Sermons that mould history, epoch-making deliverances, are probably of the past. For while niggling pulpit politics are deservedly resented, killing the spiritual life of communities which resort to them, the great prophetic preaching which shakes not only consciences but realms needs the evangelic trumpet of a St. Bernard, 1 a Savonarola or a Massillon on-the one hand, and a listening nation on the other. The age of the pulpit has-gone by, not indeed for pastoral purposes, but certainly as an engine of. National, or even of ecclesiastical, conflict. A truly; national Church is a Church whose life. And thought are interwoven withthelife of the people to which God has given it for a guide, yet are also_above and outside it. In the closing eighteenth century Sydney Smith asserted that the clergy of England had no. More influence over the people at large than the cheesemongers. Of England. If so, it was not because clerical ideas were too greatly. Detached from those of the average Briton - never wasthe assimilation closer - but because they had too little that was unearthly. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.