SIR,--My congregation is a rustic one. I have tried them with my own
sermons, but my pewrents suffered so severely in consequence, that I
have been obliged to give them up. Last Sunday (following the advice
of a lay friend of mine in Town, in whom I have much confidence) I
preached one of Prebendary SHEEPSHANKS' "Crampton Lectures" to them,
and the farmers and labourers seemed much impressed. There was, in
fact, hardly an open eye in Church during the hour and a half that the
delivery lasted. The Charity-School children, too, who sat through
the whole of it, only had to be physically admonished by their teacher
about once in every half-minute. When an old village dame
afterwards assured me that "she didn't know I was that larned," I
felt--momentarily--rather like a wolf in SHEEPSHANKS' clothes. But I
intend going through the course.
Yours, &c., PASTOR IGNOTUS.
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