and in promoting pure honest living is never out
of place in the pulpit. When we are preaching for souls we may use any
and every weapon of truth within our reach.

Those who have sat before my pulpit will testify that I never spared my
lungs or their ears in the delivery of my discourses. The preaching of
the Gospel is spiritual gunnery, and many a well-loaded cartridge has
failed to reach its mark from lack of powder to propel it. The prime
duty of God's ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls before his
pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; to awaken those who are
impenitent; to cheer the sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and
edify believers An advocate in a criminal trial puts his grip on every
juryman's ear So must every herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a
hearing, cost what it may: but that hearing he never will secure while
he addresses an audience in a cold, formal, perfunctory manner.
Certainly the great apostle at Ephesus aimed at the emotions and the
conscience as well as the reason of his hearers when he "ceased not to
warn them night and day with tears." I cannot impress it too strongly on
every young minister that the delivery of his sermon is half the battle.
Why load your gun at all if you cannot send your charge to the mark?
Many a discourse containing much valuable thought has fallen dead on
drowsy ears when it might have produced great effect if the preacher had
only had _inspiration_ and _perspiration_. A sermon that is but ordinary
as a production may have an extraordinary effect by direct and fervid
delivery. The minister who never warms himself will never warm up his
congregation. I once asked Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, "Who is the
greatest preacher you have ever heard?" Mr. Barnes, who was a very
clear-headed thinker, replied: "I cannot answer your question exactly,
but the greatest specimen of preaching I ever heard was by the Rev.
Edward N. Kirk before my congregation during a revival; it produced a
tremendous effect." Those of us that knew Kirk knew that he was not a
man of genius or profound scholarship; but he was a true orator with a
superb voice and a sweet persuasiveness, and his whole soul was on fire
with the love of Jesus and the love of souls.

It is not easy to define what that subtle something is which we call
pulpit magnetism. As near as I can come to a definition I would say it
is the quality or faculty in the speaker that arouses the attention and