off their hats." He would indeed be a pedant and a prig who could refuse a sympathetic smile of approval, even in the sanctuary, to a rebuke so genial, so witty, and so just ! Seasonable wit in the pulpit, in the estimation of most preachers able to wield it, has always ranked high as a remedy for wandering thoughts. The Neapolitan and French preachers may have, perhaps, carried their sallies too far in this direction, but we must remember that something must be forgiven to zealous men who have to contend with excitable but fickle crowds. Gabriel Barlette, wishing to illustrate the wool-gathering mind in church, on one occasion set himself to say the Paternoster in the middle of his sermon thus: "Pater noster qui est in Cœlis (I say, lad, saddle the horse, I'm going to town today); Sanctificetur nomen tuum (Catherine, put the pot on the fire); fiat voluntas tua (Take care! the cat's at the cheese); panem nostrum quotidianum (Mind the white horse has his feed of oats!)" Irreverent, and out of place, you will probably exclaim; yet it would be difficult more aptly to render or more soundly rebuke the kind of thing which goes on in the brains of many listeners who even so interlard the preacher's words or their own prayers with snatches of alien thought. The use of dramatic action has sometimes been carried to a ludicrous excess, but also with effective results in the way of riveting attention. "What's that thee says, Paul, I can do all things'? I'll bet thee half-a-crown o' that." So the preacher took out half-a-crown, and put it on the Bible. "However," he continued, "let's see what the apostle has to say for himself." So he read on, 66 through Christ that strengtheneth me." "Oh!" says he, "if that's the terms of the bet, I'm off!" and he put the half-crown back into his pocket. Profane jester! will you say; but what if the sermon which followed on the power of Christian grace was listened to with breathless attention, and perhaps never forgotten who will condemn the witty sally which won for it acceptance? Whitfield, one hot summer's day, was preaching on the duty yet difficulties of self-denial, and the necessity of entering by the narrow gate, when he perceived the attention of the people to be wandering, and he suddenly left off, and began trying to catch a gnat that buzzed pertinaciously about his face. "You think it quite easy to enter the strait gate, and secure salvation. Oh! just as easy as it is for me to catch this gnat" (grasping at the insect again and again). Then, after a pause, he opened his hand and said solemnly, “But I have missed it." A cunning choice of texts has always been a favorite device with quaint preachers. Of two rival candidates for a lectureship on trial the one preached in the morning on the "Adam where art thou?" His rival, in the evening capped the text with "Lo, here am I," and his ready wit won him the lectureship. Rowland Hill's text when ladies wore their topknots ridiculously high has almost become a matter of history, "topknot come down," i.e., "Let him that is on the houseTOP NOT come down." But nothing but the exceeding quaintness of the preacher could possibly excuse such a liberty with the sense and sound of the sacred text. 66 I do not for a moment defend the vulgarities into which men of original minds and an overpowering sense of humor have sometimes been betrayed when placed in difficult situations. The learned author of "Sketches of the Reformation" relates, quoting from Bishop Latimer, how a cele. brated preacher named Hubberdin, riding by a fair, where he found riotous dancing and singing, set the church bell a-tolling, and the riotous crew, flocking in to see what it was all about, found Hubberdin up in the pulpit a-singing loudly, first in the person of Augustine, then Ambrose, and so on to Hierome, Gregory, and Chrysostom. " All," he said, were in perfect harmony and singing the same tune. Now," he continued, "good people, ye shall see them dance together likewise in perfect harmony, all in a round ring—all together with up! up! Hubberdin! Now dance, Christ! Now dance, Peter and Paul! Now dance, Augustine, etc.; and so," adds Fox the chronicler, "the old Hubberdin, as he was dancing with his doctors lustily in the pulpit against the heretics, how he stamped and took on I cannot tell, but crash goeth the pulpit, down cometh the dancer, where altogether he brake not his neck, but he so brake his leg that he never came in the pulpit more, and died not long after the same." This should surely be revenge enough in the eyes of all censorious persons on the poor preacher who danced not wisely, but too well! Yet Hubberdin drew his congregation away from the fair under circumstances which were too much for Bishop Latimer, who, with all his wit and wisdom, was baffled on a similar occasion, for he too once came to a church on a popular holiday, and would have preached, but the key was lost, and after he at last got in, "One of the parish came | most godly, sympathetic, and fearless to me and says, 'Sir, this is Robin Hood's fathers of the Reformation, whilst in a day; the parish are gone abroad to gather position to claim that deep love and reverfor Robin Hood, I pray you let them ence due to one who sealed the truth rest.' Unlike old Hubberdin, the good of his reformed Gospel message with his bishop adds, "So I was fain to give place blood. If wit and humor could ever be to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet consecrated to the glory of God and the should have been regarded though I were good of man, it must surely be the wit not; but it would not serve; it was fain to and humor that fell from the lips of a give place to Robin Hood." Christian evangelist and martyr. "His peculiar temperament," writes the author of the "Sketches of the Reformation," "prevented him from hesitating to produce any anecdote to point a moral." Lashing the ignorance of the people who would hear instruction again and again and yet not know the difference between Scrip. ture and the catalogue of sins enumerated by Romish divines, Latimer says: There are few pulpits that have not at some time or other been invaded by preachers who have startled their hearers with quaint similes and sallies of what they deemed seasonable wit. Even the pulpit of St. Mary's, Oxford, has rung with the wit of Richard Taverner, who once opened his sermon thus: "Arriving at St. Mary's Mount, I have brought you some fine biscuits baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation!" The dignified Paley, preaching in the same pulpit to a select audience which numbered Pitt, then prime minister, and a host of eager place-hunters, hungry for the loaves and fishes of preferment, could not resist an irresistibly facetious fling at his audience, and after giving out his text: "There is a lad here that hath five barley loaves and two small fishes," he looked round the church and added with a twinkle of keen satire, "but what are they amongst so many?" A smart application or a brisk repartee in the pulpit seem to have found their apologists in all ages. Burton, in a sermon at Norwich, faced boldly the cant sometimes flung at the superior clergy for enjoying large incomes: Why, say some of these men, can you not live as the apostles lived? Why, say I again, let them lay down their goods at the apostles' feet, and then let them ask that question." The following application is perhaps a little too sudden and searching for the taste of to-day. "He," said the preacher of a charity sermon, "he that giveth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord. Now, my friends, if you are content with your security, down with the cash!" 66 Rowland Hill was not only more urgent but more severe on stingy givers, for he Isaid of the rich merchants who came to church that he would "as lief hang them all up by their necks till their coins dropt out of their pockets, since there was no means of shaking them out." But it is perhaps in the person of good Bishop Latimer that we feel most reconciled to the employment of wit and humor in the pulpit. He was certainly one of the refresh you withal: A limitour of the Gray I'll tell you now a pretty story of a friar to Friars preached many times and had but one sermon, which was on the Ten Commandments, so he was called Friar John Ten Commandments, whereupon his servant told him thereof, and advised him to preach of some other matter. "Belike," says the Friar, "thou knowest the Ten Commandments well, seeing thou hast heard them so many times. Bishop Latimer, like most other popular preachers, was often grossly ridiculed and misrepresented; he cites an amusing instance of this in his third sermon preached before the young king Edward VI.: — A certain man the other day was asked whether he was at the sermon at Paul's Cross; he said he was there, and being asked what news: "Marry, quoth he, "wonderful news; we were there clean absolved -my Ye may mule and all had full absolution." see by this [continued the witty bishop] that that he was a gentleman. Indeed, his mule was wiser than he, for I dare say the mule never slandered the preacher. Ah! unhappy chance had this mule to carry such an ass upon his back. I was there at the sermon my self. Now, saith this gentleman, the mule was absolved, whereas the preacher absolved only such as were sorry and did relent. Belike, then, the mule did repent her stumbling; his mule was wiser than he a great deal — tanquam equus et mulus in quibus non est intellectus, saith the Scripture like unto horses and mules that have no understanding. Yet if it were true that the mule repented of her stumbling, I think she was better absolved than he. I pray God stop his mouth or else he was such an one as rode on a mule and give him to open it to speak better and more | the impoverishment of their class by rack- It is difficult to believe that the court assembly kept their countenances throughout the whole of this pungent sally, which I have considerably abbreviated; for when Latimer got on a good scent he played with his prey and was as one loth to leave it alone, just as a cat that has lighted on a mouse will dally with it and turn it about with manifold and subtle mouthing and pawing. We owe to this freedom of anecdote so common with the great Reformation preachers many interesting glimpses of the time. Archbishop Whitgift, at Paul's Cross, waxed amusingly satirical at the expense of those who were always in search of sensational preachers and new doctrines: If a man commend the magistrates or confirm rites and orders established, he shall scarcely be heard with patience, but if he nip at superiors and reprove them in anything never so untruly, and inveigh against laws and orders established, oh! they flock to him like bees-esteeming him as a god, and extol him up to heaven! . He must either be new come or new found, or his auditory will not stick to tell him in these days they could have found as much themselves, and that if you can acquaint them with no other things they had as lief hear their own cow low. Tell them where they may hear a godly bishop. Tush! they know what these are a grave divine. Tush! they know what these are a temporizing, formularizing written doctrine such as when a man learns a text he may guess himself what the sermon will be; but a trim young man that will not quote the Fathers (and good reason, for his horse never ate a bottle of hay at the Universities), and one that will not stick to revile them that be in authority -oh! for God's sake, where teacheth he? To him they will run without their dinners, sit waiting by his church till the doors be opened, climb at the windows, fill the churchyards, let him want nothing so long as he is new, though within two years they will leave him on a lee land and never heed him more. History repeat itself; and I hear some of my nineteenth-century readers exclaim again: "I know that man!" It has sometimes been thought indelicate or egotistical for a preacher to recite episodes of his own life in illustration of his theme; but had this been Latimer's opinion, we should have lost at least one of the most exquisite little historical vignettes which even that prolific age of anecdote can boast of. Speaking of the simple, brave manners which were fast going out amongst the yeomanry in consequence of self and his horse. My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he_tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able and did find the king a harness with himbuckled on his harness when we went to I can remember that I Blackheath field. He kept me at school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now He married my sisters with five pound and twenty nobles apiece, so that he brought them up in godliness and the fear of God. He kept hospitality for his good neighbors, and some alms he gave to the poor, and all this did he of the said farm; when he that now hath it payeth sixteen pound a year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor. This is, after all, the sturdy preaching of facts and figures, which moves sensible men, and its entire unconventionality and simple force requires no apology or justification. When I listen to the stilted and artificial utterances that I am occasionally condemned to hear when I go out of town on Sunday, I am often reminded of Garrick's advice to a young preacher, and I would it might be more often followed: would feel and speak in a matter concerning a My dear young friend, you know how you friend who was in imminent danger of his life, and with what energetic pathos of diction you would enforce the observance of that which you really thought would be for his profit. You could not think of playing the orator, studying your emphasis, cadences, gestures; you would be yourself, and the interesting nature of your subject in freeing your heart would furnish you with the most natural tone of voice, the most fitting language, and the most suitable gestures. What you would be thus in the parlor, be in the pulpit, and you will not fail to please, to affect, and to profit. Adieu, my dear friend. paintings with some metal instrument in order to render them illegible. are a preacher at all, and not a mere pup-| been spent in hacking the inscriptions and pet. Wit, humor, anecdote, everything has to take a back seat. Let them all alone to come or go, so only you labor to be what you seem. In other words, exchange self-consciousness for sincerity. Be always receptive, always aspiring, always acquiring, always sympathizing, always working, always praying. You need not fear to preach if you do not dare to deceive. In the pulpit above all things, even though you should be a master of wit and humor, "be yourself," or you are nothing. H. R. HAWEIS. From The Academy. LETTER FROM EGYPT. The tombs and ancient quarries towards the southern end of Gebel Abu Feda, which, when I last visited the spot eight years ago, were only partially destroyed, have now been almost completely blasted away. The work of destruction is still going on merrily among the old tombs of El-Kharayyib. A little to the south of the latter are the cartouches of Seti II. discovered by Miss Edwards. A year or two ago they were saved by Colonel Ross from the quarrymen who were about to blast them away; but his interference has produced but a momentary effect, as I find that considerable portions of the monument have been destroyed since I saw it last March. One of the tombs at Tel el-Amarna, and THE PROGRESS OF EGYPT IN THE DESTRUC- one only, has been placed under lock and TION OF ITS ANCIENT MONUMENTS. Assiout, January 24, 1891. key, now that, along with its neighbors, it has been irretrievably ruined. The two A SOMEWHAT slow voyage up the Nile "guardians" appointed to look after the in a dahabiah this winter enables me to tombs live at Haggi Qandil, two miles off. give a fuller report on the progress made They are natives of the place, and their during the past year in the destruction of efficiency may be judged of from the fact the ancient monuments of Egypt than is that pieces of inscribed stone, freshly cut possible for those who travel by steamer. out of the walls of the tombs, were offered Mr. Wilbour's dahabiah has accompanied to us for sale under their eyes. Any one, mine, and we have stopped at a good many indeed, who is practically acquainted with places between Cairo and Siût, at most of Upper Egypt well knows that the principal them, indeed, perforce through want of a use of a native "guardian "is to draw a wind. I find that the interesting tomb at small salary from the government, suppleKom el-Ahhmar, near Minieh, the only mented by "bakshish from visitors. one left out of the many described by For the protection of the monuments he Lepsius and other earlier Egyptologists, does little, unless under the constant suhas shared the fate of the tombs of Beni-pervision of a European inspector. EuroHassan and El-Bersheh. Portions of the inscriptions on the walls, and even the ceiling, have been cut out or hacked off, and the rest of the tomb has been wantonly and elaborately defaced; hours must have peans, however, even though they may be enthusiastic Egyptologists, cannot be expected to spend summer after summer in Upper Egypt unless they are paid well. A. H. SAYCE. AN interesting paper on the destruction of wolves in France appears in the current number of the Revue Scientifique. The law in virtue of which rewards are given for the killing of wolves was passed on August 3, 1882, and during the last four months of that year 423 were destroyed. In 1883 the number killed was 1316, the sum paid in rewards being 104,450 francs. The number was 1035 in 1884; 900 in 1885; 760 in 1886; 701 in 1887; 505 in 1888; 515 in 1889. The departments in which most animals have been slain are Dordogne and Charente. It is believed that very soon no specimens will be left in France except those which occasionally reach it from neighboring countries. AT the recent Congress of Americanists at Paris, Dr. Seler showed that the name Anahuac had been applied by mistake to the plateau of Mexico. "Anauac "" means "on or near water," and by all ancient writers was used in the sense of coast-land. Anauac Ayotlan was the seaboard of the Pacific; Anauac Xicalanco that of the Atlantic. Motolinia alone used the word differently. He did not, however, apply it to the plateau, but to the whole of New Spain. According to Dr. Seler, this also was a blunder, and was due to the phrase "cem anahuac," which is used for the whole world." The original meaning was "the entire land down to the seashore." Nature. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |