Jesuit. He that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, may justly be applied to Philip von Hartung. Many and many a rill of the water of Life may be lighted on in the garden of delights contained in his volumes. Often, perhaps, the water is discoloured, but more often is it limpid and crystalline as when it leaped out of the fount of God.
In style Hartung resembles the more earnest preachers of dissent, because he speaks from the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If our preachers had the zeal and the love of God which was found among the great Catholic orators, and is still to be discovered among dissenting ministers, there would be fewer complaints of the barrenness of the land, less deadness to the calls of God in professed Church-goers. It is quite impossible for a preacher to effect the slightest good unless he feels what he says from the depths of his soul; it is hopeless for him to expect to draw hearts to the love of Jesus, if he knows not what that love is. And the sermon, however eloquent and finished in style, will never convert sinners, unless its inspiration is derived from God; and that inspiration can alone be obtained by prayer.
He who prays much is filled with a power of winning souls quite inexplicable; he sheds a sort of magnetic influence upon hearts, drawing them to Christ; and, though the words be few and ill-chosen, they can do a work for God which the most polished masterpiece of elocution would be powerless to effect.
I think the story is told of Francis Borgia, that he was asked to preach at a certain church in a distant
