DANIEL AT DONCASTER; THE REASON WHY HE WAS DESTINED FOR THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION, RATHER THAN HOLY ORDERS; AND SOME REMARKS UPON SERMONS.
_Je ne veux dissimuler, amy Lecteur, que je n'aye bien préveu, et me
tiens pour deüement adverty, que ne puis eviter la reprehension
d'aucuns, et les calomnies de plusieurs, ausquels c'est éscrit
désplaira du tout._
CHRISTOFLE DE HERICOURT.
Fourteen years have elapsed since the scene took place which is
related in the twenty-second chapter: and Daniel the younger at the
time to which this present chapter refers was residing at Doncaster
with Peter Hopkins who practised the medical art in all its branches.
He had lived with him eight years, first as a pupil, latterly in the
capacity of an assistant, and afterwards as an adopted successor.
How this connection between Daniel and Peter Hopkins was brought
about, and the circumstances which prepared the way for it, would have
appeared in some of the non-existent fourteen volumes, if it had
pleased Fate that they should have been written.
Some of my readers, and especially those who pride themselves upon
their knowledge of the world, or their success in it, will think it
strange perhaps that the elder Daniel, when he resolved to make a
scholar of his son, did not determine upon breeding him either to the
Church, or the Law, in either of which professions the way was easier
and more inviting. Now though this will not appear strange to those
other readers who have perceived that the father had no knowledge of
the world, and could have none, it is nevertheless proper to enter
into some explanation upon that point.
If George Herbert's Temple, or his Remains, or his life by old Izaak
Walton, had all or any of them happened to be among those few but
precious books which Daniel prized so highly and used so well, it is
likely that the wish of his heart would have been to train up his Son
for a Priest to the Temple. But so it was that none of his reading was
of a kind to give his thoughts that direction; and he had not
conceived any exalted opinion of the Clergy from the specimens which
had fallen in his way. A contempt which was but too general had been
brought upon the Order by the ignorance or the poverty of a great
proportion of its members. The person who served the humble church
which Daniel dutifully attended was almost as poor as a Capuchine, and
quite as ignorant. This poor man had obtained in evil hour from some
easy or careless Bishop a licence to preach. It was reprehensible
enough to have ordained one who was destitute of every qualification
that the office requires; the fault was still greater in promoting him
from the desk to the pulpit.
“A very great Scholar,” is quoted by Dr. Eachard, as saying “that such
preaching as is usual is a hindrance of salvation rather than the
means to it.” This was said when the fashion of conceited preaching
which is satirized in Frey Gerundio, had extended to England, and
though that fashion has so long been obsolete, that many persons will
be surprized to hear it had ever existed among us, it may still
reasonably be questioned whether sermons such as they commonly are, do
not quench more devotion than they kindle.
My Lord! put not the book aside in displeasure! (I address myself to
whatever Bishop may be reading it.) Unbiassed I will not call myself,
for I am a true and orthodox churchman, and have the interests of the
Church zealously at heart, because I believe and know them to be
essentially and inseparably connected with those of the commonwealth.
But I have been an attentive observer, and as such, request a hearing.
Receive my remarks as coming from one whose principles are in entire
accord with your Lordship's, whose wishes have the same scope and
purport, and who while he offers his honest opinion, submits it with
proper humility to your judgement.
The founders of the English Church did not intend that the sermon
should invariably form a part of the Sunday services. It became so in
condescension to the Puritans, of whom it has long been the fashion to
speak with respect, instead of holding them up to the contempt and
infamy and abhorrence which they have so richly merited. They have
been extolled by their descendants and successors as models of
patriotism and piety; and the success with which this delusion has
been practised is one of the most remarkable examples of what may be
effected by dint of effrontery and persevering falsehood.
That sentence I am certain will not be disapproved at Fulham or
Lambeth. Dr. Southey, or Dr. Phillpots might have written it.
The general standard of the Clergy has undoubtedly been very much
raised since the days when they were not allowed to preach without a
licence for that purpose from the Ordinary. Nevertheless it is certain
that many persons who are in other, and more material respects well,
or even excellently qualified for the ministerial functions, may be
wanting in the qualifications for a preacher. A man may possess great
learning, sound principles and good sense, and yet be without the
talent of arranging and expressing his thoughts well in a written
discourse: he may want the power of fixing the attention, or reaching
the hearts of his hearers; and in that case the discourse, as some old
writer has said in serious jest, which was designed for _e_dification
turns to _te_dification. The evil was less in Addison's days when he
who distrusted his own abilities, availed himself of the compositions
of some approved Divine, and was not disparaged in the opinion of his
congregation, by taking a printed volume into the pulpit. This is no
longer practised; but instead of this, which secured wholesome
instruction to the people, sermons are manufactured for sale, and sold
in manuscript, or printed in a cursive type imitating manuscript. The
articles which are prepared for such a market, are for the most part
copied from obscure books, with more or less alteration of language,
and generally for the worse; and so far as they are drawn from such
sources they are not likely to contain any thing exceptionable on the
score of doctrine: but the best authors will not be resorted to, for
fear of discovery, and therefore when these are used, the congregation
lose as much in point of instruction, as he who uses them ought to
lose in self-esteem.
But it is more injurious when a more scrupulous man composes his own
discourses, if he be deficient either in judgement or learning. He is
then more likely to entangle plain texts than to unravel knotty ones;
rash positions are sometimes advanced by such preachers, unsound
arguments are adduced by them in support of momentous doctrines, and
though these things neither offend the ignorant and careless, nor
injure the well-minded and well-informed, they carry poison with them
when they enter a diseased ear. It cannot be doubted that such sermons
act as corroboratives for infidelity.
Nor when they contain nothing that is actually erroneous, but are
merely unimproving, are they in that case altogether harmless. They
are not harmless if they are felt to be tedious. They are not harmless
if they torpify the understanding: a chill that begins there may
extend to the vital regions. Bishop Taylor (the great Jeremy) says of
devotional books that “they are in a large degree the occasion of so
great indevotion as prevails among the generality of nominal
Christians, being,” he says, “represented naked in the conclusions of
spiritual life, without or art or learning; and made apt for persons
who can do nothing but believe and love, not for them that can
consider and love.” This applies more forcibly to bad sermons than to
common-place books of devotion; the book may be laid aside if it
offend the reader's judgement, but the sermon is a positive infliction
upon the helpless hearer.
The same Bishop,—and his name ought to carry with it authority among
the wise and the good, has delivered an opinion upon this subject, in
his admirable Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy.
“Indeed,” he says, “if I may freely declare my opinion, I think it
were not amiss, if the liberty of making sermons were something more
restrained than it is; and that such persons only were intrusted with
the liberty, for whom the church herself may safely be
responsive,—that is men learned and pious; and that the other part,
the _vulgus cleri_, should instruct the people out of the fountains of
the church and the public stock, till by so long exercise and
discipline in the schools of the Prophets they may also be intrusted
to minister of their own unto the people. This I am sure was the
practice of the Primitive Church.”
“I am convinced,” said Dr. Johnson, “that I ought to be at Divine
Service more frequently than I am; but the provocations given by
ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm
which otherwise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself
on such occasions, ‘How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing
attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths,
conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a liturgy
which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated
by wisdom!’”—“Take notice, however,” he adds, “though I make this
confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the
fastidiousness that sometimes leads me to exchange congregational for
solitary worship.”
The saintly Herbert says,
“Judge not the Preacher, for he is thy Judge;
If thou mislike him thou conceiv'st him not.
God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge
To pick out treasures from an earthen pot.
The worst speak something good. If all want sense
God takes a text and preacheth patience.
He that gets patience and the blessing which
Preachers conclude with, hath not lost his pains.”
This sort of patience was all that Daniel could have derived from the
discourses of the poor curate; and it was a lesson of which his meek
and benign temper stood in no need. Nature had endowed him with this
virtue, and this Sunday's discipline exercised without strengthening
it. While he was, in the phrase of the Religious Public, _sitting
under_ the preacher, he obeyed to a certain extent George Herbert's
precept,—that is he obeyed it as he did other laws with the existence
of which he was unacquainted,—
Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part;
Bring not thy plough, thy plots, thy pleasure thither.
Pleasure made no part of his speculations at any time. Plots he had
none. For the Plough,—it was what he never followed in fancy,
patiently as he plodded after the furrow in his own vocation. And then
for worldly thoughts they were not likely in that place to enter a
mind, which never at any time entertained them. But to that sort of
thought (if thought it may be called) which cometh as it listeth, and
which when the mind is at ease and the body in health, is the
forerunner and usher of sleep, he certainly gave way. The curate's
voice past over his ear like the sound of the brook with which it
blended, and it conveyed to him as little meaning and less feeling.
During the sermon therefore he retired into himself, with as much or
as little edification, as a Quaker finds at a silent meeting.
It happened also that of the few clergy within the very narrow circle
in which Daniel moved, some were in no good repute for their conduct,
and none displayed either that zeal in the discharge of their pastoral
functions, or that earnestness and ability in performing the service
of the Church, which are necessary for commanding the respect and
securing the affections of the parishioners. The clerical profession
had never presented itself to him in its best, which is really its
true light; and for that cause he would never have thought of it for
the boy, even if the means of putting him forward in this path had
been easier and more obvious than they were. And for the dissenting
ministry, Daniel liked not the name of a Nonconformist. The Puritans
had left behind them an ill savour in his part of the country, as they
had done every where else; and the extravagances of the primitive
Quakers, which during his childhood were fresh in remembrance, had not
yet been forgotten.
It was well remembered in those parts that the Vicar of Kirkby
Lonsdale through the malignity of some of his puritanical
parishioners, had been taken out of his bed—from his wife who was then
big with child, and hurried away to Lancaster jail, where he was
imprisoned three years for no other offence than that of fidelity to
his Church and his King. And that the man who was a chief instigator
of this persecution, and had enriched himself by the spoil of his
neighbour's goods, though he flourished for a while, bought a field
and built a fine house, came to poverty at last, and died in prison,
having for some time received his daily food there from the table of
one of this very Vicar's sons. It was well remembered also that, in a
parish of the adjoining county-palatine, the puritanical party had set
fire in the night to the Rector's barns, stable, and parsonage; and
that he and his wife and children had only as it were by miracle
escaped from the flames.
William Dove had also among his traditional stores some stories of a
stranger kind concerning the Quakers, these parts of the North having
been a great scene of their vagaries in their early days. He used to
relate how one of them went into the church at Brough, during the
reign of the Puritans, with a white sheet about his body, and a rope
about his neck, to prophesy before the people and their Whig Priest
(as he called him) that the surplice which was then prohibited should
again come into use, and that the Gallows should have its due! And how
when their ringleader George Fox was put in prison at Carlisle, the
wife of Justice Benson would eat no meat unless she partook it with
him at the bars of his dungeon, declaring she was moved to do this;
wherefore it was supposed he had bewitched her. And not without
reason; for when this old George went, as he often did, into the
Church to disturb the people, and they thrust him out, and fell upon
him and beat him, sparing neither sticks nor stones if they came to
hand, he was presently for all that they had done to him, as sound and
as fresh as if nothing had touched him; and when they tried to kill
him, they could not take away his life! And how this old George rode a
great black horse, upon which he was seen in the course of the same
hour at two places threescore miles distant from each other! And how
some of the women who followed this old George used to strip off all
their clothes, and in that plight go into the church at service time
on the Sunday to bear testimony against the pomps and vanities of the
world; “and to be sure,” said William, “they must have been witched,
or they never would have done this.” “Lord deliver us!” said Dinah,
“to be sure they must!”—“To be sure they must, Lord bless us all!”
said Haggy.