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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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( Concluded from p . 177 . ) Geneva : Sunday , May 25 th . I attended the service at the Madelaine . I arrived at the hour appointed , but every seat was already occupied , and numbers were standing ; for M . Humbert , who officiated , is one of the most
beloved pastors and one of the most favourite preachers in the town . After the gross and revolting superstition of Italy , it did my heart good to behold a thousand or twelve hundred persons assembled in a Protestant church . I was so far from the preacher that I could not catch all that he said ; but I heard enough to know that the matter and the manner were both good—full of fervour , and unction , and devotion .
At two o ' clock I attended at the hospital church and heard a young man preach his first sermon—the congregation attentive and the preacher promising ; but the reading of the Scriptures wretched . I have a high respect for the clergy of the Genevan church ; several of them , too , are my own particular friends ; but I must say , that if they had a settled design to degrade the word of God , they could not take a more effectual method of accomplishing their purpose than by adopting the present practice , which is , that of having
the Scriptures read by a student , or ( as in this instance ) by the clerk : not that this is peculiar to Geneva ; it is , I believe 9 general among the Protestants on the continent ; but it is not the better on that account . It is a practice for which there is no excuse ; for where there are , every Sunday , so many pastors and ministers unemployed , why cannot this part of the service be intrusted to some one of them ? This is a crying evil and ought to be corrected
without delay . There is , however , a bad tone in all the foreign reading which I have heard , and it would , I am sure , be quite as well worth the whi ] e of the Genevan pastors to go over to England to hear the Scriptures read by one or two divines whom I could mention , as it would be for our ministers to come to Geneva to learn the art of delivering a sermon ; each might gain much from the other .
28 th . What a different town is Geneva from those which I have lately visited in Italy ! I may say of it what the Emperor Alexander said of England , " I see no poor people here , " they are all so well dressed and respectable . Indeed , I know no place where the blessings of a good government and of the Protestant religion are so clearly displayed as they are here . The
town itself , too , has improved in appearance since I was here in 1826 . Considerable progress has been made in taking down the domes or projecting roofs in the Rue Base , and the booths in the same street are soon to be removed , and will be replaced by a beautiful row of shops which are now building just within the fortifications on the western side of the city .
Sunday , June 1 st . Walked out to the Petit Saconnet , ( a small village a mile or two distant from Geneva , ) where I attended service in a moderately sized chapel , which was filled with a very respectable congregation . Here I was fortunate in hearing my friend Munier preach ; yes , I rejoice that I am permitted to call such a man by the name of friend . His prayer was fervent
and impassioned , proceeding from the depth of a devotional spirit in its author , and drawing forth the devotion of all in behalf of whom it was offered . The sermon was all that a sermon ought to be—written in a style so clear and so plain that the simplest might understand it , and yet so full of power and of persuasion , that the most cultivated must have felt themselves the bet-
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JOURNAL OF A TOUR ON THE CONTINENT .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1829, page 307, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2572/page/11/
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