0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Twenty-Five Village Sermons," Charles Kingsley presents a collection of insightful and engaging sermons that reflect his deep commitment to social justice and moral integrity. Written in a style that is accessible yet thought-provoking, these sermons blend pastoral care with a call for moral reform in Victorian society. Kingsley deftly uses vivid imagery and rhetorical flourishes to address themes ranging from the importance of charity and love to the perils of industrialization and moral complacency, aiming to inspire his parishioners to embody Christian virtues in their daily lives. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century England'—a time marked by social upheaval and change'—these sermons serve as a vital reflection of the era's challenges and hopes. Charles Kingsley was not only a prominent clergyman but also an influential social critic and novelist. His varied experiences, from his work as a parish priest to his involvement in the Christian Socialist movement, profoundly shaped his theological perspectives. Kingsley's advocacy for the poor and his passionate critiques of society's inequities provided fertile ground for the messages contained in this work, highlighting his desire to bridge faith and action. "Twenty-Five Village Sermons" is highly recommended for readers interested in the intersection of religion and social issues, offering profound insights into Kingsley's vision of a more just society. It is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the moral imperatives of the Victorian era and how these timeless messages continue to resonate in contemporary discussions on ethics and community. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
Twenty-Five Village Sermons
Table of Contents
Introduction
Twenty-Five Village Sermons gathers a sequence of pastoral addresses by Charles Kingsley, written for ordinary parish hearers and issued for a wider public in nineteenth-century England. Its scope is practical and devotional rather than academic: to illuminate Christian belief as it bears on daily conduct, conscience, and hope. Framed by clear themes that move from creation and covenant to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the collection presents a coherent introduction to Christian teaching as preached to village congregations. The purpose is steady and humane—to guide, console, and challenge—while keeping doctrine close to life and faith close to duty.
This is a homiletic collection: sermons composed for delivery from the pulpit and then prepared for reading. The texts are scriptural expositions shaped by pastoral application, combining explanation, moral exhortation, and practical counsel. There are no novels, tales, or dramatic pieces here, nor private letters or diaries. Instead, readers encounter sustained addresses that retain the cadence and clarity of spoken proclamation. The range includes occasional sermons (for seasons such as Lent), thematic discourses on faith and obedience, reflections on national life, and meditations on central moments of the Gospel story, all unified by their origin in parish preaching.
Across the twenty-five sermons run unifying concerns that give the volume its character. Kingsley treats the goodness of creation and the nearness of God, the distinction between outward religion and true godliness, and the perennial struggle between the Spirit and the flesh. He attends to divine justice and mercy through figures such as Noah and Abraham, and he follows the arc of the Gospel in meditations on the Transfiguration, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Threaded through these doctrinal themes is a constant emphasis on conscience, repentance, reformation of life, and the hope of heaven, not as abstraction but as moral transformation in community.
Stylistically, the sermons are marked by plainness of speech, direct address, and a steady appeal to common experience. Kingsley draws on the sights and rhythms of rural life to clarify spiritual truths, favoring concrete images and practical examples over technical vocabulary. His sentences move with an orator’s balance—measured, emphatic, and hospitable to the general reader. The tone is earnest without harshness, pastoral without sentimentality. He argues from Scripture to conduct, urging hearers to examine themselves and to act. The result is moral clarity coupled with compassion, a rhetoric that aims to persuade the will as much as to inform the mind.
The collection remains significant because it shows how thoughtful theology can be made accessible without loss of depth. It offers a window into Anglican parish ministry in the Victorian era and, more broadly, into how preaching can hold together belief and behavior, doctrine and duty. The sermons insist that faith must shape public and private life—work, family, community—and they treat Christian hope as a power for renewal rather than retreat. Their continued value lies in their balance: between reverence for Scripture and responsiveness to lived reality, between personal devotion and social responsibility, and between moral seriousness and pastoral encouragement.
The arrangement reveals breadth as well as continuity. Early sermons consider God’s world, religion, and the tension of Spirit and flesh; middle sermons explore retribution, self-destruction, and the possibility of hell on earth; others dwell on covenant and faith through Noah and Abraham. The sequence then turns to Our Father in heaven and the central events of Christ’s life, before moving to improvement, work, association, heaven on earth, and national privileges. Seasonal counsel appears in Lenten Thoughts, while On Books reflects on reading as a moral task. The Courage of the Saviour closes the volume with a call to steadfastness grounded in Christ.
Readers may approach each sermon independently or follow the sequence to trace its doctrinal and ethical progression. Because these texts were first spoken, they reward slow reading, allowing the cadence and argument to settle. Their language reflects their century yet remains lucid, and their subjects—conscience, mercy, duty, hope—are perennial. They invite engagement rather than agreement taken for granted, urging reflection on how belief becomes embodied in habits and public life. As an integrated whole, Twenty-Five Village Sermons offers a sustained encounter with pastoral theology in action: clear, concrete, and oriented toward the formation of character in community.
Historical Context
Twenty-Five Village Sermons, published in 1849, arose from Charles Kingsley’s early ministry at Eversley, Hampshire, where he served as curate from 1842 and rector from 1844 until his death in 1875. Preached to agricultural laborers, brickmakers, and cottagers near Windsor Forest, the addresses interpret Scripture amid social distress. Britain in the 1840s reeled from the Irish Famine (1845–1852), the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846), and the Chartist crisis culminating at Kennington Common (10 April 1848). A deadly cholera epidemic (1848–1849) and local sanitary deficiencies shaped his pastoral priorities. The sermons emphasize providence, moral order, and practical righteousness for a rural parish newly connected to an unstable national economy.
As a Broad Church Anglican reformer, Kingsley allied preaching with concrete social amelioration. Influenced by Edwin Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population (1842) and the Public Health Act (1848), he campaigned for drainage, clean water, and decent cottages in Eversley. He corresponded with reformers and lectured on health, later writing Glaucus; or, The Wonders of the Shore (1855) and Town Geology (1872). In this milieu, themes such as “Hell on Earth,” “Self-Destruction,” and “Improvement” reflect Victorian convictions that vice and disease intertwined, and that communal discipline could save lives. The sermons present divine law as pervading fields and homes, echoing parish-based activism endorsed by local authorities.
The collection also registers ecclesiastical tensions after the Oxford Movement (from 1833) challenged the Church of England’s identity. Kingsley rejected Tractarian sacramentalism and ritualism, aligning instead with F. D. Maurice’s Broad Church theology. The Gorham Judgment (1850), in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overruled Bishop Henry Phillpotts of Exeter on baptismal regeneration, dramatized disputes for village pulpits. Kingsley emphasized conscience, the indwelling Spirit, and practical holiness, framing doctrines of faith, the flesh and spirit, and the Passion narratives without Tractarian emphases. His later quarrel with John Henry Newman (1864) reflects the same concern for moral truth already implicit in sermons on religion, courage, and obedience.
London’s upheavals and rural discontent in 1848–1850 fed Christian Socialism, with which Kingsley collaborated alongside John Malcolm Ludlow, F. D. Maurice, and Thomas Hughes. They promoted cooperatives and education rather than revolution—ideals distilled in appeals to “Man’s Working Day” and “Association.” The Rochdale Pioneers (1844) offered a practical model, while the Ten Hours Act (1847) signaled growing state concern for labor. The Working Men’s College in London (founded 1854) extended this ethos into adult education. Kingsley’s insistence that covenant, justice, and obedience are social realities drew on biblical exemplars—Noah and Abraham—to argue that communal righteousness, not mere pietism, measures national health and divine favor.
Victorian science reshaped natural theology. Kingsley, a keen naturalist in the line of Charles Lyell’s geology, treated creation as intelligible law rather than caprice. His popular science writings—Glaucus (1855) and later Town Geology (1872)—and his support for Charles Darwin’s argument in On the Origin of Species (1859) framed “God’s World” as orderly development. Darwin quoted a private letter from Kingsley in the 1860 edition to defend the compatibility of evolution and providence. For parish hearers confronting disease, crop failure, and mortality, such views undergirded sermons on death, resurrection, and improvement: God’s governance worked through observable causes, inviting responsible husbandry, study, and trust rather than superstition.
The 1850s confirmed a rhetoric of national vocation. The Great Exhibition (Hyde Park, 1851) broadcast confidence in industry and cooperation, themes echoed in sermons envisioning “Heaven on Earth” through just work and neighborly duty. The Crimean War (1853–1856) exposed administrative failure and moral strain; reformers like Florence Nightingale redefined service, reinforcing Kingsley’s ideal of courageous, practical godliness. The founding of Aldershot Camp (Hampshire, 1854), near Eversley, brought soldiers into parish orbit. Sermons on sacrifice, transfiguration, and national privilege resonated with debates on discipline and citizenship. Kingsley’s patriotism was pastoral, measuring British greatness by mercy to the poor and honesty in public life.
Expanding literacy and cheap print shaped the making and reception of these sermons. The Ragged School Union (1844), championed by Lord Shaftesbury, and the British and Foreign School Society promoted basic education before the Elementary Education Act (1870) institutionalized it. Kingsley’s later work with the Working Men’s College (1854) and his counsel “On Books” reflect a conviction that scripture, science, and history should be accessible to artisans and farmhands. Railway and postal networks distributed tracts and parish magazines; printed sermons circulated beyond Eversley. This culture of reading bolstered appeals to conscience and reason, encouraging lay judgment on matters of faith, labor, improvement, and national duty.
Kingsley’s career amplified the village pulpit’s reach. Appointed Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1859, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge (1860–1869), Canon of Chester (1869), and Canon of Westminster (1873), he spoke to the nation while remaining Rector of Eversley until his death on 23 January 1875. His travels to the West Indies (1870–1871), published in At Last (1871), and novels—Yeast (1848), Alton Locke (1850), Westward Ho! (1855)—echo concerns audible in the sermons: social justice, moral courage, and providence in nature. The collection thus belongs to a broader movement joining Broad Church theology, sanitary reform, and cooperative economics in mid-Victorian England.
Synopsis (Selection)
SERMON I. GOD’S WORLD.
Affirms that the world is God’s creation, ordered by His wisdom and care. Urges readers to discern God’s character in nature, providence, and daily duty.
SERMON II. RELIGION NOT GODLINESS.
Warns against outward religion without moral renewal. Calls for sincere godliness shown in justice, mercy, and obedience.
SERMON III. LIFE AND DEATH.
Reflects on mortality and the purpose of life before God. Encourages present righteousness in light of eternal hope and judgment.
SERMON IV. THE WORK OF GOD’S SPIRIT.
Explains the Holy Spirit’s role in enlightening conscience and renewing character. Emphasizes practical fruits over speculation.
SERMON V. FAITH.
Defines faith as active trust in God’s goodness and promises. Shows how such trust produces courage, obedience, and peace.
SERMON VI. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH.
Describes the inner conflict between Godward aspiration and base appetites. Calls for disciplined living by the Spirit to overcome selfish desires.
SERMON VII. RETRIBUTION.
Affirms a moral order in which sin brings its own consequences. Urges repentance and amendment to avert bitter outcomes.
SERMON VIII. SELF-DESTRUCTION.
Portrays sin as self-sabotage that harms body, mind, and soul. Warns that entrenched habits corrode character and society.
SERMON IX. HELL ON EARTH.
Argues that hell begins wherever injustice and vice reign. Calls Christians to oppose such conditions with truth, charity, and reform.
SERMON X. NOAH’S JUSTICE.
Uses Noah as a model of righteousness amid widespread corruption. Commends steadfast obedience that preserves families and communities.
SERMON XI. THE NOACHIC COVENANT.
Reflects on God’s covenant with all living creation after the flood. Stresses divine mercy, human stewardship, and peaceful living under God’s universal law.
SERMON XII. ABRAHAM’S FAITH.
Highlights Abraham’s trust in God amid uncertainty. Encourages walking by faith, leaving security for obedience.
SERMON XIII. ABRAHAM’S OBEDIENCE.
Shows faith proven by concrete acts of obedience. Teaches that true belief manifests in costly, patient action.
SERMON XIV. OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
Unpacks the fatherhood of God and the intimacy of prayer. Exhorts trust in God’s care and imitation of His forgiveness and generosity.
SERMON XV. THE TRANSFIGURATION.
Contemplates Christ’s revealed glory as a pledge of human transformation. Urges hope and holiness amid present trials.
SERMON XVI. THE CRUCIFIXION.
Meditates on Christ’s suffering love and the gravity of sin. Calls for repentance, self-denial, and compassion for the afflicted.
SERMON XVII. THE RESURRECTION.
Proclaims the triumph of life over death and the ground of Christian hope. Invites newness of life and fearless work in the world.
SERMON XVIII. IMPROVEMENT.
Advocates steady moral and practical betterment in personal and communal life. Links progress to humility, industry, and grace.
SERMON XIX. MAN’S WORKING DAY.
Dignifies daily labor as service to God and neighbor. Encourages honesty, diligence, and vocation-minded living.
SERMON XX. ASSOCIATION.
Commends cooperative endeavor and social solidarity, especially among the poor. Argues that Christian fellowship can reform economic and moral life.
SERMON XXI. HEAVEN ON EARTH.
Describes the beginnings of God’s kingdom where love, justice, and purity prevail. Encourages building such foretaste through faithful living now.
SERMON XXII. NATIONAL PRIVILEGES.
Considers the blessings and responsibilities of a Christian nation. Warns that privilege without righteousness invites decline, while public virtue sustains prosperity.
SERMON XXIII. LENTEN THOUGHTS.
Offers guidance for self-examination, fasting, and almsgiving in Lent. Emphasizes inward renewal over mere outward austerity.
SERMON XXIV. ON BOOKS.
Advises on reading as a means of moral and spiritual formation. Urges choosing wholesome, truthful works that foster duty and hope.
SERMON XXV. THE COURAGE OF THE SAVIOUR.
Celebrates Christ’s moral courage in confronting evil, suffering, and death. Calls believers to brave, sacrificial steadfastness in their own callings.
