stance, but takes occasion, from it to es tablish a general rule and indefinitely to advise the country clergy to adopt the custom of preaching these same discourses,' instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own."" "Surely," replied I, "an enemy of religion could not easily have devised a more effectual method for thinning the village church, or lessening the edification of the unlettered auditor, than this eminent advocate for Christianity has here incautiously suggested." "I am sorry," said Mr. Stanley," that such a man has given such a sanction for reducing religious instruction tolittle more than a form, and for seeming to consider the mere act of attending: public worship as the sole end of its institution, without sufficiently taking into the account the nature and the im portance of the instruction itself; and without considering that nothing can be edifying which is not intelligible. Besides, it it is not only preventing the improvement of the people, but checking that of the preacher. It not only puts a bar to his own advancement in the art of teaching, but retards that growth in piety which might have been promoted in himself while he was preparing in secret to promote that of his hearers." "And yet," replied Sir John, " to speak honestly, I am afraid, had I been the patron, I should have been so gratified myself with hearing those fine compositions,that I could not heartily have blamed my chaplain for preaching no other." "My dear Sir John," said Mr. Stanley, "neither your good sense, nor your good nature would, I am persuaded, allow you to purchase your own gratification at the expence of a whole congregation. You, a man of learning and of leisure, can easily supply any deficiency of ability in plain but useful sermons. But how would the tenants, the workmen and the servants, (for of such at least was Sir Roger's congre gation composed,) how would those who have little other means of edification indemnify themselves for the loss of that single opportunity which the whole week affords them? Is not that a most inequitable way of proportioning instruction which, while it pleases or profits the well-informed individual, cuts off the instruction of the multitude? If we may twist a text from its natural import, is it rightly dividing the word of truth' to feast the patron and starve the parish ?" CHAP CHAP. XXVIII. : THOUGH HOUGH Mr. Stanley had checked my impetuosity in my application to him, and did not encourage my addresses with a promptitude suited to the ardour of my affection yet as the warmth of my attachment, notwithstanding I made it a duty to restrain its outward expression, could not escape either his penetration, or that of his admirable wife, they began a little to relax in the strictness with which they had avoided speaking of their daughter: They never indeed introduced the subject themselves, yet it some how or other never failed to find its way into all conversation in which I was one of the interlocutors. Sitting one day in Lucilla's bower with Mrs. Stanley, and speaking, though in general terms, on the subject nearest my heart, with a tenderness and admiration as sin cere cere as it was fervent, I dwelt particularly on some instances which I had recently heard from Edwards, of her tender attention to the sick poor, and her zeal in often visiting them, without regard to weather, or the accommodation of a carriage. "I assure you," said Mrs. Stanley, "you over-rate her, Lucilla is no prodigy dropped down from the clouds. Ten thousand other young women, with natural good sense,and good temper, might, with the same education; the same neglect of what is useless and the same attention to what is necessary acquire the same habits and the same principles. Her being no prodigy, however, perhaps makes her example, as far as it goes, more important. She may be more useful, because she carries not that discouraging superiority, which others might be deterred from imitating, through hopelessness to reach. If she is not a miracle whom others might despair to emulate, she is a Christian whom every girl of a fair understanding and good disposition may |