er may be expressed. To be effective and successful the
preacher must have in his heart the _passion of humanity_. True
preaching is the supreme effort of a man burning to bless and save his
fellow-men. Precious to him are the souls before him; terrible to him
the thought that any one of them should come short of the salvation he
has been sent to proclaim, that one life should wither and be wasted.
He is "kindly affectioned" toward them. He _loves_, therefore he
preaches. As long as there are souls to be warned and invited,
penitents to be enlightened and led into the peace of God, hearts to be
comforted, powers to be taught a better way--as long, in short, as
there are men to whom his message may bring help and hope and life he
cannot hold his peace. He will be "all things to all men that
peradventure" he "may save some."

Now this is a harder thing--this passion for men, as that man must
possess it who aspires to preach the gospel with power and full
accomplishment of the purposes thereof. For the love he must feel must
be a love not only for such as of themselves inspire it, but for those
whose life and character are hateful. Of what is called "affinity"
between the man to be loved and sought and the preacher there may be
none. How can the ambassador of Jesus Christ, who has looked upon the
face of the Son of Man and in that look caught a conception of humanity
in its fairest beauty,--how can he be in love with men and see, as he
must see, their meanness and wrong-doing? The lawyer and the preacher,
it is said, see the seamy side of life, and there is no need for wonder
if, as has been reported, the lawyer often becomes a cynic. The wonder
is if the preacher do not become a cynic too. Seeing what he must see,
knowing what he must know, how is he to preserve that longing after the
souls of the very vilest which alone can sustain him in his search for
them "away on the mountains cold?" _Can it really be done_?

The answer to this question is, and must be, No. It cannot be done if
the preacher look at man only through his own eyes and try to love him
for himself alone. It will be found impossible to love one man because
we do _not_ know him. It will be found even more impossible--if
impossibility admit of degrees of comparison--to love another because
we _do_! Our hearts have neither power to conceive nor life to sustain
an universal affection.

And yet this love of man as man must be realised before