from? He did not occupy the pulpit in virtue of his personality, but
of his office, and it was not a place for the display of
originality, but for dispensing the bread of life.--From the stores
of other people?--Yes, certainly--if other people's bread was
better, and no one the worse for his taking it. "For me, I have
none," he said to himself. Why then should that letter have made him
uncomfortable? What had he to be ashamed of? Why should he object to
being found out? What did he want to conceal? Did not everybody know
that very few clergymen really made their own sermons? Was it not
absurd, this mute agreement that, although all men knew to the
contrary, it must appear to be taken for granted that a man's
sermons were of his own mental production? Still more absurd as well
as cruel was the way in which they sacrificed to the known falsehood
by the contempt they poured upon any fellow the moment they were
able to say of productions which never could have been his, that
they were by this man or that man, or bought at this shop or that
shop in Great Queen Street or Booksellers' Row. After that he was an
enduring object for the pointed finger of a mild scorn. It was
nothing but the old Spartan game of--steal as you will and enjoy as
you can: you are nothing the worse; but woe to you if you are caught
in the act! There WAS something contemptible about the whole thing.
He was a greater humbug than he had believed himself, for upon this
humbug which he now found himself despising he had himself been
acting diligently! It dawned upon him that, while there was nothing
wrong in preaching his uncle's sermons, there was evil in yielding
to cast any veil, even the most transparent, over the fact that the
sermons were not his own.