The perfect preacher deals in generalities, but strikes them home with
a few personalities.
Most clerical preachers deal only in generalities, and that is
ineffective, especially to uncultivated minds.
Mrs. Marsh, as might be expected from her sex, went a little too much
the other way.
After a few sensible words, pointing out the misery in houses, and the
harm done to the soul, by a quarrelsome spirit, she lamented there was
too much of it in Huntercombe: with this opening she went into
personalities: reminded them of the fight between two farm servants
last week, one of whom was laid up at that moment in consequence.
"And," said she, "even when it does not come to fighting, it poisons
your lives and offends your Redeemer."
Then she went into the causes, and she said Drunkenness and Detraction
were the chief causes of strife and contention.
She dealt briefly but dramatically with Drunkenness, and then lashed
Detraction, as follows:
"Every class has its vices, and Detraction is the vice of the poor. You
are ever so much vainer than your betters: you are eaten up with
vanity, and never give your neighbor a good word. I have been in thirty
houses, and in not one of those houses has any poor man or poor woman
spoken one honest word in praise of a neighbor.
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