3 Books By Laurence Sterne. Laurence Sterne
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line of it, quoth Trim for all this world;--I fear, an' please your Honours, all this is in Portugal, where my poor brother Tom is. I tell thee, Trim, again, quoth my father, 'tis not an historical account,--'tis a description.--'Tis only a description, honest man, quoth Slop, there's not a word of truth in it.--That's another story, replied my father.--However, as Trim reads it with so much concern,--'tis cruelty to force him to go on with it.--Give me hold of the sermon, Trim,--I'll finish it for thee, and thou may'st go. I must stay and hear it too, replied Trim, if your Honour will allow me;--tho' I would not read it myself for a Colonel's pay.--Poor Trim! quoth my uncle Toby. My father went on.)
'--Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched,--what exquisite torture he endures by it!--'Tis all nature can bear! Good God! See how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips,--willing to take its leave,--but not suffered to depart!--Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell!'--(Then, thank God, however, quoth Trim, they have not killed him.)--'See him dragged out of it again to meet the flames, and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle,--this principle, that there can be religion without mercy, has prepared for him.'--(Then, thank God,--he is dead, quoth Trim,--he is out of his pain,--and they have done their worst at him.--O Sirs!--Hold your peace, Trim, said my father, going on with the sermon, lest Trim should incense Dr. Slop,--we shall never have done at this rate.)
'The surest way to try the merit of any disputed notion is, to trace down the consequences such a notion has produced, and compare them with the spirit of Christianity;--'tis the short and decisive rule which our Saviour hath left us, for these and such like cases, and it is worth a thousand arguments--By their fruits ye shall know them.
'I will add no farther to the length of this sermon, than by two or three short and independent rules deducible from it.
'First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his Creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'tis for no other cause but quietness sake.
'Secondly, When a man, thus represented, tells you in any particular instance,--That such a thing goes against his conscience,--always believe he means exactly the same thing, as when he tells you such a thing goes against his stomach;--a present want of appetite being generally the true cause of both.
'In a word,--trust that man in nothing, who has not a Conscience in every thing.
'And, in your own case, remember this plain distinction, a mistake in which has ruined thousands,--that your conscience is not a law;--No, God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine;--not, like an Asiatic Cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own passions,--but like a British judge in this land of liberty and good sense, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares that law which he knows already written.'
Finis.
Thou hast read the sermon extremely well, Trim, quoth my father.--If he had spared his comments, replied Dr. Slop,--he would have read it much better. I should have read it ten times better, Sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so full.--That was the very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in what they deliver as deeply as this poor fellow has done,--as their compositions are fine;--(I deny it, quoth Dr. Slop)--I maintain it,--that the eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to enflame it, would be a model for the whole world:--But alas! continued my father, and I own it, Sir, with sorrow, that, like French politicians in this respect, what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field.--'Twere a pity, quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father,--'tis dramatick,--and there is something in that way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention.--We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. Slop.--I know that very well, said my father,--but in a tone and manner which disgusted Dr. Slop, full as much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.--But in this, added Dr. Slop, a little piqued,--our sermons have greatly the advantage, that we never introduce any character into them below a patriarch or a patriarch's wife, or a martyr or a saint.--There are some very bad characters in this, however, said my father, and I do not think the sermon a jot the worse for 'em.--But pray, quoth my uncle Toby,--who's can this be?--How could it get into my Stevinus? A man must be as great a conjurer as Stevinus, said my father, to resolve the second question:--The first, I think, is not so difficult;--for unless my judgment greatly deceives me,--I know the author, for 'tis wrote, certainly, by the parson of the parish.
The similitude of the stile and manner of it, with those my father constantly had heard preached in his parish-church, was the ground of his conjecture,--proving it as strongly, as an argument a priori could prove such a thing to a philosophic mind, That it was Yorick's and no one's else:--It was proved to be so, a posteriori, the day after, when Yorick sent a servant to my uncle Toby's house to enquire after it.
It seems that Yorick, who was inquisitive after all kinds of knowledge, had borrowed Stevinus of my uncle Toby, and had carelesly popped his sermon, as soon as he had made it, into the middle of Stevinus; and by an act of forgetfulness, to which he was ever subject, he had sent Stevinus home, and his sermon to keep him company.
Ill-fated sermon! Thou wast lost, after this recovery of thee, a second time, dropped thru' an unsuspected fissure in thy master's pocket, down into a treacherous and a tattered lining,--trod deep into the dirt by the left hind-foot of his Rosinante inhumanly stepping upon thee as thou falledst;--buried ten days in the mire,--raised up out of it by a beggar,--sold for a halfpenny to a parish-clerk,--transferred to his parson,--lost for ever to thy own, the remainder of his days,--nor restored to his restless Manes till this very moment, that I tell the world the story.
Can the reader believe, that this sermon of Yorick's was preached at an assize, in the cathedral of York, before a thousand witnesses, ready to give oath of it, by a certain prebendary of that church, and actually printed by him when he had done,--and within so short a space as two years and three months after Yorick's death?--Yorick indeed, was never better served in his life;--but it was a little hard to maltreat him after, and plunder him after he was laid in his grave.
However, as the gentleman who did it was in perfect charity with Yorick,--and, in conscious justice, printed but a few copies to give away;--and that I am told he could moreover have made as good a one himself, had he thought fit,--I declare I would not have published this anecdote to the world;--nor do I publish it with an intent to hurt his character and advancement in the church;--I leave that to others;--but I find myself impelled by two reasons, which I cannot withstand.
The first is, That in doing justice, I may give rest to Yorick's ghost;--which--as the country-people, and some others believe,--still walks.
The second reason is, That, by laying open this story to the world, I gain an opportunity of informing it,--That in case the character of parson Yorick, and this sample of his sermons, is liked,--there are now in the possession of the Shandy family, as many as will make a handsome volume, at the world's service,--and much good may they do it.
Chapter 1.XLIII.
Obadiah gained the two crowns without dispute;--for he came in jingling, with all the instruments in the green baize bag we spoke of, flung across his body, just as Corporal Trim went out of the room.
It is now proper, I think, quoth Dr. Slop, (clearing up his looks) as we are in a condition to be of some service to Mrs. Shandy, to send up stairs to know how she goes on.
I have ordered, answered my father, the old midwife to come down to us upon the least difficulty;--for you must know, Dr. Slop, continued my father, with a perplexed kind of a smile upon his countenance, that by express treaty, solemnly ratified between me and my wife, you are no more than an auxiliary in this affair,--and not so much as that,--unless the lean old mother of a midwife above stairs cannot do without you.--Women have their particular fancies, and in points of this nature, continued my father, where they bear the whole burden, and suffer so much acute pain for