The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-07 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD'S VISITATION.

The Bishop of Oxford commenced his triennial
'visitation of the diocese of Oxford on Wednosday.
The right rev. prelate delivered his charge to the
clergy, in the course of which ho adverted to the
progress of religion and education in the diocese
during the past three years, which, on the whole, he
dwelt upon in a tone of satisfaction. Upon the sub-
ject of preaching the right rev. prelate spoke as
follows :

Again, suffer me to ask—and I ask it of myself just as
much as of you—are our sermons what they ought to be, and
what labour and prayer might make them ? Now, I am by no
means disposed to give an indiscriminate assent to the
truth of the popular outcry against our sermons which has
of late reached the ears of all. But, yet, are they not too
often deficient precisely in those qualities which arc neces-
sary to make them really effective with our people ? Fur
is there not in general the taste of essays or disquisi-
tions about them, and their merit soundness, mode-
ration, perhaps exactness? And is not their fault—
that really unpardonable fault to the listeners of every
class, and especially to our class of listeners—that of
dulness? And is not what we want to teach our people a
style of composition the exact opposite of this, one which
is intellectual, terse, pointed, dealing in short sentences ;
using Saxon words as close to every-day life as it can be
without being profane Cr vulgar; being at once impres-
sive in its subjects, its applications, its illustrations, and
its assertions? Should it not be rough enough, so to
speak, to make it felt through their (lull skin of ignorance
and inattention? Should it not startle the careless and
positively jog the drowsy man ere his slumber is sound ?
Should it not be pathetic, for who more notices than our
common race that which reaches them through the affec-
tions? Should it not, through illustrations, convey truths
which the unlearned never receive? Should it not avoid
the easy uniformity of a man applying a nostrum, and
with the living earnestness of one who believes he
).as all-important truths to convey, declare the
curse of sin and the blessed remedy provided for
it in the sacrifices and perpetual offering of our Lord, and
in the working of God the Holy Ghost? Should you not
dwell on and proclaim Christ on His cross, Christ in His
work of love, Christ in His word, Christ in His Church,
Christ in His sacraments, and Christ crucified; Christ
risen, Christ mediating, Christ saving? Should it not
embrace all the variety and fire and love which belong not
to a mouth full of phrases, but a heart and mind and soul
full of their subject, and that subject eternal life, man lost
or man's salvation, and the love of Christ and the working
of the eternal Spirit, and the blessedness of the Church of
the redeemed ? Aud should not eli these be delivered, as
if we were in earnest, because we are in earnest? I must
leave it to you to determine for yourselves whether you can
best speak, then, for Christ from or without a manuscnpt.
I believe generally the best course is to preach once each
Sunday a written and once an unwritten sermon—by no
means one which has been committed to memory, bat one
which, through fresh utterings of the moment, is the pro-
duct of thought and study and prayer; for the written ser-
mon secures exactness and variety, and the unwritten the
habit of speaking to our people from the heart to the heart,
instead of reading a composition in their presence.
The remainder of his lordship's charge, which was
of very great length, was devoted to the considera-
tion of the manner of conducting church services as
lately settled by the ecclesiastical courts, and the
position of the clergy in reference to the Divorce
Bill of last session.