Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.Anonymous
History
Clergymen and Doctors: Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches.
Anonymous
Clergy; Medicine -- Anecdotes; Medicine -- Humor; Pastoral theology -- Anecdotes; Physicians
Charles II., in his humorous fashion, was wont to say about his
chaplain--that distinguished philosopher and divine, Dr. Isaac
Barrow--that he was the most unfair preacher in England, because he
exhausted every subject, and left no room for others to come after him.
This was indeed too much the doctor's characteristic; when he had once
got hold of a topic, he knew not how to leave anything unsaid upon it.
One of his best discourses, on the duty and reward of bounty to the
poor, actually occupied between three and four hours in the delivery.
Although, however, his sermons are unusually long, they so abound in
matter, that his language sometimes labours in the utterance of his
thought; hence his style is at times involved and parenthetical, though
passages of sublime and simple eloquence frequently occur. It is
related that, in preaching the Spital sermon before the Lord Mayor and
Corporation, he consumed three hours and a half. Being asked, after he
came down from the pulpit, if he was not tired, he replied, "Yes,
indeed, I begin to be weary in standing so long."
A POPULAR PREACHER.
When Father Thomas Conecte, who was afterwards burnt at Rome, preached
in the great towns of Flanders and Artois, the churches were so filled
that he used to be hoisted in the middle of the church by a cord, in
order to be heard!
"ATTERBURY'S PAD."
During the debates on the Occasional Conformity and Schism Bills, in
the House of Lords, in December 1718, these measures were very warmly
opposed by Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester; who said "he had prophesied
last winter that this bill would be attempted in the next session, and
he was very sorry to find that he had turned out a true prophet." Lord
Coningsby, who always spoke in a passion, rose immediately after
Atterbury, and remarked that "one of the right reverends had set
himself forth as a prophet; but, for his part, he did not know what
prophet to liken him to, unless to that famous prophet Balaam, who was
reproved by his own ass." The Bishop, in reply, with great calmness and
wit met the attack of Lord Coningsby, thus concluding: "Since the noble
Lord has discovered in our manners such a similitude, I am well content
to be compared to the prophet Balaam; but, my Lords, I am at a loss to
make out the other part of the parallel. I am sure that I have been
_reproved by nobody but his Lordship_." From that day forward, Lord
Coningsby was known by the sobriquet of "Atterbury's Pad."
THE FOOT-SCRAPERS REPROVED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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