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of his audience , together with himself ; as in pp . 115 , 116 : ? " You and I have a mind that may be compared to the eye of a fly , that sees just an inch or two around ; so our minds reach just to little more than the day and hour we are now spending : we see but little farther forward , and remember but little more backward . But
it is not so with Him [ ihe great Judge ] , Yesterday , twenty years ago , a thousand ages past , are equally and immediately present to his mind . " In sdine of Mr . TVs sentences the introduction of a single and apparently trivial word imparts uncommon life and interest to his observations .
Thus , when , in pp . 63 , 68 , he pronounces a certain view of Christian blessedness to be endearing and delightful , because It adds such a sweetness to the intercourse of friendship , and provides such a cordial when friends come to part , the term such , by its €€ colloquial / ' affectionate
familiarity , communicates to the remarks a power which we can more easily feel than represent . In like manner , our preacher ' s occasional employment of a few other terms that are usually limited to conversation , and seldom find their way into set compositions , places him before us < f as a man talking with his friends /* and gives a new reality to his lessons of love and wisdom , * together with what perhaps we may be allowed to call an individual authority and weight . With phrases and words of this kind the reader of these Sermons will
almost perpetually meet . Nor will he be insensible to the chastity and terseness of the writer ' s style . Mr . Toller s clauses are not oppressed by a superfluity of epithets : it is rarely , if ever , that he mixes his metaphors :
and , as we have already intimated , he sometimes exhibits a happy combination of well-known words , by means of which they receive an air of elegance , and even of originality . So , in p . 175 ,
" — the friendly soul not only enjoys the happiness that immediately centres in himself , but with a kind of generous and glorious inconsistency , monopolizes the happiness of others , makes their plesisures embrace bis , lays a generous tax * So in pp . 120 . &c .
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upon everybody ' s happiness to contribute to his own . His heart , instead of being sp narrow as just to contain himself and his own felicity , is large enough to contain that of all his friends . And then , as to usefulness—why , the word has no meaning to him that has nobody to think or care about but himself . He is a drone in the hive of society , and a tax upon existence . Whereas , a friendly man not only lives in himself—not only thinks and labours and contrives in himself—but thinks and labours and contrives and lives in hundreds and thousands besides .
He lives m his family , through the whole street , the whole neighbourhood , the whole town . When he dies , in a sense the whole town dies , because the whole town feels the effect of his death . "
Did we characterize Mr . Toller ' s style by any single epithet , we should call it the didactic . In some of his most successful passages he reminds us of Paley , with whose volumes he was , no doubt , intimately acquainted ; though it Is , at the same time , evident that ' * he had formed himself on no preceding model / 5 and was as little indebted as possible to any contemporary author . By his biographer we are correctly told , that " the power of illustrating a subject was his distinguishing faculty : ** we may add , that in the exercise of it he seems to have delighted Let a few of the numerous passages in which he has used it , be submitted to our readers . Replying to the question , " How can God be almighty , when it is expressly said that there are some
things he cannot do , that he cannot lie , that he cannot do wickedly ?' Mr . T . proceeds in the following strain ( pp . 4 , 5 ) , « Why , you are to observe , this does not mean that he has not a natural power to do wickedly , or lie ; but that he has
not a moral power to do so . The holiness of his nature controuls his power , and prevents it from doing any thing wrong . If I see a large sum of money in a private room that does not belong to me , and yet leave that money untouched , that is no proof that I had not
a natural power to put out my hand and take it ; but that I was influenced by moral principles ; that I would not do It : so , though God has a moral power to do nothing but what is right , yet he has a natural power to do every thing that can be done ;—and herein , consists his omnipotence . "
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350 Review . ^ Toller ' s Sermons on Farious Subjects *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 350, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/30/
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