From the Examiner. Our Sermons. An Attempt to Consider Familiarly but Reverently the Preacher's Work in the Present Day. By Rev. R. Gee, M.A., Oxon, Vicar of Abbots Langley, Herts, and Rural Dean; Author of From Sunday to Sunday.' Longmans. HAVING already written a wholesome little volume of advice to young clergymen, as to the way in which they should spend their week-days, Mr. Gee here supplements the teaching by an exposition of his views on the most important part of the clergyman's Sunday work. Even without agreeing with him on many of the points on which he lays most stress, every one must admire the good faith and excellent spirit in which he writes, and recognize the good sense and healthy temper of his remarks. There is a restlessness about the present gener ation which makes long detention on any matter to be penitential. Men would open their eyes with wonder if told that when Bishop Burnet preached and had exhausted the hour during which the sands had been running, he, by universal consent, reversed the hour-glass, and enterm! Short of this, men do not now publish tered with a well-pleased auditory on a fresh folio sermons, well aware that such huge tomes with their double columns, will find few readers; therefore they must not preach folio sermons. They must be careful not to put a stumblingblock in the way of the weak. They must find out what the average interest of the congregation will bear. They will not give in to the flippant demands of some whose real wish to get rid of the sermon altogether is hidden under the plea but, on the other hand, they will not be guided for shortening it to a mere handful of minutes; solely by what the ripened faith of some advanced Christian will bear in his love for meditating on these things. Much less will they Mr. Gee deprecates the statement of "a be guided by the flattery of partial friends who leading periodical" that "there is a gulf may tell them that they never found their serbetween the clerical mind and the ordinary mons too long or two dull! They will remem male mind which is deep and daily deepen- ber that preaching even beyond other parts of ing," and to do his best towards lessening public worship is to those who are without.' the risk of such a separation, he shows how Calls to repentance, appeals to the careless and he thinks the preaching of the present day length by the attention of these very careless the prayerless, must be measured as to their may be made as influential as the preaching and godless men. How often when listening in former. times of the Apostles, the Friars, to a speech has one longed to stop the speaker the Puritans, and the Wesleyans. To do and get him to sit down directly he has made a this, or anything like this, says Mr. Gee, good point- has impressed or roused his authe modern preacher must in no way follow the example of the Scotch minister, whose pride was that he propounded "every Sabbath a haill system of divinity." He must bring fresh thought into each fresh sermon, now and then discussing some special point of theological doctrine, but, as a rule, keeping clear of divinity, and aiming to improve the daily "walk and conversation" of his hearers. Mr. Gee offers numerous suggestions as to the choice and treatment of subjects, the style and temper of sermons, and the like. This is from a section about the length of sermons: dience. Instead of that he goes on for twenty minutes longer, diluting all that he has said, and leaving his hearers forgetful of what at first had touched them. Therefore, says Mr. Gee, let us have short pithy sermons. In this all laymen will agree with him; but it needs much more than brevity and terseness-much more, we think, than all that Mr. Gee advises to make preaching once again" a power among men.' From the Examiner. I tion of the processes of arithmetic was always remarkable; but he was never distinguished Life and Correspondence of Richard Whate- as a mathematician at college." Another mans. MISS WHATELY's Memoir of her father, the late Archbishop of Dublin, modestly introduced, is really all that one could wish. Dr. Whately speaks for himself through a well-arranged sequence of letters, with connecting facts simply narrated, and the vigorous honesty with which his healthy and kindly mind worked becomes unmistakable even by the worst bigot whom his liberality of thought offended. Richard Whately was born in 1787, the youngest of nine children of Dr. Joseph Whately, of Nonsuch park, Surrey, Prebendary of Bristol, Vicar of Widford, and Lecturer at Gresham College. He was born in Cavendish square, at the house of his mother's brother, Mr. Plumer, then M.P. for Herefordshire. The last of the other eight children was then six years old, and this late comer was not considered to be particularly wanted. He was a bad specimen of a baby too, slight and puny, with no healthy appetite. Tall and vigorous as he grew to be, he said that the sensation of hunger was something new and strange to him when he felt it for the first time as a boy of eleven or twelve. He was a very nervous and shy child, naturally more cared for by his sisters than by his brothers. He learned very early to read and write, read eagerly, watched spiders, tamed ducklings, could distinguish notes of birds, and had so strong a natural turn for arithmetic that at six years old he astonished a man past sixty by telling him, and rightly too, how many minutes he was old. The calculation was made mentally. For about the three years between the years of five or six and eight or nine this passion lasted. The child was calculating morning, noon, and night. Absorbed in multiplication, division, and the Rule of Three, he ran against people in the streets. But none of the calculation was worked upon paper. The passion died out, and at school vanished so utterly that Whately was, he says of himself, a "perfect dunce at ciphering, and so continued ever" since." "But," says his daughter now," he always looked upon himself as a dunce in that line; though the readiness with which he solved curious problems and arithmetical puzzles would often surprise and baffle first-class mathematicians. The clearness of his explana main occupation of Whately's mind as a child was what he called "castle-building." He was busy in speculation over questions that one might think set apart to mature philosophic theorists, problems of instinct and reason, government, civilization, &c. At nine years old he was sent to the school of a Mr. Philips, near Bristol, and formed a friendship with a schoolfellow that only death interrupted, but he was too meditative for a schoolboy. One of his delights was to stray over a common near the playground, watching the habits of the sheep, and trying to tame them. After he had been a twelvemonth at this school Whately's father died, and his mothHe was an active, er removed to Bath. concentrated thinker, and his few favourite authors were those which most powerfully suggested a particular kind of thought. He cared very much for Aristotle, little for Plato. He would to the last revolve his own thoughts in his mind much as he had done in his days of castle-building, and intellectual strength came of this concentrated attention to particular ideas. Mr. Herman Merivale, whom Miss Whately thanks for having revised and prepared her work for the press, frequently, and always happily, interpolates a paragraph or two, such interpolation being indicated by an asterisk. On this point he says: which we are now writing, so down to his latest As in the early school and Oxford days, of times, the daily occupation of his brain was to seize on some notion of what he considered a practical order, belonging to any one of the various subjects with which his mind occupied itself; to follow it out to its minutest ramifications, and to bring it home with him, turned from the mere germ into the complete production. And this perpetual chopping logic with himself" he carried on not less copiously when his usually solitary walks were enlivened by companionship. His talk was rather didactic than controversial; which naturally rendered his company unpopular with some, while it gave him the mastery over other spirits of a different mould. "His real object, or his original objects," writes one of his earliest and blest friends. "was to get up clearly and beat t his ideas for his own Thus he wrote his oks. Mr. R., lately use. Oriel, told me that, in one of his walks with him, dead, who was junior to Vately he was so overcome by Whately's recurrence, in conversation, to topics which he had already on former occasions insisted on, that he stopped short, and said, 'Why, Whately, you said all this to me the other day:' to which Whately replied to the effect that he would not be the worse for hearing it many times over." The shyness of his childhood, long continued, was overcome at last only by a strong effort, and out of this came an abruptness of manner which, as everybody knows, is oftener based on a shy or sensitive nature than upon an overbearing one. "He could be most touchingly gentle in his manner (says an old friend) to those whom he liked; but I recollect a lady saying she would not for the world be his wife, from the way she had seen him put Mrs. Whately (the object all his life of his strongest affections) into a carriage." In 1805 Richard Whately entered Oriel College, Oxford, where Dr. Copleston who died a bishop-was a College tutor and afterwards Provost. Under the influence of Dr. Copleston's lectures and conversations Whately's powers expanded. We quote Mr. Merivale again : The influence which these two men reciprocally exercised on each other was very great, and to a certain extent coloured the subsequent lives of both. Bishop Copleston was more the man of the world of the two. But in him, under a polished and somewhat artificial scholarlike exterior, and an appearance of even overstrained caution, there lurked not only much energy of mind and precision of judgment, but a strong tendency to liberalism in Church and State, and superiority to ordinary fears and prejudices. It was in this direction that he especially trained Whately's character; while he learnt to admire, if too staid to imitate, the uncompromising boldness and thorough freedom from partisanship of the younger man. An old and valued friend of his, the late Mr. Hardcastle, requested him to undertake the tuition of a young man of great promise, who had come up to the University with every exquestion in his divinity examination in the pectation of honours, but had failed to answer a very words of the Catechism. The examiner remarked, "Why, sir, a child of ten years old could answer that!". "So could I, sir," replied the young student, "when I was ten years old!" But the sharp repartee did not save him from being plucked. Both he and his family were naturally much mortified; but being of a nature not easily crushed, the disappointment, rather as a stimulus on him; he resolved he which might have been hurtful to many, acted would retrieve his injured reputation, and for this it was important to secure a first-rate private tutor. Through their common friend, Mr. Hardcastle, he was introduced to Mr. Whately, and shortly after wrote home to his father"I have got Whately for my private tutor, and I will have the first-class next term." He succeeded, and this was the commencement of a friendship between Richard Whately and Nassau William Senior which lasted through their lives. The younger friend survived his former tutor but a few months. Whately who was a good shot and expert angler, would go in the long vacation to some picturesque part of England with select reading parties of his pupils, who talked Latin together to get familiarity with the language. Whately, was ordained deacon, and preached his first sermon in 1814. In 1815 he went to Oporto with a sister whose health was in peril, thereby willingly risking the loss of a year's college work. After his return to England in the autumn, the next five or six years of his life were spent on the business of College teaching. As a preacher in the University, although his manner was not attractive, he always drew a full attendance. Meanwhile Whately began to use his pen as a contributor to the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.' In 1819 he published the first and most popular of his writings, the little pamphlet entitled' Historic Doubts relative At the age of twenty-two Whately began that habit of keeping a commonplace book in which he persevered until within a few months of his death. It was begun and persevered in as an aid to the improvement of his mind. Its purpose was set forth by him at the outset in a religious spirit, and on the fly-leaf of the first notebook he wrote, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O to Napoleon Bonaparte.' In 1821 he edited Lord, my strength and my Redeemer!" Archbishop Wake's Treatises on PredestiIn 1808 Whately took his degree, achiev-nation,' and in 1822 published his Bampton ing only a double second class in honours. But he was encouraged by winning the prize for the English Essay, which was on the comparative excellence of the Ancients and Moderns. In 1811 he was elected Fellow of Oriel; in 1812 he took his M.A., and remained in residence at Oxford as a private tutor. In this character he estabfished what became a lifelong friendship: Lectures On the Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Matters of Religion,' committing himself strongly to his life-long battle against the evil of religious party spirit. In the same year he removed to Halesworth, in Suffolk, his uncle, Mr. Plumer, having had the presentation of the living. He had been married in the preceding year to a young lady whose acquaintance he had made at Cheltenham. The damp climate of Hales- of our clergymen take trouble to acquire, worth proved dangerous to his wife's con- it may be no small matter after all: stitution, but in 1825 Whately, aged thirtyeight, took his degree as D.D., and in the same year was appointed by Lord Grenville Principal of Alban Hall. He then removed with his family to Oxford, intending to spend the vacation at Halesworth, but when even the occasional residences seemed to involve risk of his wife's life, he gave up residence, placed a curate in the rectory, and and went alone to visit the parish three or four times a year. Alban Hall had become "a kind of Botany Bay to the University-a place to which students were sent who were too idle and dissipated to be received elsewhere." This he reformed. In 1826, the year after his appointment to Alban Hall, Whately's 'Logic' appeared as a distinct volume, formed of articles which had been written for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.' Two years afterwards followed the Rhetoric,' also originally written for the Encyclopæ dia. 6 Among the friendships formed by Whately in the Oriel Common Room was one with Dr. Arnold, which continued to be close and familiar till Arnold's death. Mr. Keble visited Whately at Halesworth, and there read to him the MS. of the Christian Year.' Dr. Newman writes in his Apologia' of Whately: While I was still awkward and timid, in 1822, he took me by the hand, and acted the part to me of a gentle and encouraging instructor. He, emphatically, opened my mind, and taught me to think and to use my reason. He had done his work towards me, or nearly so, when he had taught me to see with mine own eyes, and to walk with my own feet. Not that I had not a good deal to learn from others still, but I influenced them as well as they me, and co-operated rather than merely concurred with them. As to Dr. Whately, his mind was too different from mine for us to remain long on one line. I recollect how dissatisfied he was with an article of mine in the London Review,' which Blanco White good-humouredly only call ed Platonic. When I was diverging from him (which he did not like), I thought of dedicating my first book to him, in words to the effect that he had not only taught me to think, but to think for myself. Whately's influence was always on the side of that honest naturalness which is at the bottom of all good work as of all good art. Take an example in a small way, though, considering how many thousands of people suffer every Sunday from the ridiculously artificial pulpit voice which so many Being absolutely compelled, by the unwise solicitations of a clerical friend, to give his opinion as to that friend's performance of the service, he told him-"Well, then, if you really wish to know what I think of your readservice you read well, and those you read uning, I should say there are only two parts of the exceptionably." said the clergyman. the first lesson,' and lesson.' And what are those?" "They are, Here endeth 'Here endeth the second "What do you mean, Whately?" "I mean," he replied, "that these parts you read in your own natural voice and manner, which are very good the rest is all artificial and assumed. It may be added that his friend very good reader. took the hint, altered his style, and became a He often related another incident, illustrating his strongly expressed opinion (see his Rhetoric') that the natural voice and manner are the best adapted to public speaking and reading, and also less trying to the voice than the artificial tone so generally preferred. A clerical friend of his, who had been accustomed to make use of this artificial tone, complained to him the throat, he feared he must resign his post. that he was suffering so much from weakness of Dr. Whately told him that he believed, if he would change his style of reading, and deliver the service in his natural voice, he would find it much less fatiguing. "Oh," said his friend, "that is all very well for you, who have a powerful voice; but mine is so feeble that it would be impossible to make myself heard in a church if I did not speak in an artificial tone." "I believe you are mistaken," replied the former; "you would find that even a weak voice would be better heard, and at the expense of less fatigue, if the tone were a natural one." The other appeared unconvinced; but meeting his adviser some time after, he told him he had at last come round to his view. The weakness in his throat had so increased that he was on the point of retiring from active duty, but resolved, as a desperate final effort, to try the experiment of altering his manner of reading and speaking. He did so, and not only succeeded beyond his hopes in making himself heard, but found his voice so much less fatigued by the effort, that he was able to continue his employment. He had the same wise faith in free growth as a principle of education. Thus he writes old tutor and friend, Dr. Copleston, newly of a daughter at the close of a letter to his appointed Bishop of Llandaff, and we add to the extract from the letter Miss Whately's own further illustration of it: Your goddaughter threatens to outgrow..her strength; she requires constant care to support her under such a prodigious shoot. She is very Lord Grey's letter, Dr. Hinds writes: "A visiforward in understanding, but not alarmingly so. My plans of education fully answer my expectations: she has never yet learned anything as a task, and that, considering she has learned more than most, will make tasks far lighter when they do come; and she has never yet learned anything by rote, and I trust never will, till she turns Papist. They say a letter should be a picture of the writer; if so, this ought to have been on yellow paper. The allusion to his children's education is very characteristic. He greatly objected to teaching children to learn by rote what they did not understand. He used to say, that to teach thus mechanically, in the hope that the children would afterwards find out the meaning of what they had learned, was to make them swallow their food first, and chew it afterwards." "When Mrs. Whately and I first married," he observed, many years later, "one of the first things we agreed upon was, that should Provi dence send us children, we would never teach them anything that they did not understand." "Not even their prayers, my Lord ?" asked the person addressed. "No, not even their prayers," he replied. To the custom of teaching children of tender age to repeat prayers by rote, without attending to their sense, he objected even more strongly than to any other kind of me chanical teaching; as he considered it inculcated the idea, that a person is praying when merely repeating a form of words in which the mind and feelings have no part, which is destructive of the very essence of devotion. suc tor arrived who was a stranger to him, and was asked out to see the feats of his climbing dog. The animal performed as usual, and when he had reached his highest point of ascent, and was beginning his yell of wailing, Whately turned to the stranger and said, 'What do you think of that?' Visitor: I think that some besides the dog, when they find themselves at the top of the tree, would give the world they could get down again.' Whately: Arnold has told you.' Visitor: Has told me what?' Whately: That I have been offered the Archbishopric of Dublin.' Visitor: I am very happy to hear it, but this, I assure you. is the first intimation I have had of it, and when my remark was made I had not the remotest idea that the thing was likely to take place.' T The words of his old friend the Bishop of Llandaff will further illustrate the spirit in which he entered on his new office. "Dr. Whately," writes the Bishop, "accepted the arduous station proposed to him, purely, I believe, from public spirit and a sense of duty. Wealth, honour, and power, and title have no charms for him. He has great energy and intrepidity -a hardihood which sustains him against obloquy, when he knows he is discharging a duty, and he is generous and disinterested almost to a fault. His enlarged views, his sincerity, and his freedom from prejudice, are more than a compensation for his want of conciliating manners. When his character is understood, he will, I think, acquire more influence with the Irish than he would with the English." A similar tribute was given to his character by his friend Dr. Arnold, some time later: "Now, I am sure that, in point of real essential holiness, as far as man can judge, there does not live a truer Christian than Whately; and it does grieve me most deeply to hear peo rian character, because in him the intellectual ple speak of him as a dangerous and latitudinapart of his nature keeps pace with the spiritual." In 1829 Dr. Whately was elected Professor of Political Economy at Oxford in cession to his own old pupil and friend Nassau Senior, and published in 1831 an introductory course of lectures. It was in 1829 that the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill passed, and Sir Robert Peel was rejected as the representative of Oxford, Whately being And again: "In Church matters they (the one of the very few heads of houses who Government) have got Whately, and a signal gave him his vote. It was in 1831 that, blessing it is that they have him and listen partly in the belief that his tolerant spirit to him; a man so good and so great that no would introduce a conciliating element into folly or wickedness of the most vile of facthe Irish Church, Dr. Whately was appoint- tions will move him from his own purposes, ed by Lord Grey to the then vacant Arch- or provoke him in disgust to forsake the defence of the Temple." bishopric of Dublin. No family or personal interest led to this appointment. Grey had never seen or spoken to Whately, The career of Whately as Archbishop is nor was there any party that looked upon fresh in men's minds, and we will not folWhately's promotion as its own advantage. low beyond this point his daughter's MeHis independence of character made him, moir, though it will be found peculiarly indeed, in the eyes of party men unsafe: rich in material for the right study and appreciation of his character and of the movement of his thoughts. Lord On the morning in which he had received |