ad
attended in the morning from returning in the afternoon by just giving
them, as he said, "cauld kail het again."

It is somewhat remarkable, however, that, notwithstanding this feeling
in the matter of a repetition of old sermons, there was amongst a large
class of Scottish preachers of a former day such a sameness of subject
as really sometimes made it difficult to distinguish the discourse of
one Sunday from amongst others. These were entirely doctrinal, and
however they might commence, after the opening or introduction hearers
were certain to find the preacher falling gradually into the old
channel. The fall of man in Adam, his restoration in Christ,
justification by faith, and the terms of the new covenant, formed the
staple of each sermon, and without which it was not in fact reckoned
complete as an orthodox exposition of Christian doctrine. Without
omitting the essentials of Christian instruction, preachers now take a
wider view of illustrating and explaining the gospel scheme of salvation
and regeneration, without constant recurrence to the elemental and
fundamental principles of the faith. From my friend Dr. Cook of
Haddington (who it is well known has a copious stock of old Scotch
traditionary anecdotes) I have an admirable illustration of this state
of things as regards pulpit instruction.

"Much of the preaching of the Scotch clergy," Dr. Cook observes, "in the
last century, was almost exclusively doctrinal--the fall: the nature,
the extent, and the application of the remedy. In the hands of able men,
no doubt, there might be much variety of exposition, but with weaker or
indolent men preaching extempore, or without notes, it too often ended
in a weekly repetition of what had been already said. An old elder of
mine, whose recollection might reach back from sixty to seventy years,
said to me one day, 'Now-a-days, people make a work if a minister preach
the same sermon over again in the course of two or three years. When I
was a boy, we would have wondered if old Mr. W---- had preached anything
else than what we heard the Sunday before.' My old friend used to tell
of a clergyman who had held forth on the broken covenant till his people
longed for a change. The elders waited on him to intimate their wish.
They were examined on their knowledge of the subject, found deficient,
rebuked, and dismissed, but after a little while they returned to the
charge, and the minister gave in. Next Lord's day he read a large