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I have endeavoured in the last Chapter, (with as little commentary as possible) to give a short sketch of the most important subjects that occupied my father’s thoughts, and employed his pen, during twenty-eight years of his life, in the Edinburgh Review.
But to perform my task properly, I ought perhaps to add some account of the
subject-matter of his lectures and sermons. The former of these, if done at all, must be
done by an abler pen than mine; I shall therefore content myself with only two extracts.
The first has often been quoted, not only for its beauty, but as affording a specimen of
the high moral tone which pervades these lectures; the second was extracted by one of his
earliest college associates (and, I believe, now oldest friend alive), Mr. Duncan, and sent to my mother, as giving what he
thought the best description of my father that has ever been written. The first is from the
Lecture “On the Con-
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“Therefore, when I say, in conducting the understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coeval with life, what do I say but love innocence, love virtue, love purity of conduct, love that which, if you are rich and powerful, will sanctify the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice? Love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes. Love that which will comfort and adorn you, and never quit you, which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in this outward world; that which will make your motives habitually great and honourable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud.
“Therefore, if any young man has embarked his life in the pursuit of
knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be
intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she
springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitation in
which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train. But let
him ever follow her as an angel that guards him, and as
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“The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one man; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence and restrained by principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it; who can be witty and something more than witty; who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit, wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature.
“Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely the flavour of the mind. Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of men’s pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marle.”
The character and design of his Sermons will per-
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“He who publishes sermons should explain whether he publishes speeches, or essays, or what it is he does publish; for metaphysical dissertations, theological polemics, Scripture criticism, historical disquisition, and moral and religious doctrine, and exhortation, are all included under the appellation of sermons. Now every work should be tried by the intentions with which it was written. A moral sermon, delivered before a mixed audience of both sexes, would be very bad, if it contained a profound analysis of human motives and actions; and such an analysis should never be attempted before a mixed audience, because a continued attention to a difficult subject is a very rare quality, which the habits of the mass of mankind can never lead them to acquire. Before such an audience all these sermons were delivered, and whoever does me the honour of judging of them at all, will, I hope, do me the justice of judging them with a relation to this circumstance.
“The clergy have at all times complained of the decay of piety, in
language similar to that which they now hold from the pulpit. The best way of bringing
this declamation to proof is to look into the inside of our churches, and to remark how
they are attended.
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“The clergy of a district in the diocese of Lincoln associated lately for the purpose of forming an estimate of the state of religion within their own limits. The amount of the population, where the inquiry was set on foot, was 15,042. It was found that the average number of the ordinary congregations was 4933, and of communicants at each sacrament 1808; so that not one in three attended divine service, nor one in six of the adults (who amounted to 11,282) partook of the Sacrament.
“Though other grave and important causes have unquestionably contributed very largely to produce this indifference, which is by no means necessarily connected with infidelity, still, I am afraid, it must in some little degree be attributed to our form of worship, and to the clergy themselves.
“That the attention of the greater part of an audience can be kept
up, through many repetitions, in a
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“The English clergy, though upon the whole a very learned, pious, moral, and decent body of men, are not very remarkable for professional activity; and when they have discharged the formal and exacted duties of religion, are not very forward, by gratuitous inspection and remonstrance, to keep alive and diffuse a due sense of religion in their parishioners.
“To these causes may be added the low state of pulpit eloquence.
“Preaching has become a bye-word for long and dull conversation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.
“One reason for this is the bad choice of subjects for the pulpit.
The clergy are allowed about twenty-six hours every year for the instruction of their
fellow-creatures; and I cannot help thinking this short time had better be employed on
practical subjects, in explaining and enforcing that conduct which the spirit of
Christianity requires, and which mere worldly happiness commonly coincides to
recommend. These are
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“A distinction is set up, with the usual inattention to the meaning
of words, between moral and religious subjects of discourse; as if every moral subject
must not necessarily be a Christian subject. If Christianity concern itself with our
present, as well as our future happiness, how can any virtue, or the doctrine which
inculcates it, be considered as foreign to our sacred religion? Has our Saviour
forbidden justice,—proscribed mercy, benevolence, and good faith? or, when
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“There is a bad taste in the language of sermons evinced by a constant repetition of the same scriptural phrases, which perhaps were used with great judgment two hundred years ago, but are now become so trite that they may, without any great detriment, be exchanged for others. ‘Putting off the old man—and putting on the new man,’ ‘The one thing needful,’ ‘The Lord hath set up his candlestick,’ ‘The armour of righteousness,’ etc. etc. etc. etc. The sacred Scriptures are surely abundant enough to afford us the same idea with some novelty of language: we can never be driven, from the penury of these writings, to wear and fritter their holy language into a perfect cant, which passes through the ear without leaving any impression.
“To this cause of the unpopularity of sermons may be added the
extremely ungraceful manner in which they are delivered. The English, generally
remarkable for doing very good things in a very bad manner, seem to have reserved the
maturity and plenitude of their awkwardness for the pulpit. A clergyman clings to his
velvet cushion with either hand, keeps his eye riveted upon his book, speaks of the
ecstasies of joy and fear with a voice and a face which indicate neither, and pinions
his body and soul into the same attitude of limb and thought, for fear of being called
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“It is theatrical to use action, and it is Methodistical to use action.
“But we have cherished contempt for sectaries, and
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“I know well that out of ten thousand orators by far the greater number must be bad, or none could be good; but by becoming sensible of the mischief we have done, and are doing, we may all advance a proportional step; the worst may become what the best are, and the best better.
“There is always a want of grandeur in attributing great events to little causes; but this is in some small degree compensated for by truth. I am convinced we should do no great injury to the cause of religion if we remembered the old combination of aræ et foci, and kept our churches a little warmer. An experienced clergyman can pretty well estimate the number of his audience by the indications of a sensible thermometer. The same blighting wind chills piety which is fatal to vegetable life; yet our power of encountering weather varies with the object of our hardihood; we are very Scythians when pleasure is concerned, and Sybarites when the bell summons us to church.
“No reflecting man can ever wish to adulterate manly piety (the
parent of all that is good in the world) with mummery and parade. But we are strange,
very strange creatures, and it is better perhaps not to place too much confidence in
our reason alone. If anything, there is, perhaps, too little pomp and ceremony in our
worship, instead of too much.
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“Pious and worthy clergymen are ever apt to imagine that mankind
are what they ought to be; to mistake the duty for the fact; to suppose that religion
can never weary its votaries; that the same novelty and ornament which are necessary to
enforce every temporal doctrine are wholly superfluous in religious admonition; and
that the world at large consider religion as the most important of all concerns, merely
because it is so: whereas, if we refer to facts, the very reverse appears to be the
case. Every consideration influences the mind in a compound ratio of the importance of
the effects which it involves and
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“That many greater causes are at work to undermine religion I
seriously believe; but I shall probably be laughed at when I say that warm churches,
solemn music, animated preaching upon practical subjects, and a service some little
abridged, would be no contemptible seconds to the just, necessary, and innumerable
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“I have merely expressed what appears to me to be the truth in these remarks. I hope I shall not give offence; I am sure I do not mean to do it. Some allowance should be made for the severity of censure when the provident satirist furnishes the raw material for his own art, and commits every fault which he blames.”
Entering on his ministry, then, with these views, we shall, I think, find that my father’s religion is tinctured in great measure by his character—it has nothing intolerant, repulsive, or morose in his hands. He first seeks to inspire the love of God, by painting the world overflowing with beauties of form, colour, sight, taste, smell, feeling; the mind of man filled with genius, fancy, wit, imagination, eloquence,—properties and feelings totally unnecessary to the mere bare cold existence that might have been the lot of man, but bestowed upon him in such variety and profusion as almost baffles the comprehension, and shows the boundless love of the Creator in placing such happiness within the reach of his creatures.
This feeling is evinced in the following passage, taken from a sermon on
‘The Immortality of the
Soul;’ and
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He says, speaking of the faculties of animals: “If man, like these,
had only talents to gather his support, and defeat the hostile animals which surround
him, no hope of immortality could be gathered from a condition like this; man would be
of the earth, earthy; destined to live in the world with qualities fitted for this
world, and to all appearance limited to it. But in speaking of the mind of man, we
forget and we pass over all those faculties which are sufficient for the preservation
of life. We do not wonder at man because he is cunning in procuring food, but we are
amazed with the variety, the superfluity, the immensity of human talents. We are
astonished that he should have found his way over the seas, and numbered the stars, and
called by its name every earth, and stone, and plant, and creeping reptile that the
Almighty has made. We see him gathered together in great cities, guided by laws,
disciplined by instruction, softened by fine arts, and sanctified by solemn worship. We
count over the pious spirits of the world, the beautiful writers, the great statesmen,
all who have invented subtlely, who have thought deeply, who have executed wisely:—all
these are proofs that we are destined for a second life; and it is not possible to
believe that this redundant vigour, this lavish and excessive power, was given for the
mere gathering of meat and drink. If the only object is present existence,
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On various occasions he dwells on the evidences of the authenticity of the Christian religion. He says: “I have selected this train of reasoning with some care from the best writers in defence of Christianity, because it is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.”
In discoursing on these evidences, he enforces them with all the powers with which he was endowed. Having shown the authenticity of the religion he teaches, he proceeds to inculcate in a variety of forms the most important duties that religion enjoined: amongst these he has dwelt on none more frequently than “the purity and government of the heart,” which, he says, “is God’s, and to God it will return;” “it is the ark of God.” “Is the passport to heaven written anywhere else than in a pure heart?” He shows how in this respect the Christian differs from all spurious religions, not contenting itself with ceremonies and outward forms, but requiring thought, word, and deed.
“The beauty of the Christian religion is, that it carries the order and discipline of heaven into our very fancies and conceptions, and, by hallowing the first shadowy notions of our minds from which actions spring, makes our actions themselves good and holy.”
Toleration, long-suffering, and charity, he gathers
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“The true Christian, amid all the diversities of opinion, searches for the holy in desire, for the good in council, for the just in works; and he loves the good, under whatever temple, at whatever altar he may find them.”
“If I have read well my Gospel, it is in such wise we should imitate the patient forbearance of our common Father, who pities the frailties we do not pity, who forgives the error we do not forgive, who maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”
He insists strongly on the vital importance of the religious education of youth:—“When you see a child brought up in the way he should go, you see a good of which you cannot measure the quantity, nor perceive the end; it may be communicated to the children’s children of that child. It may last for centuries; it may be communicated to innumerable individuals. It may be planting a plant, and sowing a seed, which may fill the land with the glorious increase of righteousness, and bring upon us the blessings of the Almighty.”
He then points out the true pleasures, the use and the abuse, of youth; the
preparations for age; the warnings sent by a merciful God; the utility of meditation on
death; the worthlessness of this world but
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This, I believe, will be found to be an accurate analysis of the use he made of his ministry. Few extracts have been made, from the difficulty of selection; but I may venture to say that those who will seek, and select for themselves, will not be unrewarded.
As however my opinion can hardly be considered an impartial one, I may be
allowed to quote two or three extracts from publications, after his death, in confirmation
of it. “In a literary point of view,” says one writer, “these
sermons stand alone among modern pulpit discourses; they have not the theological
learning which distinguishes some, or the mystical eloquence that gives character to
the outpourings of the present Bishop of Oxford;
but how full of freshness and life they are! There is nothing of compilation or
imitation in them; the writer has
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Another says:—“Christianity was not a dogma with Sydney Smith, it was a practical and most beneficent creed; it was the rule of action to his life. The volume contains not a thought or opinion at war with Christian charity.”
And again, one says:—“But how beautiful were the serious moods of Sydney Smith! What a fine fulness and solidity they had; drawn from the strength and justice which we believe to have been the ruling sense of his mind, and tempered with the warmth of character, of which no man had a larger share. What a picture is that in one of his sermons where he describes the village school, and the tattered scholars, and the aged, poverty-stricken master, teaching the mechanical art of reading or writing, and thinking he was teaching that alone, while in truth he was protecting life, insuring property, fencing the altar, guarding the throne, giving space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him up to his own place in the order of creation!”
I shall content myself with but one more extract, from his Charity Sermon in behalf of the
Blind, as it was the one which elicited the splendid eulogium from
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“The author of the book of Ecclesiastes has told us ‘that
the light is sweet, that it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the
sun.’ The sense of sight is indeed the highest bodily privilege, the purest
physical pleasure, which man has derived from his Creator. To see that wandering fire,
after he has finished his journey through the nations, coming back to his eastern
heavens, the mountains painted with light, the floating splendour of the sea, the earth
waking from deep slumber, the day flowing down the sides of the hills till it reaches
the secret valleys, the little insect recalled to life, the bird trying her wings, man
going forth to his labour,—each created being moving, thinking, acting, contriving,
according to the scheme and compass of its nature, by force, by cunning, by reason, by
necessity. Is it possible to joy in this animated scene, and feel no pity for the sons
of darkness? for the eyes that will never see light? for the poor clouded in
everlasting gloom? If you ask me why they are miserable and dejected, I turn you to the
plentiful valleys; to the fields now bringing forth their increase; to the freshness
and the flowers of the earth; to the endless variety of its colours; to the grace, the
symmetry, the shape of all it cherishes and all it bears; these you have forgotten,
because you have always enjoyed them; but these are the means by which God Almighty
makes man what he is—cheerful, lively, erect, full of enterprise, mutable, glancing
from heaven
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“Therefore I implore you, by the Son of David, have mercy on the blind. If there is not pity for all sorrows, turn the full and perfect man to meet the inclemency of fate; let not those who have never tasted the pleasures of existence be assailed by any of its sorrows; the eyes which are never gladdened by light should never stream with tears.
“How merciful our blessed Saviour was wont to show himself to their
afflictions! Blind Bartinieus sat by the wayside begging; and as
the crowd passed by, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Thou Son of
David, have mercy upon me!’
Jesus stopped the multitude, and before them all restored to
him his sight. The first thing that he saw, who never saw before, was the Son of his
God! These blind people, like Bartimeus, will never see, till they
behold their Redeemer on the last day: not as He then was, in his earthly shape, but
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In giving this little sketch of his writings, I have somewhat anticipated in my narrative, and must return to my father’s residence in Edinburgh. Mr. Beach had requested him to receive his second son under his charge, and at the same time Mr. Gordon, of Ellon Castle, was entrusted to his care by his guardians.
For the care of each of these young men, he received £400, the highest sum which had been then given to any one but Mr. Dugald Stewart. He fully justified the trust reposed in him; he lived with them as a father and a friend: they are both still alive, and both, I believe, retain warm feelings of love and respect for the memory of their former Mentor; indeed, one of them always evinced a truly filial affection towards him.
On one occasion he was much amused by the complaints made by his young
friends of the difficulty of finding conversation for their partners in the two balls a
week which he allowed them during the season. “Oh,” said he,
“I’ll fit you up in five minutes: I’ll write you some
conversations, and you will be considered the two most agreeable young men in
Edinburgh.” Pen and ink were brought, the conversa-
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During his residence in Edinburgh, though without any clerical duties of his own, my father not unfrequently preached in the Episcopal church, then served by Bishop Sandford; and I believe the earliest of the charity sermons he has preached (of which there are several very touching ones amongst those which have been published) was for the Lying-in Hospital. The singular custom which was then always observed, of delivering these sermons at night, seems to have given occasion to a striking passage in it.
A few months after the birth of his daughter, he went in the summer for a
short time to Burnt Island, a small sea-bathing place at no great distance from Edinburgh,
for the recovery of my mother’s health; and here, but for his courage and firmness,
he would have lost his long-wished-for daughter, in a way he had not at all anticipated.
When only six months old she fell ill of the croup, with such fearful violence, that it
defied all the remedies employed by the best medical man there. The danger increased with
every hour. Dr. Hamilton, then one of the most
eminent medical men in Edinburgh, was sent for, could not come, but said,
“Persevere in giving two grains of calomel every hour; I never knew it
fail.” It was given for eleven hours; the child grew worse and worse; the
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Another instance of his moral courage and presence of mind occurred in after-life, when, accidentally in the house of a near relation soon after her confinement, who was suddenly seized by a most alarming attack, her husband from home, a very eminent medical man who attended her absent; all the others sent to in this moment of distress, out also. At last, a young medical man was brought, who declared the danger to be imminent; that if the patient were a pauper, he would bleed her instantly, and probably save her life: he feared, however, to interfere in a case attended by so eminent a man, as, if he failed, he should be ruined. My father’s medical knowledge confirming this opinion, he determined to take the whole responsibility on himself, and insisted upon its being done before he left the house. Relief was immediate, and, by the time the husband returned, the patient was safe.
At the end of the autumn he returned again to Edinburgh for the winter, and
his time there was divided between his pupils, the Edinburgh Review (to which he was at that period not only contributor, but
editor), the enjoyment of the choicest society that was to be found anywhere out of London,
and the study
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He thus obtained a degree of knowledge that enabled him afterwards to be of the greatest service to the poor of his parish, who entirely depended on him for assistance, and to become the favourite doctor of his own family, who rarely summoned any other medical man to their aid: and I have the authority of my husband, Sir Henry Holland (who had frequent opportunities of observing his practice, and ascertaining his knowledge of medicine), for saying, that both his judgment and knowledge were very remarkable, and used with the same prudence and good sense which he exercised on all other subjects.
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