Explore "Thomas Wingfold. Volume II" by George MacDonald on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I have of course given but the spine and ribs, as it were, of the sermon. There is no place for more. It is enough however to show that he came to the point -- and what can be better in preaching? Certainly he was making the best of the blunder that had led him up into that pulpit! And on the other hand, whatever might be the various judgments and opinions of his hearers in respect of the sermon -- a thing about which the less any preacher allows himself to think the better -- many of them did actually feel that he had been preaching to them, which is saying much. Even Mrs. Ramshorn was more silent than usual as they went home, and although -- not having acquainted herself, amongst others, with the sermons of Latimer -- she was profoundly convinced that such preaching was altogether contrary to the tradition, usage, and tone of the English Church, of which her departed dean remained to her the unimpeachable embodiment and type, the sole remark she made was, that Mr. Wingfold took quite too much pains to prove himself a pagan. Mr. Bascombe was in the same mind as before.
"I like the fellow," he said. "He says what he means, fair and full, and no shilly-shallying. It's all great rubbish, of course!"