Читать книгу What Will He Do with It? — Volume 07 - Эдвард Джордж Бульвер-Литтон, Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - Страница 7

CONTAINING MUCH OF THAT INFORMATION WHICH THE WISEST MEN IN THE WORLD COULD NOT GIVE, BUT WHICH THE AUTHOR CAN.

"Darrell," said Colonel Morley, "you remember my nephew George as a boy? He is now the rector of Humberston; married—a very nice sort of woman— suits him Humberston is a fine living; but his talents are wasted there. He preached for the first time in London last year, and made a considerable sensation. This year he has been much out of town. He has no church here as yet.

"I hope to get him one. Carr is determined that he shall be a Bisop. Meanwhile he preaches at—Chapel tomorrow; come and hear him with me, and then tell me frankly—is he eloquent or not?"

Darrell had a prejudice against fashionable preachers; but to please Colonel Morley he went to hear George. He was agreeably surprised by the pulpit oratory of the young divine. It had that rare combination of impassioned earnestness with subdued tones, and decorous gesture, which suits the ideal of ecclesiastical eloquence conceived by an educated English Churchman

"Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."

Occasionally the old defect in utterance was discernible; there was a gasp as for breath, or a prolonged dwelling upon certain syllables, which, occurring in the most animated passages, and apparently evincing the preacher's struggle with emotion, rather served to heighen the sympathy of the audience. But, for the most part, the original stammer was replaced by a felicitous pause, the pause as of a thoughtful reasoner or a solemn monitor knitting ideas, that came too quick, into method, or chastening impulse into disciplined zeal. The mind of the preacher, thus not only freed from trammel, but armed for victory, came forth with that power which is peculiar to an original intellect—the power which suggests more than it demonstrates. He did not so much preach to his audience as wind himself through unexpected ways into the hearts of the audience; and they who heard suddenly found their hearts preaching to themselves. He took for his text: "Cast down, but not destroyed;" and out of this text he framed a discourse full of true Gospel tenderness, which seemed to raise up comfort as the saving, against despair as the evil, principle of mortal life. The congregation was what is called "brilliant"—statesmen, and peers, and great authors, and fine ladies— people whom the inconsiderate believe to stand little in need of comfort, and never to be subjected to despair. In many an intent or drooping farce in that brilliant congregation might be read a very different tale. But of all present there was no one whom the discourse so moved as a woman who, chancing to pass that way, had followed the throng into the Chapel, and with difficulty obtained a seat at the far end; a woman who had not been within the walls of a chapel or church for long years— a grim woman, in iron grey. There she sate unnoticed, in her remote corner; and before the preacher had done, her face was hidden behind her clasped hands, and she was weeping such tears as she had not wept since childhood.