y live.
There is current, indeed, at present a way of speaking about the
intellect, as if, while all the other faculties have to do with
religion, it were only an intruder; and there is a way of speaking
about definite religious truth which really implies, if any strict
meaning is to be attached to it, that in religion, when the truth is
not found, the opposite may answer quite as well; and yet, strange to
say, this language is usually to be heard from the lips of those who
make special claims to intellectuality and affect to be the special
champions of truth. But the intellect is a noble faculty and has an
important office in religion. It is, properly speaking, antecedent to
both feeling and will; and what is put into it determines both what
feeling and choice will be. People are often, indeed, swept into the
Church on some current of feeling; and the pressure on every side of
the Christian society, along with the examples of superior
Christians, does much to develop the religious nature; but probably in
the great crises of temptation, when a flood of passion or some great
worldly opportunity is about to sweep a man away from his connection
with Christ, that which keeps hold of him is the force of
conviction--if the roots of his mind have gone deep down and clasped
themselves about the great verities of the faith. Our Lord Himself
called the truth the foundation on which the whole structure of life
is built. All that a man is and does depends, in the last resort, on
what he knows and believes. It will be a calamity for your hearers, if
from your preaching they are not able by degrees to put together in
their minds a conception of Christianity both true and elevating,
which will supply them with the fundamental principles of their life.

Besides this sacred obligation to our people, there is the obligation
to the truth itself. This was felt by St. Paul profoundly. A
revelation of Christianity had been committed to him, and he had to
present it in all its splendour and apply it to all the details of
life. So the Word of God is committed to us, and we are responsible
for delivering its whole message. If we take up a single text of the
Bible, our merit as preachers lies in bringing out attractively and
comprehensively the truth which it contains. It would be considered
still more meritorious to present the whole message contained in a
book of the Bible; and it would be quite in accordance with the
theological fashion of t