144 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



instead of preaching, *' railed at the Dissenters,'' 

 as he words it. The prostitution of the pulpit 

 to such unworthy ends, was a thing- he could 

 not endure ; nor the men that were guilty of it. 

 He set an eTcelleut example to his Clergy 

 himself, both of the true manner of preaching, 

 and of diligence and frequency in it. In the 

 first years that he spent in his diocese, and was 

 yet in his full strength and vigour, he rarely 

 omitted preaching every Sunday. Insomuch, 

 that by a computation made some years after 

 he was Archbishop, how often he had preached 

 since his consecration, he found that one year 

 with another, he had preached once a fortnight. 

 His way at York was to hear the sermon at the 

 Minster on the Sunday morning, (and sometimes 

 in the absence of the Prebendary appointed, to 

 take his place,) and to preach one in the after- 

 noon at some or other of the paiish churches in 

 the citi/, or in the neighbourhood. And wherever 

 he was on Sundays, within his diocese, he 

 preached once, if not also twice. Towards the 

 latter part of his life, indeed, he could not at- 

 tend so constantly at sermons, nor preach them 

 so frequently as is before mentioned. But he 

 never remitted either of them so far as not to 

 be an example to his Clergy in preaching, and 

 to the Laiti/ for attendance upon sen?20?is. 



He always had a great opinion of the effects 



