sermon

To preach, standing in the pulpit before the people, was always a hardship for him and from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be preached on Sunday.

The bill of fare is as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention and respect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, although they are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that "When they depart from earth they soar to heaven." Perhaps a four-line sermon in a Saturday paper is the sufficient German equivalent of the eight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in their Monday morning papers.

Grant is most kind and obliging to me, and though he is really a gentleman, and, I dare say, a good scholar and clever, and often preaches good sermons, and is very respectable, I see him to be an indolent, selfish bon vivant, who must have his palate consulted in everything; who will not stir a finger for the convenience of any one; and who, moreover, if the cook makes a blunder, is out of humour with his excellent wife.

Simple sermons, that went straight to the souls of those who listened, for the father's heart was in the minister's religion, and the frequent falter in the voice gave a double eloquence to the words he spoke or read.

"I don't want to hear such sermons; I never wish to hear Mr.

Irwine didn't go into those things--he preached short moral sermons, and that was all.

"I can't forget it--and I can't forget what the bad place is like either, ever since Peter preached that sermon on it."

Slowly the minister took from his pocket the notes he had made for his next Sunday's sermon. Frowningly he looked at them.

Nevertheless -- to hold nothing back from the reader -- it was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a New England Clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career.

ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to ring, and pres- ently the people began to gather for the morning sermon. The Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and occupied pews with their par- ents, so as to be under supervision.

It was truly refreshing to hear such a sermon, after being so long accustomed to the dry, prosy discourses of the former curate, and the still less edifying harangues of the rector.

Miles Mirabel preached his farewell sermon, in our temporary chapel upstairs.'