That degradation of religion, which, even in the earlier years of the century, was beginning to lower the Gospel of redemption into a philosophy of morality, has been already alluded to.  Under its depressing influence, preaching sank to a very low ebb.  Hurd, in 1761, said, with perfect truth, that ’the common way of sermonising had become most wretched, and even the best models very defective.’[1205] By that date, however, improvement had already begun.  It was sometimes said, and the assertion was not altogether unfounded, that these cold pulpit moralities were in a great measure the recoil from Methodist extravagances.  But far more generally, as the century advanced, Methodism promoted the beneficial change which had already been noted in the case of Secker.  The more zealous and observant of the Clergy could not fail to learn a valuable lesson from the wonderful power over the souls of men which their Methodist fellow-workmen—­the irregulars of the Church—­had acquired.  And independently of their example, the same leaven was working among those sharers in the Evangelical revival who remained steadfast to the established order, as among those who felt themselves cramped by it.  Whatever in other respects might be their faults of style and matter, they were, at all events, in no point what some sermons were called—­’Stoical Essays,’ ’imitations from a Christian pulpit of Seneca and Epictetus.’[1206] There were many mannerisms, and there was much want of breadth of thought, but in heart and purpose it was a true preaching of the Gospel.

Even towards the end of the century there were a few notable instances of the power which a great preacher might yet command.  We are told of Dean Kirwan, who had left the Roman for the English Church, that even in times of public calamity and distress, his irresistible powers of persuasion repeatedly produced contributions exceeding a thousand or twelve hundred pounds at a sermon; and his hearers, not content with emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels or watches in earnest of further benefactions.[1207] A sermon of Bishop Horsley once produced an effect which would hardly be possible except under circumstances of great public excitement.  When he preached in Westminster Abbey, before the House of Lords, on January 30, 1793, the whole assembly, stirred by his peroration, rose with one impulse, and remained standing till the sermon ended.[1208]

Amid the excited and angry controversies which occupied the earlier years of the century, the pulpit did not by any means retain a befitting calm.  Later in the century there was no great cause for complaint on this ground.