[BRENTFORD PULPIT.]
FROM a little church of some celebrity, and from a remote corner in its quiet nave, come these rude bygone impressions, transcribed faithfully, save in whatsoever is mainly personal and local. No word is here of Brentford choir or Brentford pews; but a record, strict and spare, of the now vanished figures who expounded texts to the village folk. For the most part, they were but birds of passage, seldom remaining long enough to lose the gloss of novelty, or to escape the awakened scrutiny of young eyes. Two only of these preachers were widely known; but each of them, on the other hand, possessed a striking individuality. The "King of Brentford," as readers of a certain swinging translation of Béranger will remember, was something of an anomaly; and Brentford chaplains, at least in their public career, were indubitably of his court.
First, shall we not recall the Reverend L., with his soft majesty of speech, having in it an ever-recurring sforzando, peculiarly impressive and overpowering,—L., with his benignity of soul and his keen, evanescent smile, intellect flashing through it, like lightning over a sombre waste of waters? He required the closest attention of any speaker to whom we have listened. The following must be incessant, the allegiance unabated, lest the Emersonian and gossamer-like sequence of ideas, the swift beauty of phrase and figure, elude you, never to reappear the same. His playfulness in the pulpit was unique. Subdued it was, yet how potent! Humor has many a fit abiding-place in this world, of which the pulpit seems last to be chosen. But L.'s discretion was royally sure. His salutary wit, felicitous in placing itself, and infrequent enough to rouse attention always newly, went on angelic errands with its Puck's wings. An apostolic purpose consecrated his airy thrusts at evil. The hand of steel was present ever under his caressing touches.
We surmise that if there was anything connected with his vocation which L. abhorred, it was the necessity of periodical charity-sermons. When induced to appear as pleader on these occasions, his conduct was amusingly characteristic. He played hide-and-seek with his petition; he put it off, eyed it curiously, fenced with it, and kept it at arm's length; then, beginning to advocate its claims, he held it up for your inspection reluctantly, as if it were no child of his, and his right were rather to befriend it in private than thrust it into public notice. He would say a few glowing words, making his fortitude under such an emergency as truly a hint to your benevolence as his spoken plea. He would sum up for you the misery of the poor, the lamentable differences in comfort, the evils that spring from unalleviated poverty, the precept of brotherly love, the imperative command of giving and sharing and making glad; all this with an air of indifference over facts in array, and of needless appealing to such hearts and such purses as yours were sure to be! L. could have written noble charity-sermons for another's delivery, but to ask in his own person was wellnigh impossible. He seemed to rebel, not against the actual discomfort of his position, but rather against the advisability of reminding you of a duty you never could have forgotten. In his chivalrous dealing he smote your sensibilities more surely than many a professional beggar with seven small children; and the shekels leaped in a fountain from you and from everybody else, until the alms-box overflowed. L.'s utility in this strange office was quite wonderful, even to himself. His very exordium, "Dear old friends!" was, though he knew it not, irresistible. On the morrow, Workhouse Tommy with a new cap, or barefooted Molly in the exhilaration of a sturdy dinner, must have blessed the shy and half-resentful claim which a great heart put forth as theirs.
L.'s preaching, for the most part, whether in its bright or solemn phases, was best understood by those who best knew the man. Like Walter Savage Landor, in whom he delighted, and whom he strongly resembled, he required appreciators as well as hearers. He loved a thoughtful audience, and to such spoke with all the outpouring of his mightier self. There were minds of a certain cast, wholly foreign to his sympathies, which were slow to be persuaded into a belief of his accessibility. Yet a meeker and kinder heart than L.'s never beat. Half the country knew him as a fine theologian, and scarce fifty for the "sweet sociable spirit" that he was. A touch of the intolerance of genius he had indeed, without which the symmetry of his character would have been impaired.