r to help him as he
pushes home the siege. There is a power of loving. Surely he will
enlist the aid of this by reminding the wanderer of the love wherewith
_He_ has loved him. "We love Him because He first loved us," so wrote
one whose will had been brought low what time his affection was
entreated. There is a sense of gratitude. Surely this will be called
to look upon that sacrifice on which the ages gaze! That sense of
justice; that elementary instinct of fair play--they, too, may be rare
colleagues of the messenger, if he will but enlist them on his side.
For this method of prosecuting his saving warfare he has precedent
enough in the prophets:--"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men
of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard! What could
have been done more in My vineyard, that I have not done in it?
Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it
forth wild grapes?" Here is an appeal to the inborn sense of equity
which still lingered in the heart of the chosen people. The claims of
honesty and chastity, of truthfulness and benevolence and gentleness
will not always be in vain, if the preacher will remember that some
reverence for these things still lingers in the heart of even the most
abandoned of men and address himself thereto. He is the wisest of all
campaigners who enlists the enemy against himself.

To all these elements of human nature, then, the preacher will address
himself. He will do more:--He will study times and seasons and events,
for times and seasons and events often produce moods which infect a
whole people. We have examples of this in the moral influence of the
festivals of the Christian year. They were wise men who, for all
futurity, connected with certain dates the outstanding events of the
sacred history, the memory of great saints, confessors and martyrs.
Probably we of the Nonconformist pulpits might here learn a lesson in
homiletic tactics from our friends of the Roman and Anglican churches.
There should only be one subject for Good Friday; one for Easter morn;
one for Christmastide; one for the hour wherein the old year dies. It
is not merely a tribute to convention to observe these seasons. It is
strategically wise to do so. The preacher should use Whitsun as an
opportunity of leading the Church to prayer for new pentecosts; harvest
time to stir the slumbering thankfulness of men. He who neglects these
ready-made chances throws aw