In a lecture before the students of Union Theological Seminary in January last, on the Conditions of Success in Preaching without Notes, R. S. Storrs, D. D., spoke as follows in reference to the work of the ordinary theological seminary :— “Theological seminaries at present threaten the destruction of sacred oratory. But few men in the pulpit learn how to preach until they have forgotten all they learned in their respective seminaries concerning the objects and methods of preaching. Commonly their teachers are eminently, godly and discreet, but cold, precise, and technical. Having failed in catching or holding the popular ear, they have been themselves retired from pulpits to fill professional chairs. With a sanctified dullness and an immaculate formalism of authority, which compels submission to official dignity, these teachers of sacred oratory proceed along the old ruts, and educate ministers to write abstract essays, subjective disquisitions, and modulated platitudes which are, when written, nearly worthless as sermons. The granulated dust of Egyptian mummies is quite as vital with power as the sermons which the majority of theological students are taught to prepare and deliver.”