SCRAPING DOWN A SERMON.
[TO THE EDITOR OE THE " SPECTATOR." I
SIR,—In the Spectator of February 22nd you cite from the "Cumberland Letters" a story of an unpopular preacher being "scraped down " by noisy undergraduates when he attempted to preach the University sermon. That breach of discipline was more common here in the eighteenth century than the more orderly manners of the present day might lead us to believe. In the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. lxxxiv. 2, 601) a memoir is given of Dr. James Scott, of Trinity, whose (then unusual) power of preaching without notes made his University sermons exceptionally impressive. He once offended the undergraduates by a sermon against gambling—"The spirit of gaming is like the Upas tree: it is approached by nothing but what is infamous and criminal and condemned." So they interrupted the discourse by scraping with their feet, as in Cumberland's story. Hence, when Scott next appeared in that pulpit" he chose for his texts 'Seep thy foot when thou goest to the House of God and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools' (Eccl. v. 1). He no sooner pronounced the words than the galleries were in an uproar. But the interposition of the University officers producing silence, he then delivered a discourse so impressive as to extort universal approbation."—I am, Sir, &c., COURTNEY KENNY.
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