s the common consequence of common sermons.

With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions
from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties
of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given
us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in
those mysteries which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in
the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you
must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your interpretation. The
Bible is good, the prayer-book is good, nay, you yourself would be
acceptable, if you would read to me some portion of those time-honoured
discourses which our great divines have elaborated in the full maturity
of their powers. But you must excuse me, my insufficient young
lecturer, if I yawn over your imperfect sentences, your repeated
phrases, your false pathos, your drawlings and denouncings, your
humming and hawing, your oh-ing and ah-ing, your black gloves and your
white handkerchief. To me, it all means nothing; and hours are too
precious to be so wasted--if one could only avoid it.

And here I must make a protest against the pretence, so often put
forward by the working clergy, that they are overburdened by the
multitude of sermons to be preached. We are all too fond of our own
voices, and a preacher is encouraged in the vanity of making his
heard by the privilege of a compelled audience. His sermon is the
pleasant morsel of his life, his delicious moment of self-exaltation.
"I have preached nine sermons this week," said a young friend to me
the other day, with hand languidly raised to his brow, the picture of
an overburdened martyr. "Nine this week, seven last week, four the
week before. I have preached twenty-three sermons this month. It is
really too much."

"Too much, indeed," said I, shuddering; "too much for the strength of
any one."

"Yes," he answered meekly, "indeed it is; I am beginning to feel it
painfully."

"Would," said I, "you could feel it--would that you could be made to
feel it." But he never guessed that my heart was wrung for the poor
listeners.

There was, at any rate, no tedium felt in listening to Mr. Slope on
the occasion in question. His subject came too home to his audience
to be dull, and, to tell the truth, Mr. Slope had the gift of using
words forcibly. He was heard through his thirty minutes of eloquence
with mute attention and open ears, but with angry eyes, which glared