The age of systematic, and scientific doubt had not set in on the Principality; but he met the conscience of man as a conscience, as that which was a trouble, and a sorrow to the thoughtful mind, and where it was still untroubled, he sought to alarm it, and awaken it to terror, and to fear; and he preached the life, and work of Christ as a legitimate satisfaction, and rest to the troubled conscience. This was, no doubt, the great burden of his ministry; these are the subjects of all his sermons. He used the old words, the old nomenclature. Since the day of Christmas Evans, theological language is so altered, that the theological lexicon of the eighteenth century would seem very poorly to represent theological ideas in this close of the nineteenth. But we have often thought, that, perhaps, could the men of that time be brought face to face with the men of this, it might be found that terms had rather enlarged their signification, than essentially altered their meaning,—this in many instances, of course, not in all. But it would often happen, could we but patiently analyze the meaning of theological terms, we should often find a brother where we had suspected an alien, and a friend where we had imagined a foe. Thus Christmas Evans dealt with great truths. He was a wise master-builder, and all the several parts of his sermons were related together in mutual dependence. The reader will notice that there was always symmetry in their construction: he obeys an order of thought; we feel that he speaks of that which, to the measure of the revelation given, and his entrance into the mind of the Spirit, he distinctly understands. A mind, which itself lives in the light, will, by its own sincerity, make the subject which it attempts to expound clear; and he had this faculty, eminently, of making abstruse truths shine out with luminous, and distinct beauty. This is always most noble when the mind of a preacher rises to the highest truths in the Christian scheme. A great deal of our preaching, in the present day, well deserves the name of pretty: how many men, whose volumes of sermons are upon our shelves, both in England, and America, seem as if their preachers had been students in the natural history of religion, gathering shells, pretty rose-tinted shells, or leaves, and insects for a theological museum! And a very pretty occupation, too, to call attention to the lily-work of the temple. But there are others, whose aim has been— “Rather to see great truths Than touch and handle little ones.”