THE TRADE IN SERMONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4472, 20 July 1875, Page 3

THE TRADE IN SERMONS.

(Observer.) A letter appeared in a daily contemporary a day or two ago, under the signature of « Clericus,” appealing, in terms of somewhat ludicrous solemnity, to the Bishops to check a practice “seriously affecting the usefulness and respectability” of the clergy. “ Our public 'schools and universities,” the writer says, “ while providing admirably for a liberal education in classics and mathematics, do not, as a rule, sufficiently train their pupils in English composition." This is a delicate way of stating a fact familiar to most people, that many youths leave our universities annually without having learned the art of putting together a few sentences of decent English. Under pressure of the continuous call upon abilities which he does not possess, we are told that “ the unhappy curate is driven to very questionable expedients to meet the emergency. Borrowing from friends, copying from books, buying old manuscripts, are tried in turn, till at last, in sheer despair, he yields to the tempting proposal in a sermon purveyor’s circular, of ‘a regular supply of original sermons at 13s, 6d. aquarter, in strict confidence. 1 ” Once

in the toils, however, it seems that the unfortunate clergyman is unable to free himself. “The purveyor insists on the ‘Subscriber’ continuing in chains, sends packet after packet, in spite of the remonstrance, charges a guinea instead of 13s. Gd. if in arrears, and threatens legal proceedings and exposure by letter or post-card to churchwardens, if payment is refused.” What, asks “ Clericus,” are the clergy to do in such circumstances 1 He “ alludes to such as have lithographic sermons thrust upon them, and who, dreading publicity, are terrified into paying the extortioner’s demands. It is somewhat singular to find that the dread of publicity should in any case be sufficient to make the victim submit to extortion. The advertisement of the fact that a clergyman has been in the habit of preaching sermons supr plied to him at 13s. Gd. a quarter might doubtless be humiliating to his vanity, but would hardly, we should have thought, be deemed so discreditable as to induce him to pay black mail to escape an exposure. “ Clericus,” however, takes the matter very seriously, aud it is not for us to criticise the standard of morality which the clerical profession may choose to establish for themselves on these points. When, therefore, he asks, “ Will the Bishops this week caution their candidates for ordination against having to do with men who plead with them to act a weekly falsehood in the pulpit ?” we have no objection to make to the question. But the next question which he puts seems to us to show an amusing unconsciousness of the real origin of the demand from which the trade of the sermon purveyors has taken its rise. “ Will the universities,” he asks, “ amid all their proposed reforms, at once inaugurate some system of practical instruction in English composition ? Will the theological colleges, without exception, provide regular courses of sermon writing, so as to prepare men for their work, and wipe off the scandal to the Church ?” These questions assume that the difficulties of clergymen in the matter of sermons arise from mere want of facility in English composition. This, we think, is far from being the case. Unpractised preachers, fresh from universities which train them in every art but that of writing their native language, may feel a difficulty at first in expressing their thoughts, but in most cases this difficulty is got over sooner even—and this, in some instances, is saying a good deal—than their stock of thoughts is exhausted. The problem which the great majority of preachers find insoluble is not ho nr to express themselves, but how to find something to say ; aud no real solution of this problem is offered by the suggestion that the universities should “ inaugurate some system of practical instruction in English composition.” On the other hand, such a proposal is likely to encourage a false solution of the problem, which consists in cultivating the art of making words do duty for ideas. . . .

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the alternative of preaching a very bad sermon of one’s own composition, or an indifferent one composed by somebody else, is not a satisfactory alternative for a clergyman to be reduced to ; and the system which renders such a choice peremptory stands in need of revision. It must, indeed, be evident that the duty of composing and delivering from fifty-two to one hundred and four discourses every year on the same subject—or, at least, on a severely limited range of cognate subjects —is one which must overtax the powers of all but the most fertile intellect and the most fervent enthusiasm. To say things at once new and true every Sunday—to be eloquent, impressive, earnest, or even reasonably interesting and forcible on every occasion of addressing a congregation—would be to succeed in an endeavor in which nine out of ten men must be expected to fail. The question naturally arises—why, then, attempt the impossible ? Why should not a clergyman honestly tell his congregation that he does not any longer intend to inflict on himself the sterile labor of composing, and on them the useless suffering of hearing, one or two unprofitable exercitations every week ? The best answer we can suggest is, that a clergyman would give general satisfaction if he made any such announcement. The noted Conservatism of the English churchgoer attaches him to the strange custom of listening once a week to a man who has gut nothing to say. The ordinary churchgoer may grumble at the badness or at the length of the sermon, or what not, but it is only as he grumbles at the climate or the Constitution. The abolition of sermons, or even their restriction in numbers, would strike him as a revolutionary measure; it would even affect his reb’gioua sensations, and leave him, when he returned to his early dinner on Sunday, with an uneasy feeling that he had missed church altogether.