AFFECyIoNATE PREACHING.
{"newspaper_name": "The Wilmingtonian, and Delaware advertiser.", "edition": "01", "page": "p1", "byline": ""}
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"a preacher ought to speak to his audi
ence as father would talk to his children,
with an effectionate tenderness. In the
most awful denunciations of the divine dis
pleasure. an air of unaffected meekness
should be preserved, that while, with un-
sparing fidelity, we declare the whole coun-
sci of God, it may appear we are actuateu
by genuine spirit of compassion. a hard
and unfeeing manner of deneuncing the
threateuings Of the word of God, is not on
ly barharous and inhuman, but calculated,
bv inspiring disgust, to rob them OF all their
efficacy. If the awful part of cur message,
which may be styled the burden of the Lord,
ever fall with due weight on cur hearers,
it will be when it is delivered with tremb-


ling hand and fautering lip; and we may
then expect them to realize its solemn i'm
port, when they perceive that we ourselves
are ready to sni, under it. Of whom have
told you before, said st. Paul, and now tell
YOU weeping, that they are the enemies OF
the cross of Christ. What force does that
affecting declaration derive from these tears!
| An affectionate manner insinuates itself into
the heart, renders it soft and plable, and
disposes il to imbidc the sentiments and fol-
low the impulse of the speaker Whosoev-
er has attended to the effect of addresses
from the pulpit, must have perceived how
much of their impression depends upon this
quality, which gives to sentiments compare
lively trite, power over the mind beyond


what the most striking and original concep'
tions possess without it.