of an able advocate; without the
barrister, however, especially where the prejudices, interests,
and the imagination of a jury have to be worked upon, his load of
learned lumber would be of small value. The theologian makes out
the brief: the preacher pleads it.

To render this distinction clearer let us take one more
illustration. No animal can exist on air and clay and sunlight
alone. Though these contain the elements on which it is fed; yet,
though surrounded by them in most ample abundance, he must perish
if a third power is not brought into play. The vegetable world
comes intervening between the raw chemicals and the hungry man.
Out of earth and air and light it builds the ripened sheaf, the
succulent apple and the savoury potato. So, though bookshelves
groan under calf-bound tomes hoarding the hived treasures of the
masters of theology, the common minds of the multitude would
starve did not the preacher interpose as interpreter of the
theologian's message, drawing forth from his storehouse truths
and principles out of which he manufactures the daily bread on
which the ordinary man must live. Without his aid the richest
repository ever clasped between the covers of a book would remain
a _fons signatus a hortus conclusus_. The prophet of God saw the
dry bones scattered over the valley of desolation till the breath
of a new power passed over them, and lo! (I) "the bones came
together each one to its joint; (2) the sinews and the flesh came
upon them . . . (3) and the skin was stretched out over
them . . . and the spirit came into them and they lived."

The attorney and the theologian gather the dry bones, but on the
preacher and the barrister lie the fourfold task of mortising the
joints into each other, binding them with the sinews of argument,
clothing them in living beauty and vitalizing the whole structure
with the flame of impassioned earnestness. Only when this has
been done will they live.

So thoroughly distinct are the two offices it rarely happens that
a professional theologian becomes an efficient preacher. The
concentration and exclusive exercise of one faculty unfits him
for a task demanding many.

People do not come to church to hear spoken treatises or witness
dissecting operations on subtle distinctions. They come to be
instructed, pleased and moved.

Again, for the perfect fulfilment of the preacher's task, amongst
other gifts he must have imagination; but to the master of an
exact science l