s in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous for
the glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for the
most part gathered from biography, the classics, and science, and
of late years Dr. Watkinson has become more and more addicted to
spiritualizing the aspects of modern scientific discovery. Dr.
Watkinson never reads his utterances from a manuscript. Nor does
he preach memoriter, as far as the language of his addresses is
concerned. They are always carefully thought out and are never
characterized by florid diction. His simple, strong Anglo-Saxon
endears him to the people, for he is never guilty of an obscure
sentence. He is in the habit of saying, 'I have always been aware that
I have no power of voice for declamation, and therefore I can only
hope for success in the pulpit by originality of thought.'" He was
president of the Wesleyan Conference, 1897-1898, and editor of the
_Wesleyan Church_, 1893-1890. He has published several volumes of
sermons.

WATKINSON

BORN IN 1838

THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1]

[Footnote: Printed by permission of B.P. Button & Company from "The
Transfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons," by W.L. Watkinson.]

_For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with
sackcloth_.--Esther iv., 2.

The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court in
order that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to see
bright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hear
only the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of the
abounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its we
to disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from India
to Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality.
Now, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and
painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions
ingeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting these
aside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation,
however, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedy
of life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show the
entire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the
dark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as "the
religion of sorrow," and many amongst us are ready to avow that the
Persian forbidding the sackcloth is more to their taste than the
Egyptian or the Christian draggin