30 APRIL 1881, Page 3

The sermons preached on the death of Lord Beaconsfield, so

far as they have been repelled in the papers, have not often been apposite ; but Canon Liddon's at St. Paul's was a remark- able exception, and so also was Mr. Baldwin Brown's, at Brixton. Canon Farrar, at Westminster Abbey, dwelt eloquently arid. justly on the courage with which Lord, Beaconsfield hail upheld the cause of the Jews ; but when he enlarged on " the dignity of his reticence under injuries," he was hardly careful for the accuracy of history ; and when he spoke of " the strength of will by which Lord. Beaconsfield. had, overcome all obstacles to achieving the cud. he had in view," he forgot how unsatis- factorily that strength of will had frequently shown itself in political life. The Rector of Saudring,ham was even more enthusiastic. Lives such as Lord Beaconsfield's, he said, are the talents which God entrusts to nations ; shall we be found willing to put these gifts out to usury, and to turn the five talents into five talents more P Further, such great men as these are the " mountain summits," whence come " the moral and. intellectual breezes which revive and quicken the drooping energies of the dwellers below, and. sweep the deadly miasmas from life's lower levels," The Rector of Sandringham's experi- ence of such miasmas must be quite unique, if the moral breezes coming down upon us from the mountain ranges stretching from Vivian Grey to Eudymion have swept them all away.