LECT. XX.]

PERSISTENCE IN COMPOSING.

307

six months than if six years were given to it." If he had said six weeks, instead of six months, he would have been nearer the truth.

66

A third suggestion is, that, in a state of mental despondency, you should write with dogged resolution. Dr. Johnson says that any man can write who will keep doggedly at it. Never yield the point that you can write, and write well. Be indebted to obstinacy, if need be. Pluck is a splendid virtue. Not only strike when the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking. Mind, like iron, is full of latent heat. It is more malleable in some cases than in others; but in all it is susceptible of white-heat. Therefore make it an invariable rule not to give up a subject of a sermon on which you have begun to write. A vast amount of waste of clerical effort is caused by succumbing to discouraged effort. The wasted introductions of sermons are an exceeding great multitude." When indicative of a habit, they signify mental debility. Finish, therefore, every thing you undertake, for the sake of the mental discipline of success. Make something of the refractory theme and the barren text. The process will not intoxicate you by its results. You will often flounder through the sermon, not much wiser at the end than at the beginning, and hardly knowing how you got through. You will be sometimes reminded of Aaron's luckless attempt at statuary. You need not dance around it; perhaps you will dash it in pieces; but go through the process of making of it a likeness to some living thing in the heavens, or in the earth, or under the earth. You will be the stronger in willpower over difficult themes, if in nothing else.

Take encouragement from the example of Sir William Hamilton:

"There is scarcely a case on record where there existed a greater antagonism between an author and his pen than in the case of Sir William Hamilton. In reading his pure and limpid language, it is hard to realize that he was not a ready writer. But even while occupying the chair of logic and metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, and every day delivering from it those lectures on metaphysical science which have made him famous throughout the world, he could never take his pen at any time, and write a certain required amount. Indeed, he always took up his pen with extreme reluctance. Owing to this aversion to composition, he was often compelled to sit up all night in order to prepare the lecture which was to be the wonder and admiration of every person who heard it the next day. This lecture he wrote roughly and rapidly, and it was copied and corrected by his wife in the next room. Sometimes it was not finished by nine o'clock in the morning, and the weary wife had fallen asleep, only to be wakeful and ready, however, when he appeared with fresh copy."

One other suggestion is, that you should trust the predisposition of the world to receive favorably the work of a young man. You have nothing to fear from the world's criticism, unless you invite it by self-conceit. The severity of criticism falls on middle-aged and old men. A young man, and specially if he is a clergyman, has every facility he can reasonably ask for for a successful beginning of his life's work. Wait ten years, and you will yourself marvel at the patience of your first parish. The "dead line" of "fifty years" is a long way off. If you live to reach it, you may have achieved a success which will make you indifferent to it. If you have not, it will not be owing to any want of generosity in the verdict of your contemporaries upon you as a youthful preacher.

LECTURE XXI.

THE PRACTICABILITY OF LITERARY STUDY TO A PASPRELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS. .

TOR.

4th, I HAVE thus far endeavored to give you some ideal of the true study of literature in respect to its objects, the selection of authors, and the methods of the study.

The peril attending any such endeavor is, that it will only awaken in you a sense of the impracticability of the study to one who is immersed in the cares of a pastor's life. That is a profitless kind of advice which only impresses upon its recipients a sense of its uselessness to them. I wish to make the hints I have given you a real help to you, if possible. Therefore, before leaving this subject, I propose to add some suggestions upon the practicability of literary study to a pastor.

1. Let me ask you to observe several preliminary suggestions respecting a plan of scholarly reading.

(1) It is frankly conceded, as has been already remarked in the preface to this volume, that any scholarly plan of study must, to the majority of pastors, be, to a greater or less extent, an ideal one. The practicability of it is a matter of degrees, exceedingly variable at different times, as well as to different persons. The ideal element must enter largely into any plan that shall be largely useful. If there are any to whom it

can be only an ideal, it is not therefore useless, even to them. The negative value of a lofty ideal of scholarly life is not to be despised. It may act as a censor of a preacher's sermons, keeping alive a taste which will exclude unscholarly methods and material which he knows to be such, but which he will not avoid, except through a silent respect for his dumb library. The very sight of a library of a thousand volumes well chosen is a stimulus to a pastor who for months may not be able to read a volume. Says Bishop Hall on "The Sight of a Great Library," "Neither can I cast my eye casually on any of these silent masters but I must learn somewhat."

But the large majority of educated pastors can read something, if they will. Evidences abound that they do read very considerably. The charge can not be sustained against our American clergy, certainly not against the clergy of New England, that they cease to be scholars when they become pastors. Look at the reports of "ministers' meetings," and clerical "associations," and at the pastoral contributions to the weekly and quarterly press. The subjects there discussed show that our pastors are men of books as well as men of affairs. In the meridian of their labors, and at the head of large and exacting parishes, they do not turn the key upon their libraries. They are vigilant observers of the current of scientific and theological thought around them. The only question is, whether their reading is regulated by the wisest economy in choice and methods. One does not beat the air, then, who endeavors to give to youthful preachers a high and enduring ideal of a scholarly life. They are entering into a fraternity of scholars who find time and mental force for some ideal.

LECT. XXI.]

READING AT RANDOM.

311

If further evidence is needed on this point, lok to the pulpits of other lands and times.1 Calvin was as laborious in the pulpit as out of it. He often preached, for weeks together, every day in the week; yet there are his immense folios to speak for him as a scholar. Bochart ministered daily while building his "Phaleg" and "Hierozoicon." Owen was incessant in preaching while his exposition of the "Hebrews" was in progress. Lightfoot was faithful to his pastoral duty while he was amassing his wealth of Talmudic learning. Lardner and Pye Smith and Hartley Horne had pastoral charges in London. Bloomfield was a vicar. Trench, Alford, and Ellicott were among the working clergy when they planned their learned works, and published a part of them. Stier was a pastor: so was Ebrard. Henry, Scott, Doddridge, Adam Clarke, were laborious and able ministers. Kingsley was a hard-working pastor: so, at one time, was Stanley. These men illustrate, by their union of pastoral duties with a scholarly life, that where there is a will there is a way.

But much is gained, if the presence of a scholarly ideal in the furniture of a pastor's mind achieves no more than to arrest the habit of reading at hap-hazard. This is the bane of the existing habit, probably, of the large majority of educated men. The time we spend in reading print of some kind is more considerable than the majority of us suppose. I once inquired of a hardworked metropolitan pastor how much time daily, on the average, he spent in reading of all sorts, aside from that directly necessary to his preparation for the pulpit. He replied, "Not an hour." Then, correcting his hasty count, he said, "Two hours." Again reflecting, said

1 See North British Review for 1860.