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    to the untaught and ignorant every Sunday ? ( and perhaps if one other evening in the week were also devoted to the same laudable purpose it would be still better ;) they stand more in need of this than any one who is not in the habit of conversing with them on religious subjects can easily imagine ; but from a discourse calculated for a polite audience , they gain ab&c ^ lutely nothing . The instances are numerous of servants' begging to be excused from attending their masters and mistresses to Unitarian places of

    worship , not in the least because they objv ctc-d to the doctrines tauorht there , but because they were unable to understand what those doctrines were .

    The time that I would particularly recommend for these lectures , is berwe < n the hours of six and eight in the evening ; the lower classes are at that time

    comp letely disengaged , ar * d perhaps more disposed to attend than at &ny other ; servants too may be spared *\ ith little inconvenience ; &nd were this plan adopted generally in Unitarian chapels , I have no cfoubt but very many sincere converts would be made to true

    Christianity ; but the people must be addressed in a language that they can understand—hi a simple and energetic manner . If the preacher is in earnest , and will give up the quiet repose of his Sunday evenings , which' f own to be a sacrifice , but one that I think

    few can hesitate to make , when they consider the thrice repeated command of our Lord to a zealous and affectionati disciple ; Feted my she ' fp ; " and that this is the test wh ' ch Jesus proposes as de ^ cisivii of his loye £ o him : if he i

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    will do this for the benefit of that large class of his fellow-creatures who wan £ instruction , and have scarcely any other chance of obtaining it , he will not find it difficult to compose discourses which , will reach the hearts , and rouse the hopes and fears of the unlettered , and at the same time instil

    into their minds the pure and rational doctrines of him who came to seek and to ' save that which was lost . They are not the mysterious doctrines of the Methodists which attract such crowds of hearers , but their earnest and affectionate

    manner > and the familiar language in which they speak . Why should not Unitarian ministers avail themselves of the same means ? Indeed

    it is their duty so . to do , if it appears to them as it obviously does to me , the most probable method of spreading the pure doctrines of Christ , and turning the people frorh the error of their ways .

    Nothing but this difference of language and manner can account for what is to be seen in almost every town and village of South Britain—an empty church and a full meeting-house near it , though .

    in both places precisely the same doctrines are taught . Ask the aU tendants at the meeting why they leave the church , and they will generally tell you , because they can understand the new preachers better .

    Nothing low or vulgar need or ought to be introduced ; but the state in which numbers of the poor actually are , should be p lainly pointed out to them : we know too well the idleness , the insolence ,

    the profligacy of too many among them ; jk » int then your lectures home to these vices in all their

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    V 322 Popular Preaching recommended to the Unitarians .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1809, page 322, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1737/page/20/