with inconsistency, because they inscribed their names upon treatises written to recommend the "contempt of glory;" but is it not a far more lamentable inconsistency, if evangelical divines, with whom the utter worthlessness of human knowledge and human ability is a favourite theme, should be the clandestine means of announcing and trumpeting themselves as the most eminent and talented of their tribe? What can we think, to see, as we have seen, the "affiche" stuck over the principal entrance of an episcopal chapel, "The Preacher, No.-, containing sermons by the Lord Bishop of London," and, of all the birds in the air, by the very minister, or lecturer, whichever it may be, of that identical chapel; who thus manages to make the walls of the house of prayer in which he does the duty, a place for placarding and advertising his own sermons,-and himself!

But we may go a step further. Both the evils which we have mentioned are blended in these compilations. They are half robbery, and half quackery; for in the same number, possibly, of the same work, some are parties and some are victims to the system; and from this combination there arises the third evil, of palpable unfairness and injustice. Not merely the discourses of men, really distinguished and really meriting their distinction, are put side by side with the discourses of some pushing aspirant to a vulgar notoriety; but they are put side by side to their great and obvious disadvantage. Not merely the Bishop of London, or Mr. Benson, or Mr. Tyler, or Mr. Blunt, has the comfort of beholding himself exhibited in juxta position to some candidate for every lectureship that falls vacant; but the sermon of the one is disfigured by sundry omissions and misrepresentations; the sermon of the other is embellished by the author's careful emendations and the longest and most astounding words that have been just imported into the author's vocabulary.

Still, however, it may be said, that these are matters which affect only individuals; and that if the cause of piety is advanced by the circulation of striking sermons, there remains a preponderance on the side of good to which we should look, rather than to the mere bug-bears of personal inconvenience. Now, this is a ground upon which we are quite willing to try the question, putting away all considerations of individual interest or feeling, the grievance and the annoyance which may be experienced on the one hand, and the dishonest cupidity which is exhibited on the other.

Is most good, or most harm, likely to result to the public, from a - series of periodical publications, made up partly of unauthorized reports of discourses delivered from the pulpit, and partly of voluntary contributions, sent after an ambitious elaboration by NO. XXXI.--JULY, 1834.

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the authors themselves, yet carrying with them the semblance of being mere reports of the compositions of eminent divines?

It is clear at the first blush that the very heterogeneousness of such works offers a temptation to a species of imposition and trickery which is excessively to be deplored; and that, at least, the reports and the contributions ought always to be distinguished from each other by some broad mark or notice, which would leave no room for deception or mistake.

Something, too, it is equally plain, might be said about the indecorum of men, who form no part of the stated audience, coming into a church with the regular apparatus of reporting, and distracting the attention of a congregation during the period of divine service. So much, indeed, has this nuisance been felt, that the proprietors, we believe, of one, if not more, of these compilations, endeavoured for some time to fill their space without employing reporters, and by merely receiving the contributions of ministers of different sects. They have since, however, we understand, returned to the old system, because the supply of volunteers was found inadequate to their purposes: but whether the deficiency was in the quantity, or in the quality of the matter, or in both, we cannot take upon ourselves to say.

Yet here perhaps it will be urged, "must not this system of watching preachers, and taking down their sermons in shorthand, without any previous intimation, have a tendency to improve, or certainly not deteriorate, the general character of pulpit ministrations; of the delivery as well as the composition, and the composition as well as the delivery? To this proposition we are inclined to say, "negatur." Not to enlarge upon higher and more sacred motives, or upon the impulse of professional hopes, or upon the superintendence of an ecclesiastical superior, a healthy and vigorous state of public opinion, which can always make itself heard and respected, is at once the best check and the best stimulus, and it acts upon all clergymen with an equal and universal impression. But upon careless and inefficient ministers, the system of reporting has no influence whatever; for their very dulness or negligence is their shield; their very incapacity is a complete panoply of protection; and they are left to a sluggish repose, quite certain of being uninterrupted by a visitation from any agent of "The Pulpit," or "The Preacher." The interference, therefore, of these gentry, can only affect either the active and conscientious ministers, who neither require such an intrusion, nor are thankful for it; or the shewy declaimers, eager for celebrity and applause, whose efforts stand much more in need of being chastened and kept down, than of being blown into a fiercer

flame of excited extravagance by the bellows of monthly or weekly notoriety.

Upon active and conscientious clergymen, what, in fact, is the operation of this system? We can call it by no other name, for a regular system it has become. Their sermons, perhaps, have a local and temporary application, or are illustrated, at least, by temporary and local illusions; for such sermons are oftentimes the most useful that can be preached. They may deem it incumbent upon them to address to their constant hearers exhortations, or admonitions, or even reproofs, which have a special and emphatic bearing upon their particular exigencies or behaviour. But is it not a hard thing,-is it not a vexatious thing,—is it not a pernicious thing, that they can in no respect remain masters of the degree of publicity which is to be given to their own statements; and that the earnest appeals which are made in the endearing and confidential intercourse between a minister and his congregation should be blazoned forth in the window of a bookseller's shop, and scattered all abroad upon the wings of a threepenny periodical? Do the reports of legal trials, or political meetings, afford any precedent or apology for so gross an abuse of the freedom of the press?

Again: on many occasions a clergyman may very fairly and very advantageously avail himself of the labours of older divines. On many occasions it may be more instructive and more edifying to his congregation that he should enrich his discourses with the erudition and the eloquence of the great and good men who are now gone to their everlasting reward; or, where there is some important point which he is anxious to inculcate, he may be unwilling to injure it by his own words, if it already happens to have been admirably put in the words of another. Thus he may gain much experience and much profit by trying the effect of a style different from his own; his deficiencies may be supplied; his crude conceptions may be matured; and his auditory may derive strength and refreshment from drinking at fountains not open, perhaps, to common access, or at least lying far out of the path of common inquiry. Of course, if a clergyman has no better or more elevated object than to avoid trouble; if he consults merely his personal ease and not the spiritual wants and interests of his hearers, he stands without excuse before them and before God. Nor let it be imagined that we can think any man justifiable who makes a practice of stealing his sermons; or that we can look with eyes of complacency upon advertisements in the papers when they inform us, that a set of sermons is to be sold, either in manuscript or lithograph, warranted, like a Monmouth-street coat, to have been very little used, and to be almost as good as new; or

that we can hold any such announcement or any such transactions as calculated to benefit the Church in times like these. But a wholesale and unblushing transfer presents something widely different from an examination of preceding authors and an occasional introduction of their remarks, for the purpose of throwing a stronger light upon the matter under discussion. Nor will it be denied, that in this latter case it would often be extremely awkward to make an exact appropriation in the pulpit; that is, to pause, here and there, in the course of a sermon, and state precisely what is original and what is borrowed; nay, where the quotations or thoughts taken from other sources are woven into the sense and texture of the discourse, it becomes manifestly impossible. And yet is it not an offensive, an almost intolerable proceeding, that when a clergyman has been guilty neither of sloth or fraud, but, nevertheless, has availed himself of extraneous assistance, a reporter should come and carry off his discourse, in order to put money into the pockets of some unprincipled employer; that it should be published and placarded as a Sermon delivered in such a place, on such a day, by the Rev. Mr. Such-a-one: so that a minister is liable to be pilloried and gibbeted, not merely as a plagiarist but an impostor; to incur the suspicion not merely of doing habitually what he has, perhaps, only done on some special occasion, but even of attempting to print and palm upon the world the production of another as his own? This is no imaginary representation; for two instances, if not more, have already occurred.

We confess, however, that the pain, which so needless an exposure may inflict, although the very apprehension of it must have a tendency to render sermons more jejune and barren of sterling theology, and therefore less serviceable than they might otherwise be, appears of far less consequence to our minds, than the gratuitous impertinence of a stranger, who steps in between a minister and his flock, and makes public what was meant only to be parochial. It is a most serious evil that the effect of the system, which we are decrying, will be, if it spreads much farther, to strike at the root of all quiet, pastoral and parochial ministration. An aspiring minister, if he once sees his sermons reported, may begin, from that moment, to consider himself not so much the incumbent or curate of a particular district, as a burning and a shining light, who is to illuminate the whole country with a flood of eloquence; he may thenceforward address himself not so much to his congregation as to the press through the reporter; he is under a potent enticement to look beyond the humbler portion of the audience, which may be sitting beneath him, and to say not so much what will introduce a truly Christian tone of feeling and conduct among the immediate members of the Church who are

committed to his charge, as what will show off his own powers of fancy or diction when it appears in print. Besides, the contagion of his example must be taken into the calculation. Emulation starts up; or the fiercer irritations of envy rankle in the breast of others. A hundred uncomfortable and uncharitable feelings are engendered among rival preachers; or a young man, not long initiated in his sacred profession, and not knowing the aspect under which these things are regarded by the persons best able to appreciate them, is warmed with an inordinate desire to see his name enrolled among the "eminent divines" and "talented ministers" of the age. There is no reason, his vanity whispers to him, why he should not beam forth as another star in such a galaxy. And the method, which obviously suggests itself for the accomplishment of his end, is to imitate the prevailing style, of which the success is visible before him; and even to surpass it in brilliancy of decoration; to screw up strong doctrine to a still higher pitch; to excel energetic declamation by an energy still more intense; to broad-cast his metaphors still more thickly and profusely than his predecessors, and add yet another syllable to the average sesquipedalianness of his words.

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The effect, again, upon readers and hearers travels, pari passu, with the effect upon ministers. Great is the stir among the sermon-hunters and preacher-fanciers of the day. These constitute the chief class of persons who "The such works peruse Pulpit," and keep up their circulation; for the irreligious and the reckless have little disposition to read, and still less to purchase them. But the former class are perpetually on the watch for the appearance of a new light on the horizon; they are happy in the opportunity of starting off to a new place and a new preacher, that they may have something fresh to eulogize or criticize; some novel display to tickle the ear, and keep the imagination upon the stretch, and pamper the vitiated taste. The injury which must thus be done to the cause of sober, steady, regular devotion, is but poorly compensated by the collateral and casual excitement of religious sentiments, too often of a bewildering and enthusiastic kind; nor can we consent to take an incidental and possible benefit as at all a counterbalance for the variety of inherent evils which we have already pointed out, and the multitude behind which it would be easy to specify.

We acknowledge also that we cannot look without considerable misgiving to that mixture of "evangelical divines of every denomination," which is a conspicuous, and, we believe, an universal feature in these selections of sermons. It does strike us as unbecoming as well as extraordinary to see, among these "most talented divines," in one number the names and composi