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Untitled Article
family office , and the wildest rakes of a college are often especially devoted to the hereditary cure of souls . Mr . Bulwer says they generally become decorous . They do very often ; it is no secret that they do not always . And the decorous clergyman is a hopeful preacher : here is a specimen .
' Walk into that sacred and well-filled edifice , —it is a fashionable church : you observe how well cleaned and well painted it is ; how fresh the brass nails and the red cloth seem in the gentlefolks' pews ; how respectable the clerk looks—the curate , too , is considered a "very gentleman-like young man . The rector is going to begin the sermon : he is a very learned man , people say he will be a bishop one of these days , for he edited a Greek play , and was private tutor to Lord Glitter . —Now observe him—his voice how monotonous !—his manner how cold !—his face , how composed ! ) et what are his words ?— ' * Fly the wrath that is to come . —Think of your immortal souls . Remember , oh ! remember ! how terrible is the responsibility of Life !—How strict the account !—how suddenly it maybe demanded ! " Are these his words ; they are certainly of passionate import , and they are doled forth in the tone of a lazy man saying , " John , how long is it to dinner ? " Why , if the calmest man in the world were to ask a gamekeeper not to shoot his favourite dog , he would speak to him with a thousand time 3 more energy ; and yet this preacher is endeavouring to save the souls of a whole parish—of all his acquaintance—all his friends—all his relations—his wife—( the lady in the purple bonnet , whose sins no man doubtless knows better)—and hissix children , whose immortal welfare must be still dearer to him than their temporal advancement ; and yet what a wonderful command over his emotions ! I never saw a man so cool in my life ! " But , my dear sir , " says the fashionable purist , " that coolness is decorum ; it is the proper characteristic of a clergyman of the established church . "
* " Alas ! Dr . Young did not think so , when finding he could not impress his audience sufficiently , he stopped short , and burst into tears . " 4 Sir , Dr . Young was a great poet ; but he was very well known not to be entirely orthodox . " ' This singular coldness—this absence of eloquence , almost of the appearance of human sympathy , which characterise the addresses of the established church , are the result of the aristocratical influences , which setting up ridicule as the criminal code , produce what is termed good taste as the rule of conduct . The members of the aristocracy naturally give the tone to the members of the established church , and thus the regard for the conventional quiet of good breeding destroys the enthusiasm that should belong to the preacher of religion . A certain bishop , a prelate of remarkable sense and power of mind , is so sensible of the evils that may result to religion from this almost ludicrous lukewarmness of manner in its pastor , that he is actually accustomed to send such young clergymen as he is acquainted with to take lessons in delivery from Mr . Jones , the celebrated actor , in order that they may learn to be warm , and study to be in earnest . '—vol . i . j > . 326—328 .
On the utility of the estublished church , our author has some
Untitled Article
598 Characteristics of English Aristocracy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 598, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/14/
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