For it is absolutely certain that most preachers overestimate--we do not say the intelligence of their congregations,--but their ability to grasp the truth presented at the speed, and in the way in which it is brought before them. Because the trained mind of the preacher can readily and easily understand religious literature and speech, it does not follow that the hearer has the same power; nor does it follow that the lack of it proves him a person of smaller intellectuality than the man whose utterances bring perplexity to his mind. The preacher should remember that what are matters of daily thought and research to him are not so familiar to his hearers. To _him_ they form a well-known country. He should not assume that the man who turns to him for direction as to the points and places of this holy land will always be able to comprehend these directions as easily as he gives them. We speak from experience when we assert that it is much easier, in a land one knows very well, to direct the traveller on his way than it is to understand such directions when, from strangeness in the path, we have in turn to seek them ourselves. Not only is this true, but it is also true that we are too apt to take for granted that what is knowledge to the preacher is knowledge to the hearer. It is to be feared that in these days the average church-goer is not so well versed in Biblical knowledge as the assumptions of our sermons might suggest. Most men nowadays live in a hurry, and are busy about many things, and it cannot be pretended that the Scriptures receive that reading and study which give such advantage to the hearer of preaching. Probably an examination of any ten men chosen without discrimination out of the congregation of one of our churches would reveal a state of things both startling and sad. It is so easy to be misled by appearances. The congregation is well dressed, respectable, keen. There are the usual signs of education, even of culture. All these things are consistent with great shallowness of sacred knowledge. Men are careful to till their own fields, but common land is generally sorely neglected. There is a scientist in yonder pew; in his own science he is supreme. Near him sits a politician; few there are who know the questions of the hour better than he. In the pulpit stands the preacher; he is--shall we venture the assertion?--a man mighty in the Bible. It is _his book_. It is, in a _general_ way, the book of the scientist, of the statesman, of every person in the congregation, but the preacher specialises in it and in all that relates to it. He will make a mistake if he assumes too much either to the credit of one man before him or another. Here a memory of many years ago rises to the surface. Having to preach one Sunday to an audience which usually contained two or three men of positions rather above the common run, we confessed great nervousness to an aged minister of our church now no more.