hundreds of men of ordinary ability and taste, may be a question.  An unsuccessful attempt at it is very likely to land a man in gross offence against common taste and common sense, from which he whose aim is less ambitious is almost certainly safe.  The preacher whose purpose is to preach plain sense in such a style and manner as not to offend people of education and refinement, if he fail in doing what he wishes, may indeed be dull, but will not be absurd and offensive.  But however this may be, it is curious that this impassioned and highly oratorical school of preaching should be found among a cautious, cool-headed race like the Scotch.  The Scotch are proverbial for long heads, and no great capacity of emotion.  Sir Walter Scott, in Rob Roy, in describing the preacher whom the hero heard in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, says that his countrymen are much more accessible to logic than rhetoric; and that this fact determines the character of the preaching which is most acceptable to them.  If the case was such in those times, matters are assuredly quite altered now.  Logic is indeed not overlooked:  but it is brilliancy of illustration, and, above all, great feeling and earnestness, which go down.  Mr. Caird, the most popular of modern Scotch preachers, though possessing a very powerful and logical mind, yet owes his popularity with the mass of hearers almost entirely to his tremendous power of feeling and producing emotion.  By way of contrast to Sydney Smith’s picture of the English pulpit manner, let us look at one of Chalmers’s great appearances.  Look on that picture, and then on this: 

The Doctor’s manner during the whole delivery of that magnificent discourse was strikingly animated:  while the enthusiasm and energy he threw into some of his bursts rendered them quite overpowering.  One expression which he used, together with his action, his look, and the tones of his voice, made a most vivid and indelible impression on my memory...  While uttering these words, which he did with peculiar emphasis, accompanying them with a flash from his eye and a slump of his foot, he threw his right arm with clenched fist right across the book-board, and brandished it full in the face of the Town Council, sitting in state before him.  The words seem to startle, like an electric shock, the whole audience.

Very likely they did:  but we should regret to see a bishop, or even a dean, have recourse to such means of producing an impression.  We shall give one other extract descriptive of Chalmers’s manner: 

It was a transcendently grand, a glorious burst.  The energy of his action corresponded.  Intense emotion beamed from his countenance.  I cannot describe the appearance of his face better than by saving it was lighted up almost into a glare.  The congregation were intensely excited, leaning forward in the pews like a forest bending under the power of the hurricane,—­looking steadfastly at the preacher, and listening in breathless wonderment.  So soon as it was concluded, there was (as invariably was the case at the close of the Doctor’s bursts) a deep sigh, or rather gasp for breath, accompanied by a movement throughout the whole audience.