The Encouragement of Ordination. A sermon preached at the Ordi-
nation of the Bishop of London on Trinity Sunday, 1864. By the Dean of Westminster. (John H. and James Parker.)—An admir- able address, because it refutes the common error that young men because they are priests are capable of teaching all mankind on all possible subjects. A man of twenty-four is not able to teach his parish how the parish business ought to be conducted, and it is after all in the secular part of their duties that young clergymen generally give 'themselves the most airs. Even on purely theological subjects they are not ass class very well informed, and the Dean never gave better advice than when he warns them to avoid pronouncing dogmatically on subjects they have never studied and on books they have never read. No doubt the temptation is great, for the laity are very apt to think that a clergyman is bound to be a master of theology, and a clergyman admitting igno- rance would perhaps lose consequence in the eyes of old women of both sexes. But every clergyman can and ought to define to himself the meaning of the great doctrines of the Church, to be able to translate, as it were, the technical language of the theologians of the Reformation into modern speech, their thought into modern thought. The sermon is distinguished by perhaps even more than an ordinary share of that sincere and earnest charity which is the charm of all Dr. Stanley's writings.
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