Westminster Sermons

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 495K words
Chapters: 50

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Westminster Sermons by Charles KingsleyAuthor: Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875,Language: English, Class: BX: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: Churches, Church movements, Release Date: May 10, 2006

Editor's review

Westminster Sermons is a collection of sermons by the English writer and clergyman Charles Kingsley, presented in English and released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain electronic text. Kingsley is best known for novels such as The Water-Babies, but he was also an active churchman of the Victorian era, and his sermons reflect the concerns and moral exhortations of their time. The book will appeal to readers interested in Victorian religious thought, the history of the English Church, and the sermon as a literary form, and it can serve as supplementary material for studying Kingsley's intellectual profile. It should not be read as a literary story but understood within the social and religious context of nineteenth-century England. As an electronic edition of the original text without a modern introduction or notes, it is best approached by first learning about Kingsley's life and times, then reading sermon by sermon.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying Victorian religious thought and church history
Literature enthusiasts interested in Charles Kingsley's ideas and works
Researchers needing English sermon samples for stylistic analysis
Readers accustomed to public-domain English originals with some religious background

Not a good fit for

General readers who only want Kingsley's novels and have no interest in sermons
Those who struggle with English and need modern translation or annotation
Readers expecting a systematic theology textbook or contemporary applied preaching

Reading tips

Read one complete sermon first to grasp its structure: scriptural text, exposition, exhortation, and conclusion.
Before reading, briefly learn about the nineteenth-century English Church and the social issues of Kingsley's time.
There is no need to read straight through; select sermons by theme and compare and excerpt across them.
Look up religious terms and historical figures as you go to avoid misreading the original meaning.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of sermons?

The catalog lists it as Westminster Sermons, a collection of sermons by Charles Kingsley. It is religious preaching, not a novel or fairy tale.

What level of English is needed to read it?

The original is nineteenth-century English sermon prose with long sentences and many religious terms. A good command of English and some familiarity with basic Christian concepts will make the reading smoother.

Does this edition include a modern introduction?

This is a public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, consisting mainly of the original text and generally without a modern scholarly introduction or notes. Readers need to supply their own background on Kingsley's life and times.

Can it be used as devotional reading?

The sermons are exhortatory and instructive by nature, but they were written in the nineteenth century, in a different context from today. If used for devotion, read with historical awareness and alongside contemporary materials.

Comments

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About the author

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875 Author

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was a British author, though specific details of his life are limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 48 of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. His representative works include Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, Westward Ho!, The Heroes Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, and Yeast: a Problem. These works cover a wide range of subjects, including historical novels set in late antiquity, fairy tales and Greek myths written for children, and novels concerned with social issues. Kingsley's writing often combines narrative, imagination, and moral instruction, with vivid language that conveys themes of growth, responsibility, and belief, and has had some influence on later children's literature and historical fiction.