Page:Three introductory lectures on the study of ecclesiastical history.djvu/65

II] must also be many occasions in the work of every English clergyman, when the History of the Church may yield lessons of a practical and substantial value in his manifold duties and labours. What those lessons are I shall trust, in some measure, to represent in my next Lecture. Meanwhile, let me express the hope and the stimulus which ought to be given by the thought that I shall have to address myself not merely to students, but to those who will have to turn their study into practice; not merely to the confined atmosphere of a lecture-room, but to a spirit blowing in upon us, and out from us, to the four winds of heaven. There has been doubtless a tendency in past times, (perhaps there will be in all times,) which recent measures have wisely endeavoured to counteract—a tendency to absorb the general functions of the University into the special departments of ecclesiastical thought and education. But we must not forget that there is also an academical narrowness, and dryness, and stiffness; and that there is, on the other hand, an ecclesiastical breadth, and freedom, and warmth, which is for that evil, if not the highest, at least to many of us the nearest, remedy. To think that any words here spoken, any books here studied, may enliven discourses and ministrations far away in the dark corners of London alleys, in the free air of heaths and downs in north or south, on western mountains or in eastern fens; that records of noble deeds achieved, and of wise sayings uttered