If we admit, as perhaps we may, the existence of a measure of truth in this complaint, it will only be to claim that there is some excuse for those whom it asperses. The intellectual problems bred of a materialistic age have so compelled the preacher to the defence of the walls of Zion that it may well have come to pass that the inhabitants of the city--the men and women down in the streets and dwellings, for the security of whom he has been contending--may have had to go short of many things; a time of siege is a time of deprivations and hardships for citizens as well as soldiers. The great social questions of the present day have also claimed much of his thought and effort. He has felt, and justly, that these questions ought to receive more pulpit recognition. It is possible, and should not be thought surprising, that in the ardour of the social crusade the preacher may have sometimes given to these things time and strength which might have been better spent in ministering to the personal griefs and perplexities of such as sat before him for their need's sake. It may be well for us each to make inquiry concerning ourselves in these matters. As a result we will realise again, no doubt, how numerous and insistent are the demands made upon us to turn aside in our ministry to treat of a hundred things which once upon a time we did not think of as pulpit questions. Be this as it may, here lies work for the preacher which he must not neglect. It is as certainly his duty to cheer and encourage the heart of the individual as to indicate the path to better conditions of life for the multitude. And this he can only effectively do as he perfects himself in his understanding of their needs. Of this understanding, and of the ways in which it must be sought, we have already written and will say no more, except to point out how every new discovery concerning the preacher's duties furnishes additional illustration of the absolute necessity that he study not books only, but also men and the conditions of their lives. It is of little use knowing the contents of well-filled shelves if we have never read the living volumes before us in the pews. Again we say, "if we only knew." Still knowledge is not the whole of the preacher's need in order that his message may contain this cheering quality. It is even more needful that he shall, himself, be one of those who abide in the comfort of God. He must have learned the efficacy of the great consoling and gladdening verities by experience of their application to his own soul. He only can surely cheer others who himself is cheerful, and no man who has ever felt the pressure and care of life _can_ be cheerful excepting in so far as these great guarantees have become real to his own spirit. Only with "the comfort wherewith he is comforted of God" will he comfort others!