y
lookers-on a specimen of holiday anatomy. Mary is disposed to soar, give
her the wing. The boy is fond of music, give him the drum stick. The
minister is dining with you, give him the parson's nose. May the joy reach
from grandfather, who is so dreadful old he can hardly find the way to his
plate, down to the baby in the high chair with one smart pull of the table
cloth upsetting the gravy into the cranberry. Send from your table a
liberal portion to the table of the poor, some of the white meat as well as
the dark, not confining your generosity to gizzards and scraps. Do not, as
in some families, keep a plate and chair for those who are dead and gone.
Your holiday feast would be but poor fare for them; they are at a better
banquet in the skies.

Let the whole land be full of chime and carol. Let bells, silver and
brazen, take their sweetest voice, and all the towers of Christendom rain
music.

We wish all our friends a merry Christmas. Let them hang up their
stockings; and if Santa Claus has any room for us in his sleigh, we will
get in and ride down their chimney, upsetting all over the hearth a
thousand good wishes.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

POOR PREACHING.

There never was a time when in all denominations of Christians there was so
much attractive sermonizing as to-day. Princeton, and Middletown, and
Rochester, and New Brunswick, are sending into the ministry a large number
of sharp, earnest, consecrated men. Stupidity, after being regularly
ordained, is found to be no more acceptable to the people than before, and
the title of Doctorate cannot any longer be substituted for brains.
Perhaps, however, there may get to be a surfeit of fine discourses. Indeed,
we have so many appliances for making bright and incisive preachers that we
do not know but that after a while, when we want a sleepy discourse as an
anodyne, we shall have to go to the ends of the earth to find one; and dull
sermons may be at a premium, congregations of limited means not being able
to afford them at all; and so we shall have to fall back on chloral or
morphine.

Are we not, therefore, doing a humanitarian work when we give to
congregations some rules by which, if they want it, they may always have
poor preaching?

First. Keep your minister poor. There is nothing more ruinous than to pay a
pastor too much salary. Let every board of trustees look over their books
and see if they have erred in this direction; and if so, let them cut down