I remember well a happy week-end passed with the Bishop at his palace, and a delightful drive in the snow to Fountains Abbey. It was then that he persuaded me to undertake the difficult task of saying something at a forthcoming Church Congress on "The Art of Speaking and Reading," and I devoted time and thought to so important a subject.
I began by saying that it was customary for a clergyman to preface his sermon by a text from the Bible, but that I, as an actor, would begin my address with a quotation from Shakespeare to be found in the comedy of Much Ado About Nothing: "Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending."
This text, if I may so call it, led to some remarks on the affinity between the words of Shakespeare and the pages of Holy Writ. The same inspired truths so abound throughout them both as to prove that the poet was a student of the Scriptures. There could be no firmer bond between Church and Stage; it must, for all time, be the strongest link, for both books are eternal.
I called to mind the care and cost lavished upon choral services in our cathedrals, the pains taken to acquire the skill melodiously to chant the Litany: why were not the same labour, the like devotion bestowed upon the teaching of young clergymen to speak audibly and to control a congregation? One could not but be amazed at glaring instances of false emphasis in the dull recital of the Order for Morning Prayer: surely such a monument of learning and piety should be spared such treatment.
I dared to add that I had heard the Bible read—now and then very beautifully, often very vilely. That I had listened to such extracts as tell of the death of Absalom, of the death of Jezebel, of Daniel in the Den, of the Prodigal's Return, read as though the moving stories were little more dramatic than so many stale problems in Euclid; and had heard St. Paul's funeral chapter so droned as to make the hallowed bones of the Apostle who bequeathed it to humanity turn in their resting-place. On the other hand, I had heard the same words read so truthfully by men who are living and men who are dead, as to be a lasting memory.
The actor and the bishop
It was natural on my part to draw attention to the resemblance which exists between the great preacher and the famous player, not only for the mighty sermons he can preach, but because, when his work is done, when he has for ever left the pulpit or the stage, the "divine spark" is extinguished; his voice, his fascination, his originality, are soon but memories; while his renown too often rests upon the imperfect records of tradition. The personality of John Knox must remain a mystery; the tragic tones of Sarah Siddons can be heard no more. What would the young parson not give to hear Martin Luther preach? What would I not give to see David Garrick act? "Into the night go one and all."
I reminded my listeners of the answer David Garrick gave to the bishop who asked him this question: "Can you tell me, sir, why it is that you players, who deal with romance, can yet profoundly move an audience, while we preachers, who deal with reality, fail to do so?" "Yes, my lord, I can. It is because we players act fiction as if it were the truth; while you preachers too often speak of truth as though it were but fiction."
Thackeray wrote: "There is an examiner of plays, and there ought to be an examiner of sermons." I would go further, and urge that every curate should pass an examination in the art of preaching before he is allowed to mount a pulpit. A bad preacher will empty a church more easily than a good preacher will fill one. It was well said, also, by an eminent minister in the Nonconformist Church, the late Dr. Parker:
"To-day the man who would preach with true and lasting effect must be sincere, intelligent, and sympathetic—in a word, he must be a man, a teacher, a friend. Preaching is the most impertinent of all impertinences if there is not behind it and round about it a sense of authority other and better than human."