488 JAMES WALKER. 



be spiritual and practical in his sermons, no one could excel him on 

 occasion, in speculative, doctrinal, or controversial preaching. Wit- 

 ness his sermon on the philosophy of man's spiritual nature jirinted in 

 the "Unitarian Tracts;" or his sermon on the nature of God, preached 

 at the ordination of Rev. Ephraim Peabody ; or his sermon on faith, 

 regeneration, and atonement, prepai'ed for a dedication in Leicester ; 

 and then turn for an example of his spiritual and practical preaching 

 to his sermon on the law of the spiritual life, or the life of the soul. 

 It can be said of few preachers as truly as of Dr. Walker that he 

 interested and instructed all classes, the most intellectual and the most 

 simple-minded, the youngest and the oldest among his hearers. Per- 

 haps there is no harder ordeal by which a preacher can be tried than 

 when he addresses a body of college students. It is not that such an 

 audience is more intellectual, or more sceptical, or more frivolous than 

 other congregations. But, instead of a mixed assembly of men, women, 

 and children, this is mostly of one kind, surrounded by all the associa- 

 tions of college life, and sometimes affecting to be less serious than it 

 really is. Whatever of conceit or of fallacy was contained in the stu- 

 dent's judgment of the utility of the Sunday services for him. Dr. 

 Walker was able to probe to the core and expose, as in his sermon on 

 the Student's Sabbath. By a happy selection of topics (as in the 

 sermon on St. Paul or the Scholar among the Apostles), by a jsrofound 

 analysis of his subject, by an inexorable logic which riveted the atten- 

 tion, he took possession of the minds of his hearers, but only that he 

 might bring home to their consciences, their hearts, and their lives, 

 the application of the truths which he had slowly evolved. Moreover, 

 the solemnity and earnestness of his manner assured them that he felt 

 himself that he was not dealing with abstractions, but with realities. 

 He believed that this was the deep secret of pulpit influence. These 

 are his own words : " Surely he who can preach otherwise than 

 seriously and earnestly must be without an adequate conception of 

 man's need of religion, or of the divine compassion in providing it, or 

 of the strength and inveteracy of that corruption against which he is 

 to contend, or of the character and extent of that misery for which he 

 is to indicate a remedy or a consolation. And let him not think to 

 inspire a feeling which he does not himself possess. However learned 

 or ingenious or eloquent, let him not think to kindle in others a zeal 

 for God and a devotion to his cause, unless he speak from that same 

 zeal and devotion burning in his own bosom. However rich and 

 costly may be the offering which he brings, let him bring fire with it, 

 and not think to kindle the saci'ifice by blowing upon the cold hearth 



