It is of the greatest importance to the preacher to remember the

It is of the greatest importance to the preacher to remember the place and circumstances of his ministry. Henry Crabb Robinson relates that Chantrey, the sculptor, remarked: “The ancients worked with a knowledge of the place where the statue was to be placed, and anticipated the light to which it would be exposed.”

The preacher needs to keep in view the place and people. It is wonderful how we are apt almost entirely to ignore the environment. I knew a preacher who, in a down-town church, capable of seating 18,000, but attended by about fifty, commenced the service by giving out the hymn, “What means this eager, anxious throng!”

The clergyman was equally oblivious who preached in the workhouse from the text, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.” And I fancy it was the same gentleman who opened his discourse in the country jail by remarking that he “was glad to see so many of them present,” and who became immensely popular with the convicts by concluding the service with an earnest supplication that they “might all now be dismissed to their several habitations.” Without being quite as absurd, we may seriously miscalculate the occasion and beat the air.

A city congregation differs widely from a rustic one; a middle-class congregation from one of working-men. They alike need the great truths of the Gospel, but there are real, although subtle, distinctions, and happy is the preacher who understands what scientists call “concurrent adaptation.”