The solemnity, with which he spoke, occasioned
his voice to differ so much from its ordinary tone, that I did not, till
I had looked about me, discover who the speaker was. I think he might be
engaged from three or four minutes in the delivery of this grace. I
could not help thinking, during the delivery of it, that I never knew
any person say grace like this man. Nor was I ever so much moved with
any grace, or thought I ever saw so dearly the propriety of saying
grace, as on this occasion. But when I found that on the very instant
the grace was over politics were resumed; when I found that, no sooner
had the last word in the grace been pronounced, than the next, which
came from the clergyman himself, began by desiring the gentleman before
mentioned to go on with his reply to his own political question, I was
so struck with the inconsistency of the thing, that the beauty and
solemnity of his grace all vanished. This sudden transition from
politics to grace, and from grace to politics, afforded a proof that
artificial sentences might be so frequently repeated, as to fail to
re-excite their first impressions, or that certain expressions, which
might have constituted devotional acts under devotional feeling, might
relapse into heartless forms.
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