PREFACE.

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THE MISSION OF THE HOMILIST IS NOT TO SUPPLY SERMONS FOR INDOLENT OR INCOMPETENT PREACHERS, BUT STIMULUS AND TONIC FOR THE TRUE-HEARTED, HARD-WORKING, AND GENUINE TEACHER. IT DOES NOT DEAL IN THE READYMADE, BUT IN THE RAW MATERIAL. IT ONLY ADMITS CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE MOST CONDENSED AND SUGGESTIVE CHARACTER. IT REQUIRES THINGS,

NOT WORDS-HEALTHY SAPLINGS, JUST RISING INTO SIGHT AND STRUGGLING INTO SHAPE, NOT LIFELESS TIMBER, HOWEVER EXQUISITELY CARVED OR BRILLIANTLY POLISHED. THE FORMER MAY GROW, THE LATTER MUST rot. IT PREFERS ONE LIFE-GERM TO A CARTLOAD OF MANUFACTURED SERMONS. IT DOES NOT TREAT SACRED TEXTS AS PEGS ON WHICH TO HANG ARTISTIC DISCOURSES, BUT AS SEED-CORN TO BE CULTIVATED FOR HUNGRY SOULS. THE Homilist," IN ONE WORD, PROCEEDS UPON THE PRINCIPLE THAT THAT AUTHOR SERVES HIS READER BEST, NOT WHO GIVES, BUT WHO SUGGESTS THE MOST THOUGHT, AND THUS BRINGS OUT FROM THE READER'S OWN SOUL THOUGHTS AND THOUGHT-PRODUCING POWERS OF WHICH BEFORE HE WAS UTTERLY UNCONSCIOUS.

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Although THE HOMILIST has passed through six Serial forms, numbering in all forty-four volumes, of which about ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND have been sold, another Series has been called for, and that by clergymen of all denominations, not only in this country and the colonies, but throughout Europe and America. The larger portion of the volumes that have appeared are out of print, and but few remain unsold, still the circulation continues as ever.

This is the second volume of the Excelsior Series; and as the same key-note rules this as ruled the melodies of the forty-four previous volumes, we may fairly dispense with a formal Preface, and only state that, as ever, it aims to be free from pedantic learning, rhetorical verbiage, theological polemics, and denominational narrowness.