READING.
The day was warm. Probably the mercury stood at about 75 degrees. After a walk over the town we attended divine service. At 2 p. m. we were back in the station, waiting for the train. Having dined we had some time on our hands, and so we took out our notebook and wrote about what follows.
The sermon was extempore, though well thought out, and ingenious and unlooked-for in thought and expression. The elements of good preaching were there, but the theologic atmosphere was bad. There was too much East and too little West in it. The subject was the spies that went up to investigate the Canaan question. Most of the English preachers delight to talk about Moses, Caleb, and Jeremiah, forgetting, or not seeming to know, of men who have lived three thousand years later. It's easy to tell about what was, rather than to observe and investigate, and know what really is, and is surely to be. The best thing about this sermon was that the preacher discovered an inclination to look with leniency on opposing thinkers in the domain of theology, and to treat them as Christians. He didn't like the new ideas, but advised his hearers to accept the situation and trust that God would in time tire out the investigators, and so things would relapse into their ancient condition. He was oblivious that his Congregationalism was entirely indebted for its existence to the fact that, years ago, some people did the very thing he condemned, investigate theological questions and ascertain whether their "thus saith the Lord" was real or fancied,—that is to say, discover whether the interpretations of the Word were according to fact and true philosophy, or only traditional. The beam in his eyes disabled him from taking a mote from the eyes of others. He declared that the Israelites had the pillar of fire and the cloud, and so have we the Bible; but the propriety of investigating the true meaning of either was not to be tolerated.
At one o'clock we are just out of church. Have heard an old sermon in Old England,—a good one, however, of the kind. We go on our way rejoicing for many things, but not sorry that the long service is over, though sorry that in the light of the nineteenth-century thought, men of education, watchmen on the walls of Zion, do not better discern the signs of the times. We are, however, inclined to say with Ovid,—
Our bane and physic the same earth bestows,
And near the noisome nettle blooms the rose.
Our seat taken in the railway carriage, we are on our way to great London. We think over our roundabout way to the place, which most Americans reach the first or second day from Liverpool. A can't wait condition takes possession of them, and they hurry on. We landed at Queenstown twenty days ago. How long a time to get to London,—twice as long as a passage across the Atlantic Ocean! Yet what a vast experience in the three weeks! What sights we have seen, what thoughts conceived! What seeds of thought have been sown to bear fruit in the future! Into how many new channels has thought been turned! We ride in meditation thus over miles of this good country.