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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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kerchief in the pulpit . The discourse is in character with the orator ; nothing to rouse a slumbering conscience , nothing to alarm the soul at a sense of its danger , no difficulties expounded to confirm the wavering , no mighty truths enforced to rejoice the
faithful , —to look for theology here would be * seeking pears from the elm ; —only a little smooth morality , such as Turk , Jew , or Infidel , may listen to without offence , sparkling with metaphors and similes , and rounded off with a text of Scripture , a scrap of poetry , or , better than either , a quotation from
Ossian . —To have a clergy exempt from the frailties of human nature is impossible ; but the true church has effectually secured hers from the vanities of the world . We may sometimes have to grieve , because the wolf has put on the shepherd's cloak , but never can have need to blush at seeing the monkev in it .
These gentlemen have two ends in view ; the main one is to make a fortune by marriage , —one of the evils this of a married clergy . It was formerl \ a doubt whether the red coat or the black one , the soldier or the priest , had the best chance with the ladies :
if , on the one side , there was valour , there was learning on the other ; but since volunteering has made scarlet so common , black carries the day ;—cedunt arma togce . The customs of England do not exclude the clergyman from any species of amusement ; the
popular preacher is to be seen at the theatre and at the horse-race , bearing his part at the concert and the ball , making his court to old ladies at the card-table , and to young ones at the harpsichord : and in this way , if he
does but steer clear of any flagrant crime or irregularity , ( which is not always the case , for this order , in the heretical hierarchy , has had more than one r . Aicifer , ) he generally succeeds in finding some widow , or waning spinster , with weightier charms than youth and beauty .
His other object is to obtain what is called a lectureship in some wealthy parish ; that is , to preach an evening sermon on Sundays , at a later hour than the regular service , for which the parishioners pay by a subscription . As this is an addition to the established ser-* Pedir peras al olmo .
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vice , at the choice of the people , and supported by them at a voluutary expense , the appointment is in their hands as a thing distinct from the cure ; it is decided by votes , and the election usually produces a contest which is carried on with the same ardour ; and leaves
behind it the same sort of dissension among friends and neighbours , as a contested election for parliament . But the height of the popular preacher ' s ambition is to obtain a chapel of his own , in which he rents out pews and single seats by the year : and here he does not trust whollv to his own
oratorical accomplishments ; he will have a finer-tuned organ than his neighbour , singers better trained , double doors , and stoves of the newest construction , to keep it comfortably warm , I met one of these chapel-proprietors in company ; self-complacency , good h umour , and habitual assentation to every body he met with , had wrinkled his face
into a perpetual smile . He said he had lately been expending all his ready money in religious purposes ; this he afterwards explained as meaning that he had been fitting up his chapel ; " and I shall think myself very badly off , " he added , *< if it does not bring me in fifty per cent . "
8 . Freq uen t Executions for Forgery * The frequent executions for forgery in England are justly considered by the humane and thinking part of the people , as repugnant to justice , shocking to humanity , and disgraceful to the nation . Death has been the
uniform punishment in every case , though it is scarcely possible to conceive a crime capable of so many modifications of guilt in the criminal . The most powerful intercessions have been made for mercy , and the most powerful
arguments urged in vain ; no instance has ever yet been known of pardon . A Doctor of Divinity was executed for it in the early part of the present reign , who , though led by prodigality to the commission of the deed for
which he suffered , was the most useful as well as the m . ost popular of all their preachers . Any regard to his clerical character was , as you may well suppose , out of the question in this land of schism ; yet earnest entreaties were made in his behalf . The famous Dr . Johnson , of whom the English boast as the great ornament of
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The Spaniard ' s Letters from * England . 351
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1817, page 351, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2465/page/31/
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