preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we
Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday's
rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God's service
distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more
than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay,
we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship, but we
desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which
ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be
able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for
escape which is the common consequence of common sermons.

With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions
from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties
of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given
us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in
those mysteries which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in
the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you
must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your interpretation. The
Bible is good, the prayer-book is good, nay, you yourself would be
acceptable, if you would read to me some portion of those time-honoured
discourses which our great divines have elaborated in the full maturity
of their powers. But you must excuse me, my insufficient young
lecturer, if I yawn over your imperfect sentences, your repeated
phrases, your false pathos, your drawlings and denouncings, your
humming and hawing, your oh-ing and ah-ing, your black gloves and your
white handkerchief. To me, it all means nothing; and hours are too
precious to be so wasted--if one could only avoid it.

And here I must make a protest against the pretence, so often put
forward by the working clergy, that they are overburdened by the