ENGLISH AND SCOTS SERMONS.
[To THE EDITOR or TAE " SPECTATOR.")
SI2,—In the Spectator of April 19th your reviewer of The Religion of the Beatitudes draws a strong contrast between English and Scots preachers and hearers of sermons, on which, in the interests of truth and justice, I hope you will allow me a brief comment He tells us that the English pulpit has been brought into contempt by the English churchgoer, who desires "to go home feeling comfortable" rather than instructed. The result is that "intelligent [English] people refuse ' to hear sermons.' " On the other hand, " in Scotland the pulpit is still a power. The reason is that it is living and actual"; even "a Scots village congregation would resent the preaching that satisfies a fashionable London church." One has often heard these contrasts before, but I venture to doubt their reality. May they not be generalizations from a too narrow experience? No doubt English preaching is often poor; but so is Scots. Which is the poorer who shall say? I am an Englishman over seventy years old, and the second half of my life has been spent as a parish minister in Scotland. I ought to know what preaching is like on both sides of the Tweed. Honestly I could not draw, the sharp and invidious distinctions drawn by your reviewer. During the last six months I have heard in English parish churches sermons of a very high order preached to large, intelligent congregations; and if I may judge from them, the average parish minister in England is doing splendid work in no way behind that of his brethren in the North.—I am, Sir, Ac., ARTHUR JENZINSON.
bindle's, New Headington, Oxford.
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