ale, too, may be considered, nowadays, to hold but a mean idea
of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known to
dispute on its exact bearing with the State--whether it was incorporated
with the State, or above the State--whether it was antecedent to the
Papacy, or formed from the Papacy, &c., &c. According to his favorite
maxim, _Quieta non movere_ (not to disturb things that are quiet), I
have no doubt that he would have thought that the less discussion is
provoked upon such matters, the better for both church and laity. Nor
had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient custom of
excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the
priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson Dale
had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the
gospel--to advise--to deter--to persuade--to reprove. And it was for the
evening service that he prepared those sermons, which may be called
"sermons that preach _at_ you." He preferred the evening for that
salutary discipline, not only because the congregation was more
numerous, but also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way,
he knew that people bear better to be preached at after dinner than
before; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach
is at peace. There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale's way of
preaching at you. It was done in so imperceptible, fatherly a manner,
that you never felt offended. He did it, too, with so much art that
nobody but your own guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was
exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the
Squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr. Bullock the churchwarden, as
boldly as at Hodge the plowman, and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn,
he had preached at _him_ more often than at any one in the parish; but
Stirn, though he had the sense to know it, never had the grace to
reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's sermons, something of that
boldness of illustration which would have been scholarly if he had not
made it familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder
divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now and then, to introduce an
anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural
author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an
argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little
distinct from, though wholly subordinate to the main purp