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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1140, 7 October 1871, Page 2

Sermon-inanufacture in England pears to be on the increase. A writer in the St. Paul's Magazine says thaG there are now a dozen persons engaged in the trade. They furnish a haltguinea article when great flights of eloquence are desired, but the ordinary supply is on much lower terms, aver* aging Is 3d to Is 6d a sermon, postage paid. Two sermons a week, at this rate would amount +o £5 4s a yeav. In other words, an annual sum of W in gold would secure a country parson all needful sermons, without any weai' or tear of brain. The writer is of opinion that this secret help is not puts tq much use in the towns, as the chances

pf detection there are greater, and the number of sermons demanded of each clergyman," by reason of the numerical superiority of the whole class, is considerably less. It is in the country districts, where the same man has to hammer out two sermons on every Sunday, and on some few feast-days in the year, that the sale is largest. Supposing that each broker has fifty clients—und a less number number eould scarcely pay expenses, and make a remunerative profit —there would be at least 1,200 st-rmons per Sunday, provided by this means. Incidental to this, is an amusing note in the last number of the Pall Hall Budget upon the bad consequences of having but a small supply of sermons. It that in one of the .country churches, where the incumbent has been thirteen years in office, there is a regular church goer of an arithmetical turn of mind. From careful observation he estimates that " the general stock of sermon.« possessed by the vicar has been pi cached forty-eight times, or has made forty-eight resolutions and they are advanced in the forty-ninth cycle. He considers that he has accurately fixed the date of their .composition, which he believes to be between the thirty-fifth and fortieth years of George 111.., or about seventyfive years ago. Two of them which are known as the " Astronomical Sermons," he says, are taken from Derhain's Astro Theology, published in 1785, and ■abound with the errors of that date. Another is supposed to have been written on the occasion of the earthquake at Lisbon, and is known as the " Trembling Sermon," being suited to occasions of public calamity. It has already done duty on the occasion of two revo lutions in Spain, twice for commercial panics in England, once for the Franco-G-eiman war, with a few other similar occasions.

The question has been asked why it is considered impolite for gentlemen to go into the presence of the ladies in their shirt sleeves, while it is considered in every way correct for the ladies themselves to appear before gentlemen without any sleeves at all i