Mr. Walter (M.P. for Berke) gave the Clergy of the
Church of England some advice last Tuesday for the improvement of their preaching. Speaking at a meeting of the Homiletical Society, at the Chapter House, St. Paul's Churchyard, he dwelt for some time on the necessity of learning the art of reading, on the equally obvious necessity of so studying beforehand that which is to be read that the reader shall be completely familiar with the mean- ing to be expressed, and on the importance of selecting the subject of sermons with tact and judgment. All that is very sound advice, but rather obvious. If the clergy would but read Mr. Dickens's life and letters, and observe what a world of pains he took to possess himself wholly with his subject and with its aptness for his audience, before even reading aloud his own works,—how passionately he threw himself into the task, and how no effect on his audience, however minute, escaped him,—they would perhaps, begin to understand what their task means. But few indeed are the clergymen who are as full of their spiritual theme as Charles Dickens was of Mrs. Gamp, Mr. Toots, and little Dombey.
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