The canon in question has just been made a bishop after all; but only a colonial bishop at the antipodes. If our English readers recognise him, I offer them the primeur of the anecdote.
Our good Vicar had just copied out his morning sermon; but as he wanted, in the evening, to thunder from the pulpit against romanism, ritualism, methodism, socinianism, secularism, materialism, and all those evils in ism, which, added to his rheumatism, rendered his existence almost intolerable, he was, at the moment mentioned at the opening of the chapter, just in the fire of composition. He wanted to take his congregation by storm, and, like Calchas, he was preparing his thunder.
But it was chiefly the Salvation Army that aroused his ire; it was for these Sabbath breakers, that would come and shout and gesticulate under his very windows, yelling blasphemous songs, accompanied by trombones, cornets, concertinas, drums, and tambourines: it was for these that he reserved his most powerful batteries and his avalanches of anathemas.
He had chosen as his text for the occasion, the fifth verse of the sixth chapter of the gospel according to St. Matthew: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”
The good clergyman would have liked to take for his text merely the latter part of this verse, for in the depths of his honest heart, it seemed to him that this verse in its integrity ought to be interpreted thus: “When thou prayest, do not as the hypocrites do, neither pray in the temples nor in the streets,” that is to say, “Pray not in public to be seen of men.” And he knew very well that this interpretation of it was corroborated in the following verse, which says: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father which is in secret.”
The Holy Scriptures in English seem to be so written that each sect shall be able to take that which suits its theories, and reject all that does not. It is thus that the hundred and eighty-four religious beliefs of England are founded upon the Scriptures, and that out of the same Scriptures each of them condemns its hundred and eighty-three rivals.
Yet, in spite of this, all these self-styled seekers after the truth live in peace, in perfect harmony. The nation is so accustomed to liberty that religious eccentricity appears to them a simple and natural thing. But the ministers of all the denominations agree to differ from the Gospel on the matter of meeting together in public to pray. Their unanimity on this point is easy to understand. Indeed, what would become of the priests and the lawyers, if every man were free to plead his own cause before God and men? Besides, so long as man is human, he will always be pleased to have an occasion of advertising his virtue, and he who would make a short prayer in his closet with the door shut, makes a very long one in the temple, before his fellow-creatures whom he edifies with his piety.
The Vicar, with his head buried in his hands, was absorbed in the deepest reflections, when the door of the library was opened suddenly, and Mrs. Goodman entered hurriedly, a book in her hand.
This book was a copy of the New Testament, revised and corrected by the Commission for the revision of the Holy Scriptures.
“Well, this is a pretty state of things!” cried that lady breathlessly, as she dropped into an easy chair.