I MUST pass over fourteen years, for were I to pursue the history of our young Daniel's boyhood and adolescence into all the ramifications which a faithful biography requires, fourteen volumes would not contain it. They would be worth reading, for that costs little; they would be worth writing, though that costs much. They would deserve the best embellishments that the pencil and the graver could produce. The most poetical of artists would be worthily employed in designing the sentimental and melancholy scenes; Cruikshank for the grotesque; Wilkie and Richter for the comic and serio-comic; Turner for the actual scenery; Bewick for the head and tail pieces. They ought to be written; they ought to be read. They should be written, and then they would be read. But time is wanting: "Eheu! fugaces posthume, posthume, and time is a commodity of which the value rises as long as we live. We must be contented with doing, not what we wish, but what we can-our possible, as the French call it. One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now. If such a condition of existence were offered to us in this world, and it were put to the vote whether we should accept the offer, and fix all things immutably as they are, who are they whose voices would be given in the affirmative? Not those who are in pursuit of fortune, or of fame, or of knowledge, or of enjoyment, or of happiness; though with regard to all of these, as far as any of them are attainable, there is more pleasure in the pursuit than in the attainment. Not those who are at sea, or travelling in a stage coach. Not the man who is shaving himself. Not those who have the toothache, or who are having a tooth drawn. The fashionable beauty might, and the fashionable singer, and the fashionable opera dancer, and the actor who is in the height of his power and reputation. So might the alderman at a city feast. So would the heir who is squandering a large fortune faster than it was accumulated for him. And the thief who is not taken, and the convict who is not hanged, and the scoffer at religion whose heart belies his tongue. Not the wise and the good. Not those who are in sickness or in sorrow. Not I. But were I endowed with the power of suspending the effect of time upon the things around me, methinks there are some of my flowers which should neither fall nor fade : decidedly my kitten should never attain to cathood; and I am afraid my little boy would continue to "misspeak halfuttered words ;" and never, while I live, outgrow that epicene dress of French gray, half European, half Asiatic in its fashion. CHAPTER XXVI. P. I.. DANIEL AT DONCASTER; THE REASON WHY HE WAS DESTINED FOR THE MEDICAL PROFESSION RATHER THAN HOLY ORDERS; AND SOME REMARKS UPON SERMONS. Je ne veux dissimuler, amy lecteur, que je n'aye bien préveu, et me tiens pour deüement adverty, que ne puis eviter la reprehension d'aucuns, et les calomnies de plusieurs-ausquels c'est éscrit désplaira du tout.-CHRISTOFLE DE HERICOURT. FOURTEEN years have elapsed since the scene took place which is related in the twenty-second chapter: and Daniel the younger, at the time to which this present chapter refers, was residing at Doncaster with Peter Hopkins, who prac tised the medical art in all its branches. He had lived with him eight years, first as a pupil, latterly in the capacity of an assistant, and afterward as an adopted successor. How this connection between Daniel and Peter Hopkins was brought about, and the circumstances which prepared the way for it, would have appeared in some of the non-existent fourteen volumes, if it had pleased fate that they should have been written. Some of my readers, and especially those who pride themselves upon their knowledge of the world, or their success in it, will think it strange, perhaps, that the elder Daniel, when he resolved to make a scholar of his son, did not determine upon breeding him either to the church or the law, in either of which professions the way was easier and more inviting. Now though this will not appear strange to those other readers who have perceived that the father had no knowledge of the world, and could have none, it is nevertheless proper to enter into some explanation upon that point. If George Herbert's Temple, or his Remains, or his life by old Izaak Walton, had all or any of them happened to be among those few but precious books which Daniel prized so highly and so well, it is likely that the wish of his heart would have been to train up his son for a priest to the temple. But so it was, that none of his reading was of a kind to give his thoughts that direction; and he had not conceived any exalted opinion of the clergy from the specimens which had fallen in his way. A contempt which was but too general had been brought upon the order by the ignorance or the poverty of a great number of its members. The person who served the humble church which Daniel dutifully attended was almost as poor as a capuchin, and quite as ignorant. This poor man had obtained in evil hour from some easy or careless bishop a license to preach. It was reprehensible enough to have ordained one who was destitute of every qualification that the office requires; the fault was still greater in promoting him from the desk to the pulpit. "A very great scholar," is quoted by Dr. Eachard, as saying," that such preaching as is usual is a hinderance of salvation rather than the means to it." This was said when the fashion of conceited preaching which is satirised in Frey Gerundio had extended to England, and though that fashion has so long been obsolete that many persons will be surprised to hear it had ever existed among us, it may still reasonably be questioned whether sermons such as they commonly are, do not quench more devotion than they kindle. My lord! put not the book aside in displeasure! (I address myself to whatever bishop may be reading it.) Unbiased I will not call myself, for I am a true and orthodox churchman, and have the interests of the church zealously. at heart, because I believe and know them to be essentially and inseparably connected with those of the commonwealth. But I have been an attentive observer, and as such, request a hearing. Receive my remarks as coming from one whose principles are in entire accord with your lordship's, whose wishes have the same scope and purport, and who, while he offers his honest opinion, submits it with proper humility to your judgment. The founder of the English church did not intend that the sermon should invariably form a part of the Sunday services. It became so in condescension to the Puritans, of whom it has long been the fashion to speak with respect, instead of holding them up to the contempt, and infamy, and abhorrence which they have so richly merited. They have been extolled by their descendants and successors as models of patriotism and piety; and the success with which this delusion has been practised is one of the most remarkable examples of what may be effected by dint of effrontery and persevering falsehood. That sentence I am certain will not be disapproved at Fulham or Lambeth. Dr. Southey or Dr. Phillpots might have written it. The general standard of the clergy has undoubtedly been very much raised since the days when they were not allowed to preach without a license for that purpose from the ordinary. Nevertheless it is certain that many persons who are, in other and more material respects, well, or even excellently qualified for the ministerial functions, may be wanting in the qualifications for a preacher. A man may possess great learning, sound principles, and good sense, and yet be without the talent of arranging and expressing his thoughts well in a written discourse: he may want the power of fixing the attention or reaching the hearts of his hearers; and in that case the discourse, as some old writer has said in serious jest, which was designed for edification turns to tedification. The evil was less in Addison's days, when he who distrusted his own abilities availed himself of the compositions of some approved divine, and was not disparaged in the opinion of his congregation, by taking a printed volume into the pulpit. This is no longer practised; but instead of this, which secured wholesome instruction to the people, sermons are manufactured for sale, and sold in manuscript, or printed in a cursive type imitating manuscript. The articles which are prepared for such a market, are for the most part copied from obscure books, with more or less alteration of language, and generally for the worse; and so far as they are drawn from such sources they are not likely to contain anything exceptionable on the score of doctrine: but the best authors will not be resorted to, for fear of discovery, and therefore when these are used, the congregation lose as much in point of instruction, as he who uses them ought to lose in self-esteem. But it is more injurious when a more scrupulous man composes his own discourses, if he be deficient either in judg ment or learning. He is then more likely to entangle plain texts than to unravel knotty ones; rash positions are sometimes advanced by such preachers, unsound arguments are adduced by them in support of momentous doctrines, and though these things neither offend the ignorant and careless, nor injure the well minded and well informed, they carry poison with them when they enter a diseased ear. It cannot be doubted that such sermons act as corroboratives for infidelity. Nor when they contain nothing that is actually erroneous, but are merely unimproving, are they in that case altogether harmless. They are not harmless if they are felt to be tedious. They are not harmless if they torpify the understanding: a chill that begins there may extend to the vital regions. Bishop Taylor (the great Jeremy) says of devotional books that "they are in a large degree the occasion of so great indevotion as prevails among the generality of nominal Christians, being," he says, "represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life, without or art or learning; and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love, not for them that can consider and love." This applies more forcibly to bad sermons than to commonplace books of devotion; the book may be laid aside if it offend the reader's judgment, but the sermon is a positive infliction upon the helpless hearer. 66 The same bishop-and his name ought to carry with it authority among the wise and the good-has delivered an opinion upon this subject, in his admirable apology for authorized and set forms of liturgy. Indeed," he says, "if I may freely declare my opinion, I think it were not amiss, if the liberty of making sermons were something more restrained than it is; and that such persons only were intrusted with the liberty, for whom the church herself may be safely responsive-that is, men learned and pious; and that the other part, the vulgus cleri, should instruct the people out of the fountains of the church and the public stock, till, by so long exercise and discipline in the schools of the prophets, they may also be instructed to minister of their own unto the people. This I am sure was the practice of the primitive church." 66 "I am convinced," said Dr. Johnson, "that I ought to be at divine service more frequently than I am; but the provocations given by ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which otherwise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself on such occasions, 'How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention after we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a liturgy which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom!" " "Take notice, however," he adds, "though I make this confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the fastidiousness that sometimes leads me to exchange congregational for solitary worship." The saintly Herbert says "Judge not the preacher, for he is thy judge; The worst speak something good. If all want sense, He that gets patience, and the blessing which Preachers conclude with, hath not lost his pains." |