The National Register. — London, England, 1809-01-15 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. 46 POPULA.R PR EACIIER. lyo t xxip. • Let me board with care. With frugal gunning, with the niggard's art ? A. few fix'd principles, in early life, Ere lad )lence impede the search, explored; Then, like old Latimer, when age impairs My judgment's eye, w ben quibbling schools attack Illy grounded hope, or subtler wits deride, Wilt I not blush to shun the vain debate : And this mine answer—' Tdns,'tw•as thus, I tbought, My mind yet vigorous, and my soul entire ; Thus will I tbiuk, a,erse to listen more To intricate discussion prone 19 stray !' SaENSTONE, REV- RICTIARD YATES, B.D. F.S.A. ALTERN4IE rßgAcarit TO THE PHIL4NTHROPIC CH/PEE. I HAVE lately seen, not without surprise, attempts to I Depreciate the character of the popular preacher. One of these adversaries of popular preachers presents himself where such species of opposition ought to have been least expected.—" A ikneficed clergyman in the county.," says the Anti-Jacobin Review, page iB, for December last, " should not pass one lialfof the year in frequenting places of fashionable resort, or ID great towns; and a good parish priest is a mach more re spectable character than any popular preacher." Without demanding for what purpose an invidious distinction Is here drawn between the popular preacher and the parish priest; why, it may be asked, cannot the same man be at once *good parish priest and a respectable popular preacher? Be cause he possesses qualities and qnalifications w hick enable hid. to command the pulpit, is he, therefore, unfitted to discharge the parochial duties of the priest ? Does not religious faith ordina rily come by bearing, and attentive hearing by acceptable smashing Is it not, indeed, to the paucity of the number of esteemed preachers, that we are to attribute the desertion of too Many of oar churches ; and, are the closet exhortations of any divine likely to be less efficacious, because his public discourses ore numerously attended, and perfectly appreciated, by his coil gregation ? There is no insuperable bar, no impassable gulf, Netween the honourable elevation of the popular preacher and sloe dignified humility of the parish priest. What is a popular preacher ?—lle is one who is disinterested- Tot distinguished, who has honestly acquired the suffrages of the people. He ~naiad no surreptiiious superiority. lie is great, , assavell as good; and, while he most conscientiously discharges tl:e unostentatious avocations of the priest, he also confers lustre i his sublime station as a preacher. He is both t!se clew of the.' 4.sseutiow and the manna of the dcsart. It is mistaking, if it be not designedly misrepresenting, the popular preacher, when he is described as actuated only by the trvt of fame; as one who conceives !iimseil pricik•ged to ts pas s arte half of the year in frequenting places of fashionable resort, 4r in great towns." He will, if he knows and. feels his duty, samtent himself with parochial popularity. He will, if provi iikaitially appointed " a beneficed clergyman in the country," srside and labour, except in cases of excusable absence from eisera, among the people committed to his charge; and, by his talents and conduct, eminently conduce to their edification, his own credit, and the honour and stability of the church of which bit is a minister. It is thus that we must conceive of the justly prspular preacher. Let the respectable writer in the Antic-Jacobin Review, how eser, heassured that he is not likely to find me really dissenting ftoin him respecting the momentous subject of clerical residence 'nerally. Far enough am I frost conceding to ooe of the cri- JAN. 15. tics in the twenty-fifth part of the Edinhargh Review, that, "at present, the torrent sets " too strongly against non.residence 'tor can I see him, whom I almost suspect to be " a bene fi ced tergyman in the country," declare he should not be surprised to find the clergy " absenting themselves from their beoefices by kind of day-rule," without myself feeling sentiments of the , roost serious indignation ! If this critic be a cleric, which I now 'ore than suspect, it seems no violation of mental charity to believe that he is one of those beneficed clergymen who " pass ode half of the year in frequenting places of fashionable resort, or in great towns." He, and such as him, do not, ofeourse, belong to iy definition of a popular preacher. Pulpiteers are not preachers. ilighly serviceable and nsefully eminent, still let us cordially air low to the popular preacher,notwithstanding thoseabuses incident to cleri,cal popularity, the aseendaocy to which he seems 'post hes ! nourably entitled. Since spiritual shepherds are not wholly exempted even from the very benefit' influence of envy, but are men of like passions with the weakest of their flocks, it may become those of them, who habitually condemn popular preach ing, to canvass their hearts ae to the causes of such disapptoba l tion; and to ascertain, with the precision of real piety ? bow far their own inablility to obtain popularity, does, thirties . knowingly on their part, incite then) todeery the merit of popes laxity in other preachers? If what we tall popularity is sot the object—it can never be the end !—of any plows preacher. is he to abase himself, or endure the persecution of others, became he happens to have honestly acquired the highest estimation among his contemporaries? Christianity does nor enjoin this kind of penance, and humanity does not exact it. Circumstances appeared to me to require some explanation of my own sentiments respecting popular preaching. Having so far explained, let me trust not unsatisfactorily, my tbonghts on that subject, I proceed with the immediate business of thia paper. It is the honour of the present preacher, the Rev. RICHARD YATES, that he owes his respectability to those causes by which the individual becomes estimable to society; that whatever eminence he has obtained, either ecclesiastical or lite rary, is the result of ability, ofesertioe, and of integrity. He is of Jesus College, in the University of Cambridge. He has been many years Chaplain to his Majesty's Royal Hospital, at Chelsea,—a painful and arduous preferment, the very active duties of which he fulfils most exemplarily. Ile is also Rector of Eve, alias Ashen; and, what brings him directly under my cognizance in this place, he is now Alternate Preacher, in eon. eert with the Rev, Isaac Jacktuan, to the Philanthropic Sod. et v. lie is unmarried. Air. Yates appears advantageously in the pulpit. His person tall, and hat. much of gentlemanly dignity ; his deportment is grave, without the remotest approximation to pompousness; and his manner, which is uniformly interesting, is often ani mated, and, sometimes, deeply affecting. His countenance is highly expressive of his intelligence and sincerity us a preacher. If he would still more disembarrass himself from the trammels of manuscript, to which, from his apparent solicitude as to correctness, he pays ton much attention, he would rise greatly in the effect of his public delivery. His discourses are plain, and, generally, practical. With• out being loaded with ornament, his language is not deficient either in elegance or eloquence. I have observed, however, that his sentences are sometimes so run out, as to become rather in• volved; and, that they abound too much in parentheses. It is on subjects of humanity nr benevolence, n he re the h ear t communicates its warm►h to the imagination, that this preaelsof most iudisputably excels. Whether the occasion be private or public, on which his abilities are called forth,—wbetber It hp to animate the social sympathies to the practice of the • tive duties, or to rouse individual kindness is aid of diffusive charity,-.-it is on these occalioas that Mr. Yates, to adopt 1 •