Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friendsHood, Edwin Paxton
Religion
Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends
Hood, Edwin Paxton
Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748
“Young Tramarinus was just returned from his travels abroad,
when he invited his uncle to his lodgings on a Saturday noon.
His uncle was a substantial trader in the City, a man of
sincere goodness, and of no contemptible understanding; Crato
was his name. The nephew first entertained him with learned
talk of his travels. The conversation happening to fall upon
anatomy, and speaking of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and
the metacarpus, the joining of the bones by many hard names,
and the periosteum which covered them, together with other
Greek words, which Crato had never heard of. Then he showed
him a few curiosities he had collected; but anatomy being
the subject of their chief discourse, he dwelt much upon the
skeletons of a hare and a partridge. ‘Observe, sir,’ said he,
‘how firm the joints! how nicely the parts are fitted to each
other! how proper this limb for flight, and that for running;
and how wonderful the whole composition!’ Crato took due
notice of the most considerable parts of those animals, and
observed the chief remarks his nephew made; but being detained
there two hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he
said, ‘I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin
to be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing but
bones.’ Then he carried home his nephew to dinner with him, and
dismissed the jest.
“The next morning his kinsman Tramarinus desired him to hear
a sermon at such a church, ‘For I am informed,’ said he, ‘the
preacher will be my old schoolmaster.’ It was Agrotes, a
country minister, who was to fulfil the service of the day;
an honest, a pious, and a useful man, who fed his own people
weekly with Divine food, composed his sermons with a mixture
of the instructive and the pathetic, and delivered them with
no improper elocution. Where any difficulty appeared in the
text or the subject, he usually explained it in a very natural
and easy manner, to the understanding of all his parishioners.
He paraphrased on the most affecting parts largely, that he
might strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the
happy means of the salvation of many; but he thought thus with
himself, ‘When I preach at London I have hearers of a wiser
rank, I must feed them with learning and substantial sense,
and must have my discourse set thick with distinct sentences
and new matter.’ He contrived, therefore, to abridge his
composures, and to throw four of his country sermons together
to make up one for the City, and yet he could not forbear to
add a little Greek in the beginning. He told the auditors how
the text was to be explained; he set forth the analysis of the
words in order, showed the _hoti_ and the _dioti_—that is, that
it was so, and why it was so—with much learned criticism—all
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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