ithout
being at all metaphysical, without ever diving down to examine the
beginnings of things in Nature or in men's hearts, had an infinitely more
fertile imagination, and the result was therefore more various and
multiplex; it reached a higher point in the graduated scale of ideality,
it was the _afflatus_ of a diviner inspiration, and was more akin to the
effects of the most exalted poetry: yet it was of far less value as
something which was to operate on men's minds than the result of Beecher's
more pointed, more scintillating discourse of reason. The fact is, that
both Henry Ward Beecher and Jeremy Taylor must of necessity depend, for
any beneficial effects which they may seek to bring about in the lives of
their hearers, upon certain _intellectual_ qualities already existing in
their audience. Even in order to be appreciated, they must have at least
partially educated audiences. Give either of them Whitefield's auditory,
and these effects become impossible. Here we come upon the inert masses,
which cannot by any possibility be induced to ascend one single stair in
any upward movement, but must be swayed this way or that way upon a
thoroughly dead level.

It is just here that the _realistic_ preaching of the Spurgeon school is
available, and nothing else is. Here things must be taken just as they are
found,--must be taken and presented in their natural coloring, in their
roughest shape. Polish the thought here, or let it be anything save the
strictest rescript from Nature, and you make it useless for your purposes.
Here it is not the crystal that is wanted, but the unshapely boulder. And
provided you wield your weapons after a masterly fashion, it matters very
little what your manner or style may be as regards the graces of
composition; if only a giant, you may be the most unseemly and awkward one
of all Joetunheim.

Now these elements of success Spurgeon has in an eminent degree. He deals
not simply with realities of the grossest sort, but with those which are
forever present to common humanity; he seeks to move men to religious
feelings through precisely the same means that they are daily moved by,
the same things which daily excite whatever of thought is transacted in
their cramped-up world of mind. This is particularly evident in the
material structure upon which his sermons proceed.

Preaching from the text, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us
unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye h