“How do you like Brother Jones?” This was what Solomon Smith asked me, I having accepted his invitation to go and hear the new preacher in Smithville. I replied that I liked him very much, for he preached an earnest, gospel sermon. “But did you see how awkward he was? Why, he knocked the hymn-book off the pulpit with one of his clumsy gestures. And then he said, ‘you oughter,’ and ‘them folks that does so,’ and used any amount of bad grammar. You did not like that, did you?” “Of course not. But in spite of those little infelicities of manner and style, he is a grand preacher, and I will tell you why. First of all, he don't preach himself. He seems to forget all about himself. He talks and acts like an ambassador who has been sent on a mission, or who claims attention, not in his own name, or by reason of any skill that he has in presenting his message, but on account of the message itself, and the dignity and claims of the sender. There is nothing so trying to me as self-consciousness in the pulpit. Better any awkwardness than that. In the second place, I like Mr. Jones because he believes in God. You can see that, especially in his prayers. He talks with God just as Abraham did when he stood before him pleading for Sodom. He evidently realizes that the church is God's house, and that God himself is there in some special manner, to welcome his people, and to hear what they have to say to him. Such prayers make me feel that I am at Peniel, standing by Jacob as he wrestles with the angel of the Lord. It is a great thing, I tell you, for a preacher to have such faith in God's presence as Mr. Jones has, to be able to stand before a congregation so absorbed in communion with God that he forgets all else in the fervor of his devotion. “I like Mr. Jones, in the third place, because he believes that all men are sinners, and is not afraid to tell them so. How plain and emphatic, and how tender and loving, was his statement ‘that the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint!’ I tell you, Solomon, unless a preacher is thoroughly orthodox on depravity, he wouldn't do much good. You must make men realize that they are sick before they will apply to a physician. You must convince them of sin before you can get them to welcome a Saviour. “My fourth reason for liking Mr. Jones is that he believes in the Bible. He is constantly appealing to the law and the testimony. His sermon bristled with quotations. They were not from the theologians, or from the poets, but from the word of God. When he found a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ for anything he was satisfied, and insisted that his hearers ought to be. I am sick of this modern rationalistic style of preaching. We don't want in the pulpit messages from men, but messages from God. I like to hear a preacher who speaks with authority, because he speaks the words of his Master and mine. “My fifth reason for liking Mr. Jones as a gospel preacher is that he evidently believes in the assurance of faith. He thinks that, if people are converted, they ought to know it, and be happy in the knowledge. He has no patience with the moping, sighing sort of Christians who hope that they have a hope. He evidently knows in whom he has believed, and is persuaded that God is able to keep him, and he thinks that we all ought to have the same knowledge and persuasion. “I have many more reasons for liking Mr. Jones, but I will give you only one of them now. He is as indignant as Paul was with the Christians who continue in sin that grace may abound. He believes in our showing our faith by our works. He believes that if we love a holy God, we will want to be like him. He believes that we ought to be pressing toward the mark for the prize of our high calling, that we ought to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to perfect holiness in the fear of God. I tell you, Solomon, we have too many philosophical preachers, too many poetic preachers, too many dramatic and pictorial preachers; what we need in this age of abounding worldliness is plain, earnest, pungent, gospel preaching. And when I hear a man in the pulpit who speaks as if God had sent him to try to save a perishing world, I don't criticise his grammar, or his gestures—I honor him as an ambassador of my Lord.”—Occident.