cepted as a necessary
principle of pulpit preparation. "Study to shew thyself a workman
needing not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth," wrote
the Apostle; but it is not every man who is gifted for study. Books,
to some, are irksome, and much study a weariness to the flesh. They
"simply cannot do it," try as ever they may. Now we will not say that
such a man can never become a preacher. We will not even say that he
can never become a _great_ preacher. There are some great students who
read few printed books--unconscious students, you might almost call
them. Again, some men arrive at great truths through intuition, and by
natural endowment of words are able to express them with an artless art
beyond the power of academies to teach. We must never forget that some
of our greatest and most successful preachers have been "failures" at
college and "hopelessly out of it" in examinations. Still, such men
are exceptions, and exceptions who, in almost every instance, have, in
various ways, given such proof of their exceptional endowments that
there has been little danger of their lack of bookishness proving a
barrier to their election for labours for which they were, from obvious
evidences, designed. Notwithstanding all that may be said of these
exceptional cases it should be wisely and carefully discussed whether
the man who always prefers the street to the study, the crowd to the
class, the newspaper to the treatise, was ever meant to spend his life
in instructing his fellows in matters that call for the deepest
thoughts of men.

It is, however, quite possible that a man may have gifts of public
speech, and possess a studious disposition, and still be without the
_preaching mind_. Such a mind will be more sensitive to spiritual
truths and influences than the average intellect. It will manifest a
talent for religion, a natural interest in things that are divine and
heavenly for their own sake and not merely because they are to form the
themes for appointed discourses. The "delight," as well as the life
work, of such a mind will be in the Law of the Lord. Its possessor
will not find himself hopelessly bored by the study of theology any
more than the born physician will find himself hopelessly bored by the
study of physiology or anatomy or pathology or materia medica. Again,
to the preaching mind spiritual vision and spiritual hearing will
commonly be attended with less effort than in the case of most