Thoughts of the class which are properly expressed in pulpits are, of course, of various kinds. There are thoughts which are purely reflections and speculations of the intellect on critical and philosophical problems, and which an able lawyer, an acute critic, or a profound metaphysician can make as well, or better, than a prophet or a saint; nay, in which a Mephistopheles might excel a Tauler. It is no doubt sometimes necessary (though surely by no means so frequently as some preachers seem to take for granted) to offer thoughts of this class to a congregation, and, in short, to read out in church an article which _minus_ the text might have appeared in a Review. If it be a very lofty and religious mind from which such thoughts emanate, they will of course possess an elevating power proportioned to the momentum of such a mind brought to bear on ordinary intellects. To be lifted by sermons of this class into the serene and purified atmosphere of noble speculation will of itself effect a quasi-religious result, independently of any conviction of theological truths which may or may not be brought away. The hearers who have followed for half an hour the upward flight of one of these eagle souls will return to the petty concerns, interests, pleasures, anxieties of common life, calmed and ennobled, and able to see all things in more just proportions. On the other hand, if the preacher be merely a clever critic or metaphysician, who deals with sacred themes as a counsel with the case in his brief, the result of his sermons, however brilliant and interesting they may be found by an intellectual audience, and triumphantly satisfactory to those who find their cherished opinions clinched by his arguments, will be the reverse of religious. The listeners will go away, not awed and calmed, but eager for controversy and confirmed in self-confidence, having lost any benefit which they might have derived from the previous acts of worship. They have been made to rise from their knees to sit down instantly in the seat of the critical, always very closely contiguous to that of the scornful. Of this intellectual and theoretical class of sermons it is not to be anticipated that women will preach many. I should rather say that one of the good things which may be hoped from the introduction of women into the ministry may prove to be the falling out of fashion of a class of discourses which can only be beneficial or desirable in the case of exceptional mental greatness, combined with a piety warm and powerful enough to hallow every region of thought into which it may pass.