( way to the cathedral. On his arrival at the building, he descended, in company with a large number of abbots and monks, into the crypt, in which the corpse of Thomas à Becket was laid. Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, then addressed the audience in this wise: "Be it known to all who are here present, that Henry, king of England, invoking for his soul's salvation God and the holy martyrs, protests before you all that he never consented to nor desired the death of the Saint, but as it is possible the murderers availed themselves of some words spoken imprudently, he implores his penance from the bishops present, and is willing to submit his naked flesh to the discipline of the rods.' their gifts of love and devotion, and offered up their petitions to the throne of grace, thus hoping by the intercession of the canonized martyr to obtain forgiveness of their sins, and to place themselves in favor with God. which Thus during the centuries passed until the reign of Henry VIII. many devout Catholics brought their presents to the shrine of Thomas à Becket, which was bedecked with jewels, and covered with costly ornaments until its value from a monetary point of view was almost beyond computation. Henry became covetous of the wealth of the monasteries, and of the graves of the so-called saints, and took steps to remove from them their treasures. Though he had himself, in his youth, made pilgrimages to the tomb of Becket, he seemed in later years to have acquired a violent hatred for him, and declaimed loudly against his resistance to kingly power and authority. He determined therefore to inflict a signal punishment upon him. Though his bones had been mouldering in the tomb for nearly four hundred years, the place of interment was opened by order of the king, and the regular court process was served upon the remains of the martyr, summoning him to appear in court to answer to the charges of rebellion, treason and contumacy This punishment, however, did against his sovereign lord, the king. not complete his humiliation. Henry Thirty days were given the dead preremained prostrated a day and a late in which to answer night before the tomb, partaking of charges in Westminster Hall. neither food nor drink. The result Becket failing, of course, to appear of this penance was a sickness from in person, a sentence The king then kneeled upon the stone of the tomb and exposed his bare back to the scourge. Each of the bishops took one of the whips with several lashes, those instruments of torture, which are used in monasteries for penance, and struck the king in turn several times on the shoulders, saying: "As Christ was scourged for our sins, so be thou for thine own." The monks to the number of about eighty, who were present, also took the whips and administered vigorous blows upon the already lacerated back of the kneeling monarch. many days. to these of condem was which the king only recovered after nation was passed by Henry's order His apparent humilia- against him, and his property tion and sorrow, however, worked ordered confiscated. To complete jects and brought him favor with sel to plead for him, and the regular favorably upon the hearts of his sub- the farce, Becket was granted coun European ecclesiastics. course of procedure was gone The murdered prelate was enrolled through, ending in the seizure of all an in the year 1173 among the martyrs, his wealth. This decision being or glorified saints of the highest nounced, Cromwell sent down his order, and from this time forth his commissioners to the shrine of the tomb was a spot to which many saint and stripped it of all its gold great and wealthy people brought and jewels. These treasures filled two immense chests, which were so heavy that they required eight men each to lift them. One jewel of remarkable beauty and value, which had been left by Louis VII. of France, Henry appropriated to his personal use and wore it upon his thumb. To further complete the degradation of the archbishop, Henry proclaimed that it had been clearly proven on trial that Becket had been killed in a riot which his own misdeeds had occasioned, and that he was no saint at all, but a rebel and a traitor; therefore all pictures and images of him should be destroyed, and his name should be removed from all books and calendars, under penalty of the displeasure of the king, and imprisonment at his command. At this day we can look without prejudice upon the life of this eminent, though in some respects, unscrupulous man. He was doubtless possessed of many virtues, but also yielded to many vices. His in ordinate ambition made him commit many sins totally unworthy of a saint. Nevertheless, considering the time in which he lived, and the circumstances by which he was sur SO rounded, his was a most remarkable H. A. C. PREACHING AND PREACHING. XII. THE SERMON-TRITENESS AND INDEFINITENESS. as there might be an aimless clipping and stitching of scraps; but nothing in the former could possibly compare in utility with what may be the proTHE size and quality of the pattern duct of the latter-the crazy quilt; must largely determine the kind of for the reason that ideas will not garment made of it. So well is this lodge in crazy-patch fashion in the fact recognized, that our sisters often fabric of the mind. I have devoted exibit a recent purchase as a new one paper exclusively to the necessity "dress" ere the cloth has been of choosing a subject, and three touched by the scissors. In a papers to principles that should guide similar sense, the sermon is largely us in such a choice. The importance made when the subject is chosen. If of a correct selection of this pattern a subject is not chosen, there will be for a sermon, must be my apology for no sermon, any more than there devoting one more paper to the eswould be a dress without a pattern. sentials of a good subject. Besides There may be a wandering talk, just being a unit, and not being too broad, A subject should be fresh. Stale and mothers, certainly deserve praise ideas knock at the mind, just as stale for filial obedience, but are they the food approaches the palate-necessity flower of Zion? They will be the not interest open the door to them. fruit, certainly, for the bloom of the In the case of food there is often the others will be blasted; but in the necessity, in the case of ideas, rarely; sight of heaven, which gave the for rather than entertain such hum- greater promise? Hitherto we have drum guests, the mind instinctively located the blame for going astray chooses the alternative of wandering entirely on one side-the side of in the fields of fantasy, or of taking those that go astray-assuming perfection in those who have the care and feeding of the flock. Will it not be a healthful thing to reverse this judgment for a season? a nap. It goes without saying, therefore, that he who preaches upon a stale subject preaches in vain. No amount of sophistry about its being good for us to hear these things often will alter the facts. Minds do not accommodate themselves to theories con When I consider that we have the whole world of truth to choose from, and have the spirit of truth moreover to guide us in this choice, I have very little patience or charity for an Elder that inflicts the threadbare sermon of bygone days upon his congregation. He does not deserve letting down easy by the presiding officer. Nothing should stand between him and the disgust he has called up to the faces of his hearers. Not until speakers are thus Imade to feel what a contemptible advantage they take of fellow beings a temporarily placed under their voices, shall we have Elders striving to prepleasure. It will stultify all vigorous pare themselves with something trived as apology or justification for It will seem being a mind-activity, and throw a flavor of goody-good insipidity over things fresh and interesting to say. It may not be unprofitable to con religious. In the minds of young sider some of the tendencies that people, it will make the exclamations, lead to the iteration and reiteration "Oh, he's too religious!" and "He's of sermons and parts of sermons too soft!" mean about the same that have long ago departed this life. This phase of the subject has already been touched incidentally thing. Young people do not have the a number ents exhibit-which on the whole is the discussion of the wide-spread charity for platitudes that their par- of times, notably in connection with to be counted a promise of better things. tendency among our Elders to Till better things come, gather thought ready-made, rather however, the blatherskite infidel and than think. Where we have speakers the mystic conjurers of occultism, of this kind, the inevitable result is a now so numerous among us, will grat- repetition that grows more and more ify their craving for the new, the fresh stale and fragmentary with the years The library of fiction and the pleasure pect anything fresh and interesting It is inconsistent perhaps to ex and the vigorous in mental activity. resort will capture that portion who from a preacher that has not acquired have not a strong intellectual bent. the habit of thinking. For he that The class that remain then, the class gets his thoughts from others must that go to meeting with their fathers at best be second-hand in giving It is related of a certain Bishop that he had half a dozen Elders of the latter kind who for a period of fifteen years spoke by turns on the Sabbath day. No sooner was the preacher for the occasion fairly started than the good old man sat back in his easy chair and snored complacently till the sermon was done. Then, aroused as by the sudden ceasing of a familiar lullaby, he would get up and repeat by way of endorsement the leading points set forth. This ability to sleep and at the same time keep track of the speaker often puzzled visitors. But to regular attendants it was not an astonishing feat. They could all do it. They need not even be present. They might on a Sunday afternoon take their naps on the more comfortable lounges at home, and yet so potent would be the speaker's in fluence that his name had but to be mentioned to bring all the points of his sermon to mind. Was not Sunday a day of rest? What more ideal way of observing it than to sleep and yet lose none of the Gospel truths set forth! So, evidently, thought the good father of the flock, for he rarely permitted a man afflicted with fresh ideas to take the stand. It made him uneasy, and seriously disturbed the Sabbath day for him. These are fossils. That they have an orifice whence sound issues, indicating an interior not yet ossified, does not change the facts-they are fossils still. Had they been no more progressive and alive in material pursuits, they would have starved to death long ago. In preaching they scrupulously follow the rule: "Take no thought,' the Lord will do it all.’’ Why not apply the same rule to plowing, or building houses, or hauling wood from the canyons? Oh, what sins of omission we shall have to account for because we fondly believe ourselves the pet children of the Almighty! In a former article on "Thinking versus Thought Gathering," I have sufficiently discussed the chances of improving this class in native thoughtpower; which power, in its relation to the subject now under consideration, means the chances of getting something fresh from such minds. They are small, indeed, and charity should deter me from alluding to these cases at all, did I not see the fossilizing process going on every day in the case of young men right in the Improvement Associations. We can afford to let the few or the many of the older preachers who are thus hide-bound speak their stereotyped sermons in their stereotyped way, but let us have no servile imitators among the young. But it is not alone those whose minds years ago closed in, like a net, on a single haul of ideas, that give us stale food on the Sabbath day. Men of scholastic attainments who are ever alert to the recent and fresh in science and art, have, on the subject of religion, permitted stationary habits of thoughts to entrench themselves. Their sermons often remind one of the primitive lamppost with its coal oil wick still aflame but darkened by the intense glare of the brush-light overhead, as it feebly dances to the rumble of electric cars! On the material achievements of this marvelous age, their minds flash and scintillate, but when called upon for religious ideas, they merely flicker with the light of bygone days. These men are never idle. Four teen hours a day they are delving for the treasures of science and art. Days and even weeks they do not feel are thrown away on the merest detail of their favorite subjects. Special preparations are made to contribute something fresh and interesting whenever they have an opportunity to appear before their fellows by address or essay. Nor are the relationships which the people bear to these investigations neglected. Mankind is studied from the standpoint of politics, sociology, and political economy. Books are read, magazines scanned, original theories made. Every new discovery is tried mentally upon society. Enthusiasm is aroused. Men become interested in men as well as in things. This I call genuine study. This is investigation which touches fresh things and arouses human interest. But how much of such study is devoted to religion? Do these men read the revelations of God daily, and ponder how the truths of the life eternal can be adapted to the varying needs of humanity? Are the people studied from a religious point of view? Do these men spend days and weeks gathering fresh and interesting material to impart to religious gatherings? Alas, their rule is also, "Take no thought." From a political, a social, an economic standpoint we must take care of ourselves. From the standpoint of religion we belong to the Lord, and the Lord will take care of His own. This is the logic of their actual practice, whatever be their conscious theories. Thus when they arise to speak the chances are ten to one that they will choose a hackneyed subject, and perhaps treat it in a hackneyed way. But generally, being accustomed to thinking, they will get beyond hackneyed lines; which means that they will begin thinking on the subject perhaps for the first time as they stand before the audience. But even such an effort dispropor tioned, loose-jointed, full of repeti tions and other crudities of the work-shop as it must inevitably be— is a genuine relief to a congregation that has resigned itself to its fears of a trite sermon. How humiliated would these same men feel, however, if they acquitted themselves no better before a literary or a scientific society! What apologies they would deem it necessary to make if they were caught so unprepared in a lecture or an address! Yet from the Sabbath meeting they go home quite undisturbed in their feelings. Perhaps this is to be explained by the supposition that the evil one is persuading them that they have done extraordinarily well! These then are some of the general tendencies that lead to triteness in the choice of subjects for sermons. I need not have enumerated them. There is really but one cause. We make no study of preaching. only resource in such a case is to imitate. The natural instinct in man as in animals is to follow a trail. In most of our preaching one Elder copies from another both as to matter and manner. This being the case, it would be as idle to look for freshness in these reiterated sermons as to expect dew drops to glisten on a dusty trail. Ere this prime requisite of a sermon can be reached we must prepare ourselves for preaching from two sides: from the side of the subject matter that we may have something interesting to speak about, and from the side of the people, that we may know how to preach, what to preach, and when to preach. The latter is a most vital consideration. It is not ten days since I heard a splendid sermon wasted because the speaker did not take into account the mental calibre of his hearers. While the general means of avoiding triteness must be the accumulation of a large and varied store of information on the one hand, and on the other, the forming of a nice |