Such things cannot be correctly anticipated, and laid down beforehand, by comma and period, in the study. Mr. Ballou's arguments were arranged with the utmost precision, his reasoning followed in the most logical array, and all the while he was talking to the people in the most unconcerned and familiar manner, as though each respective member of his congregation was sitting by his own fireside and the preacher had happened in. This is the mode of preaching which is effectual, and all the flowers of rhetoric may seek in vain to attain a like influence over the hearts and sympathies of an auditory. The latter mode of preaching may please, but the former will convince; the first will make worshippers, the last admirers. Thinks the reader that the simple fishermen of Galilee--yet the chosen of God--sought by the vain and gaudy ornaments of elegant delivery and studied eloquence to please the people? No! They preached the holy word in all meekness, striving to exalt not themselves, but rather the name of him who had sent them. Mr. Ballou says, relative to the period when he commenced to preach:--"Mr. Logan, the preceptor, gave me a certificate when I left the Chesterfield Academy, which was sufficient to enable me to get a school in Bellingham, Mass. Here I taught school during the other days of the week, and preached on the Sabbath. When I first engaged in preaching, it was not with the most distant expectation that I should support myself by the ministry; but I thought I could keep school some, and labor some with my hands, and live with but a little income. From Bellingham I went to the town of Foster, R. I., where my father formerly lived, and there my father taught a large school and had good compensation; and here also on the Sabbath I preached in the school-house where I taught. From this place I went to Scituate, in R. I., where I preached and taught school. My meetings grew very large, and I was called on to go to different places,--to Smithfield, Providence, Pawtucket, etc. After I had spent about two years in keeping school and preaching, I found that I had used up all my earnings, had laid up nothing, except that I had more costly clothing than when I first began. And now, at the age of twenty-four, I was so much called on to preach that I gave up keeping school, and devoted my time to the ministry, receiving now and then some compensation for my services."