is newness.
It will gather something for its commendation to the few or to the
many, in that this man looks upon it from his own standpoint and
expresses it in his own tongue.

It is sometimes complained that in these days the pulpit is in danger
of losing that which the individuality of the preacher should bring
into it, for the reason that such individuality is being improved out
of existence. "There are few personalities that count nowadays," we
are told. Time was when there were more. Names occur to all of us,
each of which stands in our mind for someone who, as we put it, was a
man of himself. All Churches have had such men; our own was rich in
them. To-day, they tell us, we are all in real danger of becoming
decorously, decently, conventionally alike. We have conceived a
typical preacher and we try to approximate to our conception; a typical
sermon, and we try to preach it. "He is a typical curate," "a typical
Presbyterian minister," "a typical Baptist pastor," "a typical
Methodist travelling preacher;" "he is a typical local"--how often we
hear these expressions!

It may be well to give to this complaint at least so much consideration
as to ask whether it is true. At once we may say, if it is "the
truth," it is not "the whole truth," neither is it "nothing but the
truth." There are still among us, thank God! preachers who bring the
aroma of individuality into their ministrations, and are a brand of
themselves. Some turn of speech, some tone of voice, some distinctive
way of putting a thing, some mysterious, but unmistakable, difference
of flavour they have managed to preserve, and how grateful we are when
we hear or see or taste or feel it. It is like the discovery of a new
flower in the woodland, of a new star in the constellation! "It's no
a'thegither what he says; it's the way on't," said the old Scots woman
in eulogy of her minister. We could mention little traits, which,
small as they are, have been on the human side the success of
ministries familiar to us all. There was a message and there was a
_man_. But while the complaint is not all true, it is not for us to
say that it is made without reason. It is possible that what many a
preacher needs, before the success he desires can be his, is to recover
nothing more, nor less, than his own lost self. It may be that some of
us present a ministry true to type, but false to our own personality.

The fact is that willingly or unwillingly, consc