Who was born, but did not die? Who went through both birth and· death, but knew no corruption ?-the respective answers being Adam, Enoch, and Lot's Wife.-Communicated to Notes and Queries, No. 321.

Dr. Warner, in a letter to Selwyn, tells of a trick of the neighbouring Lincolnshire parsons to hold a convocation on Saturdaysand then for whist, backgammon, and tobacco, till they could not see, hear, or speak. Roger, the servant of one of them, asked Humphrey, the servant of another, what the deuce could be the meaning that their masters met so on Saturdays, of all days? "Why! what do'st think, fool," cried Numps, archly, "but to change sarmunts among one another?"—" Neay, then," said Roger, "I am zure as how they uses my measter very badly, for he always has the worst."

A clergyman preaching a wedding sermon, chose the following passage in the Psalms for his text: "And let there be abundance of peace while the moon endureth.”

A dull preacher in a country church sent all the congregation to sleep, except an idiot, who sat with open mouth, listening. The parson enraged, and thumping the pulpit, exclaimed, "What! all asleep but this poor idiot!"* Aye," quoth the natural, "and if I had not been a poor idiot, I should have been asleep too."

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Short sermons have been patronized in high places. Bishop Newton relates that when George II. had to receive the Holy Eucharist, his main anxiety was that the sermon on that day might be a short one, since otherwise, he was, to use his own words, "in danger of falling asleep, and catching cold." The Bishop had taken care in his sermons at Court to come within the compass of twenty minutes; but after this, especially on great festivals, he never exceeded fifteen minutes, so that the King sometimes said to the Clerk of the Closet, "a good short sermon.'

Sterne's Sermons are, in general, very short, which circumstance gave rise to the following joke at Bull's Library, at Bath :- -A footman had been sent by his lady to purchase one of Smallbridge's sermons, when, by mistake, he asked for a small religious sermon. The bookseller being puzzled how to reply to his request, a gentleman present suggested, "Give him one of Sterne's." Once he was invited to preach before the Ambassador, at Paris. The little chapel in the Faubourg St. Honoré, "pres barrière du Louvre," had echoed the dull utterances of a Dr. Trail, who wearied Wilkes sadly. But now it was filled to overflowing with the most motley congregation: there were all nations, believers and unbelievers, Humes, Diderots,

D'Holbachs, all gathered to hear famous Parson Yorick. The sermon was worthy of the occasion, and was perhaps the strangest of all his strange sermons. He selected Hezekiah ("an odd subject, you and mother will say," he wrote to Lydia)—and giving out the following text-" And he said, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in mine house have they seen there is nothing among all my treasures that I have not showed them"-startled the audience with, "And where was the harm, you'll say, in all this?" He then proceeded to explan the whole story in a pleasant discourse, admirable in style, and very practical in tone. Nothing can be more admirable than his remarks on the motive of human actions. (Fitzpatrick's Life of Sterne.)-One of Sterne's congregation was heard to say he greatly admired his sermon, but he expected every moment to see the preacher throw his wig, in playful humour, at one of his hearers.

Of the wonderful preaching of George Whitefield we have many special records. The prodigious effects produced by his words are said to have been chiefly due to the tone and manner which set them off. Whitefield spoke so loudly, and with so perfect an intonation, that Franklin, by going to the furthest point at which he was distinctly audible, and allowing two square feet to each person in a semicircle, of which the pulpit was the centre, found he could be easily heard by 30,000 people. His voice was captivating as powerful. Franklin states that it produced the same kind of pleasure with beautiful music, and that without being interested in the subject it was impossible not to be gratified with the perfection of the elocution. His vehemence was excessive. A poor man said he preached like a lion. Sometimes he stamped; sometimes wept, sometimes stopped, exhausted by emotion, and appeared as if about to expire. He usually vomited after his exertions, and sometimes brought up blood. But all this tempest of passion was managed with art so admirable that it wore the appearance of uncontrollable nature. Passages which repel the reader by their extravagance and impropriety, entranced the most fastidious auditors by the sheer force of his extraordinary delivery. Nothing which was intended to be reverent could well seem less so than his address to the attendant angel, whom he supposed to be about to ascend from his station among the multitude without being able to report that a single person had been turned from error. He stamped with his foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and cried aloud, "Stop, Gabriel! stop Gabriel! stop ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God." This

impetuous apostrophe to an imaginary being as to a real messenger between heaven and earth, which appears to the cool judgment no less ludicrous than profane, was accompanied with such animated, yet natural action, that the philosophic Hume declared it to have surpassed anything he had ever witnessed. Another highly-wrought passage of questionable taste, in which, after exclaiming, "Look yonder, what is that I see?" he depicted the agony of the Saviour in the garden, as though the scene were passing before the eyes of his congregation, was frequently repeated in his addresses, and, strange to relate, those who were familiar with it were not less affected than the first time they were present.

Whitefield's first sermon was preached to a crowded audience in the church of his native parish. He had, when a boy, been no contemptible actor, a circumstance which, in his journals, he wishes to be able to record in tears of blood, but which was, probably, of great advantage to him on his first appearance in the pulpit. He had, indeed, many natural advantages. He was something above the middle stature, well proportioned, though at that time slender, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was very fair, his features regular, his eyes small and lively, of a dark blue colour: in recovering from the measles he had contracted a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the expression of his countenance more rememberable than any degree lessened the effect of its uncommon sweetness. His voice excelled both in melody and compass, and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite of an

orator.

Whitefield made his first essay in field-preaching at Kingswood, near Bristol, to the poor colliers, February 17, 1739. The deep silence of his rude auditors was the first proof that he had impressed them; and it may well be imagined how greatly the consciousness and confidence of his own powers must have been increased, when, as he says, he saw the white gutters made by the tears which plentifully fell down their black cheeks-black as they came out of their coal-pits. "The open firmament above me," says he, "the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands and thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times all affected and drenched in tears together; to which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching evening, was almost too much for, and quite overcame me."

Wesley's eloquence was recommended by a dignified manner, an

harmonious voice, and a thorough persuasion of the truth and importance of all which he asserted, employed on the most awful truths; and deriving fresh effect from the apparent condescension of the speaker to persons little accustomed to tenderness or solicitude from those in a superior station, might well thrill the heart and give any direction to their feelings which he thought proper. "Oh!" said John Nelson, one of his most ardent converts, speaking of the first time he heard Wesley preach, "that was a blessed morning for my soul! As soon as he got upon the stand, he stroked back his hair and turned his face towards where I stood, and I thought he fixed his eyes on me. His countenance struck such an awful dread upon me before I heard him speak, that it made my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock; and when he did speak, I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me." Nelson might well think thus, for it was a peculiar characteristic of Wesley in his discourses, that in winding up his sermons—in pointing his exhortatious and driving them home he spoke as if he were addressing himself to an individual, so that everyone to whom the condition which he described was applicable, felt as if he were singled out; and the preacher's words were then like the eyes of a portrait which seem to look at every beholder. "Who," said the preacher, "Who art thou, that now seest and feelest both thine inward and outward ungodliness? Thou art the man! I want thee for my Lord, I challenge thee for a child of God by faith. The Lord hath need of thee. Thou who feelest thou are just fit for hell, art just fit to advance his glory— the glory of his free grace, justifying the ungodly and him that worketh not. O come quickly! Believe in the Lord Jesus: and thou, even thou, art reconciled to God."

This discourse must have been nearly akin to what has, in our times, been termed "terrific preaching." Mr. Leifchild, the Nonconformist, in one of his sermons, at the close of a striking description of the alarm felt by a sinner at the approach of death, exclaimed in a wild tone, "His friends rush to him-he is gone!" Then, with solemn impressiveness, the preacher added, "He is dead!" and at last, in a voice that came on the ear like low thunder, he pronounced, "He is damned!" Talfourd describes the effect as petrifying and withering: it seemed as though he had actually witnessed, while he spoke, the passage of a soul into eternity, and the sealing of its irrevocable doom."

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When Bishop Blomfield was Rector of Dunton, he had, in 1816, to preach the visitation sermon to the clergy at Aylesbury. In writing to a friend on the choice of a subject, he says, "I was

thinking of discussing the utility of learning to the clerical profession, but the mention of this might give offence to my worthy brethren in the Archdeaconry of Bucks; as it would be unpolite to hold forth in praise of a fair complexion to a party of negresses." This sort of smartness, combined with peremptory manners in transacting parochial business, made him as much feared as admired by the country folk, one of whom remarked, "I call him Mr. Snaptrace."

At Chesterford he preached on the text, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." He preached ex tempore, for the first and only time in his life, having forgotten his written sermon. Anxious to know how he had succeeded, he asked one of his congregation, on his way home, how he liked the discourse:-" Well, Mr. Blomfield," replied the man, "I liked the sermon well enough; but I can't say I agree with you; I think there be a God!"

Dr. Blomfield confessed that he had never heard but one good preacher, and that was Rowland Hill. Dr. Maltby accompanied Dr. Blomfield, and greatly admired the discourse; but when Mr. Hill floundered in attempting two pieces of Greek criticism, the two future bishops sat and winked at each other. One clergyman, at least, paid the Bishop the compliment of stealing his sermon, in which he stoutly denied that the fall of the Brunswick Theatre was a divine judgment on the particular sufferers, and applied it to the visitation of the cholera.

Andrewes, of St. James's, Piccadilly, "had the merit of preaching not his own sermons; he used to preach Paley ;" and when asked to publish his sermons, " declined, saying, he could not publish his manner with them."

When, in 1764, the Duke of York's remittances were stopped, and he was ordered home on account of the Prince's extravagance abroad having made a public clamour,-a popular preacher delivered a sermon on the following text: "The younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living."—St. Luke xv. 13.

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Irish divines have ever been noted for their eccentricities. None but a clergyman from beyond the Channel would, on being appointed to preach a condemned" sermon, have selected an old University discourse, and have promised the unfortunate criminal, who was to be hanged on the morrow, that the remainder of the homily should be given on the next Sunday. None but a son of Erin would have