Lamps of the Temple; Shadows From the Lights of the Modern Pulpit  (English, Paperback, Edwin Paxton Hood)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: points remind you of the disciple of Bossukt ; and, like that famous man, he too, in an inferior degree, may be styled philosopher, orator, and poet; we will not say that he possesses either the regal grandeur, the splendid variegation of discourse, or the delicacy of tender sentiment and enunciation, possessed .by the eminent French Bishop ; but he does yet possess something of all these. Like Bossuet he is fitted for the pomp of great occasions; he can perform his part well before illustrious personages. We could conceive that, with a -French audience, he, too, could pronounce, as over the remains of the beloved Maria Theresa, the French preacher pronounced, " 0 nuit desastreuse ! Est Madame se meurt. Madame est morte /" while a whole Court should dissolve in tears around him. We have heard some of these fine touches in our English Bossuet, when preaching before the Duke of Wellington; especially do we remember one, on the disposition to servitude regarded as a test of greatness—" And whosoever is greatest among you, let him be your servant." We well remember how, as the text thrilled forth, every eye turned to the Duke, as if watching the impression of such a commandment: and still more impressive upon our memory, is the sermon preached, before the Duke also, in the - Chapel near the ruins of the Tower of London, on the occasion of the fire; standing, where all the havoc and fury of the flames, and the smoul- dering ashes, could be seen,—amidst a building so consecrated by recollections of the most hoary and ancestoral—the invulnerable fortress of stone; the Preacher read forth his text:—" Seeing, then, that all these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be f" It was felt that there was a terrible and most appealing propriety between the scenery, and ...