MY DEAR E.

LETTER XVII.

I cannot dismiss the subject of preaching, without suggesting a few thoughts upon the preparation of occasional sermons. Besides his weekly preparations for the pulpit, every pastor will be expected to write appropriate discourses for special occasions. More of these will be called for in some parts of the country than others. In New England, as you very well know, our annual fasts and thanksgivings bring along with them their imperative demands upon the ministry; and throughout the country, congregations expect to hear something more than common from their ministers, at the return of every new year, and when any great public calamity, or other remarkable providence calls for particular notice. Those who are "set for the defence of the gospel," are expected also to preach at ordinations and installations; before ecclesiastical bodies, and on other public occasions.

My first advice, therefore, on this head is, that whenever and wherever a suitable text or subject or plan for an occasional sermon strikes your mind, you put it down at the moment, if practicable, whether you are expecting soon to want it, or not. It may be a great help to you at a future day, when the call is unexpected, and you would be exceedingly embarrassed, if you had nothing in your common-place book to refer to. That nothing of this sort may be

lost, I would recommend it to you never to go abroad without a memorandum in your side pocket, for hints and references. In this way, you will be gradually enriching yourself with what is far more valuable to a minister than gold or silver. I carry the matter one step further. If when you are meditating upon your bed, "in the night watches," any important train of thought is suggested to your mind, which you are in danger of losing before morning, strike a light at once and note it down upon paper. This, we are told, was the habit of the immortal Edwards, and that we are indebted to it for some of the profoundest of his speculations. What if the night should happen to be so cold, as to give your blood a start for a moment, how slight would be the inconvenience, compared with the value of the acquisition.

My next advice is, that you lay out as much time and strength as you can afford, upon your occasional sermons. Study them thoroughly, and write them out in a fair legible hand. Let them always be appropriate. This is an essential quality, and it never fails to interest an audience, where the performance is otherwise respectable. Make your sermons of this class, as rich and attractive as you can. It is a shame for a minister, when the year coines round with all its solemn and monitory lessons, or when he is invited to preach at an ordination, or is appointed by his brethren to address them from the pulpit, at the meeting of an Association, Presbytery or Synod; I say it is a great shame for him, on any such occasion, to come forward with crude and hasty preparations; to hash up something just to keep his audience from

starving. If he has not the ability to write a suitable discourse, if he cannot command the time, or his health does not warrant the effort, or he is too lazy to make it, let him by all means decline at once. Ordinations and meetings of large ecclesiastical bodies are excellent opportunities for doing good, and every preacher who is put forward on such occasions, ought to make the most of them.

Here I might be more specific, were it necessary; but your own good sense would anticipate me, in nearly all the suggestions I could offer. Is it a sermon for the new year, that you have got to prepare, how many appropriate texts will you find both in the Old Testament and the New. How many solemn reflections will spring up in your mind, upon the brevity of human life, the worth of time, the sundering of all earthly ties, and all the amazing certainties of death, judgment, and eternity. How will a recollection of the afflictive scenes through which you have passed in the discharge of your pastoral duties affect your own heart, and prepare you to affect the hearts of your people. How many seats in the house of God, which were occupied twelve months before, will you see vacated. How many bereaved families will meet your eye, as you look round upon your congregation. How loudly, if you are faithful, will the bill of mortality preach through lips of clay, which may be closed forever before another year has finished its circuit.

Is it a day of public thanksgiving that brings around you your beloved church and people in the house of God, to "bind their offerings to the horns

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of his altar?" What a fine opportunity to recount the mercies of the Lord, and to draw out the best feelings of every pious heart in the sweet language of the Psalmist. "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparest them corn when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks: the vallies also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." "Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath strengthened the brass of thy gates, he hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat." "Praise God in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts; praise him according to his excellent greatness. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.”

Is it a day of public fasting and prayer that calls you out, such as our annual fast in New England, or a national fast like that which was observed after the death of President Harrison. It is the fittest occasion for discussing a variety of topics of great interest, and every pastor ought to make the most of it. Crying national sins, to be sure, may be pointed out and

animadverted upon at any time, and where no other opportunity offers, I hold it to be the duty of the public teachers of religion sometimes on the sabbath, to "cry aloud and not spare, to lift up their voices like a trumpet, to show unto the people their transgressions and their sins." But it were better, perhaps, to do it for the most part in occasional discourses, where there are opportunities.

Far be it from me to advise you, even on a fast day, to meddle with party politics. You cannot do it without giving offence to one side, or the other; and if you could, the pulpit is no place to arraign and try, either those who are in power, or out of powerno place to unfurl the flag of either party. If the house of God must, in times of violent excitement, be desecrated in this manner, let the combatants themselves do it, and not the ministers of the Prince of Peace. I do not wish to dissuade you from acquainting yourself sufficiently with the politics of the country, to form an enlightened opinion on great questions involving its vital interests; nor do I object to your availing yourself of the elective franchise at the ballot boxes. On the contrary, I hold that ministers of the gospel have as good a right to vote for civil rulers, as any other class of men, and it is my conviction too, that they ought to use this right for bringing the best men into office, unless there is something peculiar in the state of their congregations to forbid it. I bless God, that you, my dear E., like the Apostle Paul, was "free born," and I would have you maintain with him, "All things are lawful unto me," though all things are not expedient. Of both