MINENT as Scott was as a preacher, his ideal was far above his own best endeavors. Indeed, there were times when he felt himself to be deficient in the elements which are necessary to a successful oral exhibition of the truth; for, while others were admiring his power in the pulpit, and wishing that a portion of that power were their own, he thought so highly of what a preacher should be, and so humbly of his own efforts, as to write of himself: "I am at present in this large city, Cincinnati, and not being endowed by nature with those high gifts of reasoning and eloquence, which are so necessary to please and instruct, I have resolved, by the help of the Lord, to avail myself of the advantages afforded by the press for advocating and disseminating the principles and science of eternal life."^a

      This view arose, doubtless, from his failure to reach his own ideal, and his consequent dissatisfaction with many of his public efforts, which he regarded as failures, failures too, which could not be retrieved; and he therefore thought it best to devote himself more to written exhibitions of the views he entertained, as these could be pruned and revised, and if they did not come up to his severe taste, could be rejected, and none but himself be the wiser. [323]

      Any thing like failures in the pulpit he dreaded; and when under the influence of that feeling would open his discourse as follows: "Brethren and fellow-citizens: In all cases of public speaking, in the forum, at the bar, or in the pulpit, what is attempted should be done with power. Weakness is nearly allied to failure which admits not of apology, for audiences do not assemble to be tortured, wearied, disappointed, but instructed, persuaded, delighted. You are present this evening to hear of Jesus and the great redemption, and I to address you on these solemn and delightful themes. Tremblingly alive to the responsibilities of the occasion, I may be pardoned if, in view of them, I exclaim with the holy apostle, 'Who is sufficient for these things?' David says, 'When I called upon thee, thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.' If distrust in my own powers impels me to place a higher reliance on God, my humility shall not hurt me. Pray for me, then, dear audience, that he who faints not, neither is weary, may strengthen me with all might by his Spirit in the inner man; that I may, with all saints, comprehend the heights and depths, and length and breadth, and know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge; that I may be filled with all the fullness of God; that I may open my mouth as I ought; and to him be eternal praises."

      At other times, while earnestly desiring to profit his hearers, he would neither conceal from them, nor himself, the high standard which they should erect, and which he should aim to reach; making the ordeal most difficult by arousing a critical spirit on the part of the audience, and yet stimulating his own powers [324] by the magnitude of the work before him, an instance of which we subjoin:

      "To meet all the conditions of a fortunate address is exceedingly difficult. The speaker must think correctly and extensively; he must employ words that precisely sift out the sense; he must reason, for a speech without reasoning is like a song without a theme; he must illustrate, and, withal, adorn; but he must not be uncharitable, nor severe, nor sophistical, nor profuse, nor gaudy in the use of the graces and charms of his rhetoric; for good taste, the maxims and usages, the manners and customs of educated society forbid it. He must, therefore, steer clear of these unsocial annoyances, unless he would incur, unnecessarily, public odium, and make himself the target of severe, but not unmerited, censure.

      "The theme on which he speaks must be a worthy one, deserving the public ear; and in a manner most worthy too, must he meet it. He must clearly discriminate between his subject, as the essential, and its surroundings, which are incidental; and fully develop and fairly discuss, to the improvement and delight of his audience, its class and characteristics, its parts and relations, its uses and abuses. May he, who spake as never man spake, anoint at once with his grace and power our lips and heart; and to him shall be all the praise of a successful address."^b

      And yet the natural bent of his genius was in the direction of oratory, and in his most impassioned, and almost inspired moments, he would reach a beauty, dignity, and warmth of expression, which never visited him in his cooler efforts in his study with the pen. To the humble views, however, which [325] he entertained of himself, we are indebted for some most admirable productions, which shall long endure, distinguished by clear analysis, felicity of expression, tenderness of sentiment, and close, vigorous thought.

      But, to return. His ideal of a preacher was, one who made Christ ever the central thought and inspiration of his discourse; one who dealt not so much with the doctrines of Christ as with Christ himself; one whose chief business was to point sinners to the Lamb of God. And yet it is doubtful, whether any uninspired man ever came nearer this model than he himself unconsciously did. Christ, his nature, offices, and work, were his chief--his almost constant themes--the alpha and omega, the all in all.

      He was as far removed as possible from what we understand by a sensational preacher; his great reliance was upon the gospel as the power of God unto the salvation of every one that believed it; and to get that gospel clearly before the minds of his hearers, and Christ the great theme of that gospel, as the one altogether lovely, into their hearts, was the end and aim of every discourse. He had studied the holy Scriptures until he had made even their very language his own; the teachings of the Savior he regarded as the good seed of the kingdom, and he sought to sow that in every heart. When he rose before an audience it was to deliver the message which Christ had given in charge to his apostles; and he was careful to note how they had discharged their mission, and aimed to imitate them. Of no preacher, of modern times, could it be said with greater truth, "he preached Christ unto them." He, always, first [326] appealed to the judgment, and when he thought enough had been said to produce conviction, he used, with great power, the motives of the gospel to induce to action; the promises, to allure; the threatenings, to alarm; and, with a pathos rising from a realizing sense of the danger of his hearers, he would, often with tears, beseech them to accept the offered grace.

      But the criticism on preachers, and preaching, and the plan suggested in the following extract, from his pen, will give his views, as to what he conceived to be the work of a preacher, better than any words of ours:

      "We have recently listened with great interest and earnestness to certain distinguished advocates of the gospel, both in our own ranks and the ranks of other professors, and have been equally grieved and amazed at the exceedingly indirect manner in which Christ is preached.

      "How is it that so many are blind to the greatest truths in our religion--that Messiah is God's Son? How is it that Mount Calvary, and the death-scene there, are so frequently evaded? Where is the preacher who can manage with effect either of these themes--the greatest in the book? Many, we doubt not, imagine that if they have but reaped what others had sown, if they have but baptized those in whose minds others had wrought both conviction and conversion, they have preached Christ and done wonders. But this is a grand mistake. Preaching Christ is not the fugitive and ill-defined thing which their protean discourses would indicate. The statistics of his nature and offices, who he is and what he does, his death and his divinity, his resurrection, ascension, glorification, mediation, second coming, etc., do manifestly and strictly enter into the preaching of Christ. It would be grateful to our [327] feelings, and refreshing to our conviction, if we could, truthfully, say of any preacher even this much--he can preach 'Christ,' if he can not preach 'him crucified.' Or 'he can preach a risen Redeemer, if not a crucified Savior.' But it is not often we are warranted in saying even this much of the speakers of the day. Our convictions on the point are that Christ should be preached in such a manner as to force the convert to feel that in obeying the gospel he has come under the eye of an all-seeing bishop of souls--an omnipresent Master--an omnipresent authority--clothed nevertheless with salvation and mercy. We said, twenty years ago, and wrote it too, that there was in the Scriptures a plan of preaching Christ followed by God, by the Son of God, and by the Spirit of God, by the holy Evangelists, and by the holy apostles and prophets. Time, age, and experience have only deepened our convictions of this truth. But we said also that that plan was disregarded to a marvelous extent by the Christian ministry. Experience has rivetted our convictions of this also. But to bring my meaning within the range of the reader's apprehension, we go to a protracted meeting. It is got up for converting purposes; and it is continued two, three, or four weeks. Well, what is the theme? Every thing but Christ. The preaching is, perhaps, a chapter of accidents--a game at wedges, the last is the largest, dropping out all the rest--an endless chain of truisms, and, it may be, scripturisms, but not Christ. The Scriptures condemn this plan. Such a scheme of converting and preaching has no warrant from the Word of God. We listened, a few days since, to the Rev. Mr. R------'s last effort, his expiring effort, at a fruitless meeting held in the city of Lexington for converting the citizens. It was a composition, distinguished for grace and literary finish, on the art of raising money! Again, we listened to the speeches of another man at a similar meeting in a different town, and what were they? Fire and brimstone--a brow-beating of [328] the audience, utterly unalleviated by the introduction of any part of the structure of the gospel. The quid est was totally discarded, the quid oportet was all in all; but Christ was nothing--absolutely neglected. Again, we recently gave a hearing to a third orator on divine matters famous among the Baptists. His theme was the 'soul,' and, as a speech, it wanted neither unity, variety, progression of thought, passion, strength, or splendor--but was passable for all these; but then it was only one of twenty isolated speeches, not more than one of which had for its caption 'Christ Jesus.' Now, what we would like to see is this--that a preacher would take 'Christ' as the heading to a series of discourses, and on every one of them preach him, and him only. Say he would preach his grand nature--his divinity, thus:

      "1. As the 'open secret,' or great mystery of the gospel.

      "2. As an oracle of Jewish prophecy.

      "3. As a fact developed in history.

      "4. A truth revealed by the Father to the Jews.

      "5. The only thing revealed by him in our religion.

      "6. The truth for which Christ died.

      "7. The truth for which he died on oath.

      "8. As the subject of the Evangelical testimony.

      "9. The creed of the primitive converts.

      "10. The grand confession in Christianity.

      "11. As confessed by the apostles.

      "12. As confessed by Christ. "13. As confessed by God the Father.

      "14. As the truth commanded to be preached to all nations.

      "15. As the basis of the church. "16. As the truth proved in our religion.

      "17. As the greatest truth in our religion.

      "18. As the greatest miracle.

      "19. The truth re-announced on Mount Tabor as the [329] basis of the future or glorious kingdom of Christ. See Matt., 17th chapter.

      "20. The only truth broad and deep enough to sustain, in all her weight and extent, the church.

      "21. His nature as greater than his work, or what he is greater than what he does. His divinity as it excels his death and all other things in the gospel.

      "22. The truth on which the Jews were fatally wrong.

      "23. The truth on which the Jewish vessel of State struck, and broke, and went down, on the great ocean of political existence.

      "24. As the truth over which they stumble to this day; for they can not, even now, believe the Messiah to be divine. They still think him but David's son.

      "Here, then, are the themes for a protracted meeting. Here is a good week's work in preaching. This is the true material. Who can handle these? Who does handle these? Yet to do this is, strictly speaking, to preach Christ. He is the theme of all these themes. When a man has exhausted the themes which respect Christ personally, it would then become him to introduce those that relate to Christ officially, and to speak of him as the Son of God with authority, with salvation, justification, reconciliation. But one thing at a time, Christ first, and Christ in authority afterward."^c

      He was accustomed to go to Christ rather than to the apostles--to draw from the Evangelists rather than the Epistles. He was, emphatically, a gospel preacher, one who entertained a very special regard for the writings of the Evangelists. He says of them: "These form the ground-work of our faith in Christianity; they contain the immediate evidence of its divine origin; they are the pillars and the gate-way of the holy temple; the bulwarks of the new [330] institution, and citadel of the Christian religion, which have withstood the shock of the heaviest ordnance and artillery from the heaviest batteries of all our enemies since the age began. Our children should be made to suck them in with their mother's milk, and our Evangelists repeat them with alphabetical correctness and facility. Most worthy are they to be studied and understood, and I am not ashamed to confess for them my special regard. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that twice a week for twenty-two months at a stretch have I discoursed on the Evangelist Matthew, alone. It is by these divine narratives the Christian religion is to spread, because by them, alone, the world can be assured that Jesus is the Christ; it is in them the proclaimer must search for the themes which win the souls of men; there it is the Lord is exhibited in proper form. His birth, his public ministry, his entrance upon the same at Jordan, his miracles, his doctrine, his defense of himself as the Messiah of God, his temptations, moral virtues, prodigious and incomprehensible wisdom, his divine nature, his trial, condemnation, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and glorification are all there; but, indeed, the enlightened Evangelist will perceive that every page, every miracle, every thing in these glorious oracles open, to the proclaimer of the gospel, an infinitely various and brilliant field for the instruction of the world. If any man would work faith in his audience, let him give his days and nights, and weeks and years, to the study of the Evangelists."^d

      That his theory with regard to the true method of preaching was correct, was frequently and fully demonstrated by the numerous conversions by which [331] his labors were attended. For a period of over thirty years, few men had greater success as an Evangelist than he; as many as one hundred converts within a month was not unusual, and, on some occasions, nearly that number in a few days; and he often baptized the converts with his own hands. But his success and method of preaching may best be learned from a few instances. He writes:

      "In company with our worthy brother, L. H. Jameson, we visited Highland County, Ohio, and labored at two or three points there during two weeks and a day. Seventy-seven persons in that period were added to the assemblies of Christ, and many hundreds of people heard the word of the Lord. The season reminded us of the happy, but affecting period of 1827, when we stood alone in our present views of the gospel and announced repentance and remission to the astonished and unreformed multitudes who attended, no man taking our part; but, like our betters, whom we followed, the apostles, were made a spectacle to angels and men.

      "If there be any propriety in our mode of developing the gospel, we would wish to inform the Evangelists somewhat of it, that as we have ever been fortunate in the annunciation of the great salvation on this plan, they also may at least have it in their power to follow the same path.

      "1. We sculptured out and made stand forth in the boldest possible relief from all other oracles of God, his last, his greatest, and his best revelation, namely:

      "'Behold, my Son, the Beloved in whom I delight.'

      "It was not to prove the truth of this, but to show that the great oracle is fundamental, and the thing to be believed and confessed, in order to the obedience of the gospel that we spake. It is said of Paul that it was his [332] manner in preaching the gospel to reason, and allege, and prove from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. See Acts, 17th chapter.

      "2. The next topic was the authority on which this proposition is offered to us for belief, viz.: that of God the Father.

      "This is a grand and delightful theme, and should be developed with care by all Evangelists. On the above topics every preacher of the gospel should model a discourse and continue to speak of the fundamental proposition and the authority on which it is offered to mankind, until he perfectly understands them. I am not ashamed to confess that it has cost me ten years labor to bring into order the thoughts which I have learned from the Scriptures on the first principles of the gospel of Christ; and I am perfectly willing to spend ten years more in order to increase my knowledge and improve the discourses which I deliver on these principles.

      "3. We next showed what Christ meant by building his church on this proposition.

      "4. The nature of the Kingdom of God, and the honor of holding the keys of that Kingdom, and of opening it, as given to the Apostle Peter, was then carefully explained.

      "5. Then the principles and privileges of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Remission of Sins, the Holy Spirit, and the Resurrection, were arranged, defined, and discussed, and the whole gospel, in its facts, and principles, and its blessings, shown to be adapted at once to the wants and powers of man.

      "Young Evangelists, let your fellow-laborer prevail with you to give your days and nights to these fundamental themes, and never leave them till you have completed a discourse or two on each of them. And let them be delivered in love and with fervent zeal."^e [333]

      Another meeting in Kentucky is thus noticed: "We mention this success only because it occurred in connection with the preaching of 'the appearance and kingdom' of our Lord Jesus Christ to his people. We lately labored seventeen days and nights in succession at Minerva, Mason County, Kentucky. A series of lectures on the second advent took a very sensible effect on the disciples, and seemed to have no small influence even upon the world; for when we changed our theme and substituted the cross for the crown--the things of faith for those of hope, fifty persons, first and last, believed and were immersed."^f

      He returned in a short time to the same field, and the joint labors of himself and others were crowned with great success--fifty more persons being gathered into the fold.^g

      "I am just now in Versailles. The excitement is very great. After filling an appointment at Dover, and another at Beasley's Creek, where I had a very great audience, and where the church embraces many well-tutored saints, and has an eldership of great value in Christ Jesus, I proceeded to Paris, toward Lexington; but hearing, at the former place, that a meeting was in progress at Union, I turned aside and spent the night under the hospitable roof of the beloved in Christ, Elder J. Gano. Next morning this excellent brother, with his lady, the meekest of women, were to go to Georgetown, so that I had the pleasure of journeying thither in their company. A protracted meeting had just closed at Georgetown, but on my arrival it was re-opened, and Bro. James Challen, greatly beloved in the Lord, coming on at this opportune moment, nineteen accessions were made to the church there. Blessed [334] be God. I visited Midway with the hope of spending the Lord's day in sweet enjoyment there, in company with Doctor Pinkerton, the zealous in the Lord, and the church of God in that place; but the rain was so great and continuous that the brethren could not even assemble. I returned to Lexington, and afterward addressed the brethren in that city.

      "I also filled an appointment at Union, where our people and the Baptists have worked with such diligence as to leave Evangelists almost nothing to do. This church embodies many of the excellent of the earth. Her sons are great and excellent spirits, renowned for purity and generosity. Midway and New Union are very famous for doing good.

      "A meeting was in progress at Versailles. The brethren were pleased to invite me to aid. I was forced to meet their wishes. The excitement is very great. I have preached and spoken three times a day for one week. And, thanks to our God in Christ Jesus, thirty have already made the good confession. Men are coming in from the distance of seven miles to meeting, even by night. Old impenitent sinners, who have not been seen at meeting for seven years before, have found their way into the assembly, and several, notorious for their evil doings, have been reclaimed. Even the eloquent orator, Thomas Marshall, has felt the excitement, and found out the power of the Lord. He was present last evening, and lent his devout attention to my discourse. He even came up from the remotest corner of the house, where he had ensconced himself during the preachment, and stood boldly by the side of the pulpit. He even asked to have the humble speaker pointed out to him, and, as the exhortation proceeded, advanced into the very front ranks of the lookers-on. O that the truth--the love of God to man--the blood of the cross may have touched his heart--his eloquent, but misguided heart. If he forget [335] what he heard, he is less than a true-hearted man; but he has expressed this morning, I have been told, his admiration of the last night's development."^h

      But a short time before this, nineteen were added at Georgetown, and, soon after the meeting at Versailles, between thirty and forty at Grassy Springs. At this period, 1847, it was not unusual for him to preach twice and even three times per day for weeks in succession. Within two years of the close of his life, when over sixty years of age, he wrote: "I have just returned from a galloping excursion into Garrard County; twenty accessions were made to the good cause, and I have immediately to return thither." Two weeks after this he writes: "God, the living God, is not an idol of gold, or silver, or brass, or wood, or stone, but the true God, and our everlasting King. My life has been, and by his help, shall be, devoted to the glory of his name. A few days ago, by stage and railroad, I traveled seventy miles, and ate no meat from two o'clock in the morning till five in the evening, and after supper had to address an audience waiting for me. Twelve persons have already presented themselves to the Lord. I am, thank the Lord Jesus Christ, now recovered from fatigue, and more animated in the preaching of the Word, than at any former period of my life. I know that the weakness, incident to age must overtake me, if I live, but as yet I am as strong in every respect as I ever was."ⁱ The above, which might be indefinitely extended, may serve to indicate the extent and success of his labors, as well the chief themes of his public addresses; but his style and manner as a preacher have not yet been told. As far as this may [336] be done at all, it can, perhaps, best be done by a comparison with his great and gifted fellow-laborer, Alexander Campbell, to which end we devote the succeeding chapter. [337]

[LEWS 323-337]