A COUNTRY PARISH. SOME WHOLESOME EXTRACTS, SOME TRUE ANECDOTES, AND
SOME USEFUL HINTS, WHICH WILL NOT BE TAKEN BY THOSE WHO NEED THEM
MOST.
_Non è inconveniente, che delle cose delettabili alcune ne sieno
utili, cosi come dell' utili molte ne sono delettabili, et in tutte
due alcune si truovano honeste._
LEONE MEDICO (HEBREO.)
Mr. Bacon's parsonage was as humble a dwelling in all respects as the
cottage in which his friend Daniel was born. A best kitchen was its
best room, and in its furniture an Observantine Friar would have seen
nothing that he could have condemned as superfluous. His college and
later school books, with a few volumes which had been presented to him
by the more grateful of his pupils, composed his scanty library: they
were either books of needful reference, or such as upon every fresh
perusal might afford new delight. But he had obtained the use of the
Church Library at Doncaster, by a payment of twenty shillings,
according to the terms of the foundation. Folios from that collection
might be kept three months, smaller volumes, one or two, according to
their size; and as there were many works in it of solid contents as
well as sterling value, he was in no such want of intellectual food,
as too many of his brethren are, even at this time. How much good
might have been done, and how much evil might probably have been
prevented, if Dr. Bray's design for the formation of parochial
libraries had been every where carried into effect!
The parish contained between five and six hundred souls. There was no
one of higher rank among them than entitled him, according to the
custom of those days, to be stiled gentleman upon his tombstone. They
were plain people, who had neither manufactories to corrupt,
ale-houses to brutalize, nor newspapers to mislead them. At first
coming among them he had won their good will by his affability and
benign conduct, and he had afterwards gained their respect and
affection in an equal degree.
There were two services at his church, but only one sermon, which
never fell short of fifteen minutes in length, and seldom extended to
half an hour. It was generally abridged from some good old divine. His
own compositions were few, and only upon points on which he wished
carefully to examine and digest his own thoughts, or which were
peculiarly suited to some or other of his hearers. His whole stock
might be deemed scanty in these days; but there was not one in it
which would not well bear repetition, and the more observant of his
congregation liked that they should be repeated.
Young ministers are earnestly advised long to refrain from preaching
their own productions, in an excellent little book addressed by a
Father to his Son, preparatory to his receiving holy orders. Its title
is a “Monitor for Young Ministers,” and every parent who has a son so
circumstanced, would do well to put it into his hands. “It is not
possible,” says this judicious writer, “that a young minister can at
first be competent to preach his sermons with effect, even if his
abilities should qualify him to write well. His very youth and
youthful manner, both in his style of writing and in his delivery,
will preclude him from being effective. Unquestionably it is very rare
indeed for a man of his age to have his mental abilities sufficiently
chastened, or his method sufficiently settled, to be equal to the
composition of a sermon fit for public use, even if it should receive
the advantage of chaste and good delivery. On every account therefore,
it is wise and prudent to be slow and backward in venturing to produce
his own efforts, or in thinking that they are fit for the public ear.
There is an abundant field of the works of others open to him, from
the wisest and the best of men, the weight of whose little fingers, in
argument or instruction, will be greater than his own loins, even at
his highest maturity. There is clearly no _want_ of new compositions,
excepting on some new or occasional emergencies: for there is not an
open subject in the Christian religion, which has not been discussed
by men of the greatest learning and piety, who have left behind them
numerous works for our assistance and edification. Many of these are
so neglected, that they are become almost new ground for our
generation. To these he may freely resort,—till experience and a
rational and chastened confidence shall warrant him in believing
himself qualified to work upon his own resources.”
“He that learns of young men,” says Rabbi Jose Bar Jehudah, “is like a
man that eats unripe grapes, or that drinks wine out of the
wine-press; but he that learneth of the ancient, is like a man that
eateth ripe grapes, and drinketh wine that is old.”[1]
[Footnote 1: LIGHTFOOT.]
It was not in pursuance of any judicious advice like this, that Mr.
Bacon followed the course here pointed out, but from his own good
sense and natural humility. His only ambition was to be useful; if a
desire may be called ambitious which originated in the sincere sense
of duty. To think of distinguishing himself in any other way, would
for him, he well knew, have been worse than an idle dream. The time
expended in composing a sermon as a perfunctory official business,
would have been worse than wasted for himself, and the time employed
in delivering it, no better than wasted upon his congregation. He was
especially careful never to weary them, and therefore never to preach
any thing which was not likely to engage their attention, and make at
least some present impression. His own sermons effected this, because
they were always composed with some immediate view, or under the
influence of some deep and strong feeling: and in his adopted ones,
the different manner of the different authors produced an awakening
effect. Good sense is as often to be found among the illiterate, as
among those who have enjoyed the opportunities of education. Many of
his hearers who knew but one meaning of the word stile, and had never
heard it used in any other, perceived a difference in the manner of
Bishops Hall, and Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor, of Barrow, and South
and Scott, without troubling themselves about the cause, or being in
the slightest degree aware of it.
Mr. Bacon neither undervalued his parishioners, nor overvalued the
good which could be wrought among them by direct instruction of this
kind. While he used perspicuous language, he knew that they who
listened to it would be able to follow the argument; and as he drew
always from the wells of English undefiled, he was safe on that point.
But that all even of the adults would listen, and that all even of
those who did, would do any thing more than hear, he was too well
acquainted with human nature to expect.
A woman in humble life was asked one day on the way back from church,
whether she had understood the sermon; a stranger had preached, and
his discourse resembled one of Mr. Bacon's neither in length nor
depth. “Wud I hae the persumption?” was her simple and contented
answer. The quality of the discourse signified nothing to her; she had
done her duty, as well as she could, in hearing it; and she went to
her house justified rather than some of those who had attended to it
critically; or who had turned to the text in their Bibles, when it was
given out.
“Well Master Jackson,” said his Minister, walking homeward after
service, with an industrious labourer, who was a constant attendant;
“well Master Jackson, Sunday must be a blessed day of rest for you,
who work so hard all the week! And you make a good use of the day, for
you are always to be seen at Church!” “Aye Sir,” replied Jackson, “it
is indeed a blessed day; I works hard enough all the week; and then I
comes to Church o' Sundays, and sets me down, and lays my legs up, and
thinks o' nothing.”
“Let my candle go out in a stink, when I refuse to confess from whom I
have lighted it.”[2] The author to whose little book[3] I am beholden
for this true anecdote, after saying “Such was the religion of this
worthy man,” justly adds, “and such must be the religion of most men
of his station. Doubtless, it is a wise dispensation that it is so.
For so it has been from the beginning of the world, and there is no
visible reason to suppose that it can ever be otherwise.”
[Footnote 2: FULLER.]
[Footnote 3: Few Words on many Subjects.]
“In spite,” says this judicious writer, “of all the zealous wishes and
efforts of the most pious and laborious teachers, the religion of the
bulk of the people must and will ever be little more than mere habit,
and confidence in others. This must of necessity, be the case with all
men, who from defect of nature or education, or from other worldly
causes, have not the power or the disposition to think; and it cannot
be disputed that the far greater number of mankind are of this class.
These facts give peculiar force to those lessons which teach the
importance and efficacy of good example from those who are blessed
with higher qualifications; and they strongly demonstrate the
necessity that the zeal of those who wish to impress the people with
the deep and aweful mysteries of religion, should be tempered by
wisdom and discretion, no less than by patience, forbearance, and a
great latitude of indulgence for uncontrolable circumstances. They
also call upon us most powerfully to do all we can to provide such
teachers, and imbue them with such principles as shall not endanger
the good cause by over earnest efforts to effect more than, in the
nature of things, can be done; or disturb the existing good by
attempting more than will be borne, or by producing hypocritical
pretences of more than can be really felt.”