Note 34 — Chapter XII

Ungracious as it may seem, I must betray one less pleasant confidence of such occasions. Sometimes I have had to note in sermon MSS. a strange neglect of punctuation, and, here and there, a little aberration from received usages of spelling! No Clergyman ought to think such matters beneath his notice. His people, some, if not many of them, will from time to time receive letters or other written messages from him; these ought to be unmistakably the writing of the educated gentleman. Is it too much to say also that the handwriting ought to be clear and easy? It is distressing, certainly to one who has many letters to read daily, to see how rare such handwriting is now.