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We hear much said of the coldness of New-England preaching, and the March number of THE UNITARIAN contains a letter on the subject, to which we would ask the attention of those who have not read it. But Unitarian preaching is usually singled out as the special mark for this reproach of coldness and want of zeal. Unitarianism itself is attacked, while the lifeless exposition, which it is said to receive at the hands of its ministers, is pretendedly traced to its efficient causes. The system itself is said to be dead and heartless, and we are told there is no wonder it should in its exhibition appear as it is, corpse-like and cold. We shall not stop to consider this strain of self-refuting taunt which is so often rung in our ears, but shall make it the occasion of some remarks upon zeal in general, leaving others to draw their own conclusions. Paul tells us "it is good to be zealously affected in a good thing," and, as we make no question that Christianity is a good thing, it becomes all, who acknowledge its truth, to promote its spread. Now to be zealously affected in the work evidently is to engage in it with earnestness and ardour. So far, doubtless, all would agree. But there may be difference of opinion as to the true meaning of this earnestness and ardour. In a given case one man might affirm its existence while another should assert its absence. And we apprehend that to be a great and hurtful error which regards true zeal in religion as inconsistent with calmness, thus establishing an opposition between feeling and reason, and making our nature a kingdom divided against itself. Perhaps some have even thought it necessary to beware of having too much feeling, lest it should despoil them of calm and sober rationality, — as if calmness were not thoroughly consistent with the most intense emotion, and as if feeling were to be narrowed down in its meaning to the mere foam of extravagance and the ravings of insanity, to groans and shrieks, to tossings of the arms, and writhings of the body,- as if, in short, that true zeal which a Christian preacher should seek were made up, half of excited passion, and half of mere physical action. Now we undertake to say not only that these exhibitions are not the sole evidence of just and strong feeling, but that they do not betoken the most powerful emotion. Indeed, they are often signs of a mere childish weakness and weeping and imbecility. Nay, they may be found in connexion with coldness of heart, and are as consistent with deadness and want of motion and warmth in its real living depths, as all the anger and ostentation and fury of the frothy billows are with the cold, dead, motionless rocks around which they break. The heart may stand out hard and immovable while all this excitement of the outer man rages and dashes about it. What a freezing effect must be produced, in such a case, upon those who actually perceive the excitement to be artificial! But take those who have not a doubt as to the real earnestness and sincerity of the speaker,- how and to what degree are they excited at such times? With all their confidence in the preacher, their excitement must, in a great measure, be like his. They may mistake their physical agitation for a deep movement of the soul; they may think their groans extorted when they unconsciously, but really, take pains to utter them; they may not distinguish the shriek of nervous hysteric pain from that which comes from agony of spirit. But effects must correspond to their causes. It is not every tone that, being indeed a tone of feeling, goes to the living heart of the hearer and regulates its motions; it is not a flinging of the arms at random that can express or convey a resistless energy of love and holy purpose. Emotions must strongly act on the inner man before they can appear in their own strong natural language in the countenance; and when the occasion is a real occasion, when the object is, and is understood to be, to excite men to action and effort of mind and life, and not to furnish them with a luxurious enjoyment of mere tragical scenes, strong feeling must exist in the soul of the speaker before it can be conveyed to the soul of the hearer. The preacher may desire to express an unfathomable love or joy or grief, but these must be seen to be unfathomable before the great assembly can sympathize with them by the experience of emotions alike unbounded. It is said of the zeal of which we have been speaking, that, however blameworthy it may be on account of its excesses, it is not at all liable to the charge of coldness. If that zeal be entitled to the praise of a warm and animating zeal, which rouses the tumultuous passions of the soul, which mingles the deep tide of human desires and hopes in furious commotion, the remark may be true. But there is a zeal. - let each man judge for himself where it is exhibited-which is hot and consuming, rather than cheering and vivifying to the noblest powers and affections of the soul. It is a flame that rages like the fire in autumnal woods, laying waste everything fair and glorious within its reach, and leaving what was just now so bright and beautiful to coldness and darkness and desolation. As in the case of the forest-conflagration, the sun with his calm yet powerful light and heat must toil days and months with a steady patience to bring back the green and smiling beauty of the landscape, so must the power of a calm and equable zeal shed its choicest influence on the soul ere she can regain the beauty that has been marred, and be clothed anew in the verdure that has been blighted. But is not strong excitement the very thing we need in religion? Do not men need to have their souls moved to their very depths? Do they not require to have their consciences startled from slumber, their feelings aroused, and the powers of their minds summoned forth into active duty? Should not the preacher's address to them be piercing and thrilling? With all our heart we say, Yes! But is all this best effected by a fiery and unregulated zeal,-a zeal which has no enduring strength, no character for uniformity, but consists in convulsions of soul and convulsions of body? Or is it best effected by a zeal that is calm, orderly, self-subsistent, and abiding? Which of these kinds of zeal are we to prefer? The latter, by all means. We should prefer it because its calmness is the calmness of power, because it moves with a clear-sighted view of the object, and of the obstacle, too, which opposes its course, and is thus a zeal "according to knowledge." We should prefer it because of its constancy, because it is not a brawling brook of the surface, which will soon show a dry and parched channel, but the strong and unfailing, though silent, stream from an exhaustless fountain. The furious zealot expends all his feeling, he makes a show of his whole heart, he pours out all his emotion on his bodily |