epared for them,
and their most hearty reception has been assured, by the acquaintance
opened for us with his mind and heart through the extensive circulation
of the several volumes containing his Sermons and Addresses. When the
first of those volumes was reprinted here, it wrought an immediate
effect upon hundreds, who were instinctively drawn to its perusal, and
who have since seized with avidity upon each subsequent opportunity
furnished them for possessing themselves of everything that could be put
into print which would renew and intensify that effect. An exhaustive
review of that one department of our religious literature which embraces
utterances from the pulpit would, we believe, fully establish these two
positions: first, that the ability shown alike in the composition and in
the delivery of sermons is at least equal in each age and generation to
the average of that which is exhibited in the forum and at the bar; and,
second, that preachers of extraordinary power appear at just such
intervals and under just such conditions as will best assure us of a
reserved and as yet unrecognized capability in the pulpit, redeeming it
from the charge of a general dulness and exhaustion. It was at the very
time when the newspaper press of England and America was reiterating and
illustrating this charge, not without many tokens that supported it,
that the sermons of Mr. Robertson were offering at least one signal
exception to its truth, sufficient even to silence it within the range
of his ministry. An eminently able and effective preacher appears often
enough to reassert the loftiest ideal of his profession, and, what is
more, to vindicate it against the distrust and contempt to which it may
seem to be exposed by the "popular preachers." As we write, there is
circulating through the papers a very striking paragraph from an article
by that distinguished divine, Mr. Caird, in which, with a sharp
criticism, he deals, as we should suppose a man of his high tone would
deal, with the theme of popular preaching, especially as to its effects
upon the dispenser of it and upon the crowds who gather to it. Mr.
Robertson shrank from the repute of it, and the inflictions which it
visits, as he did from sin. He knew full well, that, as the popular
taste and standard were not educated to an appreciation and approval of
the very loftiest style of ministration, the more of curious, gaping
notoriety, or even admiration, he might draw towards him