I always noticed, moreover,
that a considerable proportion of the audience were soldiers, who came
hither with a day's leave from Woolwich,--hardy veterans in aspect, some
of whom wore as many as four or five medals, Crimean or East-Indian,
on the breasts of their scarlet coats. The miscellaneous congregation
listen with every appearance of heart-felt interest; and, for my own
part, I must frankly acknowledge that I never found it possible to give
five minutes' attention to any other English preaching: so cold and
commonplace are the homilies that pass for such, under the aged roofs of
churches. And as for cathedrals, the sermon is an exceedingly diminutive
and unimportant part of the religious services,--if, indeed, it be
considered a part,--among the pompous ceremonies, the intonations,
and the resounding and lofty-voiced strains of the choristers. The
magnificence of the setting quite dazzles out what we Puritans look
upon as the jewel of the whole affair; for I presume that it was our
forefathers, the Dissenters in England and America, who gave the sermon
its present prominence in the Sabbath exercises.
The Methodists are probably the first and only Englishmen who have
worshipped in the open air since the ancient Britons listened to the
preaching of the Druids; and it reminded me of that old priesthood, to
see certain memorials of their dusky epoch--not religious, however, but
warlike--in the neighborhood of the spot where the Methodist was holding
forth.
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