But what could it matter
to any man, so long as a good sermon was preached, where it came
from? He did not occupy the pulpit in virtue of his personality, but
of his office, and it was not a place for the display of
originality, but for dispensing the bread of life.--From the stores
of other people?--Yes, certainly--if other people's bread was
better, and no one the worse for his taking it. "For me, I have
none," he said to himself. Why then should that letter have made him
uncomfortable? What had he to be ashamed of? Why should he object to
being found out? What did he want to conceal? Did not everybody know
that very few clergymen really made their own sermons? Was it not
absurd, this mute agreement that, although all men knew to the
contrary, it must appear to be taken for granted that a man's
sermons were of his own mental production? Still more absurd as well
as cruel was the way in which they sacrificed to the known falsehood
by the contempt they poured upon any fellow the moment they were
able to say of productions which never could have been his, that
they were by this man or that man, or bought at this shop or that
shop in Great Queen Street or Booksellers' Row.
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