A reverend gentleman

Front matter

LIBRARY or CONGRESS,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f

I p s

CHAPTER I. Father and Daughter

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Page.

Tristram Shandy^-' in Church

In the Night

IV.

The Parson’s Monday

•

V.

The Parson makes Punch

•

VI.

Merry dew sees Clearly .

•

VII.

Two Appeals

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VIII.

Mrs. Evans Speaks .

•

. 51

IX.

ViRGINIBUS PuERISQUE

•

X.

In Which Friends pall Out

•

XL

In Which Friends go Their Ways

CONTENTS.

viii

CHAPTER XII.

The Parson’s Other Daughter

.

.

Page.

CHAPTER Xlll.

Sleight of Hand ....

CHAPTER XIV.

“Taffy came to Our House . .

CHAPTER XV.

The End of Things Welsh

. CHAPTER XVI.

“ The Way of a Man with a Maid ”

CHAPTER XVII.

In Pursuit

CHAPTER XVIII.

Mutual Understandings

CHAPTER XIX.

Waiting

CHAPTER XX.

A Pair of Slippers . .

CHAPTER XXL

Kate’s Arrival ....

•

CHAPTER XXII.

Kate’s Discovery ....

CHAPTER XXIII.

Prospects of Fortune

CHAPTER XXIV.

In Quest of Friends . \ .

CONTENTS.

IX

CHAPTER XXV.

After the Honeymoon ....

Page.

. 156

CHAPTER XXVI.

Sweetheart and Wife .....

. 160

CHAPTER XXVII.

A Safe Investment . . . .

. 166

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Conjugal Trials

. 175

CHAPTER XXIX.

A Wedding Feast

. 185

CHAPTER XXX.

Conjugal Disaster

. 190

CHAPTER XXXI.

Laughter and Tears ....

. 196

CHAPTER XXXII.

Bottiglia Advises

. 201

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Merrydew expresses an Opinion .

. 207

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Alimony .

CHAPTER XXXV.

Atropos

. 223

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Way of Transgressors .

. 230

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Between the Devil and the Deep Sea .

X

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Page

A Simple Solution 243

CHAPTER XXXIX.

How Kate becomes a Star, and meets an old

Friend 248

CHAPTER XL.

The old Friend in a new Light . . . 257

CHAPTER XLI.

The House in Cheyne Walk .... 261

CHAPTER XLIl.

The Prodigal Husband’s Return . . . 266

CHAPTER XLllI.

Terror-stricken 271

CHAPTER XLIV.

Out of the Mouth of Babes .... 276

CHAPTER XLV.

The Captain’s Strategy 282

CHAPTER XLVI.

“None but the Brave” 290

CHAPTER XLVII.

The Lawyer sees his Way .... 301

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The Lawyer’s Mission 306

CHAPTER XLIX.

United 311

CHAPTER L.

The Conclusion of the AVhole Matter . , 318

CHAPTER 1.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

The Reverend William Merrydew, Master of Arts, and sometime “ Principal of a Private School for the Sons of Gentlemen/^ was, at the ‘opening of this story, on the wrong side of fifty. What his exact age was no one, not even his daughters, knew, or could easily guess. Sometimes he looked much less than fifty, and sometimes a good deal more. He never mentioned his age explicitly, nor let it out by implication; for whenever he told of any notable event in his history, his allusions to contemporary public events were carefully vague. The only admission his daughters considered of chronological worth was that he was “ a young fellow at college when the bells rang out the capture of Sebastopol. He indeed often called himself “ an old fellow,^^ but it was with the Jaunty air of a man who does not expect to be believed. Mr. Merrydew was — or, at least, had been — a scholar; he was a man of strong social instincts (the most valuable possession of a clergyman); yet, here he was at this date, vicar of a poor W elsh parish — Glyndf rdwy, at the foot of Moel Hebog.

Mr. Merrydew^s situation may seem strange, but it had been arrived at by the usual gradual evolutionary process. He had begun life as the kind of person we call a scholar and a gentleman. He had taken Orders, not because he had any intention of going into the Church, but merely because he knew it was the respectable English habit to prefer a reverend gentleman for the education of youth, and he had been offered a mastership in a good school. Mr. Merrydew had designs upon literature, and it was to ultimately accomplish them that he sat down for awhile to

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

the weary routine of gerund-grinding. For some years he worked very hard, tiJl the thanklessness and unproductiveness of the teacher^s lot smote his heart with dullness and despondency, as they ever must smite any one who has a tolerably full sense of life and a less than overflowing love of youth. He would have liked to give up teaching and trust for a living to literature (he had tried his hand at writing and had published little things in one or two of the obscurer magazines), but he feared to make the hazardous experiment. So he gradually became the man who cherishes an ideal which every one but himself can plainly see he will never attain to. Still dreaming of other things, he allowed himself to become engaged to and to marry his employer’s only child and housekeeper, to become a partner in the school business, and finally (upon the senior’s death) proprietor and principal of the whole concern. Thus he drifted on, in the comfort of married life, learning more and more to value the satisfaction of his appetites, and less and less to cherish an ideal. By and by his wife died, leaving him two daughters not yet in their teens. His wife had been the real manager of the school, and when she died things went from bad to worse, through no particular misconduct on the part of the reverend principal.. He sold the school, and then began a period of varying fortune. He tried to edit a religious newspaper, and proved too sincerely flippant for his proprietors; he gave lessons at so much an hour, and either gave too little or took too much, for his clients failed him; and he again took to school-keeping “for the sons of gentlemen.” Throughout that chequered time there is no doubt he was cheerful and “ of a good courage;” not so much because he was naturally a brave man as because he was essentially a bohemian, who loved freedom and unrestrained commerce with his kind. At length the last school lapsed from him on a mortgage, and he and his daughters were without a prospect, till a friend found a place as governess for the cleverer of the two girls, and the small Welsh living of Glyndfrdwy for Merrydew himself.

It was the morning of a Saturday, in the end of February, 1877. The landscape, as seen from the parsonage windows, was grand, dazzling, and inspiring. The air was crisp and clear, and musical with the sound of rushing water. The lowest slopes oF the mountain opposite had

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

shed their winter coat of white, and now appeared in that suit of sodden and yellowed green which makes the earliest days of spring wear such a tumbled and lie-abed aspect. The upward mountain ridges and lofty storm-swept crags were still clothed in their soft, treacherous white, which, now that the sun poured his light upon it, so dazzled the eyes as to make the head almost ache. It was one of those rare mornings when the top of the mountain was clearly visible. Yet, for all this, at ten o’clock the vicar sat in his little parlor at breakfast, wrapped in a faded flowered dressing-gown. The vicar’s character and taste had been formed in a day, and among a set in which rhapsodical views of Nature were not in vogue. He sat with his back to the light, near the fire, half-turned from the table, with a neat slippered foot on the fender. He had his tea-cup in one hand, and “ Tristram Shandy ” in the other.

“ Ho, ho, ho! He, he, he!” he laughed, as he turned for a moment to sip his tea and look at the toast-rack. His laugh did not sound hearty or wholesome; it was, indeed, rather a half- smothered snigger than an open laugh. It evidently displeased his daughter, a girl of nineteen or twenty, with bright, candid gray eyes, an abundance of fair, wavy hair, and a marvellously clear complexion. He caught her odd look of scrutiny levelled at him from behind the tea-pot. “ Well, my dear?” said he, helping himself to toast.

“ I don’t like to hear you laugh like that, father; it makes me think 1 don’t know what. It makes me afraid of something.”

“ H’m, it’s Sterne’s— er— wit, my child,” said the vicar, turning again to his book.

“ Have you forgotten, father, this is Saturday? Your sermons are not ready for Sunday.”

“ Oh, con — sider the sermons! Gad, I’ll read a chapter or two of Sterne! These barbarians won’t know the difference, and it will be greater fun to me. What is it, girl?”

The abrupt question was caused by the sudden flight of his daughter to the window, where she stood looking eagerly up th^e lane that passed the house.

“ Two gentlemen, father; tourists, 1 suppose, going up the lane with old Parry.”

In a moment “ Tristram Shandy ” was thrown on the table, and the vicar was at the window.

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

“Where are they? Which way? Ah, th'eyVe turned the corner, I suppose. What had they on, child? fishing boots? Old Parry was with them; they must have come for the fishing. Very likely they^re staying at The Turk^s Head. 1^11 take a turn down that way and see. Where are my boots? I must shave before 1 go, though; they may have some ladies with ^em. And I must have Farmer Jones’s pony.” He went to the door and shouted in a frantic voice, “ Tavvy C/dooid! Tavvy C/dooid!”

After a little there leisurely emerged from the cow-house a middle-aged man without a hat, but with a shock head of iron-grey hair, to whom the vicar jabbered something in Welsh. It would appear from the sequel that the man’s name was that which is spelled thus in English, “ David Lloyd,” and that the vicar had called him to go and borrow Farmer Jones’s pony.

The vicar returned indoors, and went at once upstairs. He shaved, he dressed himself in his Sunday best, whistling and humming the most unclerical tunes — scraps from “ Eobert the Devil ” and from “ Dinorah ” and echoes of even such music-hall ditties as long ago roused the ire of dear Colonel Newcome. He put on his thin, best boots, and seeing the shock-headed Tavvy leading Farmer Jones’s pony to the door, he descended.

“ Ethel, my girl,” said he to his expectant daughter, “ don’t wait dinner for me. ”

“ Very well, father. If any one asks you, you’ll be wise to accept; for there’s only the remains of yesterday’s broth to warm up, and the mutton-bone to pick.”

“ Ah, that bone, dear, would be beautiful devilled. I should like it done so for supper.”

“ Very well, father. I’ll keep it and do it. Kiss me, daddy, before you go.”

“ My love.” He kissed her, and turned at once to look at the rough-coated pony.

“ Humph! ’Tain’t much of a hack, is it? Look at those stirrup-irons and that bit! Jones might have rubbed ’em up a bit. Well!”

He mounted. Tavvy led the wild-eyed, shock-maned creature out at the gate; and parson and pony trotted down the lane. The lane was muddy with the stickiest and deepest of Welsh mud; and, by-and-bye, as the village was approached, it was alive with fierce, active little pigs, lean

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

as greyhounds, and red as fire. It might be an interesting ethnological question whether the Celtic races have always throughout their history been attended by mud, squalor, and lean pigs. A thought of this sort passed sideways through the attention of Mr. Merrydew, who was himself half a Welshman, and who had seen the world. But the notion slipped in and slipped out again by the merest corner; the large space of his attention was given to wondering who were these early comers to the outlandish fishing-ground of Glyndfrdwy? How many of them were there? Were they sociable or not? Would they like him? Would they ask him to dinner? If there were ladies in the party, would they ask him to stay to lunch? That was surely the least they could do for the parson of the wretched parish in which they were sojourning.

The Turk’s Head, a low, irregular building, stood at one side of a kind of green at the farther end of the village. The vicar alighted at the door, the pony at once shook out his shock mane, and trotted oft to roll on the grass. Summoning a leggy and unintelligible boy from the stableyard to bring it back, he entered the bar.

“ Good morning, Mrs. Evans. Er — , let me have a glass of your Llangollen ale.”

“ Good morning, Mr. Merrydew, sir,” said the landlady, drawing the ale and eyeing his clean-shaven face and his best coat. “ Is Miss Ethel pretty well, sir?”

“ Very well, Mrs. Evans. She was a good deal surprised and excited, you know — this is a nice-smacking brew, ma’am — yes, a good deal excited by the vision of two gentlemen passing up our lane this morning.”

“ Oh, sir; they would be the two nice gentlemen come yesterday to stay a week or two for the fishing of the salmon. ”

“ Ah, now, I thought as much. Staying here, of course?”

“ Of course, sir, Mr. Merrydew. No gentleman that knows what is good accommodation would go to The Gwydyr, where there is not a parlour, nothing but a dirty, smoky kitchen for all and everything, hens and cocks included. No, Mr. Merrydew, sir, and begging your pardon. The two gentlemen were recommended here from Oswestry, from The Ked Lion; and Mr. Davies of The Eed Lion knows me, and knows I was a good whole year

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

iri an English hotel, and knows that 1 know English nice things and English cooking.

“ That you do, Mrs. Evans, The two —

“ As the two gentlemen said last night, sir, when I took them in a dish of fresh trout for their first course. Says the one of them to the other one of them, in the familiar way gentlemen always speak, ‘ Parkin, this is jolly!' "

‘‘ Parkin? Did you say ‘ Parkin '?"

“ I did say so, sir; and a nice name and a nice gentleman to my taste, sir, though perhaps not to everybody's. Eor some people may say, ‘ Parkin here. Parkin there; Parkin is only the name of a treacly cake they make in a country they call Yorkshire, somewhere on the other side of England. ' And true enough, sir, it is from that country the gentleman comes, though he speaks beautiful English; and as 1 said to him last night when I was clearing away, ‘Sir,' says I, ‘ if parkin is a treacle cake, a very nice cake it must be.' "

“ From Yorkshire, do you say? It must be Jack."

“That it is. For I heard the other one say, ‘Jack.' And now, Mr. Merrydew, sir, perhaps the gentleman is a friend of yours. But that cannot very well be, for he is young, and begging your pardon again, sir, but you are not quite altogether young; though I will say, as I have said over and over again, sir, ‘ Mr. Merrydew,' says I,

‘ may be fifty or sixty, but a younger-dispositioned man, and a jollier, I never did know.' "

“ Ah, you fiatter me, Mrs. Evans. 1 am an old fellow, oh, yes, I am. But 1 am not tired of the world, as that snivelling Dissenter you go to hear pretends he is. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Evans; I shouldn't say that. But did you happen to hear what part of Yorkshire Mr. Parkin was from?"

“ Well, no; not exactly. But it's all down, sir, in black and white in the book.

So saying, she rose and went out. Mr. Merrydew 'Went to the window, and talked thus with himself: “If it should be, wouldn’t it be odd he should turn up here? Left Cambridge, I suppose, or he wouldn't be running about now. Clever Jack-— I should like to see him — particularly clever he was at mathematics; I never taught a cleverer lad. But times are changed. Should I seek him now, or should I let him seek me?"

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

“ Here, sir, is the name,^^ said Mrs. Evans, returning with the visitors’ book.

Mr. Merrydew put on his glasses, took it, and read on the open page, “ John E. Parkin, Kirby Hall, Sherborne, Yorkshire. ”

“ Is that the gentleman, sir?”

“It is.”

“ The other gentleman’s underneath. Perhaps, sir, you know him also. ”

Mr. Merrydew read: “‘George Cardigan, Sherborne, Yorkshire.’ No,” said he, “ I don’t know him. Thank you, Mrs. Evans (returning her the book). They’re not coming back till it’s dark, I suppose?”

“ They’ve ordered dinner, sir, for six o’clock. A steak of salmon, sir, if so be they catch any fish: you like a salmon steak, I know. You will very likely look in and have your dinner with your friend, 1 suppose, Mr. Merrydew, sir?”

“ Ye-es, Mrs. Evans, very likely.”

“ And there’s a pullet, sir, and the nicest little leg of mutton.”

“And some puddings, of course, Mrs. Evans — eh? Those little lemon puddings you make so delicious, I suppose?”

“ Well, sir, they did not mention pudding; but I’m sure two or three of my nice little lemon things, as you say, sir, can never come wrong.”

“Just so, Mrs. Evans. Six o’clock. I won’t forget. They’ve gone fishing with old Parry, haven’t they? Good morning. ”

Mr. Merrydew, with a nod and a smile which made Mrs. Evans tingle with pleasure to the very bugles of her black cap, went forth and remounted, with a muttered curse at the saddle, which Jones’s pony had not been careful to keep clean in taking his roll on the wintry grass. He would have been willing to proceed homeward at a walk; but Jones’s pony knew which way his nose was turned, and insisted on a trot. This very exhilarating exercise through the clear, cold air and sunshine encouraged thoughts of lunch. The parson was in the habit of dining at two o’clock, but to-day Providence had provided him a special dinner for six o’clock, and he would keep an appetite for it. A little warmed-up broth, his daughter had

IS A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

said, would be the dinner at home. He could not think of depriving her of any of that; and the mutton-bone devilled, if he did not have it for supper, would be excellent for tomorrow's breakfast. What now (and the thought inspired his friendship with fresh ardour) — wdiat if he should ride on to the river, find Parkin, and share his lunch?

Jones's pony readily carried him as far as the parsonage gate, but when the parson insisted he should stop there, the pony showed the white of a very bright, wicked eye, and screwed himself round and round in the mud till the big, shock-headed Tavvy came, and by main force hauled him into the yard.

“ Ethel," said Merrydew, meeting his daughter at the door, “ who do you think the gentlemen are?"

“Any I know, father? They must be, by your look." And the girl's face flushed and paled like spring sunshine.

“ Well, one of them is; I don’t suppose you know the other more than I do, and that's not at all. Do you remember when we lived at Hampstead — how many years ago will that be? Dear me, how many? Only six, isn't it? — do you remember that handsome, resolute-looking boy, with dark, curly hair, and a great turn for mathematics?"

“ You don’t mean Jack Parkin, father?"

“Yes, I do. You remember him, then? Yes, yes; he was a friend of yours."

“ Oh, yes," said she, with a fine blush; “ 1 recollect him. You will bring him here, of course. But where shall we put him? A guest must have a decent room."

“ H'm," murmured her father, scratching his cheek; “ I dare say he and his friend are pretty comfortable with Mrs. Evans. But I'm going to change my things, and then I'll go and find Parkin at his fishing. And I'll very likely go on with him to The Turk's Head and have dinner; so, my dear, 1 may be late."

Without regarding his daughter's downcast look, he passed hurriedly on to his room. In a few minutes he reappeared in his rough, week-day raiment, and again mounted and urged forward Farmer Jones's reluctant pony.

Ethel stood at the gate looking after him till he was out of sight. Then she returned to the little dark parlour, and

A REVEREND GENTLEMAN.

wrapped herself about with a sense of loneliness and disappointment.

“ He does not care/^ she said to herself, “ how 1 feel! Do I not need t) see friends in this dreadful place as much as he does?^^

But it was better to remember and to dream than to mope; so she went and sat by the window, and thought of Jack Parkin, who had come, a kind of embodied memory, but of her bright past.

Chapter II. Tristram Shandy In Church

Ethel sat up for her father till long after her usual time for going to bed, in the hope of getting news of the friend of her girlhood. But her father did not come, and at length, weary of waiting, she went to her room. She had a forlorn sense of being neglected by her father and uninteresting to everybody, and she crept into bed and cried. She cried herself to sleep, from which she was waked by her father^s stumbling on the stairs on his way to his room.

Next morning he came down late for breakfast. He hurried through his meal on the pretence that he feared being late for morning service, but really because he felt uncomfortable under his daughter's reproachful looks. He gave her little opportunity for open complaint.

“ Well, my dear,^^ said he, “ it is our Jack Parkin and a friend of his. Two capital young fellows; they were such excellent company that— er — I am afraid, my dear, 1 stayed rather late. I asked them to come to dinner with us to-day.^'

And are they coming she asked, preparing to rise.

“ No, my dear; they begged to be excused. They won^t have breakfast much before twelve, and they couldnH be ready to eat again at one. But they will come along in the afternoon, pretty early.

The hope of this diversion in the midst of her dull round of duty at once brightened the prospect of the rest of the day for Ethel. During the remainder of the meal she was oblivious of her father^s presence and her father's needs. With her attention quite withdrawn from such common interests as tea and toast, she pondered anxiously what she

A KEVEREND GENTLEMAN.

would put on. Her father noted her abstraction, and was glad of it. He finished breakfast without her aid, and then slipped away to prepare for the service of the Church.

Mr. Merrydew was not his usual selfish, cheerful self that morning. While he stood meditating for a few moments in his own room, he put his hands in his pockets, and sadly shook his head; his pockets were empty. They had been far from full the day before, but they had contained a certain amount of gold and silver; now they were quite flaccid and silent. 'His agreeable young friends of the evening before appeared in the gray morning light as enemies; they had won from him at cards. His old pupil. Jack Parkin, appeared to him now especially sinister; he had beaten him in old games and in new ones, and had carelessly swept up his money. He felt it had been very unfriendly and somehow disrespectful in the young man to have both beaten him in skill and emptied his pockets. By ail odd reflection, he then thought of his daughter, whose reproachful looks had disquieted him not a little. It was not agreeable at such a moment to believe that his ever-dutiful, ever-affectionate child should feel grudging and rebellious towards him. He perfectly understood her sense of injury; he had hindered her from seeing, so early as himself, and talking with her old friend of those distant happy school-days. Well, he admitted to himself, he should not have done that; it was not kind, and it had been productive of misfortune. It would have been better' for him if he had considered her.

Merrydew was a kind of man common enough. He had no conscience to speak of, but he had the utmost sensitiveness to all sorts of anxiety and trouble; and that often produced in him the same results as conscience and sympathy in a better man— just as by electro-plating an appearance can be produced as of solid gold. So he resolved he would be kinder to his daughter, and he would begin at once by giving her every opportunity of conversing with Jack Parkin; and who knew but that that might modify the young man’s sinister cleverness with the cards? With such small beginnings do great issues begin to work.

He met his daughter as he went out to church. He kissed her, called her, “ My dear girl,” and recommended her, with a smile, to prepare herself to meet her old playfellow.

A REVEKEND GENTLEMAN.

The parson was dozing in his chair after dinner when his daughter flew in with her eyes bright, and the wind in her hair.

“ Father, they're comiug down the lane —it must be them — in a dog-cart

“ In a dog-cart he exclaimed, and ran out without his hat, while Ethel looked on from the parlour window.

“ What, Jack?^^ asked Merrydew. “ What does the trap mean?’^

“ I want to take you and Miss Merrydew for a drive, said the young man, descending from the vehicle.

“ IFs Sunday, you know. Jack; but we must see. You’ll come in, however. Tavvy will hold the horse. Ah, here he is — a specimen— a fine specimen — of the native Briton; language old as Adam; manners and customs, ditto. T/ie name to him is to David. You remember your Latin exercises, and how you did not like them, eh? Ah, yes; and this is the little girl who used to beg olf your impositions. Her sister, as 1 told you, is earning her bread and butter as a governess.”

Jack Parkin, and his comrade, George Cardigan, were thereupon introduced at the door to a bright, smiling young lady. Jack’s manner, which until then had been somewhat reserved, became at once attentive. He listened to Merrydew’s cackle, as if it were the wittiest and wisest talk, and he responded with lively words of his own, keeping the while a referring and admiring eye on Ethel. With her fair hair bound neatly up, her shapely figure set off with a close-fitting blue serge, and a flush of excitement on her clear face, she was beautiful enough to attract lingering looks from any man, much more from an old friend and playmate who could recollect the slim, frank girl of six years before, and wonder at the shyness and the soft beauty of womanhood the years had brought. She, for her part, could hear in Jack’s virile tones the breaking treble of seventeen, and could see a smooth, downy cheek beyond the thinner, shaven one before her, and a less heavy mouth (‘‘ resolute,” she called it to herself) than that which the black moustache now shaded.

But Jack said they must not linger talking there, if they were to have a drive before the sun sank; and they could talk just as well in the trap. It was speedily settled that the young men should take Ethel with them. The

A REVEEKND GENTLEMAN.

parson excused himself, on the sufficient plea that his evening sermon was not ready.

“ Look here, you know,^’ said George Cardigan, a large, ruddy young man, ‘‘it seems to me I^m not needed.^^ He felt in prospect the discomfort of being a third person.

“ Go on, George, said his friend, “you can sit behind and balance the trap.’^

When they were gone, Mr. Merrydew, satisfied that he had for once been thoughtfully kind to his daughter, sat down in the parlour to consider his evening sermon. That sermon was his most irksome duty, yet, with a characteristic mixture of vanity and indolence, he would never adopt the shift of many of his clerical brethren, and adapt or “convey’^ a sermon from a book. He boasted tliat he had never read a sermon in his life. The only theological work in his small library was an old Bible, with Matthew Henry’s Commentary and very curious engravings, and even this he never opened except to look at the quaint pictures, and talk about them in a way to make the hair of the orthodox bibliolator stand on end. The production of a sermon was with him always a very congested and windy process; not that he lacked a certain facility of composition and cleverness of idea, but that his cleverness and facility had been learnt, and for the most part practised, on quite other subjects than “ The Whole Duty of Man,” and the “ Evidences of Christianity.” Sermon writing, then, was to him the most grinding and hardening duty of his office; and a sermon when produced was a thing to be wondered at for monstrosity and insincerity.