nnerisms, and
there was much want of breadth of thought, but in heart and purpose it
was a true preaching of the Gospel.

Even towards the end of the century there were a few notable instances
of the power which a great preacher might yet command. We are told of
Dean Kirwan, who had left the Roman for the English Church, that even in
times of public calamity and distress, his irresistible powers of
persuasion repeatedly produced contributions exceeding a thousand or
twelve hundred pounds at a sermon; and his hearers, not content with
emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels or
watches in earnest of further benefactions.[1207] A sermon of Bishop
Horsley once produced an effect which would hardly be possible except
under circumstances of great public excitement. When he preached in
Westminster Abbey, before the House of Lords, on January 30, 1793, the
whole assembly, stirred by his peroration, rose with one impulse, and
remained standing till the sermon ended.[1208]

Amid the excited and angry controversies which occupied the earlier
years of the century, the pulpit did not by any means retain a
befitting calm. Later in the century there was no great cause for
complaint on this ground.

Whiston says that he sometimes read in church one of the Homilies. So,
no doubt, did others. But even in 1691 we find it mentioned that they
could not be much used without scandal, as if they were read from
laziness. 'The more the pity,' says the writer in question, 'for they
are good preaching.'[1209] It was one of Tillotson's ideas to get a new
set of Homilies written, as a supplement to the existing ones. There was
to be one for each Sunday and principal holy day in the year; and the
whole was to constitute a semi-authorised corpus of doctrinal and
practical divinity adapted for general instruction and family reading.
Burnet, Lloyd, and Patrick joined in the scheme, and some progress was
made in carrying it out. It met, however, with opposition, and was
ultimately laid aside.[1210]

To nearly every one of the London churches in Queen Anne's time a
Lecturer was attached, independent in most cases of the incumbent.[1211]
A great many of these foundations were an inheritance from Puritan
times. The duty required being only that of preaching, men had been able
to take a Lectureship who disapproved of various particulars in the
order and government of the Established Church, and would not have
entered themselves i