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‘Pungere non palpare’—was Jerome’s direction for the Preacher’s words. [Augustine wrote, “I learned from Jerome that gaudy phrases and words in a pulpit are but signum insipientiæ – a sign of folly. The words of a preacher, he says, ought pungere, non palpare, to prick the heart (sting), not smooth and coax.] One of the evils of this selfish spirit, is the encouragement of a critical spirit among our hearers—a chief bane of the Ministry. Besides, ‘this desire to appear a fine speaker’ (as Dr. Macgill tells his young friend) ‘unfits you for attaining even that kind of excellence which you desire. Your style, instead of presenting the just expression of thoughts and feelings suited to your objects, presents an exhibition of artificial beauties, unsuitably introduced, laboriously and affectedly pourtrayed, while the higher order of beauties in thought and language are neglected, or lost in the gaudy colouring which surrounds them.’ (Considerations to a Young Clergyman.) In thus spending our strength in eloquent words, we lose eloquent thought. We shall not become truly eloquent, until we have lost the desire to be so, and gain our elevation by rising with our subject, and giving ourselves up to it.