The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-21
BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR'S
Il LIFE AND WORK SKETCHED.
By II. b. KINGsBURY.

WOrk, Holy Living anu Lying. II
may interest to give few words con-
and the full name of his two admir-
able, even charming treatises. "On
the Rule and Exercise of Holy LNing, &
and ION the Rule and Exercise Of
Holy Dying" They should be read in
succession, as one supplements the
other, and they correspond in aim and
effects with each other. He was born
in 1913, three years before Shakes
peare died, and his own life ended in
1867, aged 54 which was but two
years longer than the greatest Of all
writer's, when he passed away. He
was finely educated and had brilliant
talents at the beginning of his man
hood. He showed marked eloquence
early. On account of his support OF
the King and the Cavaliers he suffered
Imprisonment several times. He was
raised to the Episcopate soon after
the Restoration. He did not serve very
long, but made great reputation. He
wrote several works, all religious ~or
controversial. Lord jeffrey, the great
Scotch critic, admired him very much,
and extravagantly referred to him as
the most Shakespearean of our great
divines" He did not have the
breadth, profundity, variety, power
and splendor of the greatest, but he
did bear some resemblance to thar
very great and splendid poet, Edmund
Spenser. Prof. Shaw held that "he
has the same pictorial fancy, the same
harmony of arrangement as Spenser.
Together with Sponsors sweetness he
has somewhat of. the @languor of
Sponsors style" He was full of inn
agination, and it even glowed with no
little of the Oriental splendor that
gave so much charm and richness to.
the writer's of the East in the past.
nh no
cessve, overrunning with beauty and
exuberance, pictorial, even quaint at
times and very scholarly. He was full
of human learning, and yet free from
cant and everything akin to hypoc-
risy." In argument, in exhortation, he
writes with the freedom and exuber-
ance of his honest, happy soul. This
man, with the genial style springinG
from his happy nature, is a most in
teresting character among polemical
writer's" His fancy rhetorical ferVor.
and feundity did not qualify him
especially for the office of a polemic.
His sermons are engrossing in their
excessive learning, imaginative dis
plays of the highest possible proSaic
form, and rhetorical dash and
fervor and wealth almost unrivalled.
His other main works are "On The
Liberty of Prophesying' first
famous plea for tolerance in religion
ever written, according to the eminent
Henry Hallam: "A Justification of Au-
thorized and Set Forms of Liturgie,'
an elaborate argument or plea for the
unrivalled, the beautiful, the noble
ritual of the Established Church of
England, and "Duetor Dubitantium.
The other works that gives him
perennial fame are those mentioned
at the beginning. / have read his
wonderful sermons, which are de-
a & m "a kaln
learned and powerful in the whole
range of Christian literature" and
for quite fifty years owned and read
his Holy Living and Dying" He
also wrote Life of Christ. or the
Great Exemplar" but l am not ae-
quainted with it. He also wrote a
highly priced devotional manual he
called Golden GRAIN The discus
sion of this great divine by the fine
critic have quoted from, Prof. Thorn
as b. Shaw, written in the forties of
the last century, is delightfully."- full
and felicitous. He does ample justice
to Bishop Taylor. From him | gather
that his father vas a barber at Cam
bridge, that he entered Gains College
in the University of Cambridge, when
but in his thirteenth year. He married
thice, and had three sons by his first
wife. His second wife was natura
daughter of Charles l., lady o.
estate. He was Bishop of Down anc
Connor, in Ireland, which was later
annexed to the See of Dromore. He
died of fever at Lisburn, Ireland, ii
August, 1867. His character was tru-
ly apostolics and his was one of those
rare and excellent natures which ap.
pear equally venerable in prosperity
and in adversely; the one not able tc
swell him with pride, nor the othe
TO humiliate the simple grandeur of his
SOUL" There is much more by him
would like to cite as also a long para
graph in the historian Hallam's i'm.
portant work. / make one quotation
and 1t is rich: THE sermons o.
Jeremy Taylor are far above any tina
had preceded him in the English
Church. An imagination ESSENTIALS
poeticaI and sparing none of the de
corations which, by critical rules, ar
deemed almost peculiar to verse;
warm tone of piety, sweetness. ana
charity, an accumulation of circum-
stantial accessories whenever he rea-
sons, or persuades, or describes; an
erudition pouring itself forth in quo
tation, till his sermons became i'm some
places almost a garland of flowers
from all other writer's, and especially
those of classical antiquity, never be-
fore so redundantly scattered from the
pulpit-Slistinguish Taylor from his
contemporaries by their degree. as
tHey 90 from most OF MS successors
by their kind One more instructive
and Illuminating passage must give.
in conclusion, from Prof. Shaw. He
says: "In our opinion, the richness.
the inexhaustible fertility, the ex-
quisite and subtle harmony, and the
fervent and yet gentle piety which dis
tinguish every page of Jeremy Taylors
writings, nay, the rare abundance of
new ideas and particularly the multi
tude OF images drawn by him from
the common objects and phenomina
of nature, would of themselves be
more than sufficient to place this great
poet-for poet he was, in the highest
sense of the term-at least on an
equality with any orator of the social
classical school of French pulpit elo-
ouence." 1 suppose he refers tc
Bossuet, Fenelcn, &c.
When / took my pencil up
had no idea of presenting
anything more than a paragraph or
so. If l had known to what length !
would extend this paper. would have
gone into the discussion of a very
gifted orator, writer and divine with
2 more amplitude and coherency. What
is given may inform some readers.
ar