IONS
OF LONDON.

'Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,' said Terence, and the
sentence has been a motto for man these many years. To the human what
deep interest attaches! A splendid landscape soon palls unless it has
its hero. We tire of the monotonous prairie till we learn that man, with
his hopes and fears, has been there; and the barrenest country becomes
dear to us if it come to us with the record of manly struggle and womanly
love. This is as it should be, for

'The proper study of mankind is man.'

In pursuance with this axiom, we have devoted some little time to the
study of one section of modern men deservedly worthy of serious regard.
There is no subject on which men feel more intensely than they do on the
subject of religion. There are no influences more permanent or powerful
in their effects on the national character than religious influences. We
propose, then, to consider the pulpit power of London. There are in our
midst, men devoted to a sacred calling--men who, though in the world, are
not of it--who profess more than others to realise the splendours and the
terrors of the world to come--to whom Deity has mysteriously made known
his will. Society accepts their pretensions, for, after all, man is a
religious animal, and, with Bacon, would rather believe all the fables in
the Koran than that this universe were without a God. For good or bad
these men have a tremendous power. The orator from the pulpit has always
an advantage over the orator who merely speaks from the public platform.
Glorious Queen Bess understood this, and accordingly 'tuned her pulpit,'
as she termed it, when she sought to win over the popular mind. We deem
ourselves on a level with the platform orator. He is but one of
us--flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. The preacher is in a
different category: he in his study, we in the rude bustle of the world;
he communing with the Invisible and Eternal, we flushed and fevered by
the passing tumult of the day; he on the mount, we in the valley, where
we stifle for want of purer air, crying in our agony,

'The world is too much with us; late or soon,
Getting or spending, we lay waste our powers.'

We feel the disparity--that there ought to be an advantage on the
preacher's side--that there must be fearful blame somewhere, if his life
be no better than that of other men.

Before we begin our subject, we will get hold of a few facts and figures.
According