here and there in it some one who more fully
appreciates and understands. Nothing beats down and discourages a man
more than to feel that he is preaching to cold air and not to human
folks, and to get back, when he offers sympathy, a stare.

A congregation is a mysterious and subtle social force. Its effect on a
minister he can neither analyze nor explain. But he knows that its power
is mesmeric and cannot be escaped. He goes into its presence from an
hour of exalted and uplifted prayer, serene, happy, strong, and prepared
to speak words of power and life. Gazing at his people--he can never
tell why--the words freeze on his lips. An icy hand seems laid upon his
heart, and he makes a cold and formal presentation of his glowing theme,
and wonders who or what has done it all. Something satanic and
repelling has laid hold of his tongue and brain.

Or again, he may have had a worried and troubled week, full of personal
anxiety and sorrow. He has not had full time to study--he feels quite
unprepared, and enters the pulpit with a halting step, and a choking
fear of failure at his heart.

In a moment, the world changes. Something imperceptible, but sweet and
comforting, steals over him,--an uplifting atmosphere of attention,
sympathy, affection. He begins to speak, very quietly at first, with
quite an effort. But the congregation leads him on, to deeper thoughts,
to nobler words, to modulations of voice that carry him quite beyond
himself. His voice rises, and every syllable is firm and musical. His
language springs from some far centre of inspiration. He is conscious of
superb power, and as sentence after sentence falls from his
lips----sentences that amaze himself more than any other----he enters
into the supreme height of joy, that of being a spiritual messenger to
the hearts of longing men and women. He and they together talk of God.

This sympathetic atmosphere makes great preachers and great men. In
return, there flows from a pastor toward his people a love that few can
know or understand.

2. His rule is also over spiritual enthusiasm. What is a revival? We
confound it with a local excitement, a community-sensation of an
hysterical and passing type--with sensational disturbances, falling
exercises, shouts, weeping, and the like. A revival is something far
different. A revival is an awakening of the community heart and mind. It
is a quickening of dead, backsliding, or inattentive souls.

Man as an individual is quit