Non-fiction: Sermons by Mr. Yorick (Second Series)

Overview
Laurence Sterne's "Sermons by Mr. Yorick (Second Series)" continues the imaginative conceit that a fictional, affectionate parson named Yorick delivers pulpit addresses that double as pieces of literature. These sermons maintain the blend of moral instruction, affectionate observation, and comic humanity that made Sterne famous in his novels, bringing scriptural reflection into conversational, anecdote-rich form. The second series deepens the voice of Yorick: less theatrical sermonizing, more intimate counsel, often directed to a listener who is treated as a friend rather than a distant parishioner.
The sermons touch on familiar Christian concerns, charity, humility, the fear of death, the solace of faith, while refusing to separate religious seriousness from ordinary human experience. Witticisms and tender episodes appear beside theological points, so that admonition arrives wrapped in story and persuasion, not commandments. The result is preaching that reads as pastoral conversation, making doctrinal themes approachable without stripping them of moral weight.

Themes and Tone
Compassion and sympathy run through the collection as its central ethical commitments. Yorick insists that religion must be lived in kindness to others; true piety shows itself in attention to the poor, in gentleness toward sinners, and in the small, consoling acts that make a community humane. The sermons do not confine themselves to abstract dogma but persistently return to conduct, feeling, and the inner life of the believer, urging readers to combine belief with charitable action.
The tone is strikingly modern for its time: candid, conversational, and sometimes playful. Humor is not simply ornament but a moral tactic that disarms pride and opens listeners to reflection. At moments the voice moves from jaunty anecdote to sober pathos, and Sterne deliberately lets laughter and tears sit close together, suggesting that religion must answer both the social and the emotional needs of people.

Style and Technique
Yorick's pulpit is literary. Short parable-like stories, digressive parenthetical remarks, and direct addresses to the reader create a sense of immediacy. Sentences meander with the novelist's appetite for incidental detail, and digressions serve rhetorical ends by humanizing abstract points. Sterne adapts the language of ordinary talk to the moral sermon, bringing colloquial idioms and rhetorical intimacy into a genre traditionally formal and hierarchical.
Irony and self-aware modesty are frequent tools. Rather than assuming the absolute authority of a conventional preacher, Yorick often prefaces observations with humility, admits limitations, or exposes his own foibles. This self-disarming posture builds trust and allows moral challenge to arrive gently; readers are invited into moral reflection through companionship rather than coercion.

Reception and Controversy
The second series was popular with many readers who welcomed a humane and witty approach to religious instruction. Admirers praised the warmth and accessibility of Yorick's voice and found the sermons useful for personal consolation and ethical guidance. The colloquial candor and emotional directness resonated with an audience attuned to sentimental literature and the moral psychology of feeling.
Critics objected, however, to the mixing of humor and sacred discourse, accusing the sermons of irreverence or of diluting doctrinal seriousness. Some ministers found the informal tone improper for the pulpit, and controversies arose about whether such playful methods were appropriate for religious teaching. Those debates reflect larger eighteenth-century anxieties about authority, taste, and the proper boundaries between literature and religion.

Legacy
The second series of Yorick's sermons helped shape an anglicized, literary form of moral discourse that influenced both devotional writing and the evolving novel. By blending pastoral concern, wit, and narrative, Sterne expanded the possibilities of religious expression and demonstrated how imaginative prose could carry ethical force without abandoning the consolations of warmth and humor. The sermons remain a vivid example of eighteenth-century attempts to reconcile feeling and faith.