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Leader (1850-1860), 5th May 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 12

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      Maloxe, The Shakspeeiax Commentator.* T ...

      " 'My Lord , —Being wholly unknown to your lordBhip , I have , only this apology to make for presuming to trouble you with a request , that a , stranger ' s petition , if it cannot be easily granted ,, can be easily refused . " 'Some of the apartments are now vacant , in which lam encouraged to hope that by application to your lordship I may obtain a residence . Such a grant would be considered by me as a great favour ; and I hope that to a man who has had the honour of vindicating his Majesty ' s Government , a retreat in one of his houses may not be improperly or unworthily allowed . "' I therefore request that your lordship will be pleased to grant such rooms in Hampton Court as shall seem proper to , "' My Lord , " ' Your Lordship ' s most obedient and most faithful , humble servant , "Sam . Jonssom . "' April 11 , 1776 /

      " Indorsed , ' Mr . Samuel Johnson to the Earl of Hertford , requesting apartments at Hampton Court , 11 th May , 1776 . ' And within , a memorandum of the answer . "' Lord C . presents his compliments to Mr . Johnson , and is sorry he cannot obey his commands , having already on his hands many engagements unsatisfied /" The following paragraph concerning Swift is somewhat startling : — " The following sarcastic lines on William III . ( which I believe have never appeared in print ) are so much in the manner of . Swift , and agree so exactly with his political Tory principles , that I strongly suspect him to have heen the author of them : —

      " On King William III . " Here lives a man who , by relation , Depends upon predestination ; For which the learned and the wise His understanding much despise ; But I pronounce , with loyal tongue , Him in the rijjht , them in the wrong ; For how should such a wretch succeed , But that , alas ! it was decreed ?'" Malone ' s speculation Is , of course , possible ; but how does Sir James reconcile it with the accounts of Swift ' s biographers of his early life ? Was the protege 6 £ Sir William Temple—who dedicated his patron ' s works " To His Most Sacred Majesty , " the " wretch " here " satirised—really the fierce Jacobite wh > must have penned these lines P Here is an anecdote of the " wretch " which is at least more vrdisemhlable :- ^—

      " When King William found himself much pressed and harassed by the Whigs , who had put him on the throne , he one day exclaimed to Lord Wharton , that after all the Tories were the only true supporters of an English king . ' True / replied Wharton , 'but , please your Majesty , you should recollect that you are not their king / " ^ __ - -, These wilLserye as a specimen of the best portion of the volume . Sir James Prior , in more than one instance , . informs . us that he omits passages on the ground of their having already been published in substance elsewhere . We would recommend him , if his book reaches a second edition , to carry this necessary rule' a great deal further . Meanwhile , in justice to Sir James ' s hero , the reader should bear in mind that though Malone wrote , he did not publish , these stories . He may have regarded them as crude memorandamay have withheld many , knowing that they were superseded by bBtterinrfornration : —Tlie-responsibility-of-putting ^ thein ^ orih-alLtixe present day , without warning , rests entirely-with his biographer .

      4£4 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. [Ma...

      4 £ 4 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ May 5 , 1860 .

      Preaching.* Ftthere Is A Prevalent Cant—...

      PREACHING . * FTtHERE is a prevalent cant—though not so rife as it recently was—• A about the substitution of the Press as a popular instructor for the Pulpit . A puny provincial paper will fulminate loudly about the " mission" of its order , and assert that the era of powerful preaching is gone by . There is just surfuce justification enough for this sentiment , to furnish it with that grain of feasibility which ^ rou will find in most errors . Tho limit of the truth is this : — -The press is more efficient , more painstaking , more influential , 'in its field , than is modern preaching in its special region , so much higher , so much more embracing than any other public function in a free state . But the impassable difference between tho respective scope

      of the two agencies remains unalterable ; the inherent superiority of the duties , opportunities , and responsibilities of preaching over journalism is equally permanent . While thus limiting the efficacy of bur own weapon , and by this moderation increasing its force , instead of neutralizing it by absurd pretensions , we take it upon ourselves to assert that modern preaching is under considerable obligations to modern journalism . We do not mean this in any very peculiar sense ; journalism has improved and continues to elevate tlie standard of modern preaching , just as ifc undertakes tho same office with regard to modern acting , modern political leadership , modern mercantile arrangements , or modern anything else in the whole arena of public matters .

      Journalism has exeroised a beneficial influence upon preaching-, not by teaching ministers how to preach , but by passing its favourable verdict-when they havo preached well , and by pointing out tho defects of inefficient , bigoted , or mere theological preaching-. It has been the censor , not the original instructor . The latter task is beyond its functions . All will have been accomplished if the critical office has been justly discharged . This general train of observation is suggested to us by the welcome presence once more on our table , o ? another posthumous volume of discourses by Frederick Robertson . Anything mor < $ hearty , spontaneous , and significant ia its unplanned unanimity , than the approbation accorded by the well-conducted periodicals of this country to tho previously

      published volumes , could not be conceived . The sympathy engendered by somewhat kindred labours enabled those used to popular and appreciated writing , to see intuitively that this must be popular and appreciated preaching—preaching for the age . The minds to be reached by press and pulpit are the same ; and their mental characters are the same . And newspaper and magazine critics saw this— "The mode taken by Robertson in the presentation of sacred truth to the kind of minds we have to address , has evidently been chosen by him for the same reasons as induce us to adopt the style and method we have chosen . " And the representatives of the youn « - and growing institution , the fruit and specialty of the century , saw with delight the clearest evidence of the adaptability of preaehin <* , the old and venerable institution , to every newest necessity and every most artificial craving of an age without previous parallel in human history . __ ¦ ___

      Preachers—those of them who can look over their surplice sleeves or Geneva bands at an outside world of seething energy and facthave marked this . The learners and docile among them have pondered on the significancy of the warm and friendly approval accorded by the press to these unambitious , unaffected daily ministrations of Robertson , reproduced after his death for so wide a circle of readers . Two facts they have learned—one , the nature and method of his preaching ; the other , that " his warmest admirers are to be found among that class of serious and thoughtful minds , beyond the pale of orthodoxy , which can so seldom be reached from the pulpit . " The causal relation of the one fact to the other , could not but be inferred . Frederick Robertson attained that which all the best men in the Church are trying to attain—the abolition of

      that divorce between intellect and faith which ^ is ready to arise in every age , but in none so much as when clerical pretensions are contrasted with religious dearth and empty churches ; and when the disciples of the ISazarene are divided into fierce factions , struggling about responses , copes j and chasubles , or the exact import ; of an Article of thei Athanasian Creed . This exposition of Corinthians is published from slender notes left by the preacher , eked out by others taken by members of his congregation . As a finished theological or even literary production , it cannot be criticized . Nor is this desirable . The good that Robertson's works are doing is altogether apart from , and quite uninfluenced by any considerations of formal theology or literary finish The occasional crutleness and the frequent repetitions in the pages

      before us , will jiot abate the influence of the truths taught to thoughtful readers of the volume . Of the general character of the j vork , ~ we can only say that it displays again att the merits of the former publications . The extremely apposite criticism , on Mr . Robertson ' s former volumes published in . the appendix to a Consecration Sermon by the Rev . Hampden Gurney , equally well applies to this volume . " He . is fresh and Original without being recondite ; plain-spoken without severity ; and discusses some of the exciting topics of the day without provoking strife or lowering his tone as a Christian teacher . He delivers his message , in fact , like one who is commissioned to call men off from trifles and squabbles , and conventional sins and follies , to something higher and nobler than their common- life ; like a man in earnest , too , avoiding technicalities ,

      speaking his honest mind in phrases that are his own , and withpa directness from which there is no escape . " There is a special-feature about this volume of Expository Lectures which requires somewhat more particular reference . The editor ' s preface informs us that " the Epistles to the Corinthians were selected by Mr . Robertson because they afforded the largest scope for the consideration of a great variety of questions in Christian casuistry , which he thought it important to be rightly understood . It will be scon that those Lectures were generally expository of the whole range of Christian principles . " What Paul taught the Corinthians , is applied by Robertson to the modern English . And the transfer of teaching is not difficult . No wresting is required to apply the old precept to our practice . Our condition was foreshadowed in Corinth by these , among other , circumstances—in its Roman practicalness and Greek refinement , in i ts mingled aristocratie and democratic sentiments ; in its trading and sordid character ; in its liability to cosmopolitan influences ; in its party divisions ,

      one saying "I am of Paul , " another , " and I of Apollos ; in its thirst for " wisdom , " or intellectual speculation ; and in its feverish appetite for rhetoric and " tournaments of speeches . " That all preachers should preach like Mr . Robertson wo do not expect . Wo believe that if preaching were more in his spirit , that is to say , more human , less theological , —and that is possible to all—there would be no longer any use for the extraordinary , and often ludicrous , lures with which both church and chapel are nfc present engaged in baiting their hooks . One man , a Manchester dissenting juvenile , announces such subjects for discourse as , " Wluvt ' s tho time of day V" or " Wait for the waggon ! " Our own

      transpontine Cockney orator treats his audience to a mixture of the legitimate historical brimstone of his ereod and logitimiito . hits of the Adolphi calibre . If we rise a fc , w steps higher , we find temperate divines hiring theatres to preach in , apparently because their churches are not filled . And the great spokesman of unfulfilled prophecy , undeterred by his having outlived the date which ho fixed for jtho advent of the Millennium and the end of all things , showman like , unfolds to his yet unsuted , yet credulous audience tho panorama ol the Great Tribulation coming upon the earth . To us it seems that Christianity and its preachers havo to do with tho ineffable tribulation always to bo found upon the earth . So thought Mr . Robertson . Wo can heartily say Amen to Mr . Gurney '» prayer : —• " Oh I that a hundred like him were givon us by God , and placed in prominent stations throughout our land 1 "

      * Jsmnmton/ Zcrfnrca On St. Povl'i .Wpmt...

      * JSmnmton / Zcrfnrca on St . Povl ' i . WpMTp * to the Corinthians . By Rev . F . W . Rowbutbon , M . A . Smith , Elder , and Co .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05051860/page/12/