Clergymen and Doctors 3

Clergymen and Doctors 3

UNPREACHING PRELATES.

 

The appointment of bishops and other ecclesiastics to lay offices, and

more especially to places in the Mint, during the reign of Edward VI.,

was severely censured from the pulpit by the intrepid and venerable

Bishop Latimer. In his "Sermon of the Plough," he says, with equal

humour and vigour: "But now for the fault of unpreaching prelates,

methinks I could guess what might be said for excusing them. They are

so troubled with lordly living, they be so placed in palaces, couched

in courts, ruffling in their rents, dancing in their _dominions_,

burdened with embassages, pampering of their paunches, like a monk that

maketh his jubilee, munching in their mangers, and moiling in their gay

manors and mansions, and so troubled with loitering in their lordships,

that they cannot attend it. They are otherwise occupied, some in King's

matters, some are ambassadors, some of the Privy Council, some to

furnish the Court, some are lords of the Parliament, some are

presidents, comptrollers of Mints. Well, well, is this their duty? Is

this their office? Is this their calling? Should we have ministers of

the Church to be comptrollers of Mints? Is this a meet office for a

priest that hath the cure of souls? Is this his charge? I would here

ask one question: I would fain know who comptrolleth the devil at home

at his parish, while he comptrolleth the Mint? If the apostles might

not leave the office of preaching to be deacons, shall one leave it for

minting? I cannot tell you; but the saying is, that since priests have

been minters, money hath been worse than it was before." In another

part of this discourse the Bishop proceeds to ask, "Is there never a

nobleman to be a Lord President, but it must be a prelate? Is there

never a wise man in the realm to be a comptroller of the Mint? I speak

it to your shame, I speak it to your shame. If there be never a wise

man, make a water-bearer, a tinker, a cobbler, a slave, a page, the

comptrollers of the Mint. Make a mean gentleman, a groom, a yeoman;

make a poor beggar, Lord President. Thus I speak, not that I would have

it so, but to your shame, if there be never a gentleman meet nor able

to be Lord President. For why are not the noblemen and young gentlemen

of England so brought up in knowledge of God and in learning, that they

might be able to execute offices in the commonweal?"

 

 

CHARLES II. AND HIS CHAPLAIN.

 

Dr. Hickringal, who was one of King Charles the Second's chaplains,

whenever he preached before his Majesty, was sure to tell him of his

faults from the pulpit. One day his Majesty met the Doctor in the Mall,

and said to him, "Doctor, what have I done to you that you are always

quarrelling with me?" "I hope your Majesty is not angry with me," quoth

the Doctor, "for telling the truth." "No, no," says the king; "but I

would have us for the future be friends." "Well, well," quoth the

Doctor, "I will make it up with your Majesty on these terms: _as you

mend I'll mend_."

 

 

RADCLIFFE'S ENMITY TO HANNES.

 

John Radcliffe, the eccentric, niggardly, self-indulgent, ill-educated,

and intensely Jacobitish physician, who, at the end of the seventeenth

century, rose to an eminent place in the capital and at Court, was the

son of a comfortable Yorkshire yeoman. He resided for some years at

Oxford University, and afterwards practised there; but in 1684 he went

up to London, and speedily made himself a great name and income. As,

however, at Oxford he had found enemies who, as was the fashion of

these days, spoke very openly and bitterly against their rising

rival--so was it also in London: Gibbons, Blackmore, and others, were

hostile to the new-comer--the first expending his sarcasm on

Radcliffe's defects of scholarship. Radcliffe replied, by fixing on

Gibbons, as is well known the epithet of "_Nurse_;" ridiculing his mode

of treatment by slops and gruels, and so forth,--Radcliffe's faith

being placed in fresh air and exercise, generous nourishment, and the

use of cordials. Sir Edward Hannes was, like Radcliffe, an Oxford man;

and hence, perhaps, the peculiar jealousy and hatred with which he

regarded Radcliffe. Hannes started in London, whither he followed

Radcliffe, a splendid carriage and four, that drew upon it the eyes of

all the town, and provoked Radcliffe, when told by a friend that the

horses were the finest he had ever seen, to the savage reply, "Then

he'll be able to sell them for all the more!" Hannes employed a

stratagem that, in sundry shapes, has since been not quite unfamiliar

in medical practice. He instructed his livery servants to run about the

streets, and, putting their heads into every coach they met, to inquire

in tones of anxiety and alarm, whether Dr. Hannes was there. Once one

of these servants entered on this advertising errand Garraway's

Coffeehouse, in Exchange Alley--a great resort of the medical

profession; and called out, all breathless with haste, "Gentlemen, can

any of your honours tell me if Dr. Hannes is here?" "Who wants Dr.

Hannes, fellow?" asked Radcliffe, who was in the room. "Lord A----, and

Lord B----," was the assurance of the servant. "No, no, my man," said

Radcliffe, in a voice deliberate and full of enjoyment of the irony;

"no, no, you are mistaken; it isn't the Lords that want your master,

but he that wants them." Hannes was reputed the son of a basket-maker;

Blackmore had been a schoolmaster--circumstances which furnished

Radcliffe with material for a savage attack on both, when called in to

attend the young Duke of Gloucester, for whom they had prescribed until

the illness took a fatal turn. He accused them to their faces, and with

no particular gentleness of language, for having abominably mismanaged

a mere attack of rash; and said, "It would have been happy for this

nation had you, Sir, been bred up a basket-maker, and you, Sir,

remained a country schoolmaster, rather than have ventured out of your

reach, in the practice of an art to which you are an utter stranger,

and for your blunders in which you ought to be whipped with one of your

own rods."

 

 

MATHEWS OH HIS DEATHBED.

 

A friend attending on Charles Mathews the Elder, the celebrated

comedian, in his last illness, intending to give him his medicine, gave

in mistake some ink from a phial on a shelf. On discovering the error,

his friend exclaimed, "Good heavens! Mathews, I have given you ink."

"Never--never mind, my boy--never mind," said Mathews, faintly, "I'll

swallow a bit of _blotting-paper_."

 

 

BISHOP BERKELEY'S BERMUDA SCHEME.

 

Dr. George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne--celebrated for his ideal

theory, and by the praise of Pope, his stedfast friend, who ascribes

"to Berkeley every virtue under heaven," as others ascribed to him all

learning--in 1824 conceived and published his benevolent proposal for

converting the American savages to Christianity, by means of a colony

to be established in the Bermudas. The proposal was published in 1723,

the year after he had been appointed Dean of Derry; and he offered to

resign that opulent preferment, worth £1100 a year, and to dedicate the

remainder of his life to the instruction of the Indians, on the

moderate allowance of £100 a-year. The project was very favourably

received, and persons of the highest rank raised considerable sums by

subscription in aid of it. Berkeley having resigned his preferment, set

sail for Rhode Island, to make arrangements for carrying out his views.

Such was the influence of his distinguished example, that three of the

junior Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, abandoned with him all their

flattering prospects in life in their own country, for a settlement in

the Atlantic Ocean at £40 a-year. The Dean, not meeting with the

support the ministry had promised him, and after spending nearly all

his private property and seven of the best years of his life in the

prosecution of his scheme, returned to Europe. This, however, he did

not do, until the Bishop of London had informed him, that on

application for funds to Sir Robert Walpole, he had received the

following honest answer: "If you put this question to me as a minister,

I must and I can assure you, that the money shall most undoubtedly be

paid as soon as suits with the public convenience; but if you ask me as

a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting

the payment of £10,000, advise him, by all means, to return home to

Europe, and give up his present expectations."

 

 

A HOME-THRUST AT STERNE.

 

Sterne, the reverend author of the _Sentimental Journey_, had the

credit of treating his wife very ill. He was one day talking to

Garrick, in a fine sentimental strain, in laudation of conjugal love

and fidelity. "The husband," said he, "who behaves unkindly to his

wife, deserves to have his house burnt over his head." "If you think

so," replied Garrick, "I hope _your_ house is insured."

 

 

THE GOSPEL A NOVELTY.

 

When Le Torneau preached the Lent sermon at St. Benoit, at Paris, Louis

XIV. inquired of Boileau, "if he knew anything of a preacher called Le

Tourneau, whom everybody was running after?" "Sire," replied the poet,

"your Majesty knows that people always run after novelties; this man

preaches the gospel." The King pressing him to speak seriously, Boileau

added: "When M. Le Tourneau first ascends the pulpit, his ugliness so

disgusts the congregation that they wish he would go down again; but

when he begins to speak, they dread the time of his descending."

Boileau's remark as to the "novelty" of preaching the gospel in his

time, brings to mind the candid confession of a Flemish preacher, who,

in a sermon delivered before an audience wholly of his own order, said:

"We are worse than Judas; he sold and delivered his Master; we sell Him

too, but deliver Him not." Somewhat akin was the remark, in an earlier

age, of Father Fulgentio, the friend and biographer of Paul Sarpi, and,

like him, a secret friend to the progress of religious reformation.

Preaching on Pilate's question, "What is truth?" he told the audience

that he had at last, after many searches, found it out; and, holding

forth the New Testament, said, "Here it is, my friends; but," he added

sorrowfully, as he returned it to his pocket, "it is _a sealed book_."

 

 

HARVEY AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.

 

The discovery of the circulation of the blood was the most important

ever made in the science of physiology, and led to a complete

revolution throughout the whole circle of medical knowledge and

practice. The renown of this splendid discovery, by all but universal

consent, has been attributed to William Harvey, an English physician,

who was born at Folkestone in 1578, and in 1593 went to Caius College,

Cambridge, where he remained four years. He then went abroad for

several years, studying in the most famous medical schools; and in

1604, having passed M.D. at Cambridge, he set up in practice in London.

In 1615 he was appointed Lecturer at the College of Physicians, on

Anatomy and Surgery; and it was in the performance of these duties that

he arrived at the important discovery that is inseparably associated

with his name. "The merit of Harvey," it has been justly observed, "is

enhanced by considering the degraded state of medical knowledge at that

time in England. While anatomical schools had been long established in

Italy, France, and Germany, and several teachers had rendered their

names illustrious by the successful pursuit of the science, anatomy was

still unknown in England, and dissection had hitherto hardly begun; yet

at this inauspicious period did Harvey make a discovery, which amply

justifies Haller in ranking him as only second to Hippocrates." In 1620

he promulgated his new doctrine of the circulation of the blood, in a

treatise entitled _Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in

Animalibus_; in the preface to which, addressed to the College of

Physicians, he states that frequently in his lectures he had declared

his opinion touching the motion of the heart and the circulation of the

blood, and had for more than nine years confirmed and illustrated that

discovery by reasons and arguments grounded on ocular demonstration.

The attention of all Europe, and the keen opposition of many of its

medical scholars, were at once aroused by Harvey's publication; but his

doctrine triumphed over all objections, and before he died he had the

happiness of seeing it fully established. Harvey was physician to James

I. and Charles I., the latter of whom had a high regard for him; and at

the outbreak of the civil war he adhered to the royal side, and quitted

London with the king, attending him at the battle of Edgehill, and

afterwards at Oxford. He died in 1658, it is said from the effects of

opium which he had taken with suicidal intent, while suffering under

the acute pangs of gout. Posterity has been more faithful and grateful

than his own age to the greatest modern discoverer in medical science;

for his discovery rather tended to push him back than to advance him in

professional position. It has been said that "perhaps his researches

took him out of the common road to popular eminence, and they seem to

have exposed him to the prejudice so commonly prevailing against an

innovator; for we find him complaining to a friend, that his practice

considerably declined after the publication of his discovery."

 

 

SUNDAY SPORTS.

 

Rushworth relates that King James, in 1618, in his _Declaration

concerning Lawful Sports_, said that in his progress through Lancashire

he did justly rebuke some Puritans and precise people for the

prohibiting and unlawful punishment of his good people for using their

lawful recreations and honest exercises upon Sundays and other

holidays, after the afternoon sermon or service. "With his own ears he

heard the general complaint of his people, that they were barred from

all lawful recreations and exercise upon the Sundays after noon;" which

must produce two great evils,--the first, the hindering the conversion

of many whom the clergy caused to believe that religion, and honest

mirth and recreation, were incompatible. "The other inconvenience is,

that this prohibition barreth the common and meaner sort of people from

using such exercises as may make their bodies more able for war when

his Majesty, or his successors, shall have occasion to use them; and in

place thereof, sets up tippling and filthy drunkenness, and breeds a

number of idle and discontented speeches in alehouses. For when shall

the common people have leave to exercise, if not upon the Sundays and

holidays, seeing they must apply their labour, and win their living, on

all working days? Therefore, the King said, his express pleasure was

that no lawful recreation should be barred to his good people which did

not tend to the breach of the laws of this kingdom and the canons of

the Church: that after the end of divine service his people be not

disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as

dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or

any other such harmless recreation; nor from having of May-games,

Whitson-ales, and Morice-dances; and the setting up of Maypoles, and

other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and

convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service. And

that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for the

decoring of it, according to their old custom." But bull and bear

baiting, "interludes," and bowling (at all times prohibited to the

meaner sort), were forbidden; all known recusants who abstained from

coming to service were barred the liberty of recreation, "being

unworthy of any lawful recreation after the service, that would not

first come to the church and serve God;" as were also all who, though

conforming in religion, had not been present in church. Each person was

to go to church, and join the sports, in his own parish; and no weapons

of offence were to be carried or used.

 

Charles I., in 1633, gave command for the reading of the _Book of

Sports_ in the churches, which had not been done even by his father,

and which gave great offence and stirred up much display of bad

feeling. In London, after the reading, one clergyman went on

immediately to read the Ten Commandments, and said, "Dearly beloved

brethren, you have now heard the commandments of God and man; obey

which you please." Another minister followed up the reading of the

obnoxious ordinance by the delivery of a sermon on the Fourth

Commandment.

 

 

THE SAINT'S BELL.

 

In their description of Westmoreland, Nicholson and Burn relate, that

"in the old church at Ravenstonedale there was a small bell, called the

Saint's Bell, which was wont to be rung after the Nicene creed, to call

in the Dissenters to sermon. And to this day the Dissenters, besides

frequenting the meeting-house, oftentimes attend the sermon in church."

 

 

SIR RICHARD JEBB.

 

Sir Richard Jebb, the famous physician, who was very rough and harsh in

his manner, once observed to a patient to whom he had been extremely

rude, "Sir, it is my way." "Then," returned his indignant patient,

pointing to the door, "I beg you will make _that_ your way!" Sir

Richard being called to see a patient who fancied himself very ill,

told him ingenuously what he thought, and declined prescribing for him.

"Now you are here," said the patient, "I shall be obliged to you, Sir

Richard, if you will tell me how I must live--what I may eat, and what

I may not." "My directions as to that point," replied Sir Richard,

"will be few and simple! You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs,

for they are hard of digestion; nor the bellows, because they are

windy; but eat anything else you please!"

 

 

A SANITARY VIEW OF BAPTISM.

 

Crosby's _History of the English Baptists_ preserves the opinion of Sir

John Floyer, the physician, that immersion at baptism was of great

value in a sanitary point of view, and that its discontinuance, about

the year 1600, had been attended with ill effects on the physical

condition of the population. Dealing with the question purely in a

professional sense, he declared his belief that the English would

return to the practice of immersion, when the medical faculty or the

science of physic had plainly proved to them by experiment the safety

and utility of cold bathing. "They did great injury to their own

children and all posterity, who first introduced the alteration of this

truly ancient ceremony of immersion, and were the occasion of a

degenerate, sickly, tender race ever since. Instead of prejudicing the

health of their children, immersion would prevent many hereditary

diseases if it were still practised." He tells, in support of his

belief, that he had been assured by a man, eighty years old, whose

father lived while immersion was still the practice, that parents at

the baptism would ask the priest to dip well in the water that part of

the child in which any disease used to afflict themselves, to prevent

its descending to their posterity. And it had long been a proverbial

saying among old people, if any one complained of pain in their limbs,

that "surely that limb had not been dipt in the font." Immersion,

however, was far otherwise regarded in quarters where professional

animus of another kind militated against its revival by the powerful

dissenting body of the Baptists. Baxter vehemently and exaggeratedly

denounced it as a breach of the Sixth Commandment, which says, "Thou

shalt not kill;" and called on the civil magistrate to interfere for

its prevention, to save the lives of the lieges. "Covetous physicians,"

he thought, should not be much against the Anabaptists; for "catarrhs

and obstructions, which are the two great fountains of most mortal

diseases in man's body, could scarce have a more notable means to

produce them where they are not, or to increase them where they are.

Apoplexies, lethargies, palsies, and all comatous diseases, would be

promoted by it"--and then comes a long string of terrible maladies that

would follow on the dipping. "In a word, it is good for nothing but to

despatch men out of the world that are troublesome, and to ranken

churchyards." Again: "If murder be a sin, then dipping ordinarily in

cold water over head in England is a sin. And if those that would make

it men's religion to murder themselves, and urge it on their

consciences as their duty, are not to be suffered in a commonwealth,

any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that

teach the necessity of such dippings, are to be suffered." Had Baxter

lived in these cold water days, tubbing would probably have taught him

a little more toleration.

 

 

BISHOP KENNET ON LATE REPENTANCE.

 

Doctor, afterwards Bishop, Kennet preached the funeral sermon of the

first Duke of Devonshire in 1707. The sentiments of the sermon gave

much umbrage; people complained that the preacher "had built a bridge

to heaven for men of wit and parts, but excluded the duller part of

mankind from any chance of passing it." The complaint was founded on

this passage, in speaking of a late repentance: "This rarely happens

but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may

be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life; the duller flame

is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given

up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the

nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth

of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit

of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and

reflect, and look upwards. They acknowledge an infinite being; they

feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the Holy

scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to

answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons; but

the difference is in men; and the more intelligent the nature is, the

more susceptible of divine grace." The successor to the deceased Duke

did not think ill of the sermon; and recommended Kennet to the Deanery

of Peterborough, which he obtained in 1707.

 

 

A MAL APROPOS QUOTATION.

 

In one of the debates in the House of Lords, on the war with France in

1794, a speaker quoted the following lines from Bishop Porteous' _Poem

on War_:--

 

"One murder makes a villain,

Millions a hero! Princes are privileged To kill, and numbers sanctify

the crime. Ah! why will kings forget that they are men, And men that

they are brethren? Why delight In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties

Of nature, that should knit their souls together In one soft bond of

amity and love? They yet still breathe destruction, still go on,

Inhumanly ingenious to find out New pains for life; new terrors for the

grave; Artifices of Death! Still monarchs dream Of universal empire

growing up From universal ruin. Blast the design, Great God of Hosts!

nor let Thy creatures fall Unpitied victims at Ambition's shrine."

 

The Bishop, who was present, and who generally voted with the Ministry,

was asked by an independent nobleman, if he were really the author of

the lines that had been quoted. The Bishop replied, "Yes, my Lord;

but--they were not composed for the present war."

 

 

CHARLES II. ON SERMON-READING.

 

The practice of reading sermons, now so prevalent, was reproved by

Charles II., in the following ordinance on the subject, issued by the

Chancellor of the University of Cambridge:--

 

"_Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen_,--Whereas his Majesty is informed,

that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the

preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before

himself; his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure,

that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of

the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers

deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory without

book; as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most

agreeable to the use of foreign Churches, to the custom of the

University heretofore, and to the nature of that holy exercise. And

that his Majesty's command in these premises may be duly regarded and

observed, his further pleasure is, that the names of all such

ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and

slothful way of preaching, be from time to time signified to me by the

Vice-Chancellor for the time being,