preachers were to give us fewer sermons, and when they did preach, take care, like St. Paul in his Epistles, to have some distinct practical point to speak to. For the difficulty of Christian as of all ethics, lies not in the general rules, but in the special application of the rules; and vague condemnations of sin however severe, and commendations of holiness however fervid, will have little effect if people are not to be made to understand distinctly what those phrases so awfully sounded forth on Sunday are meant to signify on Monday. The dignity of the pulpit, I suspect, like the dignity of history, has often made it dull; certain it is, that whether from a false sense of dignity, or from a religious zeal without ethical depth, or from ignorance of those affairs to which ethical maxims must be applied, or {254} from fear to offend those whose support is thought necessary, the ministrations of the Christian pulpit lose not a little of their efficiency from dealing more in the generalities of sin and holiness, than in special vices and virtues, and from yielding to the easy temptation of expatiating on scholastic subtleties or ecclesiastical crotchets, instead of unravelling the perplexities of social practice, or unmasking the disguises of individual character. Many things are left to be handled lightly by the novel-writer, which with much more effect might have been handled seriously in the pulpit; and in fact, I have found not a few excellent sermons in novels, which I should have sought for in vain in our pulpits; but the misfortune is, that people read novels mainly to be amused, and will see the living portrait of their own follies painted in the firmest lines, and with the most glowing colours, without making the slightest attempt to amend their faults. But of this enough. One thing is certain, that no amount of faith, no amount of preaching, and no amount of prayer, can be taken as a true measure of the genuine Christianity of any country, unless the faith professed shall be found to be permeating every form of social life, and elevating every trait of individual character. To any one who wishes to see what real Christianity can do for a district in the person of a truly evangelic and wise man, I recommend the perusal of the life of the Rev. John Frederick Oberlin, who, in the latter half of the last century, was, during the course of a long life, pastor of the mountain district of the Ban de la Roche in Alsace. This remarkable man was not content with the common ministerial routine of preaching and praying; he saw that in the circumstances {255} in which he was placed, nothing was to be done by mere talk; so with pick-axe in hand he set himself to make roads; he became the forester of his parishioners, and planted trees; their schoolmaster, and built them schools; their architect, and reformed their cottages; their deacon, and taught them trades; their professor, and lectured to them on