COLLOQUIES ON PREACHING. COLLOQUY THE FIRST. THE RECTOR AND THE VICAR. SCENE: The Study of a Country Rectory. V. Why, my good friend, I find you surrounded by manuscripts and proof-sheets. What learned work is shortly to electrify the world? R. I have recently made up my mind to publish some sermons. V. I am delighted to hear it. Somehow I am not often either pleased or edified with published sermons, but I am quite sure it will be otherwise with yours. Not only the old and and valued neighbour, but the earnest and B thoughtful teacher, will speak from those pages. R. What do you think I am going to call my intended volume? 6 V. I cannot guess. Most titles, more or less obvious, have been already appropriated. Of Questions of the Day,' 'Problems of the Age,' and so forth, we have had enough and to spare. 'Village Sermons,' 'Parish Sermons,' and 'Plain Sermons' are commoner still. Have you hit upon anything new? R. I am going to call it 'Lost Labour.' R. I have spent much time over these sermons. My whole mind has been thrown into them, and my best powers of composition and illustration. Yet I never heard of their doing anyone the slightest good. V. Dear me! I should have thought R. So should I, but I have ceived by the roughness of facts. been unde As far as I know, not a single member of my congregation has ever altered an opinion, or changed a |