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o REVIEW. *' Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."—Pope.
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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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Art . I , —Sermons by the Rev . T . N . Toller , fyc . [ Concluded from p . 296 . ] HAVING placed before our readers a summary view of the subjects and-the contents of Mr . Toller ' s posthumous discourses , we shall now
add a few remarks on their characteristic materials , style , method , sentiments and spirit ; on their merits and their blemishes . In executing this part of our design , we shall occasionally select passages , both from the Sermons themselves , and from the Memoir of the deceased preacher .
That he was a man of knowledge and reflection , every attentive reader of the volume will be fully sensible . Mr . Hall says of his friend ( Mem . p . 44 ) , " He possessed great originality , not so much , however , in ths stamina of his thoughts , as in the cast of his imagination /* This we perhaps may venture to admit as no incorrect
estimate of Mr . Toller ' s mental constitution . He appears to hare excelled in the faculty of putting received and important truths in a new and striking light . But the pictures , or sketches , which the imagination draws ,
are , in the main , combinations ^ rather than creations ; and they pre-suppose intelligence and observation . Mr . T . surveyed nature and mankind with a penetrating eye : nor had he a limited acquaintance with books :
" The leisure which the retired and tranquil tenor of his life secured , lie employed in the perusal of the best authors in our language , which , by continually adding to his mental stores , imparted to his ministry an ample , an endless variety .
Although he almost invariably preached from notes composed in short-hand , * his immediate preparations for the pulpit , there is reason to believe , were neither long nor laborious . + His discourses were not the painful productions of a barren mind , straining itself to meet
* In p . 42 of the Memoir , Mr . H . says of our author , *« he invariably delivered his sermons from notes /' + See , however , the preacher ' s own representation of the case , in p . 3 J 9 of the Sermons .
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the exigencies of the moment ; but , gathered from a rich and cultivated soil they were a mere scantling of the abundance which was left behind . He considered every new accession to the stock of his ideas , every effort of reflection , as a preparation for the pulpit , and looked
upon those who are necessitated to afford a portion of periodical instruction every week , without having accumulated mental stores , as in much the same situation with the Israelites who were doomed to produce their tale of bricks without straw . Preachers of this description
may iudeed amass a heap of glittering and misplaced ornaments , or beat the air with the flourishes of a tumid , unmeaning rhetoric ; but the deficiency of real matter , of solid information , cannot fail eventually to consign them to con - tempt . Whether Mr . Toller was ever a
severe student , or ever was engaged in a regular and systematic pursuit of the different branches of literature , or of science , I cannot ascertain ; but that he was much devoted to reading is matter of notoriety . By the incessant
accumulation of fresh materials , he became ' a scribe well instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom of God , ' and , * like a wise householder , ' was enabled to * bring out of his treasure things new and old . '"Mem . pp . 11—13 .
On the subject of Mr . T . ' s preparations for the pulpit , we make another extract ( 34 ) : ( € Though he possessed , there is reason to believe , a competent knowledge of the Scriptures in their original tongues , from condescension to his audience , and his extreme abhorrence of whatever savours
of pedantry , he was yet sparing of critical remarks , and availed himself less of the advantages of a liberal education and of incessant reading , for exact interpretations of the sacred volume , than he might with unexceptionable propriety have done . "
These observations we consider as , on the whole , just and accurate- The rnatermls of the discourses before us , are various , solid and interesting such as would particularly suit the
circumstances and the wants of a miscellaneous audience * In these Sermons we have no elaborate , learned disquisitions , on the one bund ; no superficial and meagre declamations ,
O Review. *' Still Pleased To Praise, Yet Not Afraid To Blame."—Pope.
o REVIEW . * ' Still pleased to praise , yet not afraid to blame . "—Pope .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 348, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/28/
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