Mr. Bacon's parsonage was as humble a dwelling in all respects as the cottage in which his friend Daniel was born. A best kitchen was its best room, and in its furniture an Observantine Friar would have seen nothing that he could have condemned as superfluous. His college and later school books, with a few volumes which had been presented to him by the more grateful of his pupils, composed his scanty library: they were either books of needful reference, or such as upon every fresh perusal might afford new delight. But he had obtained the use of the Church Library at Doncaster, by a payment of twenty shillings, according to the terms of the foundation. Folios from that collection might be kept three months, smaller volumes, one or two, according to their size; and as there were many works in it of solid contents as well as sterling value, he was in no such want of intellectual food, as too many of his brethren are, even at this time. How much good might have been done, and how much evil might probably have been prevented, if Dr. Bray's design for the formation of parochial libraries had been every where carried into effect!
The parish contained between five and six hundred souls. There was no one of higher rank among them than entitled him, according to the custom of those days, to be stiled gentleman upon his tombstone. They were plain people, who had neither manufactories to corrupt, ale-houses to brutalize, nor newspapers to mislead them. At first coming among them he had won their good will by his affability and benign conduct, and he had afterwards gained their respect and affection in an equal degree.
There were two services at his church, but only one sermon, which never fell short of fifteen minutes in length, and seldom extended to half an hour. It was generally abridged from some good old divine. His own compositions were few, and only upon points on which he wished carefully to examine and digest his own thoughts, or which were peculiarly suited to some or other of his hearers. His whole stock might be deemed scanty in these days; but there was not one in it which would not well bear repetition, and the more observant of his congregation liked that they should be repeated.
Young ministers are earnestly advised long to refrain from preaching their own productions, in an excellent little book addressed by a Father to his Son, preparatory to his receiving holy orders. Its title is a “Monitor for Young Ministers,” and every parent who has a son so circumstanced, would do well to put it into his hands. “It is not possible,” says this judicious writer, “that a young minister can at first be competent to preach his sermons with effect, even if his abilities should qualify him to write well. His very youth and youthful manner, both in his style of writing and in his delivery, will preclude him from being effective. Unquestionably it is very rare indeed for a man of his age to have his mental abilities sufficiently chastened, or his method sufficiently settled, to be equal to the composition of a sermon fit for public use, even if it should receive the advantage of chaste and good delivery. On every account therefore, it is wise and prudent to be slow and backward in venturing to produce his own efforts, or in thinking that they are fit for the public ear. There is an abundant field of the works of others open to him, from the wisest and the best of men, the weight of whose little fingers, in argument or instruction, will be greater than his own loins, even at his highest maturity. There is clearly no want of new compositions, excepting on some new or occasional emergencies: for there is not an open subject in the Christian religion, which has not been discussed by men of the greatest learning and piety, who have left behind them numerous works for our assistance and edification. Many of these are so neglected, that they are become almost new ground for our generation. To these he may freely resort,—till experience and a rational and chastened confidence shall warrant him in believing himself qualified to work upon his own resources.”
“He that learns of young men,” says Rabbi Jose Bar Jehudah, “is like a man that eats unripe grapes, or that drinks wine out of the wine-press; but he that learneth of the ancient, is like a man that eateth ripe grapes, and drinketh wine that is old.”1
1 LIGHTFOOT.
It was not in pursuance of any judicious advice like this, that Mr. Bacon followed the course here pointed out, but from his own good sense and natural humility. His only ambition was to be useful; if a desire may be called ambitious which originated in the sincere sense of duty. To think of distinguishing himself in any other way, would for him, he well knew, have been worse than an idle dream. The time expended in composing a sermon as a perfunctory official business, would have been worse than wasted for himself, and the time employed in delivering it, no better than wasted upon his congregation. He was especially careful never to weary them, and therefore never to preach any thing which was not likely to engage their attention, and make at least some present impression. His own sermons effected this, because they were always composed with some immediate view, or under the influence of some deep and strong feeling: and in his adopted ones, the different manner of the different authors produced an awakening effect. Good sense is as often to be found among the illiterate, as among those who have enjoyed the opportunities of education. Many of his hearers who knew but one meaning of the word stile, and had never heard it used in any other, perceived a difference in the manner of Bishops Hall, and Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor, of Barrow, and South and Scott, without troubling themselves about the cause, or being in the slightest degree aware of it.
Mr. Bacon neither undervalued his parishioners, nor overvalued the good which could be wrought among them by direct instruction of this kind. While he used perspicuous language, he knew that they who listened to it would be able to follow the argument; and as he drew always from the wells of English undefiled, he was safe on that point. But that all even of the adults would listen, and that all even of those who did, would do any thing more than hear, he was too well acquainted with human nature to expect.
A woman in humble life was asked one day on the way back from church, whether she had understood the sermon; a stranger had preached, and his discourse resembled one of Mr. Bacon's neither in length nor depth. “Wud I hae the persumption?” was her simple and contented answer. The quality of the discourse signified nothing to her; she had done her duty, as well as she could, in hearing it; and she went to her house justified rather than some of those who had attended to it critically; or who had turned to the text in their Bibles, when it was given out.