Sac. Rhet. in the Theol. Seminary, Bangor, Me.

THERE are two things which must combine in forming the orator: there are two parts, neither to be abstracted, without destroying the completeness of the product. The first is good matter; the second, a good manner. The former is the more indispensable of the two. The latter cannot be wanting without great detriment to the former. In this country, we have exalted the former, too much at the expense of the latter. We have not, indeed, thought too highly of good inatter; certainly, we have not been guilty of excess in the production of it. We are obnoxious to the charge of too much neglecting the manner. lf then it be true, that manner is nearly, if not quite, half in the construction of the orator, of the sacred as well as the secular orator, may not a little space be allowed, in which to vindicate and enforce the claims of this exterior part?

And what is meant by manner? We mean by it, every thing of an exterior sort, which comes in requisition in conveying our conceptions to other minds, and in making them vivid and productive there. It is concerned in the full and effective delivery of our thoughts, from ourselves, into our hearers.

A few things may here be designated, which go to makeup the idea of a good manner; first premising, however, that it is not an exact, uniform, invariable thing. All good

manner or delivery is no more precisely alike, than all intelligent and beautiful countenances are precisely alike. Each comely face has its own characteristic features. Each impressive and pleasing manner has its own characteristic style. While it violates not palpably the laws of nature and of elocution; it varies, according to the structure, the habits, and taste, of the individual performer. Still there are certain things common to all good delivery.

One is, a considerable strength of voice. Certainly, this is very desirable; a voice of sufficient volume and power to fill all the customary spaces, without pain to ourselves or to others; and always having a quantity in reserve, to expend upon the strong and heavy things, which we may wish to say.

The quality is also to be regarded; pleasantness as well as strength of tone is desirable. A full, round, deep tone is invariably pleasing and acceptable to the auditors. The power of modulation, scope, range of voice, variety of tone, are indispensable to a good manner. On the other hand, monotony of pitch, emphasis, cadence-the beginning, advancing, and ending of every sentence in about the same way, is wholly incompatible with any vivacious and forcible utterance. It is dullness; this tied, slavish uniformity in the particulars named, is, all the world over and down through all generations, dullness and feebleness.

Attitude and gesture are also to be regarded and cultivated, till all gross awkwardness is done away, and a reasonable ease and propriety are attained. Sometimes there appears very great uncouthness. A modern writer tells us, with a little sprinkling of extravagance, “of arms that sail about like the arms of a windmill, and with as little meaning; and of the more common sawing, hammering, and punching, that suggest a doubt whether the man was not intended for a different trade from that of speaking; of a distortion of countenance like that of Piso, who, as Cicero tells us, spake in the Senate with one eyebrow screwed up to the forehead, and the other dropped to a level with the chin."

While all gross awkwardness and uncouthness of gesture should be overcome in our aim after a good manner, we should avoid the palpably artificial. The too measured and studied grace of movement is always inconsistent with a commendable delivery. Gesture is indispensable: the