It would raise complaints and objections,
doubtless; but for that you must be prepared if you would do
anything right."
Wingfold was silent, thoughtful, saying to himself--"How straight an
honest bow can shoot!--But this involves something awful. To stand
up in that pulpit and speak about myself! I who, even if I had any
opinions, could never see reason for presenting them to other
people! It's my office, is it--not me? Then I wish my Office would
write his own sermons. He can read the prayers well enough!"
All his life, a little heave of pent-up humour would now and then
shake his burden into a more comfortable position upon his bending
shoulders. He gave a forlorn laugh.
"But," resumed the small man, "have you never preached a sermon of
your own thinking--I don't mean of your own making--one that came
out of the commentaries, which are, I am told, the mines whither
some of our most noted preachers go to dig for their first
inspirations--but one that came out of your own heart--your delight
in something you had found out, or something you felt much?"
"No," answered Wingfold; "I have nothing, never had anything worth
giving to another; and it would seem to me very unreasonable to
subject a helpless congregation to the blundering attempts of such a
fellow to put into the forms of reasonable speech things he really
knows nothing about.
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