Alexander no more disturbed us with the much-vaunted conjectural
Biblical criticisms than he disturbed us with Joe Smith's "golden
plates" at Nauvoo. For this fact I feel deeply thankful; and I comfort
myself with the reflection that the great British preachers of the last
dozen years--Dr. McLaren, Charles H. Spurgeon, Newman Hall, Canon Liddon,
Dr. Dale and Dr. Joseph Parker--have suffered no more from the virulent
attacks of the radical and revolutionary higher criticism than I have,
during my long and happy ministry.

Ministers had some advantages sixty or seventy years ago over their
successors of our day. They had a more uninterrupted opportunity for the
preparation of their sermons and for thorough personal visitation of
their flocks. They were not importuned so often to serve on committees
and to be participants in all sorts of social schemes of charity. Every
pastor ought to keep abreast of reformatory movements as long as they do
not trench upon the vital and imperative duties of his high calling.
"This one thing I do," said single-hearted Paul; and if Paul were a
pastor now in New York or Boston or Chicago, he would make short work of
many an intrusive rap of a time-killer at his study door.

I have noted frankly a few of the changes that I have observed in the
methods of our American pulpit during my long life, but not, I trust, in
a pessimistic or censorious spirit God forbid that I should disparage
the noble, conscientious, self-denying and Heaven-blessed labors of
thousands of Christ's ministers in our broad land! They have greater
difficulties to encounter than I had when I began my work. They are
surrounded with an atmosphere of intense materialism. The ambition for
the "seen things" increasingly blinds men to the "things that are unseen
and eternal." Wealth and worldliness unspiritualize thousands of
professed Christians. The present artificial arrangements of society
antagonize devotional meetings and special efforts to promote revivals.
On Sabbath mornings many a minister has to shovel out scores of his
congregation from under the drifts (not very clean snow either) of the
mammoth Sunday newspapers.

The zealous pastor of to-day has to contend with the lowered popular
faith in the authority of God's Word; with the lowered reverence for
God's day and a diminished habit of attending upon God's worship. Do
these increased difficulties demand a new Gospel? No; but rather a
mightier faith in the one we h