SERMONS TO BOYS.
[TO THE ED/TOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
STR,—I suppose, if one wished to give a foreigner some idea of the best style of English preaching—reverent, serious, sincere, dealing wisely and sympathetically with the realities o!' life, while at the same time lifting up the hearers to a higher sphere of thought and feeling—one could not do better than advise him to study the sermons of the old school of head- masters—an Arnold, a Vaughan, a Thring, a Temple. I am afraid, from a letter written by a public-school master which has lately come into my hands, that things have changed a good deal for the worse in the last few years. Owing, perhaps, to the diminution in the number of clerical masters, outside preachers who have no intimate knowledge of school life are invited to occupy the pulpit, and are tempted to win a hearing
for themselves by a plentiful use of school slang. The results arc thus described in the letter to which I refer :—
" We had another of our ` modern' preachers last Sunday, the matter really good, but spoilt by the now inevitable slang and vulgarity of expression. If only they could be got to realise the harm they do to the more thoughtful of their audience ! But it never occurs to them that there can be any boys who read, or think, or have any ideas except of games."
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