in his parish of St. James's, and was
especially approved of in the pulpit.

Secker's discourses, with his charges and lectures, still remain; and it
is impossible to conceive any thing more commonplace in style, weaker in
conception, or more thoroughly marked with mediocrity of mind. And yet
it is perfectly possible to conceive such a man popular. What the
multitude call eloquence, in the pulpit, is palpably different from
eloquence any where else. At the bar, or in the legislature, it
evidently consists in a mixture of strong sense and powerful feeling. It
must exhibit _some_ knowledge of the subject, and more knowledge of
human nature. But the "sermons" which then achieved a passing popularity
were characterised by nothing but by the most shallow notions in the
most impotent language. The age of reasoners had passed away with
Barrow, South, and Sherlock; and a studied mingling of affected
simplicity and deliberate nonsense constituted the sole merits of the
pulpit in the middle of the eighteenth century. Then, according to the
proverb, that "when things come to the worst, they must mend," came the
gentle enthusiasm of Wesley and the fierce declamation of Whitefield,
both differing utterly in doctrine, practice, and principle, yet both
regarding themselves as missionaries to restore Christianity, and both
evidently believed by the multitude to be all but inspired. Their
example, however, infused some slight ardour into the established
pulpit, and its sermons were no longer dull _rechauffes_ of Epictetus,
and substitutes for the Gospel, taken from the schoolboy recollections
of Plato. Secker reigned in this middle-age of the pulpit, and his
performances are matchless as models of words without thought, doctrines
without learning, and language that trickled through the ear without the
possibility of reaching the understanding.

But Secker's faults were those of nature, which alone is to be blamed;
unless we are to join in the blame the ministers who placed such a
twinkling taper as a "shining light" in the church.

We do not believe in the story of his freethinking, though Walpole
strongly repeats it, and gives his authority. Secker's was obviously a
commonplace mind, wholly destitute of all pretension to ability, yet as
obviously not disinclined to make use of those means which often
constitute court favour, but which high minds disdain. He had been made
Dean of St. Paul's by the Chancellor's interest, though he had