Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle. PRESIDENT-C. H. SPURGEON. NUMBER OF STUDENTS, 60. Amount required for maintaining students, and the general work of spreading the gospel, about £6,000. Statement of Receipts from March 20th, 1871, to April 18th, 1871. Stockwell Orphanage. Statement of Receipts from March 20th, to April 18th, 1871. £ s. d. 050 0 1 6 0 10 0 1 1 0 1 4 0 0 10 0 Mr. R. L. Everett, per Rev. W. Whale 0 5 0 Ninety-first Starr-Bowkett Building A Wellwisher, West Bromwich A Thankoffering, per Rev. A. A. Rees S. H. Mrs. Maria Ward Horace Johnson Miss Maxwell Mrs. Vynne Mr. S. Shoobridge. Collected by Miss A. Scarle and Miss I. McDonald, per Rev. G. Hester Mr. Ford Mr, T. Haddington, per Rev. W. £ s. d. 0 16 6 2 10 0 0 5 0 2 10 0 1 0 0 026 3 0 0 0 4 0 050 0 5 6 0 5 0 0 11 0 Mr. J. Bennett Mr. Yule Mrs. Lewis 0 10 0 0 15 6 05 0 Presents to the Orphanage.-One Box of Eggs, Mr. Potier; 2 cwt. of Biscuits, Mr. Murrell; a Dinner for the Boys, Mr. Toogood; three Sacks of Greens, Mr. Bath; five Sacks and a bushel of Apples, Mr. Woodnutt; fifty Shirts, Misses Dransfield; twenty-one Books for Boys' Library, Hodder and Stoughton; one hundred Sunday School Hymn Books, Mr. Hadland; a Bundle of Tracts, Anon.; twelve Handbowls and one Teapot, Mr. Vickery; twelve Iron Pails, Messrs. J. and J. Jones; four hundred Garden Tiles, Mr. Still; an Iron Gutter, etc., Mr. Higgs; a Rocking Horse, Mr. Simmonds. THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL. JUNE 1, 1871. The Best Way of Securing Variety in Sermonising. A PAPER READ AT THE COLLEGE CONFERENCE OF 1871. T BY C. A. DAVIS, OF CHESTERFIELD. HE title of our paper assumes the truth of the proverb, "Variety is charming;" a dictum which it is not likely any of us will be inclined to question. The title was given to us, or we should not have cast it in so pretentious a mould. We do not venture to hope, with our slender ability, to expound the best way of securing the object in view, but rather to submit our thoughts on the matter, with the hope of eliciting for our own advantage an expression of our brethren's opinions. As to the word "sermonising," we take it to apply more especially to the preparation of the sermon, as the word "preaching" refers to its delivery; but since the variety we seek is to be apparent in the final result as well as in the process we adopt to secure it, we shall take little care to preserve this distinction in our paper. We begin with the remark that variety in preaching is needful. A glance at his audience will convince the preacher of this. All men, more or less, carry their minds in their faces, and of the many minds before him, he sees no two alike. Each has its own needs and its peculiar tastes. Each will have to be won by specially adapted methods. The startling knock that gains admission to one heart will only close the door of its neighbour; and the still small voice must be used if we would obtain entrance there. Some will need a sudden peremptory demand for admission; with others we shall not succeed unless we give due and gentle notice of our coming. This man exalts himself far away from his fellows on an all but inaccessible peak of lofty reserve, and to reach him we must scale heights and overcome many obstacles: the other will never be found in those frosty regions; he has his abode in the valley of humiliation, and not till we have descended thither shall we find ourselves welcomed by him as the heralds of peace. There are in our audience feeble folk and strong, healthy minds and ailing; and while for this class we spread the table, to that we must administer the medicine. Nor must we forget the varied moods of the same mind. Some persons are blessed with a mental constitution that is enviably equable, others are as variable as an April morning, and the song that ravished yesterday, to-day grates on the ear. Recollect, too, that monotony defeats itself. We are all familiar with the law by which a sound oft repeated loses its power to strike the ear or arrest the attention. Dwellers in the neighbourhood of Niagara hear it roar as though they heard it not, and a sudden silence would be to them as a thunder clap. You, my friend, have sat in your study; the clock on the mantelpiece ticked with commendable perseverance, but you did not hear it till it stopped, and by its startling silence awoke you to the fact that you had neglected to wind it up. A preacher who lacks variety will be unheard even by his audience. There may be many hearers in his chapel, but few listeners; and it might be an agreeable change, and probably an impressive one, if he should stop ticking. Possibly his silence might be more effectual than his preaching to arrest those who had been lulled to unconsciousness by his monotonous utterances. In nature, if there be any monotony, it is relieved by constant variety. Chanticleer wakes up the morn, and is immediately succeeded by a hurried chorus of the waking songsters. By-and-by this sinks, and one and another sits warbling his solitary note, or answering his mate. Then, as the sun rises, the lark is heard at heaven's gate singing, and in the noontide heat, when most birds rest, the sedate rooks on languid wing utter their indescribably indolent caw in harmony with the gentle sough of the wind, and the occasional sharpening of the labourer's scythe. As evening draws on the birds sing their vespers to the droning hum of the beetle's wing, and then leave the night to the stars and the pensive nightingale, who, like grace in affliction, pours upon the darkness her melting melodies. Let the preacher wake up all the varied sounds of the world within him. Let the birds of joy and the quiet zephyrs of meditation, the single notes of solitary emotions, and the full chorus of all that is within him be heard, as he tells out the tale of God's love to man. The need of variety has been clearly perceived by others, and I hope we are wise enough to avail ourselves of what is good wherever we find it. The Ritualists understand its advantages, and study to introduce it not into their preaching alone, but into every other part of their service. They appeal to all the senses-except common sense. Ear, eye, and nose are all entertained. They elaborately decorate the walls of their sanctuaries, and burden the dim light with the colours of painted glass, they change their dress, they shift their position, they have attitudes and postures many, all to please the sight. They enlist the fragrance of burning incense that the sense of smell may be regaled. They invoke the spirit of music, they intone their prayers, they ring |