One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves?
How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair's to his own, do all that you speak of?
govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week?
One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit." "_You_ are speaking of London, _I_ am speaking of the nation at large." "The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest." "Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the kingdom.

We do not look in great cities for our best morality.

It is not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good; and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be most felt.

A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general conduct, which in London can rarely be the case.

The clergy are lost there in the crowds of their parishioners.