onism to the public welfare, hired himself for lucre to be the defender of Andrew Johnson, is as great a shock to the moral sense as if James Otis had been bribed by George III. to defend the Writs of Assistance, or Patrick Henry had accepted a fee to justify the Stamp Act of 1765.

Grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Evarts has put his little measure of Roger Sherman's blood to an unwonted blush by bartering for a price the safety of the Republic.

Sing to him Robert Browning's song:

May 7, 1868.

"Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat."

THE TONGUE OF FIRE.

HE Queen of England, in her published diary, occasionally refers to some particular sermon which has pleased her fancy or touched her heart. We quote her Majesty's gracious allusions to a couple of distinguished Scotch clergymen whom not only queens and princes, but scholars and critics, might well afford to praise.

“OCTOBER 29, 1854.

"We went to the kirk as usual at 12 o'clock. The service was performed by the Rev. Norman McLeod, of Glasgow, son of Dr. McLeod, and anything finer I never heard. The sermon, entirely extempore, was quite admirable; so simple and yet so eloquent, and so beautifully argued and put. The text was from the account of the coming of Nicodemus to Christ by night-St. John, chap. viii. Mr. McLeod showed in the sermon how we all tried to please self, and live for that, and in so doing found no rest. Christ had come not only to die for us, but to show us how we were to live. The second prayer was very touching. His allusions to us were very simple, saying, after his mention of us, 'bless their children.' It gave me a lump in my throat; as also when he prayed for the dying, the wounded, the widow, and the orphans.' Every one came back delighted; and how satisfactory it is to come back from church with such feelings! The servants and the Highlanders all were equally delighted."

“OCTOBER 14, 1855.

"To kirk at 12 o'clock. The Rev. J. Caird, one of the most celebrated preachers in Scotland, performed the service, and electrified all present by a most admirable and beautiful sermon, which lasted nearly an hour, but which kept one's attention riveted. The text was from the 12th chapter of Romans and the 11th verse: Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.' He explained, in the most beautiful and simple manner, what real religion is; how it ought to pervade every action of our lives; not a thing only for Sundays, or for our closet; not a thing to drive us from the world; not a 'perpetual moping over good books;' but 'being and doing good,' 'letting everything be done in a Christian spirit.' It was as fine as Dr. McLeod's sermon last year, and sent us home much edified.".

Not to speak of the Queen's genuine motherliness of feeling evinced by that "lump in her throat" at hearing blessings invoked on her children, it is pleasant to know the good lady's English admiration of her Scotch divines. Those temporary "court preachers " preached to a better purpose than the obsequious flattery which once characterized "court-preaching." They chained the attention, stirred the heart, and "sent home much edified" the chief lady of Europe. Perhaps those sermons, so working on the Queen's heart, may through her have worked a little, (though, we fear, a very little) on the harder heart of that great government of hers which knows how to be just to England and unjust to the rest of the world. The Queen's journal proves her to have grown so thoroughly in love with the Scotch preachers whom she heard and the Scotch people whom she met, that we wish

she would now, in like manner, make a trip to Ireland, listen to the Irish clergy, and open her heart to the Irish people; from both of whom, we venture to say, she would hear such a tale of oppression and misery as, more than ever, would bring a "lump in her throat."

But we quote the Queen's journal for the sake of its royal testimony to extempore preaching. This is the only royal preaching. All sinners, from sovereigns to beggars, are more moved by it than by the best of Sunday-morning essay reading. One sermon preached from a brief is worth three sermons read from a manuscript. We hope Congress will lay as high a tax on sermon-paper as on whisky-in conformity with Napoleon's rule, that the vices should be taxed high.

Dr. Chalmers, and a few great men like him, have proved themselves able to make even a manuscript burn and glow in the pulpit; but as a general thing, the life in a minister's manuscript is like the voice in Balaam's ass -it requires a miracle to make it speak.

The habit of reading from the pulpit tends not only to make the delivery dull, but to make the preaching metaphysical. If a sermon is full of hair-splitting, it is certain to have been written word for word beforehand. If it is to contain a whole body of divinity, accurately stated, it must of course be nicely fashioned at the pen's point. But if it is to be (as it generally ought to be) on some plain, homely, and vital truth of the Gospel, why should it be written? The pen oftenest preaches to the head; the tongue to the heart. A lady lately said to us, in speaking of a distinguished clergyman who had made himself a bond-slave to a manuscript, "He has a great faculty for preaching religion out of people." This same minister is one of the most expert of theologians. But, if

he had been less addicted to discussing theological distinctions, and more addicted to emphasizing practical religious duties, he might have become an excellent extemporaneous preacher. If Paul himself had tried to put into his sermons all the theology which he reserved for his epistles, he too would have been reduced to a manuscript, suffered a second thorn in the flesh, and become in "his speech "more than ever "contemptible." Imagine Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount from a bundle of papyrus!

Many of our theological seminaries seem to forget that their students are to become not merely theologians, but orators. The chill of the seminary has quenched the natural fire out of the tongue of many a young man who might have been a speaker, but who becomes only a reader. A minister said to us mournfully, "I charge upon the seminary where I was trained the entire crushing out of all my early tendencies to extemporaneous speech." Now and then a strong man, in spite of such early training, achieves a signal success in revolting against his manuscript--as, for instance, the Rev. Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, whose recent practice of extemporaneous preaching is the delight of his congregation. But most ministers are never able to outgrow their seminary. It follows them, clings to them, and governs them, through life. They throw off the yoke, but the stiff neck remains. It is as happy a day when a minister gets rid of his manuscript as when a church gets rid of its debt.

A lawyer does not read, but speaks. Is a sermon a piece of closer reasoning than a law-argument? The majority of sermons, considered as efforts of reasoning, are not equal to the majority of law-arguments. If a