The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-24 00:00:00

DR. HESSEY ON "CONVERSATION."

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The third sermon of the series on "The Use and
Abuse of the World," now in coulees of delivery at St.
James's Church, Picadilly, London, was preached
on Sunday afternoon by the Rev. Dr. J. A. Hessey,
Prebendary of St. Paul's and Preacher at Gray's Inn
the special theme of the discourse being "Conversa-
tion.'
Prayers having been read, Dr. Hessey gave out as
his text part of the 2nd verse of the 3rd chapter of the
Epistle of St. James—" If any man offend not in word,
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the
whole body." In commencing he observed that the
subject was a difficult and a delicate one; difficult,
because the word " conversation " in the sense in
which he was to treat it, and in which it is gene-
rally employed, was nowhere to be found in their
English version of Scripture; delicate, because
of the fugitive and impalpable character both of
the faults incident to it which he would endeavour
to correct and of the elements which he would allow
or recommend. After remarking that the word
" conversation " as employed in Scripture had refer-
ence to men's conduct, and that what he had to deal
with was speech, and quoting a passage from Bishop
Butler to show that colloquial conversation came, like
sports and pastimes, under the category of matters
which require regulations, he said they need not be
afraid that he was inclined to discourage all topics of
colloquial conversation but serious ones, in fact to limit
it to the concerns of the Bible and the soul, adding
that that would be in the spirit of Puritanism, which
decried as absolutely sinful every art and accomplish-
ment and every pastime and recreation. As little he
said, would he recommend to them the practice,
well intended, indeed, but he thought greatly mis-
taken, of giving every subject a directly religious
turn. The Highland factor of Walter Scott not
unfairly complained of the Cameronian cow-feeder
who, when he would talk to him about farm-
ing matters, answered him out of the Bible. Con-
versation, he went on to say, might'be so carried on
as that, as Bishop Butler stated it, "persons enter-
tain themselves and others at the expense of their
wisdom and virtue, and to the injury of themselves and
their neighbours." Was that assumption true or was
it not? Holy Scripture asserted in many places be-
sides that from which his text was taken said that it
was. In fact the Psalmist, the Proverbial writer, the
Patriarch, the Prophet, and the Apostle were unani-
mous upon the point. A great deal of what professed
to he conversation in the present day was certainly not
entertaining from the wisdom or virtue displayed in it,
or, indeed, entertaining at all, except to those who en-
joyed the morbid anatomy of man's tendencies. Even
enjoyment soon palled upon the taste of every one but
the absolute cynic. One was loth to call persons to
account for mere words; but words, easily, care-
lessly uttered as they were, were signs of things and
ideas, and the choice made of them was an indica-
tion of character. An ancient critic more than 2,000
years ago found just fault with the exagge-
rated expressions of young persons. A French writer
as justly satirized the man who had no measure in
dealing with his topics, and laughed at the "superla-
tives which pyramidalize" his conversation, and the
gigantesque proportions with which he invested the
most insignificant things. These and all other critics
of language would have been astonished at a great and
growing evil in the talk of the present day. Epithets
of a ridiculously ponderous description, such as " awful "
and the like, were applied most inappropriately to all
sorts of things and circumstances, no. matter how dif-
ferent. Phrases were borrowed unhesitatingly from the
stable, the hunting-field, the billiard-room, and even
from eipsy dialect. These facts suggeated ifilt those
who thus expressed themselves had a singularly con--
fined selection of qualifying terms _at then; disposal,
and that their quest of ratitaphers,„lia:d Ueen carried on
in the least graceft2}fiéla of illustration. The vo9lbu-
larY of .14 .peat, deep in the country, was said to

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