When society has once fairly dissolved the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it will perhaps crystallize it over again in new forms of language.
I did n't know you was a settled minister over this parish,--said the young fellow near me.
A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listening--I replied, calmly.
-- It gives the parallax of thought and feeling as they appear to the observers from two very different points of view.

If you wish to get the distance of a heavenly body, you know that you must take two observations from remote points of the earth's orbit,--in midsummer and midwinter, for instance.

To get the parallax of heavenly truths, you must take an observation from the position of the laity as well as of the clergy.
Teachers and students of theology get a certain look, certain conventional tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professional neckcloth, and habits of mind as professional as their externals.

They are scholarly men and read Bacon, and know well enough what the "idols of the tribe" are.

Of course they have their false gods, as all men that follow one exclusive calling are prone to do .-- The clergy have played the part of the flywheel in our modern civilization.