at no distant day, through its influence. Facilis descensus averni. Sed revocare gradum-hic labor hoc opus. We fear that all attempts to counteract its fatal influence will prove too late and ineffectual. The churches and ministry had need awaken to a sense of the danger. Its practical results already display themselves to some extent, and they commend it no more to us, than do its theological features.

If ever a system of dialectics was eminently adapted to stultify the intellect, and to sear the conscience, we think it is precisely that which has received the favor of our author, and is so pertinaciously advocated and propagated by him. The spirit appropriate and peculiar to his philosophico-theological system, may commend itself to those who are fond of what is coarse and severe, and who account these things plainness and faithfulness, but cannot fail to offend the meek and gentle, as well as persons of refinement and delicacy. Its introduction and indulgence in the pulpit, have degraded it, and done more than all its enemies had accomplished, to bring contempt upon the ministry of reconciliation. We write with real pain and deep sorrow of heart; but cannot withhold the expression of our sober conviction, that seeking immediate effect, and mistaking mere dramatic power for the power of the truth, through its influence a very serious deterioration, in the style of preaching, has been produced, which has brought the pulpit, to some extent, to the level of the stage, and engendered that mercenary spirit in many churches which prompts them to "hire" ministers for times and occasions. A flippant air and irreverent manner of speaking on sacred things, by ministers of the gospel, prepare the way for profanity on the part of those whose minds are not affected by the fear of God. Abounding in anecdote, the familiar use of the dialogue and other dramatic methods for the exhibition and illustration of truth, relieve from the necessity of careful thought, and by the aid and power of the imagination, give impulse to passion. Pride, arrogance, extravagance, and self-conceit are incident to its developments. Censoriousness and denunciation, with all the disputes and divisions, suspicions and schisms, ever sure to follow in their wake, find abundant aliment in the style and manner of applying its principles of casuistry, for the analysis of character. In reverence toward God in prayer, and the absence of all that courtesy toward man, and the winning tenderness of that sympathy and charity which the gospel so much commends, betray themselves in the style and manner of expression.

We deprecate the influence and spirit of this system, and think they have long since been well described by the great New England Patriarch, whose home is in the West, and who yet lingers on the shores of mortality to bless the churches with his cheering voice, as a spirit of spiritual pride, censoriousness, and insubordination to the order of the gospel. Our author's attempt to develop

a system of philosophy and theology in which it has found its permanent lodgment, and through which it has made its prurient developments, has contributed not only to increase the prejudices against evangelical religion in the minds of persons of taste and education, and to drive them off to other denominations where they will not be offended by rudeness and vulgarity in the pulpit, but to repel even the friends of the pure, unadulterated truth of the gospel. The very names of revivals and spiritual religion, as well as the religious profession of multitudes, have been rendered a taunt and a reproach. We attribute the present dearth of Divine influences, and the absence of the true spirit of revival, to the influence of this man-exalting and God-dishonoring philosophy, which has attempted to naturalize religion, if we may so speak, denied the very office and grieved the blessed Spirit of God. Its prevalence will prove but the pioneer of a mere natural religion to foster Deism, Unitarianism, and Infidelity.

ARTICLE VI.

THE PREACHING OF JONAH.

By the REV. GEORGE SHEPARD, D.D., Professor at Bangor.

THE Saviour speaks, in one place, of the preaching of Jonah. From this it appears that Jonah was a preacher. From the little specimen we have of his preaching, and its effects, we wish we knew more of him in this calling. We know very little; still we may, perhaps, derive some benefit from the brief notices of his character, and the dim intimations of his labors.

Respecting his early history, his education, and training, we are very much in the dark. He was the son of Amittai-was a Gallilean, and prophecied in the reign of Jeroboam II., king of Israel.

He was sent of the Lord to Ninevah, to cry against it, because its wickedness had come up before the Lord. Ninevah, without doubt, was then in its glory; an exceeding great city of three days journey-nearly sixty miles in circumference. The prophet did not, at first, proceed in obedience to the injunction he had received, but foolishly attempted to flee from the presence of the Lord. He took ship to Tarshish; but the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. The prophet, as the cause of the trouble, was cast into the sea, and swallowed by a monster of the deep, which God had prepared for the purpose, and thus became a type of Christ, who was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The prophet, when thrown upon the land, proTHIRD SERIES, VOL. V. No. 1.

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ceeded to discharge the duties of his commission. He went and preached the preaching God bid him; he began to enter into the city a day's journey, and said-" yet forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown."

In regard to the character of the preacher, we may glean something. He does not seem to have been wanting in courage, physical or moral. Though he had received a perilous commissionto go, an unguarded stranger, into the midst of a great city, and denounce its speedy and utter overthrow, yet he did not falter on this account did not flee because he feared the consequences to himself, of delivering such a message; but because he thought the Lord might repent him of the evil, and in view of the reformation. of the people, spare the devoted city; and, in that case, he would be found a false prophet.

The prophet seems to have been greatly wanting in that compassionate feeling-that true benevolence, which rejoices in the deliverance, and the highest welfare of others. There appears in him a sort of vindictive spirit, insisting that the ruin he had denounced, should be, to the letter, executed. He placed himself in a sightly position, that he might witness that sublime stroke of the Divine justice, which should sweep to destruction all the dwellers in the vast city before him.

And here his petulance comes out. He was greatly displeased; was positively angry; not with his brother, and without à cause, but with his Maker, and for a cause which should have filled his soul with adoration and thankfulness. The prophet, to say the least, was greatly wanting in social amiableness; he seems to have been peevish and sullen; a man of few words, and not all those uttered advisedly.

Much appears in his history, and the development of his character which is inconsistent with true religion. We must believe, however, that he was a good man with many infirmities. He was probably in a back-slidden state: the fact of his attempting to flee from the presence of the Lord, and of his stupidly sleeping in circumstances which constrained even his pagan companions to pray, indicates that he was in such a state. Traits of the good man appear in his prompt confession, his readiness to be sacrificed for the good of the whole, his prayer and ascription of praise from the depth of his trouble.

When we come to the preaching of Jonah, we find that there was very little of it; more probably than is recorded; but we have doubtless the substance of it. It was brief, abrupt, sententious, and repetitious. It was altogether in keeping with the morose and taciturn prophet; his iterated cry was,-"Yet forty days and Ninevah shall be overthrown."

The message was one of unmixed, unmitigated severity. It was simple denunciation-a declaration of the Divine purpose to

destroy the guilty city. There appears no revelation of mercy -no intimation or promise that repentance and reformation would avail to avert the threatened doom. It was only, that in a definite time, the place should be destroyed.

The message of the prophet does not appear to have been sustained by any external evidence. So far as we know, God wrought at the time no miracles by the hand of Jonah, as proof that his commission was from above. The people might have had some knowledge of his miraculous deliverance from the belly of the whale, and this have been a sign to them. Still there was nothing directly before their eyes to convince them that God had sent him. How natural that he should have been taken as some wandering lunatic, and so have become the sport of the boys, and been gazed at and jeered at by all. How utterly improbable was the message, according to all the appearances of the case. Who, amongst the people, would believe such words, coming from a stranger having no seal to his commission,-who believe that that great city, protected by an impregnable wall, one hundred feet in height, covered with towers, and those filled with the brave; a city of six hundred thousand inhabitants, at a time when everything was thus secure within, and no menacing foe without, and nothing appeared against it but the voice of this brawling intruder,-who believe, that in forty days it would be overthrown?-Such was the preacher, and the character of the message-both to human view quite unauthoritative and unpromising.

But the effect produced was indeed wonderful. The message, though unattested, was believed by the people; and they put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least. Even the king came down from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes; and proclaimed that there should be a fast throughout the land, and that the people cry mightily unto God, and turn every man from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. How deep and permanent this repentance was, we do not know. In many instances it may have been to life eternal. But all the people were humbled at the time. The scene is, perhaps without a parallel in history-the king and his subjects clothed in sackcloth, abstaining from food, and calling upon God, if peradventure he will turn from his fierce anger that they perish not. God did regard their cries and their repentance, and forbore to inflict the doom He had pronounced. The result was the continuance of this great city for about a century and a half longer. Their tranquility was thus lengthened out, because they believed the Divine message, and demeaned themselves accordingly.

Are their any points of practical or homiletical instruction, suggested by this ancient preacher and his preaching?

1. It strikes us, in studying this notable case, that the efficacy of

a message does not always depend upon the amount or quantity of it. Jonah's discourse was unquestionably a short one yet it came with great power upon the minds of the people. It is often the case now, that a few words, fitly spoken, will accomplish what the most labored and extended oratory fails to accomplish; occasionally, the simplest and briefest sentence of truth, uttered, and no more thought of it by the author, becomes the power of God to the salvation of some listening hearer. In this fact we see the wonderful power of God's Word. Such the doctrinal inference. It is light; a single ray of it reveals the darkness and recovers the wanderer. It is a fire; a single spark of it commences a moral conflagration; sweeping the wood, the hay, and stubble; resulting in a new creation-a new heavens and a new earth. It is seed; a single grain of it germinates and brings forth a harvest to life everlasting. The practical inference is-in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand, for thou knowest not whether shall prosper this or that; or whether they shall be alike good. If it be but a single seed, sow it; if it be but one word, utter it appropriately, and it may prove an arrow in some heart for the great physician to abstract-the preparation and beginning of spiritual health, of life eternal, to some waiting soul.

2. The religious teacher should be careful in his work, to avail himself of the help-the concurrence of conscience. In the language of Paul, let him so speak as to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This plainly implies, that every man has a conscience which can be reached and put upon its duty. What the apostle here taught, our sententious preacher had ages before practised. He came straight into the recorder's house, as Bunyan has it, and stirred the sharp and accusing energies of the uncorrupt dweller there. He did not undertake to prove anything; there was not even the shadow of argument in what he said. It was only stark denunciation; no premises; no process. Nothing but the bald and appalling conclusion, that they would all soon perish. But it struck deep, and prostrated and humiliated every soul; because it was authenticated by the inner voice. And shall the preacher now lay aside argument because his hearers have consciences? Certainly not. Paul did not, but reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures, proving that Jesus was Christ. There ever has been reasoning in the pulpit, and there ever must be; if not its artistic forms, its strength and spirit. Unquestionably, the best reasoning for this place, often, and for the ends to be gained, is, to talk rationally—in such a way as to bring out the response of every heart, not utterly perverted, to the truth of what is said. The lips, in compressed sullenness, may refuse to confess; the heart, in its set obduracy, may refuse to relent; God's voice declares it so; and the whole man knows it to be so. Some of the great facts and doctrines which lie at the foundation of the system