He carefully confined himself, too, throughout, to the dogmatic phraseology
of the pulpit; while I either did not understand, or required justification
for, the strange, far-fetched, technical meanings, which he attached to his
expressions. If he would only have talked English!--if clergymen would only
preach in English!--and then they wonder that their sermons have no effect!
Their notion seems to be, as my good chaplain's was, that the teacher is
not to condescend to the scholar, much less to become all things to all
men, if by any means he may save some; but that he has a right to demand
that the scholar shall ascend to him before he is taught; that he shall
raise himself up of his own strength into the teacher's region of thought
as well as feeling; to do for himself, in short, under penalty of being
called an unbeliever, just what the preacher professes to do for him.
At last, he seemed dimly to discover that I could not acquiesce in his
conclusions, while I denied his premises; and so he lent me, in an
ill-starred moment, "Paley's Evidences," and some tracts of the last
generation against Deism.
Pages:
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683