f preaching as compared with the sermonizing of my day. When I occupied
the pulpit, the doctrines of election and predestination were the
principal themes that engaged the attention of ministers.

Free will and coerced will were questions which puzzled the theologian.
Looking upon the Bible as an inspired book, the most careless sentence
therein expressed became a word of weighty import. We engaged the minds
of our hearers with abstract questionings and reasonings. But we never
could make the doctrine of predestination accord with that of free will.
Nor could we clearly account for the presence of evil, while we believed
the Creator to be all wise, all powerful, and cognizant of the end from
the beginning. Yet these were the topics which the minister of my day
discussed and endeavored to make clear to the comprehension of his
hearers. We did not treat of every-day life; the pulpit we considered too
sacred for such topics. Religion with the masses became an abstract state
of holiness. Men assumed long faces and sober bearings upon the seventh
day; but their every-day life was something different, which the minister
and his ministering did not reach.

But the pulpits of to-day are platforms of another kind. They have
altered, even as their shape has altered. Their outward construction
corresponds to their teachings. In my day the pulpit was narrow and
straight, and was lifted high above the people. But at the present day a
step only separates it from the congregation. It is broad, low, and open.
The teachings received from it correspond with its change of form. The
ministers of to-day are one with their flock. Their discourses are
practical, relating to every-day affairs. They no more discuss the
questions of Satan, of angels, and archangels, nor arouse an undefined
fear by descanting on the mysterious prophecies of Daniel: they talk to
you like _human beings._

I remember being somewhat shocked while listening to sermons preached by
my son, H.W. Beecher. I recall sitting near his pulpit, and longing to
get up and tell the congregation my views of texts and matters of which
he was discoursing. I thought then it was because the race was going
backward--becoming less intellectual--that men should be content to
listen to sermons that contained so little theology. But experience in
spirit life has caused me to change my opinion.

I now see that Beecher, Spurgeon, and a vast host of others, are teaching
human souls the grea