ow much of
the meaning of the words was lost when they were produced with all
the meretricious charms of melody! &c. &c.

Here was a sermon to be preached before Mr. Archdeacon Grantly,
Mr. Precentor Harding, and the rest of them! Before a whole dean
and chapter assembled in their own cathedral! Before men who had
grown old in the exercise of their peculiar services, with a full
conviction of their excellence for all intended purposes! This too
from such a man, a clerical _parvenu_, a man without a cure, a mere
chaplain, an intruder among them; a fellow raked up, so said Dr.
Grantly, from the gutters of Marylebone! They had to sit through it!
None of them, not even Dr. Grantly, could close his ears, nor leave
the house of God during the hours of service. They were under an
obligation of listening, and that too without any immediate power of
reply.

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on
mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of
listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these
realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be
tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes,
truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege,
the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned
eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. Let a professor
of law or physics find his place in a lecture-room, and there pour
forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he will pour them
forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to talk without
talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge's charge need
be listened to perforce by none but the jury, prisoner, and
gaoler. A member of Parliament can be coughed down or counted out.
Town-councillors can be tabooed. But no one can rid himself of the
preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we
Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday's
rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God's service
distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more
than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay,
we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship, but we
desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which
ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be
able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for
escape which i