quietness. So they watched during the delivery of a
Sermon, which to them was too practical to be useful, for the concealed
point of it, which they could at least imagine, if they could not
discover. "Men used to suspect Dr. Newman," he says, "of writing a
_whole_ Sermon, _not_ for the sake of _the text or of the matter_, but
for the sake of one single passing hint, ... _one_ phrase, _one_
epithet, _one_ little barbed arrow, which, as he _swept magnificently_
past on the stream of his calm eloquence, _seemingly_ unconscious of all
presences, save those unseen, he delivered unheeded," &c. To all
appearance, he says, I was "unconscious of all presences." He is not
able to deny that the "_whole_ Sermon" had the _appearance_ of being
"_for the sake_ of the text and matter;" therefore he suggests that
perhaps it wasn't.

* * * * *

2. And now as to the subject of the Sermon. The Sermons of which the
Volume consists are such as are, more or less, exceptions to the rule
which I ordinarily observed, as to the subjects which I introduced into
the pulpit of St. Mary's. They are not purely ethical or doctrinal. They
were for the most part caused by circumstances of the day or of the
moment, and they belong to various years. One was written in 1832, two
in 1836, two in 1838, five in 1840, five in 1841, four in 1842, seven in
1843. Many of them are engaged on one subject, viz. in viewing the
Church in its relation to the world. By the world was meant, not simply
those multitudes which were not in the Church, but the existing body of
human society, whether in the Church or not, whether Catholics,
Protestants, Greeks, or Mahometans, theists or idolaters, as being ruled
by principles, maxims, and instincts of their own, that is, of an
unregenerate nature, whatever their supernatural privileges might be,
greater or less, according to their form of religion. This view of the
relation of the Church to the world as taken apart from questions of
ecclesiastical politics, as they may be called, is often brought out in
my Sermons. Two occur to me at once; No. 3 of my Plain Sermons, which
was written in 1829, and No. 15 of my Third Volume of Parochial, written
in 1835. On the other hand, by Church I meant,--in common with all
writers connected with the Tract Movement, whatever their shades of
opinion, and with the whole body of English divines, except those of the
Puritan or Evangelical School,--the whole of Chr