Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in PrestonAtticus
History
Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in Preston
Atticus
Preston (Lancashire, England) -- Church history
The Rev. Mr. Tindall comes up in a more polished, energetic, and
fashionable garb. He is eloquent, argumentative, polemical. His
literary capacity is good, and it has been well trained. He has read
much and studied keenly. His sermons are well thought out; he has
copious notes of them; and when he enters the pulpit they are made
complete for action--are fully equipped in their Sunday clothes and
ready for duty. His delivery is good; but physical weakness deprives
it of potency; and his contempt of the clock before him renders
people now and then uneasy. His manner is refined; his matter is
select; but there is something in both at times which you don't
altogether believe in digesting. A rather haughty, dictatorial ring
is sometimes noticed in them. A large notion of the importance of
the preacher occasionally peeps up. He has a perfect right to
venerate Mr. Tindall, and if he is a little fashionable, what of
that?--isn't it fashionable to be fashionable? Only this may be
carried a little too far, even in men for whom pulpits are made and
circuits formed, and it is not always safe to let organ "15" in
phrenological charts get the upper hand. After all we admire Mr.
Tindall's erudition and eloquence. He is free from vulgarity, and in
general style miles ahead of many preachers in the same body, whose
great mission is to maltreat pulpits and turn religion into a
rhapsody of words.
The well-meaning and plodding Mr. Smith succeeds. He is a hard
worker; but there does not appear to be over much in him at present.
More thinking, and a greater experience of life, may cause him to
germinate agreeably in a few years. His style is stereotyped and
copied; there is a lack of original force in him; when he talks you
know what's coming next--you can tell five minutes off what he is
going to say, and that rather spoils the sensation of newness and
surprise which one likes to experience when parsons are either
pleasing or terrifying sinners. But Mr. Swift does his best, and,
according to Ebenezer Elliot, he does well who does that. It would
be wrong to deal harshly with a new beginner, and therefore we have
decided to check our criticism--to be brief--with Mr. Swift and
express a hope that in time he will be president of the Conference.
No. V.
FISHERGATE BAPTIST CHAPEL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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