tion which
at first impeded him, and which nearly drove the archdeacon beside
himself.

But the sermon was the thing to try the man. It often surprises us
that very young men can muster courage to preach for the first time
to a strange congregation. Men who are as yet but little more than
boys, who have but just left what indeed we may not call a school,
but a seminary intended for their tuition as scholars, whose thoughts
have been mostly of boating, cricketing, and wine-parties, ascend a
rostrum high above the heads of the submissive crowd, not that they
may read God's word to those below, but that they may preach their
own word for the edification of their hearers. It seems strange to
us that they are not stricken dumb by the new and awful solemnity of
their position. "How am I, just turned twenty-three, who have never
yet passed ten thoughtful days since the power of thought first came
to me, how am I to instruct these greybeards who, with the weary
thinking of so many years, have approached so near the grave? Can
I teach them their duty? Can I explain to them that which I so
imperfectly understand, that which years of study may have made
so plain to them? Has my newly acquired privilege as one of God's
ministers imparted to me as yet any fitness for the wonderful work of
a preacher?"

It must be supposed that such ideas do occur to young clergymen, and
yet they overcome, apparently with ease, this difficulty which to us
appears to be all but insurmountable. We have never been subjected
in the way of ordination to the power of a bishop's hands. It may be
that there is in them something that sustains the spirit and banishes
the natural modesty of youth. But for ourselves we must own that the
deep affection which Dominie Sampson felt for his young pupils has
not more endeared him to us than the bashful spirit which sent him
mute and inglorious from the pulpit when he rose there with the
futile attempt to preach God's gospel.

There is a rule in our church which forbids the younger order of our
clergymen to perform a certain portion of the service. The absolution
must be read by a minister in priest's orders. If there be no such
minister present, the congregation can have the benefit of no
absolution but that which each may succeed in administering to
himself. The rule may be a good one, though the necessity for it
hardly comes home to the general understanding. But this forbearance
on the part of youth would be m