one. Church,
ministry, and Sabbath are the regular targets taken out by our moral
riflemen and archers, though so seldom to hit fair in the centre, that
we may find ourselves, like spectators at the match, respecting the
old targets more than we do the shots. Yet homilies and exporters are
thought fair game. I have even heard splendid lecturers whose wit
ran so low or who were so pushed for matter as to talk of what
divinity-students wear round their necks, which seems a superficial
consideration. The anciently venerated desk has two sharp enemies,
the radical and the conservative, aiming their artillery from opposite
sides, putting it somewhat in the position of the poor fish who is in
danger from diverse classes of its fellow-creatures, one in the air
and one in the water, and knows not whether to dive or rise to the
surface, till it can conclude which is the more pleasant exit from
life, to be hawked at or swallowed outright.

While, however, critics and reformers fail to furnish a fit substitute
for the sermon, and the finest essays show not only Bacon's "dry
light," but a very cold one too, and the wit and humor of the lyceum
fall short of any mark in the conscience of mankind, and philanthropy
uses stabbing often instead of surgery, a clerical institution, on
whose basis direct admonition can be administered by individuals
without egotism or impertinence, maintains an indefeasible claim.
Indeed, as was fancied of the innocent in the ordeal by fire, or like
the children from the furnace, it comes out the other side of all
censure, with some odor of sanctity yet on its unsinged robes and new
power in higher quarters in its hands. Defective, indeed, it is. If
some of its organs could speak a little more in their natural voice,
and could, moreover, wash off the deformity of this Indian war-paint
of high-wrought rhetoric,--if they could use a little more of the
colloquial earnestness of the street and table in their style, instead
of those freaks of eloquence which, among all our associations,
there ought to be a society to put down,--they would more honor their
vocation, and effect its purpose of saving human souls. Let us not be
so loudmouthed, or bluster as we do. Our declamation will have to hush
its barbarian noise some time. Nothing but conversation will be
left in heaven; and it were well, could we have on earth sober and
thoughtful assemblies, at blood-warmth instead of fever-heat, rather
than those over-crowd