At the Winchester Diocesan Conference on -Wednesday, Lord Carnarvou, in
proposing a resolution that it was desirable to promote by every means at our disposal the efficiency of preach- ing in the Established Church, commented on the history of the Anglican pulpit, and expressed his belief that it had never ceased to exert a great social influence, though its two greatest periods had been the Wesleyan period,—hardly, we think, to be fairly claimed for the Church ,—and the period connected with the names of Newman, Keble, and Pusey. Lord Carnarvott pointed out that without very special gifts, preaching is apt to lose all power and meaning ; and he advocated the training of a special class of Preachers—lay as well as clerical—for this one function. Nor did he see why the clergy should not oftener avowedly road the best sermons of the greatest preachers. Those are wise re- commendations, though we aro not sure that a special study of elocution does not usually produce a great deal larger crop of affectations than of valuable hints. Still, it would be some- thing if a clergyman who knew that he had nothing of any weight to say, would but hold his tongue, or read. And it would be much, if the laity could really be enlisted in the work of appealing to the conscience of a world which, for the most part, they know so much better than the clergy.
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