PULPIT PLAGIARISM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 10, 9 July 1870, Page 4

PULPIT PLAGIARISM.

(Melboure Telegraph, May 28.)

Geelong hns beeu edified or scandalised, it does not appear which , . by two of the clergymen who occupied local pulpits last Sunday, "having the misfortuue," as the Advertiser delicately and compassionately puts it, " to preach the same sermon." No disgrace whatever, as our contemporary remarks, would have attached to the proceeding had the reverend gentlemen intimated that their oratory was borrowed. As it is, they will have an excellent opportuuity of exercising their casuistical skill in establishing the distinction between speaking a falsehood and acting one. But laymen must admit that the unwritten etiquette which requires a clergyman to preach original discourses morning and evening — 104 sermons in the year — presses hardly upon the clergy. Our indolence in declining to think for ourselves throws an amount of work upon them really enormous. Sund.y after Sunday they are surrounded by a crowd of spiritual paupers, who demand food large in quantity and excellent in quality. We ask for bread in season and out of season, and we grumble exceedingly at receiving an allowance of stone. A writer cannot become "writleu out" with impunity, bufc of clergymen it is not too much to say the bulk regularly speak themselves out. Terseness has fled from the pulpit, and well nigh eloquence. The institution which once swayed public opinion in England has become a dead letter. How much the result is due to the modern etiquette of double sermons every Sunday, no one cau say. In the days of Henry VIII., four sermons were all that were required in the year; and probably it would be to the advantage of the Church Militant if we gave up a portion of the additional hundred now demanded in the twelve months. One mode of effecting the reform without disturbing the arrangements of the service could be adopted any day in towns and cities, were the clergymen willing. Let it be an understood thing that no miuister should preach twice io the one day in tho same pulpit. The well-thought discourse which had delighted one congregation in the morning, could then be repeated to another admiring assembly in the evening. There is a disgrace attaching to two ministers preaching the same sermon in one place, but there is none in one minister delivering the same discourse twice. Minister and congregation would alike be satisfied — the first because he could produce good workj the latter because he would listen to good sermons. Materialism draws many recruits, from the Protestant Church and Rome attracts many; but more are driven away, declares a high authority, by, bad preaching.

The Charleston. Disturbance. — John Curtayne. Cornelius O'Connor, Luke Morris, and Robert Woolf have been committed for trial at the .coming sittings of the Supreme Court at Nelson. O'Connor and Curt ; yne stand charged with resisting the police and 'attempting to rescue a prisouer in le«al custody. Curtayne is also charged with Morris aad Woolf in being accessory to the blowiug up of the Southern Cross engine and shed. M. Culhane, also charged with- resisting, the police has been admitted to bail. . . Champion Foot Race. — The Champion race of 300 yards for £100 a side was run for at Melbourne on 25th June by Hewitt the English,, and Harris the Victorian, champion in the presence of nearly 10,000 spectators. . The men were iv splendid condition.; and for the first 90 yards van stride aud stride, when Harris put ou steam and went to the front. At the 150 yards Harris was still iiicr.asing his lead, hut at the 200 yards when the euthusias.n of the lookers-on was worked up to a tremendous pitch, Hewitt, who had evidently been running a waiting race, put on a terrific sp<.ed which in a second or two placed him in possession of a lead of five or six yards. Harris responded gamely, but it was too late, and, although he reduced the distance visibly at every stride, Hewitt breasted the tape fully a yard and a half ahead of his rival amid deafening cheers. The time 30^ seconds is the fastest 300 yards time on record.