“I would have made some additions to your sermon
with great pleasure, but it is with even more than great pleasure that I assure
you it needs none. It is a most respectable discourse, with good divinity in
it, which is always the marrow and bones of a Concio
ad clerum, and you may pronounce it, meo periculo, without the least danger of
failure or of unpleasant comparisons. I am not fond of Mr Irving’s species of eloquence,
consisting of outré flourishes
and extravagant metaphors. The eloquence of the pulpit should be of a chaste
and dignified character; earnest, but not high-flown and ecstatic, and
consisting as much in close reasoning as in elegant expression. It occurs to me
as a good topic for more than one discourse, the manner in which the heresies
of the earlier Christian church are treated in the Acts and the Epistles. It is
remarkable, that while the arguments by which they are combated are distinct,
clear, and powerful, the inspired writers have not judged it proper to go
beyond general expressions, respecting the particular heresies which they
combated. If you look closely, there is much reason in this. * * * In general,
I would say, that on entering on the clerical profession, were it my case, I
should be anxious to take much pains with my sermons, and the studies on which
they must be founded. Nothing rewards itself so completely as exercise, whether
of the body or mind. We sleep sound, and our waking hours are happy, because
they are employed; and a little sense of toil is necessary to the enjoyment of
leisure, even when earned by study and sanctioned by the discharge of duty. I
think most clergymen diminish their own respectability by falling into indolent
habits, and what players call
| 106 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
