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vices ; but all was plain , and simple , and natural—familiar without being coarse , and persuasive without affectation . It was delivered entirely without notes , and without the slightest hesitation ; the action free and graceful , precisely that which a man would naturally adopt if called upon to address a humber of people in a room on an interesting and important topic . As 1 sat listening with edification and delight , I said to myself , " This is real
eloquence ! this is the kind of preaching to do good ! ' * I was affected even to tears , and as I walked back to my hotel , felt myself a better man than I was when I went . And why cannot we have something like this in England ? Why cannot we stand up in our pulpits like men , and address our congregations without a note before us , as if we really meant to do them good ? Is there , in the style and manner of this preaching , any thing so difficult to acquire , that it is hopeless to make the attempt ? I am convinced that there
is not ; and I am convinced of another thing too , that if we do not try ta acquire some such style as this , our preaching will be little belter than a dead letter . But it is useless to bring forward an evil without pointing out the remedy . If , then , we would improve our preaching , we must do three things . In the first place , we must banish cushions from our pulpits . With such a piece of furniture as this before him , a man ' s action can never be easy and natural . Should we not think it very ridiculous to see Mr ^
Brougham addressing the House of Commons , or Mr . Denman , appealing : to the feelings of a jury , with such a thing as one of bur pulpit cushions before him ? These articles were surely invented to put both the minister and his people asleep , as the form and the name seem indeed to imply . If we must needs have something to rest the Bible upon , in the devotional part of the service , let this be removed when the sermon is to be spoken . In the second place , congregations must demand less of their ministers in
the way of pulpit duty ; they must be content with fifty sermons in the course of the year , instead of a hundred , or with twenty-five instead of fifty . And , in the third place , ministers must have the means of travelling abcoad i they must have the opportunity of hearing with their own ears , and of seeing with their own eyes , specimens of the style which they ought to adopt ; they must hear Fontanes at Nimes , and Munier at Geneva , and Monod at
Paris ; and if , after listening to these noblest of sacred orators , they do not r-eturn home with a deep and 3 full conviction that our English preaching is not what it ought to be , and with aJiigh resolution to attempt something better arid mote profitable to themselves , they will be unworthy of the profession which they have thought fit to assume . But on this subject I shall not enlarge at present , as I hope to give my thoughts more at length at some future time .
( Before the afternoon service , I went with M , Fontanes to the Biblioth&que Populaire , or Library for the Common People , and was much gratified to see the number of persons who came for books , though it is only two months since it was established . There is here also a Lancasterian School , in which there are from 260 to 280 boys and 220 girls . Nov . 5 th . Left Mmes at noon , and travelled all night in the diligence to
Marseilles , where I arrived the next morning at eight o ' clock ; the country through which I passed during the day-light , a dead flat , bounded on each side by ridges of picturesque hills ; the most striking object in the whole ride , the Castle of Beaucaire , which is perched on an almost inaccessible rock , overlooking the rapid stream of the Rhone , opposite the village of Tarascon . 7 tfu M . Sautter , one of the Protestant pastors , to whom I had an mtro-
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Journal of a Tour in the Swtthof'FrancB $ 3
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1828, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2557/page/11/
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