not therefore to be the supreme question with the preacher, what themes can assuredly command the witness of the Holy Spirit, rather than what topics will enlist the attention of the people? Let us set the popular preacher and the apostolic preacher side by side, and consider whose reward we would choose, universal admiration or "God also bearing witness, both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles, and _gifts of the Holy Ghost_, according to his will" (Heb. 2: 4)--the sermon greeted with applause and the clapping of hands, or "_the word received with joy of {145} the Holy Ghost_" (1 Thess. 1: 6)?--admiration of the preacher possessing all who listen to the discourse, or "_the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word_" (Acts 10: 44)? Language cannot express the vital moment of the question which we are here discussing. Our generation is rapidly losing its grip upon the supernatural; and as a consequence the pulpit is rapidly dropping to the level of the platform. And this decline is due, we believe, more than anything else, to an ignoring of the Holy Spirit as the supreme inspirer of preaching. We wish to see a great orator in the pulpit, forgetting that the least expounder of the word, when filled with the Holy Ghost, is greater than he. We want the gospel, forsooth; but in the strenuous demand that it be set forth according to the "spirit of the age" we ignore the supremacy of the "Spirit of God." And the method of discourse soon tells upon the matter. We cannot very long have the truth in the pulpit after we have lost "the Spirit of truth" therefrom. "When one possesses not the whole of life," says Vinet, "he possesses not the whole of truth." In all that we have said we do not ignore the human element in preaching, nor undervalue good learning and sanctified mental training, as a furnishing for this high office. We only emphasize the extreme peril of making that supreme which God has made subordinate. As it is genius which raises the great {146} painter or poet far above the common man, so it is the Holy Spirit which lifts the preacher far above the man of genius. A gifted artist spoke wisely when one, thinking only of the implements of his profession, asked, "With what do you mix your paints?" "With brains, sir," he replied. The preacher who brought three thousand to believe on a crucified Christ, under a single sermon, anticipated the question of those who, with an eye upon the mere human accessories of his sermon, might ask after the secret of his power; and he unfolds that secret in a single terse sentence: "With the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven."