The gentleman who wept over the scenes of
his early days on the wrong doorstep was not more grievously
disappointed. However, he and we could both console ourselves with the
reflection that the emotion was admirable, and wanted only the right
place to make it the most appropriate in the world. The genuine
country churchyard, however, was that at Stoke Pogis, which we should
have seen had not the fates forbidden our going to Labouchere Park.
LETTER XXIII.
DEAR SISTER: -
The evening after our return from Windsor was spent with our kind
friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney. Mr. Gurney is rector of Mary-le-Bone
parish, one of the largest districts in London; and he is, I have been
told, one of the court chaplains; a man of the most cultivated and
agreeable manners, earnestly and devoutly engaged in the business of
his calling. As one of the working men of the church establishment, I
felt a strong interest in his views and opinions, and he seemed to
take no less interest in mine, as coming from a country where there is
and can be no church establishment. He asked many questions about
America; the general style of our preaching; the character of our
theology; our modes of religious action; our revivals of religion; our
theories of sudden and instantaneous conversion, as distinguished from
the gradual conversion of education; our temperance societies, and the
stand taken by our clergy in behalf of temperance.
He wished to know how the English style of preaching appeared to me in
comparison with that of America. I told him one principal difference
that struck me was, that the English preaching did not recognize the
existence of any element of inquiry or doubt in the popular mind; that
it treated certain truths as axioms, which only needed to be stated to
be believed; whereas in American sermons there is always more or less
time employed in explaining, proving, and answering objections to, the
truths enforced. I quoted Baptist Noel's sermon in illustration of
what I meant.
I asked him to what extent the element of scepticism, with regard to
religious truth, had pervaded the mind of England? adding that I had
inferred its existence there from such novels as those of Kingsley. He
thought that there was much of this element, particularly in the
working classes; that they were coming to regard the clergy with
suspicion, and to be less under their influence than in former times;
and said it was a matter of much solicitude to know how to reach them.
I told him that I had heard an American clergyman, who had travelled
in England, say, that dissenters were treated much as free negroes
were in America, and added that my experience must have been very
exceptional, or the remark much overstated, as I had met dissenting
clergymen in all circles of society.
