The Press.
London, England, 1856-02-02 00:00:00

114

sprawling authors is certainly to be traced
to Mr. Carlyle.
To conclude, the cant of Benthamism, with
its jargun of a strange nomenclature, has past
away. In the same way the cant of
Carlylism, and the spiritualised gibberish of
" Sartor Itesartus ' is destined to die out.
Wilkes boasted that he was no Wilkesite, and
we aro sure that Mr Carlyle's " inwardness "
is not that of a C.u•lyliau.

Sermons for the Times. By Charles Kingsley.

London: J. W. Parker and Son.
WE admire Mr. Kingsley's .ability, and we
respect his honesty. The union of these iu a
clergyman must always produce great results ;.
yet it is disheartening to reflect how many
men of not less earnestness or genius have
created a powerful sensation for a time, and..
then either totally disappeared . from pub-.
lie notice, or dwindled into the eccentric
leaders of some insignificant sect. Far, in-
deed, are we from predicating any such result
as likely to be the end of the path which Mr.
Kingsley has chosen ; yet, as Mr. Kingsley -is
himself a friend to plain speaking, and as he
must know very well that it is the critic's
duty rather to indicate defects than to waste his
eulogies upon what all acknowledge to be merits,
he will, we trust, forgive us if, in the few brief
remarks we have to offer, we shall seem to
dwell too exclusively on his weaker points.
There are many different ways of influencing
our own generation, but for our present pur-
pose we need only notice two. The one is
the assertion of common truths in an uncom-
mon manner—the other the assertion of
uncommon truths in a common manner.
Writers and teachers are frequently not con-
scious to themselves of doing either the one
or the other, but the thoughtful reader or
listener seldom fails to detect the difference ;
and when we find a moralist or divine dwelling
with severity on the external characteristics of
his own age, and laying groat stress on the
manners, language, and modes of thought pre-
valent in other times, we shall seldom be far
wrong in concluding that such a man, know-
ing instinctively that the substance of what he
has to say will hardly arrest attention, has
fallen back on these artificial modes of exciting
our curiosity. The worst of this is, that the
good he dues is likely to die with him : the
world will not relish the same viands without
seasoning which they have been accustomed
to with it; and other pious or learned men,
finding a difficulty in following in his steps,
will be apt to think that his popularity de-
pended on a knack.
We cannot but fear that Mr. Kingsley is
treading on the boundary line which separates
such writers from men of genuine and
solid genius. He seeks in a return to anti-
quated modes of speech for that vigour which
thought alone can confer. He endeavours to
assume a simplicity which too often becomes
mere familiarity, and about the effectiveness
of which we hold him to be greatly in error.
Men do not talk in bible language now, for the
very simple reason that the Bible is nu longer
a novelty. Men to whom it had only just
been revealed, after its long eclipse by me-
difeval Popery, naturally quoted it on every
occasion, as we might now quote from a re-
covered decade of Livy ; but we do not nee
why they were a bit more in earnest because
they were always likening their civil and eccle-
siastical rulers to the kings and prophets of
Judea. Again, Mr. Kingsley always addresses
his congregation as " my friends," instead of
" my brethren," in the good old fashion of our
Church. What can he hope from this? That
he will bring himself nearer to the hearts of
his audience? We deny it in Coto. It is not
one whit more hearty or more striking than
the regular formula. It is innovation for
innovations sake, which all classes dislike,
and 'none more than the poorest. It is cer-
tainly a slight matter for censure, but it is one
of the symptoms that show us more clearly
than faults, ill themselves worse, the necessity
under which Mr. Kingsley finds himself of
seeming unlike other people.

In his efforts to re,:atl our attention to the
'-ich to
;, Mr.

Bible narrative as the. stanchtrd by whit
measure the character of hu►nan events,