KVH 
 
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 MY CURATES.
 
 18th Edition. Cr. 8vo, Price 1/-, by post 1/2. 
 
 MY RECTORS! By a QUONDAM CURATE. 
 
 Wanted a Curacy— Advertisements, Agents, &c.— My 
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 —I become a GUINEA-PIG !— A Dictator-My Ideal 
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 Every Rector and Curate should read this most amusing and instructive brochure. 
 
 7th Edition. Price 1/-, by post 1/2. 
 
 MY CHURCHWARDENS ! By a VICAR. The 
 
 Typical Warden— A Vestry Meeting (Town)— A Vestry 
 Meeting (Country)— A High-Church Warden— A Low- 
 Church Warden, &c., &c. 
 
 li0nTT0n : 
 
 SKEFFINGTON & SON, 163, PICCADILLY, W.
 
 K^ 
 
 ]jj>' 
 
 jW? Curates. 
 
 BY 
 
 A RECTOR. 
 
 ' Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a hook — 
 a message to zis from human souls -whom we never saw, who lived perhaps 
 thousands of miles away, and yet, in those little sheets of paper, open their 
 hearts to us as brothers." — Chakles Kingsley. 
 
 U.a\\tsa\u 
 
 SKEFFINGTON & SON, 163, PICCADILLY, W. 
 1890.
 
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 0Gi.192U ;, 
 
 -) 
 
 <OUTir..l.-035<C 
 
 <^
 
 s'/7^^ 
 
 THE AUTHOR 
 
 M 
 
 ►— RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 LU 
 
 CO 
 
 >. DEDICATES HIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
 ce 
 
 ^ TO THE 
 
 OQ 
 
 ^ CLERGY AND LAITY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 
 
 AND TO ANY OTHERS WHO MAY READ IT. 
 
 Q J. S., Lulbiook Rectory, 
 June, 1890. 
 
 C3 
 
 
 433378
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 There is no need for a long preface to this little book : its 
 title denotes its contents, and, possibly, may betray its tenor. 
 It gives the Author's recollections of his Curates. 
 
 If, occasionally, Rectors be found wanting in their attitude 
 towards their Curates, it is at least as true that Curates may, 
 sometimes, be very provoking to their Rectors. 
 
 The Author has had a considerable experience of both 
 Rectors and Curates ; he rejoices to be able to state that he 
 has observed, generally speaking, a harmony of feeling existing 
 between the Beneficed Clergyman and his lieutenant ; one 
 object which he has in view is to point out how, on the part 
 of Curates, this harmony may be weakened. 
 
 He is also aware that earnest, spiritually-minded Curates 
 are to be found in the different departments of theological 
 opinion. But each department may present its undesirable 
 idiosyncrasy. Hence one design, in the following pages, is so 
 to arrange the subjects that there may be seen — in Mr. Slimmer 
 some of the Low Church, in Mr. Rashleigh some of the Broad 
 Church, and in Mr. ]\Iaypole some of the High Church failings. 
 Mr. Parchment and Mr. Verity are exceptional cases. 
 
 One word is sufficient to express a strong bond of union 
 between men engaged in the groat work of the Priesthood — ■ 
 " Reality."
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I. Prefatory— About Myself ... ... ... i 
 
 ,, II. Mv First Curate— The Rev. Sampson Slimmer ii 
 
 ,, III. My Second Curate— The Rev. Roger Rashleigh 27 
 
 ,, IV. My Third Curate — The Rev. Marmaduke Maypole 41 
 
 ,, V. My Fourth Curate — The Rev. Peter Parchment 61 
 
 „ VI. My Fifth Curate — The Rev. Ernest Verity ... 72 
 
 ,, VII. Parva in Parvo ... ... ... ... 83 
 
 ,, Vlll. What I would like my Curate to be... ... 91
 
 fEv Gupaties. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF, 
 
 " Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor." 
 
 Horace. 
 
 TN some respects I may compare myself to 
 -^ Cincinnatus, who, in his old age, was called 
 from the plough to do battle for his country. I 
 am aware that the great Roman commander has 
 been utilised in this way before now. Some years 
 since, for instance, Punch's cartoon depicted Mr. 
 Gladstone as England's Cincinnatus, called — not 
 from the plough — but from the tree-felling axe to 
 resume his seat as head of the Government. 
 
 Notwithstanding the savouring of plagiarism, I 
 liken myself to Cincinnatus. He was of a retiring 
 disposition — so am I. He loved the country — so 
 do I. In his earlier years he was a public man ; 
 as age advanced he retreated to the quiet of his 
 
 A
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF, 
 
 farm ; here his peacefulness was disturbed, and 
 once more he figured in public. 
 
 In earlier life I was not exactly a public man, 
 although some of my thoughts were made public ; 
 I was a scribbler on a small scale. In the mellow 
 period, when one scarcely knows whether to call 
 himself middle-aged or an old man, I accepted 
 a country living, where I now tend my roses in 
 the garden, and my flock in the parish. Once 
 more I retake my pen to write, not a sermon, 
 but a book. 
 
 There is something very formidable about be- 
 ginning to write a book. I promise, however, 
 that it will not be a very long one. For such a 
 work, even granting the capacity, I have not the 
 time. My little book will be, for the most part, 
 a description of my Curates ; and of these I 
 shall give special prominence to my fellow-helpers 
 who worked with me while I held the important 
 living of S. Peter's, in the large country town 
 of Mulworth. 
 
 Talking of Cincinnatus and his plough reminds 
 me of a pathetic little incident which I witnessed 
 last hunting season. It will serve as a simile; I 
 find that one gets fond of using rural similes in 
 the country. 
 
 James, my man-of-all-work, was ploughing part 
 of the glebe land with a couple of horses ; one a
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 cart-horse which I had borrowed from Farmer Jones, 
 the other my old gig-mare, who is a well-bred 
 animal, and was a hunter years ago. A fox, followed 
 not long after by a pack of hounds in full cry, and 
 a company of red-coats, passed through the field — 
 
 " Id clamor et agmine facto 
 Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum " — 
 
 The earth shook, whips cracked, the tall3'-ho re- 
 sounded, the blast of the horn shrieked out. It 
 was an exhilarating sight, and James pulled up to 
 have a look. But the pathetic part was this — while 
 the cart-horse tried to nip a chance tuft of herbage, 
 my dear old mare Alice became quite excited. She 
 thrust her ears forward, and strained her eyes with 
 a long wistful look at the passing throng. She 
 whinnied and neighed, as if craving for yet another 
 run on the open. 
 
 The little incident quite affected me, and I found 
 myself meditating how many of us old men resemble 
 in disposition my mare Alice ! 
 
 But for my simile. The huntsman's horn, which 
 awakens within me recollections of other days, and 
 kindles a fitful glow of earlier energy, is a little 
 book which I have just been reading. It is entitled 
 *' My Rectors, by a Quondam Curate ; " it has 
 stirred me ; I shake off the yoke of age ; I shut 
 myself up in my study ; I take my pen, and launch
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 out once more into the arena which has witnessed 
 so many victories and defeats — the chequered arena 
 of print. 
 
 Cincinnatus — to refer to him for the third and last 
 time — is reported to have said to his wife as he 
 started for Rome, " I fear, Raciha, our httle field 
 must remain this year unsown." A similar fear 
 might be mine. My little field is my parish ; there 
 is seed to be sown there in truth, and there may be 
 the apprehension lest a flitting backward of the 
 memory into the past should interfere with one's 
 ever-present duty. However, if I can finish my 
 book as quickly as Cincinnatus finished the ^quians, 
 the ground upon which I work will not remain 
 neglected long. 
 
 For a little while I shall follow " A Quondam 
 Curate's " lead. I shall imitate his example, and 
 say something about myself. That something will 
 be little. My personal history has been an unevent- 
 ful one — that is, if it can be said that the history of 
 any person, however insignificant, is really so. What- 
 ever interest it might possess for the general public 
 consists in the parishes and people with which it 
 has been connected. And in this it resembles the 
 history of many another country clergyman ; indeed 
 in the majority of cases the English clergyman's 
 life is a quiet, uneventful one ; of course it has 
 its throbs and pulsations, but they are mostly
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 caused by the cares and concerns of his calling. 
 
 As I claim to be no extraordinary person, but, like 
 Jacob of old, a plain man, although not exactly a 
 dweller in tents, so I will take no extraordinary 
 pseudonym, but the plain one of John Smith. I 
 present my card — Rev. John Smith, Lulbrook 
 Rectory, Stirbridge. 
 
 After taking my degree at Oxford, I proceeded in 
 the usual way to obtain a Curacy. I spoke to some 
 clerical acquaintances on the subject, I advertised, 
 and looked out for advertisements. 
 
 And here I would say a few words on the topic of 
 advertising. What objection, unless it be a merely 
 sentimental one, can be urged against a clergyman 
 advertising in a clerical paper? Is it more deroga- 
 tory to his dignity than advertising in a daily paper 
 is derogatory to the dignity of Jeames or Chawles ? 
 Indeed one may perceive a distinct advantage in 
 the custom of advertising for either a Curate or a 
 Curacy. It gives a wider area from which Rector 
 or Curate may make his choice, and so it affords a 
 greater probability that either or both will arrive at 
 a fitting conclusion. If a Curate-dispensing com- 
 mittee were formed, what would be the result ? 
 This committee, very likely, would know nothing 
 about the Rectors and their requirem.ents, and little 
 or nothing about the Curates and their qualifications. 
 So if mistakes are already made, they would only
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 be increased and magnified were we to give up 
 advertising. 
 
 And besides this, as the inclinations of Rectors 
 and Curates could not well be consulted, the proba- 
 bility is that in many cases both would be dissatisfied. 
 The Curate would be reduced to a machine, packed 
 off anywhere at the will of the committee ; and the 
 Rector might be saddled with a machine which he 
 could not work. Why in these things, as in most 
 others, we ought to decide by our common sense. 
 If the Church of England leaves a margin for the 
 action of reason in matters of faith, so in matters of 
 work she leaves a margin for discretion. 
 
 However, I obtained a Curacy by means of an 
 advertisement, and was well satisfied with my 
 Rector, and I have reason to believe that he was 
 satisfied with me. Of course we had, occasionally, 
 little differences of opinion, theological disputings 
 and such like. They but added to our zest, they 
 did not interfere with deference and respect. Even 
 as a pie is savoured by pepper, so is life improved 
 by amicable disputation. 
 
 It is not my purpose to dwell on this period of my 
 life. Altogether I worked for seven years in the 
 capacity of Curate, for three years in one parish 
 and four in another. I look back with pleasure to 
 those days, and am deeply grateful for the whole- 
 some advice which I received from both my Rectors,
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 and which was given with the simple view of training 
 a young disciple, of necessity rather inexperienced, 
 in the work of the ministry. 
 
 My stipend was about the average ; though not 
 large, it was sufficient for the necessaries of life. In 
 prospect of my usual annual holiday, I made prepara- 
 tions for its enjoyment by occasionally writing for 
 a country town paper, the editor of which paid me 
 half a guinea for each of my contributions. 
 
 And here I would mention that many Curates are 
 by no means anxious to exchange their status for 
 that of Incumbent of a small living. The Curate 
 is, in many respects, the more independent ; he has 
 few calls on his purse, while the Incumbent has 
 many ; and the sense of parochial responsibility falls 
 much more heavily on Incumbent than on Curate. 
 Besides this, I am aware that not a few young men 
 in Holy Orders have refused livings on principle, 
 deeming it their duty to remain Curates for a term 
 of at least ten years. 
 
 At the age of thirty I accepted a small living in 
 the gift of the Dean and Chapter of our Cathedral. 
 After some years, the parish of S. Peter's, Mulworth, 
 was presented to me. From this I have retired to 
 my present Cure, which is in the gift of our Bishop. 
 For him I have a sincere regard, and I think it but 
 proper and courteous to address him as " My Lord.'* 
 Why should I not ? It is a customary mode of
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 address, and a term of respect due to the chief 
 Pastor of the Diocese. The title is given to Roman 
 Catholic prelates out of deference to the office of 
 Bishop ; so that, apart from legal arguments or 
 Parliamentary considerations, there need be no 
 qualms of conscience in using the phrase. And if 
 we come to derivations, what is the meaning of 
 "Lord" but "bread-dispenser?" Surely such is 
 a most applicable designation for a Bishop. 
 
 Of course, there can be a lavish overplus in the use 
 of the expression, which savours of obsequiousness 
 as well as pleonasm. For example, when dining 
 lately with our Bishop, I heard a New Zealand 
 Missionary say, " My Lord, what is your Lordship's 
 opinion of the Bill your Lordship is introducing into 
 Convocation ? " Nobody disliked the redundancy 
 more than did the Bishop himself. The question 
 reminded me — for alas ! profane thoughts will beset 
 us — of the eighteenth clause in the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 Like most elderly men, I find that I am easily 
 tempted into digression. My excuse is that I have 
 really very little to say about myself. It is, however, 
 right that I should state my theological opinions. 
 In these I may be accepted as a fair example of the 
 ordinary beneficed clergyman. I am not extreme, and 
 I wish to be liberal. If a man be in earnest, I have 
 ever considered that his opinions (if they be within the 
 boundaries of orthodoxy) are of minor importance.
 
 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 9 
 
 With regard to my Penates, I have but to say 
 that I am married. Although I did not, Hke the 
 Vicar of Wakefield, choose my wife as she did her 
 wedding gown, still she is possessed of such qualities 
 as wear well. She is a kind, motherly woman ; she 
 likes young men, for they remind her of our eldest 
 son who is on a ranch in America. We have always 
 wished to treat our Curates as our equals and on 
 terms of intimacy. They have been expected to 
 come, as a matter of course, to dinner and supper 
 on Sunday, and could drop in at any other time 
 and be welcomed. 
 
 Having been a Curate myself, I am in sympathy 
 with them. If at times I have tendered my counsel 
 to them, on the other hand I have been ready to 
 receive from them any suggestions which might be 
 serviceable to the spiritual welfare of the parish. If 
 I found fault with them there is little doubt that 
 they had reason to find fault with me. We clergy, 
 beneficed or unbeneficed, are, like other men, " com- 
 passed with infirmity." I claim to be no exception 
 to the rule. Still I maintain that, taking us all 
 round, we Rectors and Vicars of England will com- 
 pare favourably with the members of other professions 
 in those endowments of mind and deportment which 
 should regulate a man's conduct as a Christian. 
 
 For the present I have said enough about myself 
 as an introduction to my readers, I now turn to
 
 10 PREFATORY— ABOUT MYSELF. 
 
 my Curates. In describing them, I may be guilty 
 of a species of anachronism ; that is to say, they 
 may not have been with me in the same order in 
 which they appear in this book. It must be under- 
 stood that other Curates, who will not be mentioned, 
 may have filled in certain interregna or pauses of 
 silence. But for convenience sake I shall head the 
 chapters as if those of whom I write came in the 
 specified order.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY FIRST CURATE— THE REV. SAMPSON 
 SLIMMER. 
 
 " Ceux qui parlent beaucoup ne disent jamais rien." 
 
 Boileau. 
 "Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit." 
 
 Horace. 
 
 AFTER some debating with myself on the 
 circumstances of the parish of S. Peter's, 
 Mulworth, and the character of my parishioners, I 
 concluded that it would be desirable to gain the 
 services of what is termed a popular preacher. 
 
 Not that I am in favour of clergymen seeking 
 after popularity, or of people going to Church for 
 the purpose of doing homage to an individual 
 preacher. Such would, of course, be pernicious 
 to the spiritual life of both. The preacher-hunting 
 Church-goer is in danger of substituting the praise 
 of man for the praise of God ; the popularity- 
 hunting preacher is in still greater danger of minis- 
 tering over-much to the worship of Self. 
 
 Still I felt that there was need of a stirring up
 
 12 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 of more vitality and religious energy among us. I 
 was aware of my own shortcomings, and want of 
 power to fulfil the office of a " stir-up " preacher. 
 I had no pretensions to oratory. My sermons, 
 although carefully prepared and delivered from 
 manuscript, were, generally speaking, quiet exposi- 
 tions on the Gospel, Epistle, or one of the lessons ; 
 from which I endeavoured to deduce one or more 
 homely thoughts, with the hope that some of my 
 people would carry them away into their daily lives. 
 
 And yet, somehow, it appeared to me that I 
 failed to get hold of many of my people. I was 
 reading lately of a young French cure who was 
 dissatisfied with the results of his labours and 
 sermons. He consulted a thoughtful old man of 
 his congregation on the subject. " What," he asked, 
 ** is my fault ? Where am I to be blamed ?" " Your 
 fault is this," was the reply — " you are too well 
 understood." This saying, I think, is applicable 
 to some English as well as French clergymen. 
 Some of us are too simple, too well understood. 
 Possibly it was the case with me. 
 
 For all this I could not change my style. I could 
 not force myself to use language " not understanded 
 of the people." Among our poor there was, of course, 
 great ignorance. Even the well-to-do and educated 
 parishioners had but a scanty notion of Church 
 doctrines and principles. I venture to say that
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 13 
 
 some of our Sunday School children could have 
 answered questions on Bible and Prayer Book better 
 than even our Churchwarden. What, I asked myself, 
 was the good of using high-flown language to old 
 Betsy, our washerwoman, or to old Timothy, our 
 Clerk, whose sum-total of Christian duty appeared 
 to consist in saying " Amen " at the end of the 
 prayers, and nodding assent at the end of the 
 sermon ? And how could I employ abstruse argu- 
 ment with people whose logic ranged little above 
 the calculation of interest or the sale of goods ? 
 
 However, we needed a Boanerges. And even 
 should he thunder Greek metaphysics, and storm 
 with bristling syllogisms, why all the better, if by 
 so doing he would open a breach to the citadel and 
 shrine of our being — the heart and the will. 
 
 It was at this juncture that I heard of and had a 
 correspondence with the Rev. Sampson Slimmer. 
 He was on the point of leaving another Curacy, and 
 his Rector wrote to me to say that in the event of 
 Mr. Slimmer coming to me I should find in him a 
 most energetic fellow-helper. Mr. Slimmer enjoyed 
 a considerable reputation as an extempore preacher, 
 and this reputation had reached our parish long 
 before he thought of coming himself. He had had 
 already considerable experience in parish work, 
 and was no longer a very young man — that is, he 
 approached forty.
 
 14 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 Our interview was satisfactory. Owing to Mr. 
 Slimmer's age and capabilities I thought it right to 
 offer him a larger stipend than is usual. He bowed 
 his thanks, and accepted the Curacy of S. Peter's. 
 
 Now as Mr. Slimmer is one of the leading charac- 
 ters of my little book, more than that, one of the 
 heroes of the town of Mulworth, I shall endeavour 
 to describe his general aspect, leaving my reader to 
 come to a conclusion regarding his disposition from 
 my narrative of our intercourse. 
 
 Mr. Slimmer's appearance was, without being 
 exactly attractive, somewhat remarkable. He was 
 a man you would notice even in a crowd. Although 
 his features were commonplace and of Saxon type, 
 there was a certain air of gravity about his forehead 
 which gave the impression of profound thought. 
 This was enhanced by the artistic style in which he 
 dressed his hair. It was long and clustering, and 
 brushed upwards and backwards, as if its additional 
 weight were too great for the already heavily loaded 
 brain. His complexion was sandy ; his nose short 
 and his mouth large — an orator's mouth, according 
 to what I have been told. His hands were large, 
 and, like his cheeks, inclined to be fleshy. His 
 manner might be considered a little brusque; he 
 had a fidgetty habit of snapping his index finger on 
 to the table ; this, I supposed, was owing to the 
 restless energy of his mind.
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 15 
 
 However, I was glad to have him, and after staying 
 at the Rectory for a week, he adjourned to the 
 Curate's lodgings. 
 
 As Mr. Slimmer's speciality consisted in his 
 preaching, I shall dwell more particularly on his 
 aspect in that vocation. As a reader he was em- 
 phatic, perhaps a little too much so for my quiet 
 taste. In the Exhortation he laid particular stress 
 on the words ** Dearly," " pray," and ** beseech ; " 
 in the General Confession on "erred," "strayed," 
 and "lost." But as a preacher he was more than 
 emphatic ; he was histrionic. 
 
 I, naturally, awaited his first sermon with solici- 
 tude. I had some fear lest it would be too far above 
 our heads. It certainly was extremely fluent. Words 
 came at will — they rushed over each other like an 
 avalanche. But I failed to follow the sequences, 
 and I noticed that there were some defects in gram- 
 mar and pronunciation. The thoughts of the sermon 
 were either too deep or too subtle for my intellect to 
 penetrate. When, according to my custom, I en- 
 deavoured to recall the points, they had escaped my 
 memory. 
 
 Most of the congregation were, however, greatly 
 struck with the sermon. Mr. Wagstaff, our Church- 
 warden, cordially shook hands with Mr. Slimmer, 
 and warmly thanked him for his " grand discourse ; " 
 and Mrs. Daniel, whom we all regarded as an oracle
 
 16 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 on such matters, pronounced Mr. Slimmer another 
 Demosthenes. 
 
 Up to the time of Mr. Slimmer's coming, it 
 had been customary for Rector and Curate to 
 share the work of Church and Parish as equally 
 as possible. We read the services and preached 
 alternately. Mr. Slimmer, however, did not fall in 
 with this arrangement, and owing to his peculiar 
 powers I thought it right to defer to his wishes. 
 He occasionally preached twice on Sunday ; he 
 generally preferred taking the evening sermon. 
 Whenever he felt unable or disinclined, I took 
 his place. 
 
 Notwithstanding this want of uniformity, it was 
 obvious enough that Mr. Slimmer had many more 
 hearers than had I. A large and ever increasing 
 congregation listened with rapt attention to his 
 bursts of eloquence ; a comparatively small one 
 gave but a listless regard to my little expositions. 
 My Curate was a huge cannon ; I but a pop-gun. 
 
 Still, for a time, I could not make out how the 
 people knew who v/as to be the preacher. We did 
 not advertise or give notice of the fact. And yet, 
 Sunday after Sunday, ere the rostrum was mounted, 
 the seats were filled or only half-filled according as 
 Curate or Rector should preach. Strangers from 
 other parishes came to our Church. They seemed 
 to be gifted with prescience — they slipped out after
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 17 
 
 the third collect when my turn came to preach ; 
 they remained for Mr. Slimmer. 
 
 One Sunday evening, partly from curiosity and 
 partly because I had prepared a sermon on the 
 duty of worship, I resorted to a manoeuvre by 
 which I hoped to entrap the deserters. Pretending 
 to think that Mr. Slimmer looked tired, I asked him 
 to read the lessons, while I took the service ; his 
 absence from the reading desk would, I trusted, be 
 regarded as a signal that he was to occupy the 
 pulpit. My stratagem failed ; the usual stampede 
 occurred ; I was justly ridiculed for my artifice. 
 
 The mystery was at length explained. Mr. 
 Slimmer alwaj^s had a glass of water placed on the 
 pulpit for his use. The glass was a tell-tale ; it 
 had as great a charm for the people as a mirror 
 has for a young lady — it kept them in their seats. 
 
 Mr. Slimmer availed himself of the glass two or 
 three times during the course of his sermon ; he 
 also used his pocket-handkerchief to mop his heated 
 forehead after one of his outbursts. The pauses 
 which ensued at these periods were effective. There 
 is an eloquence in silence. 
 
 I was weak enough again to have recourse to an 
 expedient. One evening I had the glass placed on 
 the pulpit for me. The result was merely to delay 
 the egress until the last verse of the second hymn ; 
 during which I made my way to the pulpit. 
 
 B
 
 18 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 After that I inwardly resolved to be guilty of no 
 more artful dissimulation. 
 
 Mr. Slimmer was, at times, refreshingly original 
 in the deductions he drew from his text, or perhaps 
 I should say, skilful in discovering a text which 
 suited his sermon. 
 
 To exhibit this, and his style of rhetoric, I append 
 a short outline of one of his sermons, which created 
 an unusual sensation, and certainly made an im- 
 pression on my memory — 
 
 The text was " Line upon line." " There is," he 
 went on, " a thick black line which marks the map 
 of Continental Europe. It is black enough round 
 France, it thickens round Spain and Portugal, it is 
 as black as hell itself when it envelops Italy. This 
 thick black line is Popery ! It makes five huge 
 blots, which slur the soil of those lands. Mark 
 those blots " (here he raised his left hand and 
 stretched out his fingers). " The first is the biggest 
 and blackest of all " (here he pressed his thumb) — 
 " it is Transubstantiation." The next four fingers 
 were then tapped and pommelled in turn, until I 
 feared he might injure them. They represented the 
 other errors of Rome ; winding up with the little 
 finger, which symbolised the celibacy of the clergy. 
 The denunciation of this last found favour with our 
 spinsters, particularly, perhaps, as Mr. Slimmer was 
 still a bachelor.
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 19 
 
 As there appeared to be no tendency to Romanism 
 in our parish at the time, I could not discern the 
 necessity for this controversial tirade. 
 
 The ordinary Sunday sermons were far from 
 sufficient to slacken Mr. Slimmer's vigorous energy 
 in polylogy (if I may coin a word). At his request 
 I acquiesced to having a weekly pra3'er meeting in 
 the schoolroom, on condition that he should conduct 
 it, for I was no adept in this kind of work. 
 
 At these meetings the pocket-handkerchief did a 
 two-fold service. While offering up an extempore 
 prayer, Mr. Slimmer knelt upon it ; standing up he 
 used it as in the pulpit. Although not helping in 
 these services I generally made one of the congrega- 
 tion. My feelings were sometimes tested by the 
 unrestrainable unction of my Curate, especially when 
 he prayed in a fervent voice for his " dear fellow- 
 labourer." 
 
 This latter clause was altered one evening that I 
 came late. I could not help supposing that he 
 referred to me when he prayed for " the weak Shep- 
 herd at the head of the parish." 
 
 The circumstance recalled a somewhat similar 
 one which happened in a certain mining district in 
 Cornwall. One of the foremen, called " Captain 
 Jack," held the position of chief haranguer to a 
 dissenting body. Captain Jack unfortunately quar- 
 relled with his lieutenant, old Simon Rodwick. The
 
 20 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 consequence was that Simon seceded to Anglicanism, 
 and the two men, although employed on the same 
 mine, did not speak to each other for months. The 
 Captain was magnanimous ; he wished for reconcili- 
 ation; he determined to bring back the erring sheep ; 
 he was first to hold out his hand, which was warmly 
 accepted. Upon this the Captain proposed that 
 both should adjourn to his house and say a prayer. 
 The two men knelt down side by side. The host 
 improved the occasion ; he prayed " that the miser- 
 able sinner beside him might be forgiven for his low, 
 back-biting proclivities ; he had deserted his calling 
 and election — he had been pitiful and mean — he had 
 maligned his best friend — yet there was mercy even 
 for him." At the conclusion of the prayer the two 
 men stood up, and Captain Jack produced a couple 
 of glasses of ale, one of which he tendered to his 
 companion. Poor old Simon gazed at it for a 
 minute, and then said, " Look 'ee 'ere, Cappen Jack, 
 if I drinks this 'ere ale, may it choke me ; and if iver 
 ye sees me inside this door agin, I gives ye leave to 
 call me all the rest of the ugly names ye can invent." 
 I have dwelt on this little incident, a true one, 
 by the way, because I am aware that even Church 
 of England clergymen have sometimes adopted a 
 similar mode of disturbing- the consciences (or the 
 tempers) of brethren with whose opinions they did 
 not agree.
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 21 
 
 Although Simon Rodwick became a confirmed 
 Anglican after the episode in Captain Jack's house, 
 I did not desert Mr. SHmmer's prayer meetings. 
 After all, he probably said but the truth. There are 
 weak shepherds — perhaps I am one of them — and 
 yet I rejoice to know that there are strong ones to 
 be found. 
 
 In a few months Mr. SHmmer's popularity had 
 increased to such an extent that our Church was 
 not large enough to hold the congregation. The 
 " Mulworth Weekly Express " had paragraphs on 
 his sermons ; his photographs, taken in surplice, 
 appeared in the stationers' windows ; a local artist 
 painted his picture to be hung up in the Town 
 Hall. 
 
 Nor was his ability as a preacher the only merit 
 in his favour. His indefatigable zeal, his care for 
 the poor, were topics of conversation to which I was 
 forced to listen ; indeed, I was conscious by many 
 an observation that my influence had become an 
 inverse to his, and was on the wane. But the regard 
 which the people had for Mr. Slimmer almost 
 reached fever heat when he was seen carrying 
 blankets to the poor. Widow Hawkins, his house- 
 keeper, who, I suspected, had aims on his heart, 
 told the neighbours thathe went so far as to denude 
 himself of the habiliments requisite for sleep. 
 
 There was no absolute necessity for Mr. SHmmer's
 
 22 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 self-sacrifice — we had a parochial clothing and blanket 
 club. 
 
 One other incident of his generosity is worth 
 
 recording. Meeting a badly-dressed rough in High 
 Street, he accosted him with the question why he 
 did not go to Church. The man replied that he
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 23 
 
 had not a decent coat. "Then take this," said Mr. 
 SHmmer, taking off his own, " I went to Church in 
 that, and you can go now." 
 
 This occurrence was quickly communicated all 
 over the town. Even Mrs. Daniel wept when she 
 heard of it. As for me, I did not venture to express 
 my opinion that he might have asked the rough to 
 go with him as far as his lodgings. This would have 
 been more decent, at least, than walking a hundred 
 yards through the town in shirt sleeves. 
 
 It was with some concern that I noticed Mr. 
 Slimmer's garments looked extremely shabby. He 
 no longer wore the well-fitting suit in which he 
 appeared on his first visit to me. Now his coat was 
 threadbare, and his shoes were cracked. The small 
 addition which I made to his quarter's stipend did 
 not rectify matters. A rather worldly-wise friend of 
 mine who, somehow, disliked Mr. Slimmer, was 
 stopping at the Rectory about this time. Perceiving 
 my anxiety regarding Mr. Slimmer's dress, he 
 originated the following aphorism — "The same kind 
 of spirit will cause a man to dress well for display 
 and badly for sympathy." To give weight to this 
 he related an anecdote of a Roman Catholic priest 
 somewhere in Ireland. This gentleman was anxious 
 to have a large collection for some good purpose. 
 To effect this he resorted to the following plan. He 
 obtained a Franciscan cloak, a pair of well-worn
 
 24 MY FIRST CURATE, 
 
 shoes, and the services of a brother priest from a 
 distant parish. He persuaded this good man to 
 dispense with his ordinary garments for a few days, 
 and don the cloak and shoes. The ruse was 
 successful ; a holy friar wearing no stockings, with a 
 hay rope encircling his tattered robe, perambulated 
 the parish. The sympathy of the warm-hearted 
 Irish was excited ; they heard he was to preach the 
 following Sunday. There was an enormous con- 
 gregation and a very large collection. The two 
 jolly priests, clothed in their wonted apparel, had 
 a good laugh over the business and their whisky-toddy 
 that same Sunday evening. 
 
 But I am straying away too far from Mr. Slimmer, 
 especially as he was not to stay much longer with 
 us, and as I am about to bring this chapter to 
 a close. 
 
 Scarcely a year had elapsed from the date of Mr. 
 Slimmer's coming ere it was found expedient to 
 build another Church in our town, and form a new 
 parish by cutting off a part of S. Peter's. To this 
 I assented, for in my opinion the more Churches 
 we have the greater is the probability of religion 
 spreading. 
 
 Funds were not wanting for the purpose. The 
 hst was headed by the Rev. Sampson Slimmer for 
 fifty pounds, with a note that he would pay when 
 he could. M}' name came next for a similar sum.
 
 THE REV. SAMPSON SLIMMER. 25 
 
 Miss Chandelier, a rich spinster of middle life, who 
 occupied the largest pew in S. Peter's, endowed the 
 new parish with a donation of ^5,000. Arrange- 
 ments were made for holding a bazaar. This I did 
 not like ; it seems to me that we should avoid a 
 semblance of barter when raising money for the 
 purpose of worship ; the people should subscribe 
 voluntarily. However, the young ladies of the town 
 enjoyed it ; they sold bouquets of flowers and other 
 such trifles at a good price, and had the opportunity 
 of flirting with the young men, which rather shocked 
 Mrs. Daniel and my dear wife. 
 
 In time the Church was built. At Mr. Slimmer's 
 suggestion it was called S. Agnes', Agnes was Miss 
 Chandelier's Baptismal name. Mr. Slimmer was 
 presented to the living of S. Agnes'. Not long after- 
 wards I had the pleasure of uniting him in holy 
 wedlock to Miss Chandelier. At this Mrs. Hawkins' 
 feelings were wounded ; she did not take a seat in 
 S. Agnes'. 
 
 During the rest of my stay at Mulworth I often 
 met Mr. and Mrs. Shmmer. They occasionally 
 dined with us and we with them. S. Agnes' Vicar- 
 age is beautifully furnished, and its occupants are, 
 perhaps, as happy as are many other married people. 
 I noticed, however, that Mrs. Slimmer sometimes 
 addressed her husband in a tone of asperity. 
 
 Mr. Slimmer gradually grew stouter, and, I fear,
 
 26 MY FIRST CURATE. 
 
 less active than of yore. His sermons, too, must 
 have lost something of their wonted vigour, for 
 many of my people who had deserted S. Peter's for 
 S. Agnes', returned to the Mother Church ; and, in 
 time, my diminished parish resumed its earlier 
 aspect, as if Mr. Slimmer never had been there.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY SECOND CURATE— THE REV. ROGER 
 RASHLEIGH. 
 
 " We may outrun 
 By violent swiftness, that which we run at, 
 And lose by over-running." 
 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 THE next name on my list 
 of Curates is that of the 
 Rev. Roger Rashleigh. At first 
 it was not my design to include 
 him in these sketches, for the 
 reason that, in many respects, 
 he is not dissimilar to the 
 majority of young English Clergymen. That is to 
 say, he was fairly well educated, he had taken 
 a University degree, and I found him to be fond of 
 his work. Although intelligent enough, he presented 
 no exceptional brilliancy of powers, he did not stand 
 out in relief like Mr. Slimmer. 
 
 On second thoughts I have changed my intention, 
 and shall devote a chapter to him. My reason for
 
 28 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 including him is really the same reason I gave for 
 thinking of excluding him. 
 
 If, as I have supposed, he resembles other young 
 clergymen, it is possible that some of these may read 
 this chapter. I trust they will, and that they may 
 be able to see their ow^n lineaments reflected, how- 
 ever dimly, from the picture I shall paint of Mr. 
 Rashleigh. 
 
 While he was my Curate at Mulworth, Mr. Rash- 
 leigh betrayed some of those foibles, rather than 
 faults, which are incident to young men of his tem- 
 perament. These I shall make no effort to disguise. 
 He had, as I am glad to think most of our young 
 clergymen have, many good traits of character. If 
 I fail to note all these, it does not signify. Indeed 
 I have my private reasons for refraining from eulogy. 
 Mr, Rashleigh is no longer my Curate, but he is 
 a neighbour of mine, as Vicar of an adjacent 
 parish. He may chance to read these pages, and so 
 suspect who wrote them and of whom they are 
 written. If so, knowing his disposition, I am sure 
 he would prefer a laugh at a description of his earlier 
 mistakes to a self-applying perusal of a catalogue of 
 virtues. But I must not anticipate, and so I proceed 
 with my narrative. 
 
 Mr. Rashleigh's father had been an old college 
 acquaintance of mine. He was at this time a lead- 
 ing barrister in London. Although we had not met
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASH LEIGH. 29 
 
 for many years we occasionally corresponded. My 
 old friend wrote to me about his son Roger, who 
 had lately taken his degree at Cambridge, and was 
 seeking a Title and Curacy. In this letter the writer 
 was good enough to say that he would prefer no one 
 to me as his son's Rector and adviser. As he knew 
 I was single-handed, perhaps I would give him a 
 trial. It was in this way that Roger Rashleigh 
 became my coadjutor. 
 
 Apart from my association with his father, my 
 new Curate impressed me favourably when, after 
 his ordination, he came to Mulworth. I liked his 
 appearance and manner. He was quite the self- 
 contained, high-spirited young fellow who could 
 give a certain brightness to our staid, quiet home, 
 and rouse me by his sprightly conversation into 
 recollections of my own youthful days. 
 
 When age and youth commingle in anything like 
 harmony, each receives a benefit from the other. 
 If the experience of age can temper youth, then, on 
 the other hand, the kinetic energy of youth can lend 
 something of its animation to age. Whenever Mr. 
 Rashleigh came to the Rectory, it was as if another 
 candle had been put in the room. 
 
 However, I must endeavour to sketch him, as 
 faithfully as I can, in his social and clerical aspect. 
 
 At the University Mr. Rashleigh had distinguished' 
 himself by winning his " blue ; " that is, he had
 
 30 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 played in the annual cricket match between Oxford 
 and Cambridge. He was evidently very proud of 
 this ; indeed, I could gather from his observations 
 that he regarded it as a greater distinction than if 
 he had taken a double first. 
 
 It is wonderful how our acquirements as well as 
 our peculiarities cling to us. 
 
 *' Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem 
 Testa diu." 
 
 Something of his learning will be discernible in 
 the student's gesture ; the curvature of the head or 
 ^shoulders is an index of thought or care. Mr. Rash- 
 leigh was not a man of deep thought ; he had few 
 cares, but he was a cricketer. And he carried 
 something of the cricket-field with him into the 
 ministry. When he walked up the aisle to the 
 chancel his gait was that of a young fellow, bat on 
 shoulder, going to take his place at the wicket, and 
 when he stood up at the reading desk he appeared 
 as if getting ready to play the ball. 
 
 His week-day attire, too, was more lay than clerical. 
 The colour of his clothes appeared to me as rather 
 too light for our sombre profession, and his short 
 well-cut coat gave him something of a dandified 
 air. His hat was of ellipsoidal shape ; I believe 
 this is termed a "pot" hat. Sometimes he wore a 
 straw hat, cinctured with a light blue ribbon. He
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASHLEIGH. 31 
 
 generally carried a huge stick, and was accompanied 
 by his great Newfoundland dog, Ranger. He also 
 cultivated a moustache, which he was fond of 
 caressing; this caused him to expose a large gold 
 ring which bore his crest, and which he wore on 
 his little finger. Indeed the only item of clothing 
 which revealed the clergyman was a small white 
 tie, and even this he occasionally replaced by a 
 coloured one. 
 
 There was nothing vulgar about my Curate's 
 dress ; but it appeared to me to be incongruous 
 with the priestly office, or even the diaconate. I 
 considered it my duty to remonstrate with Mr. , 
 Rashleigh on the subject of his dress, my intimacy 
 with his father would surely admit of my doing so. 
 Not that I think the external habiliment is, intrin- 
 sically, of much importance, but because some of 
 our parishioners might imagine that lightness of 
 dress is indicative of a want of professional serious- 
 ness. I pointed out to him that doctors, when 
 visiting their patients, assume a garb in keeping 
 with their grave demeanour, and that there was all 
 the more reason for a clergyman, liable to be called 
 at any moment to a sick bed-side, to be as achro- 
 matic in dress as sedate in manner. The good 
 fellow received my observations without being 
 offended. He certainly muttered something about 
 hypocritical ostentation and professional veneer ;
 
 32 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 but I noticed that on the arrival of his next suit 
 of clothes from his London tailor he had acted on 
 my suggestion. I fear that it was only from his 
 respect for me. 
 
 Although Mr. Rashleigh, so far as I could perceive, 
 was by no means proficient in the subtleties of 
 politics, yet he professed to be a radical, and 
 adopted many of the stock phrases and arguments 
 of that party. He quite shocked Mrs. Smith and 
 myself by the way in which he spoke of Her 
 Gracious Majesty the Queen, whom he termed, 
 " a decent old lady, utterly unnecessary to the 
 welfare of the State." He offended my Tory 
 sympathies by denouncing the House of Lords as 
 a stop-gap to enlightenment and progress. 
 
 On this matter I also deemed it right to seriously 
 expostulate with him. I referred him to our duty 
 to our neighbour in the Catechism, and more 
 especially to the words, " to honour and obey the 
 Queen .... to order myself lowly and reverently 
 to all my betters." His reply was to the effect that 
 he had yet to learn whether the Lords were his 
 betters, and as for the Catechism, why it was a 
 relic of serfdom, compiled by some Erastian syco- 
 phant of the Reformation ! 
 
 • This want of reverence on Mr. Rashleigh's part 
 betrayed itself even in our own little circle. I shall 
 give an instance of this. •
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASHLEIGH. 33 
 
 Old Doctor Pilling and his wife were on intimate 
 terms with us. It was our custom once a week to 
 meet at each other's houses, and have a quiet rubber 
 of whist after tea. We played the old-fashioned 
 game, counting up to ten points. During one of 
 our sittings Mr. Rashleigh happened to come in 
 and look over our hands. He laughed at our play, 
 and said it was only fit for our grandmothers. 
 Poor Mrs. Pilling grew quite crimson when he told 
 her that she had lost three tricks by not leading 
 trumps, of which she had six ; and my wife was 
 disturbed from her usual serenity at being told that 
 she shouldn't have put the queen on her partner's 
 knave. I must admit that old Pilling and I had a 
 conference together afterwards on my Curate's 
 suggestions, and we concluded that he was right 
 in some of them. But I could not prevail upon 
 my wife to change her mode of play. ^^^ She gave it 
 as her opinion that Mr. Rashleigh, altliough nice in 
 some ways, was very rude and conceited ; and he 
 certainly knew nothing about whist. When one 
 evening he took a hand and happened to win, she 
 affirmed that it was all luck. 
 
 The last paragraph may appear to contain too 
 trivial a subject to have dwelt upon. I have written 
 it for the purpose of exemplifying how clever men 
 may make themselves disagreeable by self-assertion. 
 There are many young men, clergymen included, 
 c
 
 34 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 who are apt to regard their elders as far beneath 
 them in intellect, because they are not adepts 
 where they themselves excel. They dub them " old 
 women." They make no allowance for diversity of 
 talent ; they do not consider that even old women 
 may be superior to young men in acquirements 
 which are more important than whist or cricket. 
 I have often felt how needful it is for us, when 
 addressing others, to remember the precept, " Let 
 your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with 
 salt." Pertinently to this I quote an observation of 
 my worldly-wise friend alluded to in the last chapter. 
 ** It is," he said, " a great mistake to be too clever." 
 The remark was, I think, a wise one ; it admits of 
 different applications. 
 
 As my reader will have already discerned, Mr. 
 Rashleigh was one of those men who are liable to 
 make mistakes, which recoil upon themselves to 
 their own disadvantage. I shall give a few ex- 
 amples of this tendency. 
 
 Gifted with youth, good spirits, and a pleasant 
 manner, and furnished with a fair allowance by his 
 father, my Curate was naturally a favourite in 
 society The county families noticed him, and 
 invited him to their dinner parties and dances. 
 
 Here I digress into a parenthesis on the subject 
 of dancing. I considered it my duty to take ex- 
 ception to my Curate indulging in a waltz; for it
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASHLEIGH. 35 
 
 struck me as scarcely consonant with the dignity 
 of a clerg3man, to see him sweeping round with 
 swallow-tails fluttering, reminding one of an excited 
 magpie. A quadrille might be permissible ; it is a 
 more stately kind of dance. But, perhaps, I have 
 no right to dictate or give lessons in dancing, seeing 
 that at the last Lulbrook Harvest Home I began the 
 village ball on the Rectory meadow with Mrs. 
 Timmins, our dairy woman, for my partner. 
 
 To continue about Mr. Rashleigh. He was 
 received into the best society, and Sir Thomas 
 Scratcham, our Conservative member, desired to 
 show him attention. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, his political opinions and 
 independence of manner, after a short time led to 
 Mr. Rashleigh's exclusion from a social intercourse 
 which would have been most beneficial to him, and 
 which was certainly to his taste. 
 
 A Liberal meeting happened to be convened in 
 Mulworth, for the purpose of taking steps to oust 
 Sir Thomas from his seat. Mr. Rashleigh not 
 only attended this meeting, but actually went so 
 far as to attempt a speech. I heard afterwards 
 (to my secret joy) that the speech was a ridiculous 
 failure, and did more harm than good to the 
 Liberal cause. 
 
 Mr. Rashleigh, although not a public speaker, was 
 a private mimic. At a convivial gathering he
 
 36 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 imitated Sir Thomas' nasal and somewhat drawling 
 method of speaking. Both the meeting and the 
 mimicry were reported at Scratch Court. When 
 they next met, Sir Thomas bowed stiffly to my 
 Curate, and Lady Scratcham raised her eye-glass 
 and her eyebrows, and did not bow. In a word, 
 they dropped him. 
 
 Mr. Rashleigh felt aggrieved at the slight ; he 
 spoke of Sir Thomas as " Sir Bombastes Nincom- 
 poop," and reminded me that Lady Scratcham was 
 " a Yorkshire breweress." Still these mirthful ex- 
 plosions were but a small compensation for the 
 loss of good dinners and genial society. 
 
 Nor were Mr. Rashleigh's mistakes confined to 
 the direction of the upper and influential classes. 
 He erred in an opposite manner in his connection 
 with the shopkeepers and artizans. He made a 
 point of going to tea with the Crockers, who kept 
 a grocer's shop, simply because Mrs. Berbeck, our 
 bank manager's wife, looked down on them. He 
 invited Bill Slasher, the blacksmith, and Joe Slicer, 
 the cobbler, to smoke in his rooms ; and was hail- 
 fellow-well-met with Mr. Grabb's apprentice boys, 
 that he might give an evidence of the levelling 
 influence of Christianity. 
 
 Now I agree with the sentiment, which has been 
 often expressed, that ** a clergyman should be neither 
 above nor below anyone in his parish." But this
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASHLEIGH. 37 
 
 must be held with " a mental reserve," and applied 
 to a clergyman in his professional aspect. There 
 are grades in society which even a clergyman cannot 
 ignore ; they are indispensable to the human race, 
 constituted as it is. Tiie uneducated classes cannot 
 appreciate a recognition of equality in those they 
 deem their betters ; they are apt to regard it as 
 condescension, as they are apt to consider modesty 
 as the outcome of weakness. Over familiarity may 
 not always breed contempt, but it is very likely to 
 dispense with common courtesy. It was so in this 
 case. Bill Slasher and Joe Sheer, who dropped 
 their h's, sometimes dropped the Mr. when speaking 
 of, or even to, my well-meaning Curate. 
 
 Society does exist ; it has its conventionalities as 
 well as its etiquettes, and they must be respected. 
 Mr. Rashleigh certainly had an influence for good 
 among the working class. He played cricket with 
 the young men, and thereby gained a reputation for 
 manliness and cordiality. By this means he managed 
 to establish a Working Men's Club ; he induced 
 many of the members to come to Church. And 
 yet, I fear, the smoke of his pipe in the cricket field 
 clouded his good work in the parish. 
 
 In visiting the poor, he made his mistakes too. 
 His injudicious donations were likely to pauperise 
 some and make others lazy. Old Jane Burket, a 
 miser with a stocking full of sovereigns, extracted 
 
 433378
 
 38 MY SECOND CURATE, 
 
 half-a-crown from him by her whines ; and Tim Guth- 
 rie, a worthless fellow, got dreadfully drunk in drinking 
 the health of (to use his own words) " the decent 
 young parson who tipped him two bob that morning." 
 
 My Curate was also deficient in that tact, that 
 savoir faire — which is so essential to a clergyman. 
 Mrs. Skirt, the tailor's wife, and Mrs. Cram, who 
 kept the little toy-shop, had a quarrel about some 
 trifle. Mr. Rashleigh endeavoured to bring about 
 a reconciliation, with the result that they both turned 
 upon himself as an interfering busybody. I have 
 not said much about Mr. Rashleigh as a reader or 
 preacher ; the truth is, little is to be said about him 
 here. He read as well as most clergymen; he 
 preached moral theses. 
 
 Yet I must mention that even in Church he was 
 consistent to his law-transgressing proclivities and 
 his proneness to make mistakes. He said the Creed 
 as if he did not quite believe all its clauses. After 
 reading the lessons he said, " Thus endeth the first 
 (or second) lesson ; " and before the Epistle he used 
 the words, " The Epistle is taken from, &c." How- 
 ever, when I pointed put to him that an ignoring of 
 the rubric was really no improvement, and that his 
 use sounded a little affected and pedantic, he adopted 
 the authorised form. 
 
 He neglected to prefix the word " Saint " in men- 
 tioning the names of the Apostles, until I reminded
 
 THE REV. ROGER RASH LEIGH. 39 
 
 him of the story of a Roman Catholic Priest request- 
 ing a Dissenting Minister to call the Apostles 
 •• Mister " if he objected to " Saint." 
 
 At times he was rather ambitious in his style of 
 preaching. I give a specimen of this, which I took 
 down in pencil at the time — 
 
 " We arrive at Evolution by the transmutation of 
 an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, into a definite, 
 coherent, heterogeneity, and through a continuous 
 system of differentiations and integrations. There- 
 fore pneumaticism may be defined as the metempsy- 
 chosis of a differentiated and integrated psychism." 
 
 As I felt rather puzzled at this elaborate sentence, I 
 afterwards asked Mr. Rashleighforanexplanationofit. 
 He had evidently some difficulty in givingone ; indeed, 
 I discovered that he had strung together two passages 
 from different authors, and thereby mystified himself. 
 
 With all his faults, I was sorry when Mr. Rashleigh 
 left me. This came about through his being offered 
 a small country living in the gift of some relative. 
 
 Perhaps he may be deemed fortunate in gaining 
 preferment thus early in life. There are men hke 
 him, worthy and well-meaning enough, who injure 
 their own prospects by a certain self-sufficiency 
 which dims their better qualities. They make 
 enemies where they might have retained friends, 
 without wounding their true dignity. 
 
 Men of position seldom excuse assimiption in men
 
 40 MY SECOND CURATE. 
 
 without position : it seems to diminish their own 
 importance. And when a Curate's preferment rests 
 with his own unaided resources, it recedes into 
 distance — he remains a Curate. 
 
 But I must not apostrophise. As I stated in the 
 beginning of this chapter, Mr. Rashleigh is now a 
 neighbour of mine. When I came to this, my 
 present hving, I found him Vicar of the next parish. 
 
 He is still a 3'oung man, young in hours as well 
 as in years, to paraphrase from one of Lord Bacon's 
 finest passages. He is liked in the parish, he still 
 plays cricket. In many things he has become 
 wiser ; his politics are modified ; his sermons are 
 more simple ; his manners are quieter. My wife 
 asks him to tea and a rubber occasionally ; he does 
 not find fault, and she asks his advice as to what to 
 lead. And yet it has struck me that he would prefer 
 a wider scope for his energies, and that he is not 
 quite satisfied with the prospect of remaining Vicar 
 of a little hamlet to the end of life's chapter. When 
 he was with us the other night I stole a look at him 
 while his face was thoughtfully turned towards the 
 fire, and the conversation had ceased for a minute. 
 It is a bright face, and yet there is a soft sadness in 
 it. I felt myself unconsciously repeating a passage 
 I had read somewhere — " The gulf between what a 
 man is and what he was intended to be is the truly 
 tragic thing in his destinies."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MY THIRD CURATE— THE REV. 
 MA RMA D UKE MA YPOLE. 
 
 " On n'est jamais si ridicule par les qualites que Ton a que par 
 celles que Ton affecte d'avoir." — Rochefoucauld. 
 
 MY next Curate, 
 o f w h o m I 
 would speak at some 
 length, is Mr. May- 
 pole. It will have 
 been noticed that 
 Mr. Slimmer and 
 Mr. Rashleigh were 
 different in many 
 personal characteris- 
 tics, as well as in their 
 views as Churchmen. 
 Mr. Maypole was a 
 contrast to both : he 
 was as far removed 
 from the one as from 
 the other. Indeed I
 
 42 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 might borrow an illustration from mathematics to 
 describe these, my three Curates — relatively they 
 stood to one another as the points of an equilateral 
 triangle. 
 
 Mr. Maypole was undoubtedly possessed of good 
 parts, and some excellent qualities. Of these he 
 gave proof at School and College, and, I have every 
 reason to believe, during his first Curacy, to which 
 he had been ordained, and from which he came to 
 Mulworth. As he is by no means the least interest- 
 ing among those on my list, I shall give a brief 
 sketch of his previous life. 
 
 He was the son of a very respectable yeoman, who 
 held a farm on the property of a Mr. Marmaduke. 
 In compliment to this good squire, Mrs. Maypole 
 named her first-born son after him. Mr. Marmaduke 
 was kind enough not to consider this a trespass ; he 
 esteemed his worthy tenant, and shewed various 
 kindnesses to his little namesake. 
 
 The boy evidenced signs of a fair amount of 
 ability ; he was sent to a small Grammar School in 
 a neighbouring town. Here he won prizes in Bible 
 History, and in Uteris Jmmanionbus. When he ap- 
 proached young-manhood, unlike most boys, he 
 manifested an inclination, as well as an aptitude, 
 for the Ministry. Owing to this, his parents made 
 an effort which cost them some self-denial, and sent 
 him to a Theological College. He passed through
 
 THE REV. M ARM A DUKE MAYPOLE. 43 
 
 his course with credit, and came out first of his 
 year. This honour was not necessarily a very diffi- 
 cult feat, as there were only two other candidates ; 
 still it argued perseverance on his part, and there is 
 no reason against the supposition that the first of 
 three in a small College may be as distinguished a 
 scholar as the first of a hundred in a great University. 
 
 For the two years previous to his coming to 
 Mulworth, Mr. Maypole had worked as Curate in 
 a remote village near Wales. I received a most 
 satisfactory letter from his Vicar, who mentioned 
 that it was his Curate's wish to leave him ; that, 
 not unnaturally, he considered himself "buried alive " 
 in so out-of-the-way a place, and desired a larger 
 field for his energies, and one more suitable to his 
 talents., 
 
 Mr. Maypole was a tall, dark man of twenty-six 
 or so, when he came to me. This is about as much 
 as I can say of his appearance, which in other 
 respects had nothing particularly striking in it. He 
 was neither very handsome nor very plain. In 
 complexion he differed from the florid Mr. Slimmer; 
 his dress, unlike that of Mr. Rashleigh, was decidedly 
 clerical. 
 
 At our first interview he gave me the impression 
 that he was rather taciturn ; he allowed me to do 
 most of the talking, and seemed to agree with all I 
 said. Indeed his deference created quite a novel
 
 U MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 sensation in me, after my previous experiences 
 ■ It is not, of course, my intention to write any- 
 thing like a history of my parish. Still, that Mr. 
 Maypole's work and character may be the better 
 understood, it will be necessary for me to notice 
 certain changes which had gradually sprung up, and 
 which gave me much concern. 
 
 I have noticed that stars do not appear singly, 
 either in the calm firmament of Heaven, or in the 
 great political and social revolutions of earth. 
 Readers of history will note this. Men of genius 
 come in pairs or in clusters ; when in pairs they 
 generally stand in opposition. The Ecclesiastical 
 World, the Scientific World, the Military World 
 endorse this statement. Ignatius Loyola started 
 into notoriety and power almost at the same time 
 as did Luther. Newton found a rival in Leibnitz. 
 If France had a Napoleon, England had her 
 Wellington. 
 
 Even so did it happen at Mulworth. I have 
 stated that Mulworth was not very much influenced 
 in the long run by the great powers of Mr. Slimmer. 
 In saying this I was a little inaccurate. Indirectly 
 he was the primary cause of a change in the ecclesi- 
 astical aspect of the parish. He sowed the seeds of 
 some discontent ; they brought forth fruit in time. He 
 was a star, perhaps I should rather say, a meteor ; 
 and in conformity with the law to which I have
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 45 
 
 alluded, another star arose in opposition. This was 
 in the person of Captain Filbert, a retired military 
 gentleman. Captain Filbert, having no more battles 
 to fight for Queen and country, resolved to be a 
 champion in the Church. Having nothing else to 
 do, by which he might exercise his energy, he 
 allowed it to flow in an ecclesiastical channel. He 
 was certainly a member of the Church Militant. 
 
 It came to pass, then, noiselessly at first, and 
 then with slowly-increasing sound, that a division 
 was created among our parishioners, and two parties 
 were formed. The waters of Jordan were disturbed, 
 and Ephraimites and Gileadites mustered on opposite 
 banks. In plain language, a small but strong coterie 
 of High Church people came into existence under 
 the leadership of Captain Filbert, whose chief aim 
 was to swell his ranks with recruits. 
 
 It would take me too long to describe the passages- 
 at-arms which took place from time to time ; or the 
 running fires which I had to parry or escape from 
 by subtlety ; for, being a man of peace, I dislike 
 anything which disturbs the quiet flow of the 
 spiritual life. Some of my congregation wanted 
 my surplice to be shorter ; others longer. Some 
 would have my stole narrower ; others broader. 
 The new generation of High Church folk, under 
 their gallant Captain, were for pushing me on ; 
 the old Low Church generation were for pulling
 
 46 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 me back; so that, mentally speaking, I was likely 
 to be torn asunder by the contending parties. 
 
 It was on this account that when Mr. Maypole 
 came to Mulworth I went so far as to request him 
 to steer as clear as he could from any appearance 
 of favouritism towards either party. Not that I 
 wished to bias his own theological opinions, but 
 because I thought a clergyman should be no partisan 
 in his own parish ; without absolutely agreeing with 
 all, he can be a friend of all. And surely it is far 
 better to lead people by friendly persuasion than to 
 drive them by an attack upon their deeply-rooted 
 convictions, whether we call them prejudices or not. 
 
 Now I have always considered it advisable that, 
 ere making any changes in the mode of conducting 
 Church services, a Rector should, to a certain 
 extent, consult the feelings of his congregation. 
 And surely he is justified in making such changes 
 if no rubrics are thereby infringed upon, and the 
 alterations are likely to deepen devotion in public 
 worship. 
 
 For instance, I am sure that it is a good plan, 
 when the Holy Communion is celebrated at the 
 eleven o'clock service, to preach a very short sermon 
 of not more than seven minutes' duration ; and also 
 to try to induce all the congregation to remain in 
 Church to the end of the sacred service, and not for 
 the majority to leave immediately after the prayer
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 47 
 
 for the Church Militant. This, I am convinced, 
 would cause many non-communicants to become 
 communicants. 
 
 Again, if a clergyman and his choir are capable of 
 doing it well, it seems to me that the Morning and 
 Evening Prayers might occasionally be intoned. 
 This would probably have the effect of increasing 
 the congregation. Music, too, may be made the 
 means of prayer as well as of praise. Worship is 
 to be the employment of the Saints in Heaven ; and 
 in Heaven there is to be music, instrumental and 
 vocal. It will be, doubtless, very beautiful there ; 
 why then should we not have it as beautiful as 
 possible in God's Church on earth ? 
 
 The result of these meditations was that I deter- 
 mined to have an intoned service, if the congregation 
 were not antagonistic to it. I found the majority 
 rather in favour of the proposal. Mr. Maypole, too, 
 gladly assented ; otherwise, indeed, it must have 
 fallen through, as my knowledge of music is very 
 limited. But my Curate was proficient in the art ; 
 he took some of the ladies in hand, and after a few 
 weeks' preparation an attempt was made. My wife, 
 who is my authority on this point, told me the 
 service went very well ; she was also pleased with 
 Mr. Maypole's voice, which she pronounced true 
 and resonant. 
 
 I should mention that some time before this we
 
 48 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 had discarded the gown as a preaching vestment. 
 It is true that I felt parting as with an old friend, 
 and at first a little uncomfortable in the pulpit. 
 There was a certain freedom of action, if not of 
 speech, about my old Oxford gown, and I was vain 
 enough (for vanity will steal up to the pulpit with 
 us) to imagine that it suited my personal appear- 
 ance. My wife has since metamorphosed it into my 
 gardening coat. 
 
 By degrees, and chiefly through the efforts of my 
 Curate, a fairly good choir of men and boys was 
 formed, and in a few months we actually put them 
 into surplices. This was a great deviation from the 
 beaten track, and it gave rise to a considerable 
 commotion. Captain Filbert was much pleased ; 
 but Mr. Wagstaff interviewed me in the vestry after 
 the first appearance of the white robes ; he expressed 
 himself in harsh language on the subject of what he 
 termed " innervations." I noticed, too, that Miss 
 Simpkin, who occupied the front seat in the nave, 
 combined devotion with inspection ; while her head 
 was bent upon her hands in prayer she managed to 
 peer, through a crevice in her fingers, on what was 
 going on in the chancel. 
 
 In time, however, the dissentients grew accustomed 
 to the change ; when they perceived that it did not 
 lead to Rome, they became satisfied. I really think 
 that the introduction of surplices and more music
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 49 
 
 into S. Peter's, Mulworth, was most beneficial. The 
 congregation increased, and many of our lads, who 
 would otherwise have been very rowdy, improved 
 considerably under the discipline of Mr. Maypole, 
 and the refining influence of music and religion. 
 
 After this considerable, but necessary, divergence 
 from the principal subject of this chapter, I am in a 
 better position to return to the personal history of 
 my third Curate. 
 
 Mr. Maypole, as I have led my readers to suppose, 
 was a good worker. Not only did he do his duty 
 in the Church and choir, he also, very willingly and 
 ably, gave Scripture lessons in the day schools. I 
 now proceed to notice some of his particular charac- 
 teristics in which, as I have already said, he differed 
 from my previous Curates. 
 
 One of these, which may appear too trivial to 
 mention, was his accentuation. I have often con- 
 sidered that the sound of a voice is, to some extent, 
 an index of character. Mr. Rashleigh, for instance, 
 had a blunt, honest kind of voice which denoted a 
 certain fearlessness and independence. Mr. Slim- 
 mer's voice, although very loud, seemed to come 
 from a throat which had been oiled. 
 
 I cannot thus tersely describe Mr. Maypole's voice. 
 Indeed, it appeared to me that he had two voices ; 
 his ordinary voice, which he used with ordinary, 
 common-place people and for everyday work ; and 
 
 D
 
 50 MY THIRD CURATE. 
 
 his extraordinary voice, which he retained for Sun- 
 days, and people of fashion. 
 
 When he assumed the latter intonation, it gave 
 one the impression that he wished to be very correct 
 in his enunciation ; yet this very correctness, or 
 rather the attempt at it, sounded unpleasant to me. 
 For instance, he rendered the word Clmrch dissylla- 
 bically Chce-urch, and brethren became brny-thrun. 
 Perhaps I ought not to be so critical here, as I believe 
 several young clergymen affect what is termed " a 
 clerical voice," which they trust in time to exchange 
 for an episcopal one. 
 
 Mr. Maypole employed his Sunday-clothes' voice 
 when addressing Sir John and Lady Scratcham. 
 Indeed I noticed that his demeanour towards them 
 was very different to that of Mr. Rashleigh. When 
 they came occasionally over from their own parish 
 to our Church, Mr. Maypole politely met them at 
 the gate, and, hat in hand, held the carriage door 
 open. Nor did he wait for invitations to Scratch 
 Court ; he considered it a duty to visit there unin- 
 vited, and generally managed to call before lunch, 
 to which he stopped. 
 
 A slight error which my Curate made on one of 
 these visits nearly proved fatal to his being subse- 
 quently asked to stay to lunch. The Countess of R. 
 had just come to Scratch Court, accompanied by a 
 " companion," a young lady of gentle birth and
 
 THE REV. M ARM A DUKE MAYPOLE. 51 
 
 personal attractions, but poor. Hearing of her lady- 
 ship's arrival, Mr. Maypole was not long in paying 
 his respects. Unfortunately he did not know any- 
 thing of Lady R.'s appearance or age. When 
 ushered into the drawing-room two ladies were 
 seated there ; one a bright, elegant young woman, 
 whom he presumed to be Lady R. ; the other an 
 ordinary-looking old person, who, he supposed, was 
 a sort of duenna. Regarding the latter with a 
 supercilious air, he addressed the former with much 
 deference ; stood at a respectful distance from her, 
 and made the most of his regulation voice. Lady 
 Scratcham appeared on the scene ; the ladies' names 
 were made known ; the duenna was the Countess, 
 the other lady a nobody. Mr. Maypole immediately 
 tried to rectify his mistake ; he transferred his 
 attentions to the old lady, and looked haughtily on 
 the young. It was too late ; he only made matters 
 worse. Lady R. froze towards him, her fair com- 
 panion showed the poor Curate that she was more 
 than his match in dignity, Lady Scratcham considered 
 it all very funny, and laughed loudly, and Sir John, 
 when he heard of the incident, became more 
 reserved towards Mr. Maypole. 
 
 Poor people are quicker at noticing peculiarities 
 than we are apt to suppose. Bill Slasher and Joe 
 Slicer noticed Mr. Maypole's two-fold voice ; they 
 had caught something of Mr. Rashleigh's power of
 
 52 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 mimicry, and they used it at my third Curate's 
 expense. 
 
 Notwithstanding these slight peculiarities of voice, 
 Mr. Maypole was by no means a vox et prcBterea 
 nihil ; his sermons were quite up to the average, and 
 contained a good deal of sound matter, especially 
 on the doctrines and principles of the Church. He 
 appeared to be free from many of those temptations 
 to which some young Curates are subject ; he was 
 not a flirt, nor a croquet player ; he upheld the 
 dignity of the priesthood. 
 
 It was owing to my confidence in his trust- 
 worthiness that I determined upon taking a long- 
 contemplated trip with my wife to see our son in 
 America, leaving Mr. Maypole in sole charge during 
 our absence of six months. 
 
 On our return I found that a great many changes 
 had taken place in the Church and Parish. I will 
 specify some of these. Mr. Maypole had adopted 
 coloured stoles, green ones at this particular time ; 
 I learned that this was the colour for the Sundays 
 after Trinity. The choir were now in cassocks as 
 well as surplices ; a processional hymn was sung 
 before the service ; and at the head of the pro- 
 cession Captain Filbert marched with a cross in 
 his hands. 
 
 Some alteration was also observable in Mr. May- 
 pole's appearance and manner. He sometimes
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 53 
 
 wore his cassock cinctured with a white girdle, 
 when going round the parish. In the reading 
 desk and pulpit he had assumed a more statuesque 
 attitude ; he seemed to take considerable pains in 
 arranging the fingers of one hand so as to corres- 
 pond with those of the other. The intonation of 
 his voice was now pitched in a higher key ; to me it 
 sounded more artificial than of yore. 
 
 A very uncivil war had also been declared in the 
 columns of the " Mulworth Weekly Express ! " 
 Letters signed by " a Churchman " and by " a 
 Protestant" succeeded each other; they were more 
 rude than logical, more satirical than religious. 
 Their modes of expression suggested Mr. Maypole 
 as the " Churchman," and Mr. Slimmer as the 
 " Protestant ! " It was remarkable that these two 
 clergymen were on anything but friendly terms. 
 
 Mr. Wagstaff had resigned his churchwardenship, 
 and, with a few others, had joined the dissenting 
 chapel. He, too, had contributed to the literature 
 of the " Weekly Express " — his subject being " Rank 
 Popery in the Church." 
 
 My Curate did not come out of the war without 
 receiving some blows. He was hooted in the 
 streets ; I regret to add that hissing had been 
 heard in Church. Indeed on one Sunday it had 
 been found necessary to have some policemen in 
 attendance. However, Mr. Maypole was compen-
 
 54 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 sated ; he gained a tremendous popularity with 
 Captain Filbert's party ; he posed as a high priest 
 and a martyr. 
 
 Were I to attempt to describe my own feelings, 
 I should utterly fail. Nor do I care to try. What 
 man (that is man in distinction to woman) is anxious 
 to open his heart to the world, when it is vexed and 
 troubled ? 
 
 As Rector of the parish I was placed in a dilemma. 
 Should I acquiesce in the present state of things ? 
 or should I return to our former and more simple 
 use ? My first impulse was for the latter course ; 
 not that I object to coloured stoles, for I see no 
 harm in them, nor to a cross being carried ; surely 
 it is well to keep that grand symbol before us. No, 
 the impulse arose from my being annoyed. 
 
 But then we must put aside our own feelings 
 when duty is concerned. I honestly tried to do 
 this, and weighed the matter carefully. To acquiesce 
 would be to admit that the Shepherd was weak 
 indeed, and such an admission is bad for a parish. 
 Not to acquiesce would be to offend many earnest 
 Church-people, especially the donors of several 
 handsome gifts made to the Church in my absence ; 
 it would be to open a new campaign of undesirable 
 warfare. 
 
 Taking a careful view of the whole situation, and 
 of the many questions bearing on it, I resolved to
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 65 
 
 leave things as they were. Perhaps some will say 
 I was wrong. If so, I was punished for my weak 
 concession. Some of the Low Church people called 
 me a Puseyite and a trimmer ; some of the High 
 Church party described me as an old fossil. 
 
 From this time my old wide-sleeved surplice and 
 black scarf became obsolete ; nor could they be 
 utiHsed as my gown had been. I submitted to be 
 vested in a short, tight-fitting surplice and coloured 
 stole. Yet I had some difficulty in appearing as 
 cordial towards my Curate as I might have wished. 
 
 Mr. Maypole appeared to imagine that with 
 advance in Churchmanship a proportionate advance 
 in distinguished birth was requisite. His paper 
 and envelopes were adorned with a crest, a hand 
 holding, a pole, with the motto " Excelsior" under- 
 neath ; and I was informed that Baron IMaypole 
 fought at the battle of Cregy. Some old families 
 degenerate, the principle of involution exists no less 
 than does that of evolution. And, bearing on this 
 point, I shall narrate an occurrence which gave me 
 a further insight into my Curate's character. It 
 may exemplify how an over-anxious desire to exhibit 
 family antiquity can, paradoxically, lead to a non- 
 recognition of sufficient honour towards one's 
 immediate progenitors. 
 
 As I chanced to pass Mr. Maypole's lodgings one 
 day, an elderly man rushed out from the house,
 
 56 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 carrying a carpet bag and large umbrella, and 
 evidently in a perturbed frame of mind. Thinking 
 it within my province to enquire the cause of his 
 distress, I saluted him, and we became acquainted. 
 He was Mr. Maypole's father, and he was under the 
 impression that his son had treated him badly. He 
 spoke in a rapid and excited tone of voice, and with 
 much gesticulation " I wanted. Sir," he went on, 
 ** to pay my respects to you, as my son's Rector, but 
 Marmy wouldn't let me. No, he's a thankless, con- 
 ceited boy ; I know what he's wanting — he's ashamed 
 of his old father and wanted to hide him, and I 
 disown him." 
 
 I had some difficulty in calming the feelings of my 
 new acquaintance, by assuring him he was under 
 some mistake, and that so excellent and earnest a 
 young clergyman as his son was could not be guilty 
 of so serious a transgression. Finding that there 
 was no absolute necessity for old Mr, Maypole's 
 immediate return to his home, I insisted upon his 
 coming to the Rectory, where he was furnished with 
 a bed-room. I sent an invitation to my Curate 
 to come and dine with us that evening, and, 
 with a httle management, father and son were 
 reconciled. My wife decanted a bottle of our 
 special old port, and I listened with much pleasure 
 to the honest and acute observations of the kind 
 old farmer.
 
 THE REV. M ARM A DUKE MAYPOLE. 57 
 
 Afterwards, when alone in the quiet of my study, 
 I could not help asking myself, ** Which is the more 
 worthy scion of the hero of Cre9y ? " and I felt that 
 I should experience a greater difficulty than I had 
 anticipated in writing a contemplated sermon on 
 *' What is a true Gentleman ? " 
 
 The incident reminded me of a story of a cele- 
 brated Scotch Divine ; it was told me by one who 
 lived near his birthplace in the Highlands, and may 
 be accepted as true. The Rev. Dr. Z. was of humble 
 origin ; he rose to fame through his oratorical powers, 
 and was received into the best London society. 
 For some purpose he paid a visit to his father, a 
 labourer, who lived close to a remote village. On 
 his return to catch the coach which passed through 
 this village. Dr. Z. was accompanied by his father, 
 who carried his son's portmanteau. As the coach 
 drove up, a couple of noblemen who knew him 
 cordially saluted the Divine from the box-seat, and 
 said they would make room for him. His own 
 thought was. How shall I conceal that this man is 
 my father? An expedient suggested itself; he took 
 the portmanteau from the old man, dropped a shilling 
 into his hand, saying, " Thank you, John." Before 
 the poor old father had recovered his surprise, the 
 coach was out of sight. 
 
 The following episode may serve as a caution to 
 young clergymen desirous of gaining preferment ; it
 
 58 MY THIRD CURATE, 
 
 may exemplify how essential are the qualifications 
 of prudence and foresight. 
 
 A small living in our neighbourhood fell vacant 
 about this time. Sir John Scratcham was a friend 
 of the patron, with whom he had much influence. 
 Mr. Maypole's name was mentioned, with the result 
 that I received a letter asking if I could spare my 
 Curate to take duty at Y. for a couple of Sundays. 
 I replied in the affirmative. 
 
 Suspecting that this meant *' a trotting out " (if I 
 may use a sporting phrase), I recommended Mr. 
 Maypole to take with him his four best sermons. 
 
 On the first Sunday evening a large congregation 
 assembled at Y. Church ; although it had rather 
 a Ritualistic notoriety, still many Dissenters, 
 allured by the novelty of a strange preacher, were 
 present. The sermon was a little unfortunate ; it 
 went to show that no one outside the pale of the 
 Catholic Church could possibly be saved ; it was a 
 diatribe against Calvinism and Lutheranism. Some 
 of the Church people, as well as the Dissenters, were 
 offended, and Mr. Maypole discovered he had made 
 a mistake. 
 
 The fame of the sermon spread, and was appreci- 
 ated in other quarters. An influential Roman 
 Catholic family in the parish decided to go for once 
 to a Church of England Service, and were present 
 at Y. the following Sunday evening. Mr. Maypole
 
 THE REV. MARMADUKE MAYPOLE. 69 
 
 had, meanwhile, determhied to rectify matters, and 
 on this evening he proved without the shadow of a 
 doubt that the great Beast whose number is Six 
 Hundred and Sixty Six could be no other than the 
 Pope of Rome. 
 
 The Roman Catholic family did not again attend 
 the Anglican Service ; nor was Mr. Maypole offered 
 the living of Y. 
 
 I have said little of my Curate's disposition where 
 the tender passion is concerned. Here he was 
 prudent ; perhaps, by nature, he was not susceptible 
 to the attractions of beauty and grace. Still I am 
 sure that among the fair sex he had his admirers ; 
 I have noticed, by the way, that the strange paradox 
 called Woman is ready to give her affections where 
 there is no evidence of reciprocity, and almost as 
 ready to make light of the love she may have won. 
 Be this as it may, the bright eyes of Sunday School 
 teachers and Church-decorating ladies sparkled in 
 vain ; their hearts throbbed without a response from 
 my discreet Curate. 
 
 Yet he was not destined to be a celibate. He 
 judiciously acted on the Hibernian principle, "Don't 
 marry for money, but go where money is." The 
 nieces of a wealthy brewer were his reputed heiresses. 
 And though Mr. Maypole was at enmity with Mr. 
 Slimmer, still — 
 
 " Fas est et ab hoste doceri."
 
 GO MY THIRD CURATE. 
 
 For a time Mr. Maypole paid his addresses to the 
 elder niece ; but on his being informed by the 
 brewer's lawyer that the younger was sole heiress, 
 he transferred his attentions to her. 
 
 In course of time she accepted his suit. He con- 
 ferred on her a name, Mrs. Marmaduke Maypole, 
 and a family lineage, of which she was proud. It 
 was an exchange. She brought him a considerable 
 dowry, from which he purchased the advowson, or 
 perpetual right of presentation to a living. This he 
 presented to himself, and I had to look out for a 
 new Curate. 
 
 In looking back upon Mr. Maypole's stay with me 
 I find myself quoting from Rochefoucauld, " Les 
 vertus se perdent dans I'interet comme les fleuves se 
 perdent dans la mer," and I meditate upon the diffi- 
 culty of finding what Aristotle calls an avnp Terpdyojvog — 
 a square — a four-cornered man.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY FOURTH CURATE— THE REV. PETER 
 PARCHMENT. 
 
 "The obscure trouble of a baffled instinct." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 BY this time S. Peter's,. 
 Mulworth, had gained 
 the reputation of being de- 
 cidedly High Church ; its 
 Rector was regarded as a 
 RituaHst ! When, on Mr. 
 Maypole's departure, I ad- 
 vertised for a Curate, several 
 High Churchmen were among the applicants. 
 
 Were it not a breach of confidence, I might 
 possibly amuse my readers by giving extracts from 
 some of the letters which I received. Yet I was 
 instructed by them. For instance, in two of these 
 letters the expression occurred, " I hold the Six 
 Points." This led me to enquire into and discover 
 what the six points are. I took exception to the
 
 62 MY FOURTH CURATE, 
 
 mode of summing up in a few of these letters ; my 
 correspondents signed themselves, " Yours faithfully 
 in Christ," &c. The phrase appeared to me a little 
 affected, and I consider that pious ejaculations are 
 superfluous in letters. 
 
 After some debate and a considerable correspon- 
 dence, my choice fell upon the Rev. Peter Parchment, 
 and he became Curate of S. Peter's. 
 
 Now, apart from the interest which I trust may 
 be awakened in Mr. Parchment himself, I have two 
 particular reasons for introducing him to my readers. 
 
 In the first place, he is very like and also very 
 unlike my next Curate, whom I recall with the 
 tenderest feelings. And if these two young clergy- 
 men, presenting a similarity and a contrast, are 
 compared, the truth will appear that two men, who 
 closely resemble each other in disposition, education, 
 and purpose, may separate widely in the later ex- 
 periences of life and religion. 
 
 My second reason is, that even if Mr. Parchment 
 does not adorn a tale, he certainly points a moral. 
 The moral is this ; I state it from my own observa- 
 tion, and much could be written on the subject : 
 those members of the Church of England, who, 
 in early life, have been carefully educated in the 
 Church's doctrines and principles, seldom leave the 
 faith of their fathers. On the other hand, a barren 
 Protestantism, which teaches little else than antag-
 
 THE REV. PETER PARCHMENT. 63 
 
 onism to Rome and to scepticism, is the training- 
 school in which some weak young minds are pre- 
 pared to embrace one or other of these systems in 
 later Hfe. 
 
 I have known of parents who, through fear lest 
 their children should develop a tendency towards 
 Romanism, disguised from them the doctrines in 
 which England approaches Rome. These well- 
 meaning but short-sighted people were unconsciously 
 the Jesuits' paidagogoi. And I have known of more 
 than one fatuous instructor of youth, exulting in 
 their very sciolism, preparing their pupils for scien- 
 tific scepticism by stating that Christianity would 
 fall to pieces if the world had not been made in six 
 days of twenty-four hours each. 
 
 Surely we need have no fear of the truth and the 
 whole truth ; and must we not expect that the 
 religion which is maintained by evasion will have 
 ill results ? " Train up a child in the way he should 
 go." Give him sound, honest, definite Church 
 teaching, and when he is old he will not depart 
 therefrom. 
 
 I have allowed myself to drift into a didactic and 
 dogmatic style. With some effort I turn from it to 
 my new Curate. 
 
 Mr. Parchment was a clergyman's son. Both his 
 parents were extreme Evangelicals. Good, pious, 
 God-fearing people, they impressed upon young
 
 64 MY FOURTH CURATE, 
 
 Peter the great lesson of the Atonement ; it was his 
 one and almost only lesson in Theology. 
 
 When he went up to Oxford, which he did with 
 the intention of taking Holy Orders, he quickly dis- 
 covered how extremely ignorant he was. Such a 
 discovery is generally a most beneficial one, as wise 
 old Socrates reminds us ; but there are exceptions, 
 and Mr. Parchment's case was an exception. 
 
 The Theocratic teaching of the University was a 
 revelation to the young neophyte ; he discerned that 
 the Creed had more clauses than one ; the Church 
 was a far larger building than he had imagined ; he 
 could not compute its extent, for its limits had not 
 been defined for him. His religious principles had 
 been hitherto imprisoned in the sombre and narrow 
 shrine of Calvinism ; they were now let loose in a 
 vast Cathedral. 
 
 At first the expanse awed him ; the complex lights 
 dazzled him ; the grand architecture subdued and 
 terrified him. But he gradually shook off his timidity, 
 and allowed his soul to revel in its new-found free- 
 dom. The empty mind hungered for food ; it had 
 not been trained to distinguish between the whole- 
 some and unwholesome, and so it ignored the truth 
 of the adage — 
 
 " Est modus in rebus ; sunt certi denique fines 
 Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum."
 
 THE REV. PETER PARCHMENT. 65 
 
 I do not for a moment reflect upon the training 
 which candidates for the Ministry receive at my old 
 University. It may be, it probably is, excellent, 
 so far as it goes, and suitable for well-constituted 
 minds. But it appears to me that scarcely enough 
 care is given to those young intellects which are 
 warped and contracted in their earlier stages, and 
 which, so to speak, exchange the Dame School for 
 the Lyceum with a suddenness which may be over- 
 powering. 
 
 Such is a brief, perhaps I should add a semi- 
 metaphorical, outline of Mr. Parchment's theo- 
 logical training. When he came to me he was what 
 I may term lop-sided in his religious principles. 
 Too much had been built on a small foundation, and 
 in certain places the structure was in danger of 
 toppling over. 
 
 There is much to say in favour of Mr. Parchment. 
 He was ardent, devout, and earnest, a reader and 
 worker. But he was a dreamer, too. His sermons 
 were peculiar, dreamy rhapsodies seasoned with 
 mysticism ; they oscillated between a philosophical 
 materialism and a speculative Platonism — at times 
 they appeared to me as scarcely orthodox. 
 
 In the arrangements of his person and dress he, 
 if I may use the expression, flirted with Rome. His 
 face was cleanly shaved ; his collar was fringed with 
 black silk ; his hat was decorated with bell-like 
 
 E
 
 66 MY FOURTH CURATE, 
 
 pendants, and his coat reached to his ankles. I 
 beheve he would have considered it a compliment 
 had be been mistaken for a Roman Priest. 
 
 His manner and conversation indicated that he was 
 dissatisfied; he craved for something which he could 
 not himself explain ; his thirst for the indefinite was 
 so insatiable that he drank from every visionary 
 brook ; some of the waters were stale, and brackish, 
 and bad for his digestion. At times he figured as a 
 melancholy aesthete, seeking peace amid the flowers 
 of an earthly Paradise. The Paradise was of his own 
 making, and the flowers were reared in his imagina- 
 tion, and soon faded. 
 
 When, one evening, he preached a carefully pre- 
 pared and laboriously delivered sermon on Apostolical 
 Succession, his mournful face and dejected voice 
 seemed to testify that he felt the weight of all the 
 Apostles' hands pressing heavily upon his head. 
 
 Strangely combining with this melancholy of 
 disposition there was a sense of humour which 
 occasionally displayed itself in my Curate. We 
 were passing the Dissenting Chapel together one 
 day ; Mr. Parchment stopped opposite the gate, and 
 gravely raising his hat, solemnly repeated the words 
 of the Litany, " From all false doctrine, heresy, and 
 schism . . . Good Lord, deliver us." 
 
 Another incident is worth recording, as it exhibits 
 a certain manliness in the character of my saturnine
 
 THE REV. PETER PARCHMENT. 67 
 
 Curate. In relating it I trust that I may not be 
 considered over-partial to cricket. If I should be, 
 my defence is that cricket may be regarded as not 
 only a national, but also a clerical and even an 
 Episcopal and Cardinal game. It may not be 
 uninteresting to some to know that in the records 
 of an early University Cricket Match, the following 
 item occurs in the Cambridge score — C. Wordsworth 
 c^- Wordsworth, b^- Manning. These great names 
 are too well known to need comment ; the last of 
 them suggested something like a pun to me, so I 
 have put the word Cardinal in italics. 
 
 But for the incident. A novel cricket match, 
 Clergy of Blankshire v. Mulworth and district, was 
 arranged to take place on the Mulworth cricket 
 field. The clerical captain had some difficulty in 
 getting his team together, and at the last moment 
 included Mr. Parchment in the eleven. 
 
 The hour fixed for the match arrived ; the rival 
 combatants mustered in force, the young clergymen 
 looked quite picturesque in their flannels, their caps 
 and coats of many colours. All, save Mr. Parch- 
 ment, who entered the field in his most clerical 
 habiliments, and looked as if he were going to take 
 a funeral. 
 
 The parsons won the toss, and Bill Slasher and 
 Joe Sheer were told off to bowl. At length Mr. 
 Parchment's turn came ; his name -was put down on
 
 68 MY FOURTH CURATE, 
 
 the fall of the seventh wicket. He took off his coat 
 with a sigh, carefully folded it up, and emerged from 
 the pavilion. 
 
 His appearance was greeted with a titter from the 
 spectators, and I must admit that I smiled, for a 
 remarkable contrast presented itself to my mind. 
 I have stated that my former Curate, Mr, Rashleigh, 
 walked up to the reading desk as if he were going 
 to a wicket ; my present Curate inverted this modus 
 eundi ; he carried his bat under his arm as if it were 
 a Prayer Book ; his hands were clasped, and he 
 walked to the wicket as if he were going to the 
 reading desk. 
 
 The two bowlers were holding a conversation as 
 Mr. Parchment passed near them. Slicer sniggered, 
 and Slasher remarked, " It ain't Mr. Rashleigh this 
 time." Mr. Parchment heard the remark, and a 
 feeble smile brushed his face. He quietly took his 
 place, and asked for " guard ; " then, after taking 
 a survey of the field, he placed himself on the 
 defensive. As he bent slightly forward the grace- 
 ful curvature of his lithe frame denoted that he 
 knew something of what is called *' form." Joe 
 Slicer winked at the umpire, and bowled a cunning 
 slow. A sudden flash of the bat followed, then a 
 loud cheer — the ball had been sent to the fence for 
 five. The next ball which Mr. Parchment received 
 he cut for four, and the bowlers ceased to grin.
 
 THE REV. PETER PARCHMENT. G9 
 
 But it would take me over-long to describe the 
 rest of the innings. Suffice it to say that there was 
 tremendous cheering ; the clergy shouted like school- 
 boys, and Mr. Parchment carried out his bat, or 
 rather was carried himself, with a score of fifty-one. 
 At the close of the game the Church was victorious. 
 
 It transpired afterwards that although Mr. Parch- 
 ment had not been in the Oxford eleven, he was 
 considered the best bat of his college. I noticed 
 that, after this event. Bill Slasher and Joe Sheer 
 respectfully touched their hats to my Curate, which 
 they had omitted doing before. 
 
 Would that w^e had some more of such cricket 
 matches ! or, indeed, anything that would have 
 shaken my Curate out of himself and his dreary 
 dreams. But no — he had just emerged for a few 
 hours into the sunlight, and then retreated once 
 more into his contemplative cell. 
 
 Gradually his sermons became more definite in 
 their tendency. It did not require much perception 
 to see that he sought in the direction of Rome a 
 goal of longed-for peace. His genuflections were 
 frequent ; he advocated a ailtiis of the Blessed 
 Virgin, of whom he spoke as the Queen of Heaven. 
 I felt it was my duty to expostulate with him. In 
 our succeeding conversations I gathered that he 
 was unsettled as to the validity of Anglican Orders. 
 But there is little good in repeating all we said, nor
 
 70 MY FOURTH CURATE, 
 
 is it necessary for me to assert how earnestly I 
 endeavoured to dissuade him from drifting into a 
 rehgious economy which demands the surrender of 
 reason in matters of faith. 
 
 Possibly some conceit, mingled with bad logic, 
 weighed with him. He may have reasoned thus: 
 " Manning and Newman went over to Rome ; they 
 were great men. Therefore, if I go over to Rome 
 I must be a great man." I have heard other men 
 establishing their theories by syllogisms not in the 
 least more cogent. Better admit that the will is 
 stronger than argument, and that the conscience 
 can be strangely clouded. 
 
 Not long after this Mr. Parchment left me for 
 Rome. 
 
 Although he was thus a renegade, I still felt a 
 sorrowful interest in him ; I was allowed an occasional 
 glimpse at his career. There is a well-known passage 
 in Horace — 
 
 *' Quia me vestigia terrent 
 Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum." 
 
 This has been freely translated — "The footprints 
 to Rome terrify me. None that go there ever 
 return." 
 
 This is generally, but not universally true. Mr. 
 Parchment found that Rome had her limits, in some 
 directions narrower than those of England, and he
 
 THE REV. PETER PARCHMENT. 71 
 
 did not find there a calm resting-place for the soul. 
 He was in time received back into the An<;lican 
 Church. ■ When I last heard of him, he was in sole 
 charge of a little country parish. The Church was 
 always beautifully decorated ; the music of a high 
 order. 
 
 Perhaps he seeks, in the sestheticism of nature 
 and in the sweet melodies of art, an echo of that 
 peace which the world cannot give.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY FIFTH CURATE— THE REV. ERNEST 
 VERITY. 
 
 •'These souls, so firmly welded on to the everyday, common- 
 place, conventional relations of things, cannot understand souls 
 which place themselves in antagonism to these relations." 
 
 Eicliter. 
 
 "And when religious sects ran mad. 
 He held, in spite of all his learning, 
 That if a man's belief is bad. 
 
 It will not be improved by burning." 
 
 "The Vicar" — Praed. 
 
 THIS chapter will be a sad one ; it is the short story 
 of a short life. If, in some of the previous 
 chapters, I have allowed myself to be guilty of 
 facetiousness, this one will be utterly exempt from 
 such. 
 
 It is with some compunction that I attempt to 
 write it ; not alone because it will stir within me 
 tender recollections which are w^et with tears, but 
 also because it must be a confession of my own 
 short-sightedness and want of discernment.
 
 THE REV. ERNEST VERITY. 73 
 
 Perhaps some of the saddest moments of our 
 lives are not when we reflect on the evils we have 
 done, but when we recall opportunities of kindness 
 and usefulness thrown away. 
 
 We Rectors may become conscious of these sins 
 of omission in our later days. We have special 
 opportunities of helping our younger brethren in 
 the Ministry ; yet how prone we are to ignore 
 them! 
 
 The world of thought is advancing ; we elders do 
 not fully understand the generation which succeeds 
 ours. It is under the influence of a Zeit-geist or 
 time-spirit, unfamiliar to us and with which we 
 have no sympathy ; and so, when we are called to 
 be a father and a friend to a younger brother, we fail. 
 
 We think we know how to deal with souls in a 
 mass; and then, in order to humble us, some one 
 individual soul is given to our care, and we make 
 miserable blunders. 
 
 Perhaps I should never have learned this lesson 
 of self-depreciation, had it not been for my association 
 with Ernest Verity. 
 
 His was a strange history ; strange in its very 
 simpleness. The son of a tradesman, he had, by 
 the beauty of his voice, gained the position of chorister 
 in one of our Midland Cathedrals. Nor was his voice 
 his only talent. His unusual ability and application 
 to books brought him under the notice of the master
 
 74 MY FIFTH CURATE, 
 
 of the choir school. Here, too, he attracted the 
 attention of one of the Canons, a learned but eccen- 
 tric man, who, after a time, adopted him and sent 
 him to Oxford. 
 
 Though scarcely fulfilling the expectations formed 
 of him, he took a good degree ,• he might have taken 
 a better one had he been less conscientious. In an 
 Aristotle paper an ethical question was put in the 
 form, " How would you act under the following 
 conditions . . . ? " Young Verity gave his own 
 opinion, not Aristotle's ; the Examiner was annoyed, 
 and the candidate lost a First Class. 
 
 At the University he was much influenced by the 
 School of thought, perhaps I may call it the School 
 of the New Oxford Movement, which has been 
 endeavouring to reconcile the destructive processes 
 of Biblical criticism with a firm adhesion to Church 
 principles. 
 
 From his patron. Canon Russel, who was the 
 broadest of Broad Churchmen, Ernest Verity had 
 already learned something of Old Testament criti- 
 cism ; he had been disturbed by the confident asser- 
 tions of Kuenen and Wellhausen— his anxiety was 
 to remove from his mind any mists which might 
 come between him and the great fundamental truths 
 of Christianity. 
 
 Both his parents died before he was twenty-one ; 
 of humble birth and of a reserved disposition, he had
 
 THE REV. ERXEST VERITY. 75 
 
 few friends, and the only person upon whom he had 
 any claim was Canon Russel. 
 
 I now come to the time at which he became 
 associated with me. It was shortly after I had been 
 inducted to my present living at Lulbrook that I 
 received a letter from Canon Russel, asking if I 
 could give his ward a title for the Christmas Ordina- 
 tion. He added that as Mr. Verity was not very 
 strong, he needed country air and exemption from 
 over-much work of mind and body. As the work 
 at Lulbrook was light, I agreed to have him, and 
 after being Gospeller at the Ordination of the Bishop 
 of Z., he became my Curate, 
 
 It is but a few years since he came ; it seems to 
 me but as yesterday. He was spare in frame, and 
 his face, which would be called a classic one, 
 denoted intense sensitiveness and an over-wrought 
 constitution. 
 
 Owing to his guardian's thoughtfulness, he had 
 a well-assorted library of the latest works ; he was 
 able, owing to his allowance from Canon Russel, to 
 have a piano in his lodging. He played exquisitely, 
 and with that abandon which evidences an innate 
 passion for music. 
 
 The chief charm in his face was its truthful, 
 guileless expression. Even the Lulbrook boors were 
 impressed by it. The cottagers loved his visits ; in 
 the sick room he was as gentle as a woman ; when
 
 76 MY FIFTH CURATE, 
 
 he entered the School Room a smile of welcome lit 
 up the children's faces. 
 
 Such was Ernest Verity; such he will ever be to 
 my memory : a pure-minded boy ; nay, less and 
 more than that — a child. 
 
 I can scarcely go on with my narrative ; for now I 
 can perceive that from the first there was a shadow 
 of what afterwards resulted in misconceptions and 
 mistakes. 
 
 His conversations, as well as his sermons, were 
 thoughtful ; they exhibited decided ability and a 
 considerable range of careful reading. They implied, 
 by what was left unsaid more than by what was said, 
 a want of orthodoxy regarding Holy Writ. At first 
 I paid little heed to his utterances ; indeed I 
 regarded them as among the phases of doubt and 
 debate through which certain intellectual minds 
 have to make their way. 
 
 He had been with us but a few months when a 
 great trial befell him. Canon Russel, who had 
 always led him to consider himself his heir, died 
 suddenly, without having made a will, and his 
 property passed to a distant relative. For the sym- 
 pathy which my wife and myself showed him the 
 young clergyman, left so alone in the world, ex- 
 pressed in his own quiet way a deep and heartfelt 
 gratitude. 
 
 I had trusted that out of this sorrow there might
 
 THE REV. ERXEST VERITY. 77 
 
 spring up a closer union of feeling between us. Here 
 I was disappointed. A certain respectful reserve on 
 his part, a want of penetration on mine, kept us 
 apart. ^ I also became more anxious about his views. 
 He put questions to me which to my thinking con- 
 noted a still greater deviation from the beaten track 
 of orthodoxy. Some of these questions were too 
 deep for me to answer, and when I eluded them by 
 resorting to a truism he appeared to be disappointed, 
 and driven still farther back upon himself and his 
 books. 
 
 Thinking that it would be well for him to mix 
 more in the society of our neighbouring clergy, I 
 induced him to join the clerical meetings of our 
 Rural Deanery, which were held once a month. At 
 these meetings papers were read — generally by the 
 younger members — and discussions followed. 
 
 Hitherto the discussions had been of the most 
 amicable description ; the disputants had only 
 imaginary opponents; the remarks never entered 
 into doubtful ground. 
 
 At this time, however, a subject presented itself — 
 one which had begun to occupy men's thoughts : 
 namely. What is the meaning of Inspiration as it. 
 bears on the Holy Scriptures ? As Mr. Verity had 
 clearly expressed himself on some question of debate, 
 he was asked to write a paper on the subject referred 
 to. He assented with some diffidence.
 
 78 MY FIFTH CURATE, 
 
 I can give but a very succinct resnuiS of the paper, 
 which was evidently the result of deep research, and 
 carefully prepared : — 
 
 In maintaining the Divine element of Scripture, 
 men had come to deny the human element. The 
 inevitable consequence was that keen scrutiny 
 brought to light again the undeniable humanity, 
 and exaggerated it to the point of questioning the 
 Divinity. He entered a protest against the rigid 
 theories of Inspiration, which, vainly attempting to 
 ward off criticism, only provoked it the more. He 
 pointed out the danger of confusing merely literary 
 questions with the Christian Faith, till fearless en- 
 quiry was almost of necessity regarded as hostile 
 attack. He showed how severe some of the attacks 
 of the more recent criticism really were, and how by 
 their industry the critics put us to shame. He was 
 inclined to admit many of their positions, and 
 pleaded for patient study. 
 
 A painful silence followed the reading of the paper. 
 This was at length broken by Mr. Langsyne, our 
 Rural Dean. He commenced in language which 
 denoted suppressed anger : he went on in cutting 
 tones, he finished in righteous indignation. - Had 
 we not had sufficient warning in the case of Bishop 
 Colenso ? Dare we tamper with the outworks of 
 our Faith ? If they were surrendered, what would 
 become oi the shrine itself ? If mistakes were
 
 THE REV. ERXESr VEklTY 
 
 admitted in the chronology of the Old Testament, 
 where then were type and shadow and prophecy ? 
 If these, again, were annihilated, what guarantee 
 could we have of the great Truth to which they 
 pointed ? 
 
 Others followed in a similar strain ; almost unani- 
 mously, the paper was condemned as adverse to 
 orthodoxy, and — I blush to say it — the writer was 
 attacked for making statements unworthy of a 
 clergyman. 
 
 Ernest Verity rose to reply. He quivered as if in 
 pain. Slowly at first, but gaining energy as he went 
 on, he replied to the attacks. He asked wherein he 
 had been erroneous ? Surely they would not prejudge 
 the case by attributing dishonesty to him. Did they 
 suppose the honour of God could be served by con- 
 cealment or evasion ? It was his desire, far from 
 shattering the bulwarks — as had been insinuated — 
 to discover where they had been weakened through 
 ignorance or neglect, then to gain a clear view of 
 them and to strengthen them. 
 
 It was of no use. Most of us were entirely ignorant 
 of the controversy ; we did not care to lay aside our 
 rusty weapons of defence when we had not the new 
 ones to replace them. 
 
 This unfortunate clerical meeting had a most 
 depressing effect upon my young Curate : he never 
 got over it. He was driven back, more than ever,
 
 80 MY FIFTH CURATE, 
 
 on himself and his studies. Dependent now upon 
 his profession, he was led into the most painful 
 self-scrutiny as to his motives. He began to imagine 
 that he was untrue to the principles of the Church. 
 As he was still in Deacons' Orders, he might change 
 his profession. 
 
 He expressed these feelings to me in subsequent 
 conversations, and finally sent in his resignation. 
 Why did I accept it ? Why did I let him go ? Why 
 did I not obey the impulse which rushed over me, 
 and take him to my heart ? Alas ! how many Whys 
 there are in this world ! 
 
 I do not attempt to exonerate myself, but I believe 
 that Mr. Langsyne influenced me. He said it was 
 my duty to uphold the Truth ; that it was right for 
 the young man to resign a profession upon the limits 
 of which he encroached ; and that, owing to his 
 ability, he would doubtless distinguish himself in 
 some other calling. 
 
 And so Ernest Verity departed, and I lost a 
 Curate who, I discovered too late, was true, fearless, 
 and loving — whose greatest fault was a painful 
 sensitiveness, partially, no doubt, resulting from 
 his knowledge of his humble origin. Humility 
 and pride are sometimes strangely blended, and 
 sensitiveness is the feeble barrier of both. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Two years ago I received a parcel containing a
 
 THE REV. ERNEST VERITY. 81 
 
 few relics which were to be distributed among the 
 poor of my parish. On enquiries I found out how 
 he had laid down his Hfe. Without means, without 
 friends, without prospects, he had made his way to 
 London. There, earning a bare existence by his 
 pen, he had devoted the whole of his spare time to 
 teaching the Arabs of a low slum in our great city. 
 Amid unhealthy surroundings he had worked for the 
 Love of God, in the power of the Faith of Christ, 
 till he was called home. 
 
 Few of his books were left. Most of them had 
 been sacrificed to buy little luxuries for the poor. 
 But his little manuscript book of devotions was 
 there — in it the names of those who had been in 
 trouble, and of some who had been bitter in their 
 attacks upon him. Against my name was a note, 
 gratefully recalling my kindness to him. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I grew some years older on the day I learned 
 these things. When I managed to break it all to 
 my wife, she left the room, unable to speak. 
 When I told Langsyne about it, he turned away to 
 hide his tears. 
 
 But why dwell on these sad memories ! As I 
 write, a multitude of complex thoughts are stirred 
 within my soul. 
 
 How heedful should we be in dealing with minds 
 of finely moulded texture : how careful lest an over- 
 
 F
 
 82 MY FIFTH CURATE. 
 
 confident zeal should shrivel into the bitterness of 
 bigotry ! 
 
 And as to Biblical criticism. — Upon what did 
 Christ found His Church ? Not on prophecy, not 
 on inspiration, but " upon this Rock " — the con- 
 fession of His Divinity. 
 
 If our faith rests firmly on that Rock, does it 
 matter whether the world was made in six days or 
 in six seons ? Whether Deuteronomy was written 
 by Moses or Jeremiah ; or the Chronicles years after 
 the marginal date ? Does it matter whether Paul, 
 or Apollos, or Barnabas, or Ignatius wrote the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews ? 
 
 Biblical criticism has strengthened the Church's 
 position ; it has called out warriors on the ramparts 
 of Zion ; so its very opposition has helped to confirm 
 the Gospel narrative. It has brushed away mists ; 
 it has exhibited in clearer light all that we hold 
 dearest, all that we need to know — it has brought us 
 to rest our hopes, not on doubtful dates, but on the 
 unchanging Truth.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PARVA IN PARVO. 
 
 " Happy are they that hear their own detractions, and can put 
 them to mending." — Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 BESIDES my regularly licensed Curates, who 
 stayed for a longer or shorter time, I have 
 had clergymen, both at Mulworth and Lulbrook, 
 to take occasional duty. These latter, as well as 
 some of my Curates, do not claim, from my experi- 
 ence of them, any lengthy notice. 
 
 They, however, helped to extend my knowledge 
 of the members of my own profession. In this 
 chapter I intend to draw from that knowledge 
 somewhat promiscuously, that is, I shall allow my 
 memory to flit backwards, and just touch upon 
 those who worked with me, without attempting to 
 enter minutely into details. Perhaps I shall general- 
 ise, and in some cases individualise ; and it is possible 
 that as certain of these quickl3^-moving forms cross 
 my memory's vision, they may call out an occasional 
 reflection or apostrophe.
 
 84 PARVA IN PARVO. 
 
 In the foregoing chapters I have exhibited a few 
 peculiarities which may be observable in Curates as 
 in other men. These I shall endeavour not to recall 
 again. 
 
 In extending the roll of the small imperfections 
 or weaknesses which young clergymen may betray, 
 I trust my reader will understand that it is by no 
 means implied that such imperfections are by any 
 means universal, or even general. They are scat- 
 tered about, like dust on a coat. Specks of dust 
 may rest on a good coat ; so, in many respects, 
 those who evidence some small faults may be very 
 free from graver ones. 
 
 It will be my simplest plan, first to collect some 
 of these irregularly-scattered faults, and jot them 
 down without mentioning names ; and afterwards, 
 should occasion require, to specify a few individuals 
 and their peculiar shortcomings. 
 
 Preaching is decidedly an important item in a 
 clergyman's duties. As books have been written 
 on the art of preaching, and as this book is not 
 written on that art, I shall say little about it. But 
 I would mention one fault into which young clergy- 
 men are here liable to fall, namely, the assumption 
 of an air of pomposity which suggests that they 
 have a considerable opinion of their own powers. 
 Not infrequently united with this is an over-florid 
 style and an effort to make the peroration of the
 
 PARVA IN PARVO. 85 
 
 sermon very magniloquent. To the pomposity and 
 the magniloquence earnestness and sense are likely 
 to be sacrificed. This kind of fault generally 
 decreases as age advances. 
 
 A desire for admiration is a natural and not 
 uncommon failing — it is very perceptible to a 
 man's hearers — it sometimes increases as age 
 advances. 
 
 In a young clergyman's social intercourse with 
 the laity, a manifestation of what I may term pro- 
 fessional pride is to be deplored. I am glad to say 
 that the more refined among my Curates were free 
 from this self-assertiveness. I have noticed that 
 with this tendency there is often united a peculiarity 
 — scarcely worth mentioning perhaps, although it 
 has always irritated me ; I mean a " clerical laugh " 
 which consists of a cachinnation made by a rapid and 
 jerky inhaling of the breath — it is not, however, 
 inspiring; it is usually accompanied by a fierce 
 rubbing of the hands at one's own feeble joke. I 
 beg to state that I did not rub my hands when 
 I italicised inspiring. 
 
 A want of consideration for other people's feelings 
 and sentiments is not unfrequently noticeable in the 
 young clergyman's conversation, particularly on 
 theoretical questions of a religious nature. This 
 arises, not from innate discourtesy or want of 
 breeding, so much as from a dogmatic, lay-down-
 
 86 PARVA IN PARVO. 
 
 the-Iaw manner conferred by a consciousness of 
 professional importance. 
 
 If I may do so, I should recommend young 
 clergymen to avoid gregariousness in public. It is 
 anything but a pleasing sight, at a social gathering, 
 to observe a number of Curates huddled together 
 with their hands behind their backs. We are in 
 the v^orld, and in its good and proper sense it is 
 well to be men of the world, helping to refine it. 
 
 Some young clergymen are easily depressed. This 
 is a pity ; it argues a want of hopefulness and trust. 
 
 There is a particular of a different bearing which 
 I would here note. It is a caution to young clergy- 
 men to be very careful in expressing themselves on 
 points of doctrine : I do not refer to disputed 
 points. I mention this because one of my Curates 
 preached a sermon on Christmas Day which verged 
 on Apollinarianism; and another, on Trinity Sunday, 
 really drifted into Sabellianism. They did no harm 
 I think, for probably no one except myself noticed 
 the discrepancies. 
 
 I find that this categorising of faults and warnings 
 is not to my taste, so I proceed to notice a few 
 chance individuals. 
 
 If Mr. Rashleigh be accepted as a representative 
 of the self-confident chatterbox, I had another 
 Curate, his exact opposite in this respect. Poor 
 Mr. Sayce ! When he came in of an evening, he
 
 PARVA IN PARVO. 87 
 
 bored the life out of me. He would sit on the chair 
 opposite, with his hands on his knees and his eyes 
 fixed on mine as if I were Solomon. He would utter 
 but the monosyllable " Yes " the whole evening. 
 
 Mr. Sayce reminded me of the clergyman who, 
 on being asked by his in prospectu Rector what were 
 his views, replied, with a bow, " My views, Sir, are 
 those of my Rector." I was glad when Mr. Sayce 
 was appointed to a Mastership in a Grammar School. 
 
 With some reluctance, I introduce the subject of 
 love as it appertains to fair spinsters and unmarried 
 Curates. My apology for doing so is that I would 
 say a word on behalf of the Curates. On this tender 
 ground they are often blamed, more often ridiculed, 
 and although, as a rule, I have found them to be 
 circumspect, still they do sometimes make sad mis- 
 takes in their wooings and matrimonial engagements. 
 
 Much allowance should be made for them. Curates 
 belong to a social species ; they will go, like other 
 young men, where girls are. In small towns or 
 country parishes they have little chance of mixing 
 in the society of educated young ladies. Their 
 world becomes a small one ; their ideals of woman- 
 hood are reduced in proportion ; the visible realities 
 are confined to the bourgeois and downwards. They 
 stop to tea and supper at a friendly farmer's or 
 trader's house : by-and-bye they discover themselves 
 saying soft, half-meaning things to Mary Jane or
 
 88 PARVA IX PARVO. 
 
 Hannah. The case proceeds in the old, old way : 
 it results in an unpleasant denomment or a wife. 
 
 I recall two episodes which caused me some 
 anxiety and worrj'. 
 
 The Rev. Valentine Spoone}*, one of my Mulworth 
 Curates, managed somehow to pay attention to two 
 girls at the same time : one, the daughter of Mr. 
 Pickle, our chemist ; the other, of Mr. Skew, a large 
 ironmonger. 
 
 For a time all went well. Mr. Spooney paid visits 
 prett}' ofien at both places ; the girls were nice 
 enough in their wa}'; he seemed to like one as well 
 as the other : perhaps the same soft sa5-ings did for 
 both. Unfortunatel}-, old Pickle and old Skew met 
 one Sunday afternoon and had a talk ; the\- parted 
 rather angrily. Skew went home, but Pickle pro- 
 ceeded to Mr. Spoonej^'s lodgings. He shouted out 
 my Curate's name. Spooney, who was reading over 
 his sermon, threw up the sash, and Pickle bom- 
 barded him with " a piece of his mind." Half the 
 people in the street heard the cannonade, and I 
 should fanc}', from what I was told afterwards, that 
 Mr. Pickle must have had a very large mind, if that 
 were onl\- a piece of it. 
 
 About half an hour before evensong, and under 
 cover of the darkness, Mr. Spooney ran in to me. 
 His nerves were shattered ; he could not preach, 
 nor attend Church that evening : so I had to fish
 
 PARVA IX PARVO. 89 
 
 out an old sermon, which happened to be on " The 
 restraint of the tongue." Pickle and Skew were at 
 Church, and I trust they derived benefit from my 
 discourse. Poor Spooney took the first train the 
 following morning. 
 
 I may as well finish the story. My Curate 
 returned two years afterwards, and Miss Pickle 
 became Mrs. Spooney. 
 
 The other episode occurred here in Lulbrook. 
 My Curate, Mr. Nibbler, was most frequent in his 
 visits to the infant school. For a time I rejoiced at 
 his zeal in teaching the little ones. Another reason 
 transpired when it was too late : he had engaged 
 himself to the schoolmistress, a 3'oung and rather 
 pretty woman. Mr. Xibbler belonged to a good 
 family. When his aunt. Lady N., heard of the 
 afiair she came at once to Lulbrook. She resorted 
 to arguments, threats, and pleadings, and as a last 
 resource to bribery' ; she told her nephew she would 
 give the girl /2,ooo if he broke off the match. It 
 was all to no purpose. Her Ladyship swept away 
 in a storm, a portion of which broke upon the 
 Rectory and put my wife in a flutter for the rest of 
 the day. 
 
 Mr. Nibbler married the schoolmistress. They 
 are very poor ; and, I fear, he is ostracised from 
 the society of his relations. 
 
 Although it may exhibit me in a somewhat
 
 90 PARVA IN PARVO 
 
 ludicrous position I must relate the following 
 instance as a warning to my brother Rectors : — 
 
 At one time, during my tenure of S. Peter's, 
 Mulworth, I required help for three months. A 
 young man, calling himself the Rev. Ferdinand 
 Lefanue, and stating that he had come over from 
 Canada for his holiday, applied for the work. He 
 supplied me with excellent testimonials, and came 
 to S. Peter's. He quickly set about canvassing for 
 a mission in Canada. Lady Scratcham took a 
 great interest in him, invited him to lunch, found 
 him to be a very charming man, and gave him 
 five pounds. Besides this he raised a considerable 
 sum. At his request I paid him his three months' 
 stipend in advance. 
 
 He left before the end of the first month. I 
 afterwards learned that his sudden departure was 
 owing to his fear of the police ; he was not a 
 clergyman, but a ticket-of-leave man. 
 
 I meant this chapter to be a short one, so I 
 bring it to a close. I am not sorry to have done 
 with it. It is headed " Parva in parvo " — it treats 
 of little things in a little space. I do not care 
 about little things ; so I allow my mind to rise to 
 another and, I trust, more sententious chapter.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 " Non vox sed votum ; non chordula musica sed cor; 
 Non cantans sed amans cantat in aure Dei." 
 
 S. Augustine. 
 
 " Be but duteous, and true preferment shall tender itself to thee." 
 
 Cymbeline. 
 
 I AM no idealist ; that is to say, I do not believe 
 it possible to find all one wants in another 
 man — indeed, it would be difficult to state all that 
 one does want. 
 
 Perfection is hard, nay, impossible, to deiine, and 
 why ? Because perfection admits of an infinite 
 number of degrees. Even supposing that man 
 had never "gone far from original righteousness," 
 still the gradation in human perfection, within its 
 earthly limits, would remain : the range from the 
 perfection of the child to that of the grown man 
 would be considerable. 
 
 But without entering the field of metaphysics, 
 even that portion of it which is within the reach of 
 speculation, my experience (and experience is a
 
 92 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 realising factor) has suggested to me that it is well- 
 nigh impossible to find any two men who could 
 travel from one end to the other of life's road in a 
 harmony of feeling and aspiration which would 
 defy at least an occasional dissonance. 
 
 We must not expect, then, to find perfection in 
 Curates, nor a complete unanimity always existing 
 between them and their Rectors. Bishops are not 
 perfect — they are not all unanimous. It would be 
 absurd to expect unanimity on the Episcopal bench ; 
 it would be chimerical to expect it among the lower 
 Clergy. 
 
 I have already admitted that I made a grave mis- 
 take with regard to one of my Curates. Could I lay 
 that aside from my memory, I honestly think that I 
 am not over-scrupulous in my conception of what a 
 Curate should be ; and I may say, without affecta- 
 tion, that as some of my Curates were tolerably well 
 satisfied with their Rector, so he was tolerably well 
 satisfied with them. 
 
 Now, in preparing to give my impression of what 
 a Curate should be, more than one difficulty pre- 
 sents itself. In the first place, other Rectors may 
 not resemble me, and so may not agree with my 
 opinion. And then again, is it not the case, so 
 strangely are we constituted, that two excellent, 
 earnest, religious men may not be able to get on 
 together as Rector and Curate ? Granting, then,
 
 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 93 
 
 that one could mould a die for a perfect Rector and 
 another for a perfect Curate, the question is, Would 
 they be complementary ? 
 
 However, without further preface to this chapter, 
 I shall put down some characteristics. If I found 
 a Curate in whom these were harmoniously combined 
 and consolidated, perhaps he would satisfy me : after 
 all, perhaps not. 
 
 In the following catalogue, I shall make no allusion 
 to the private life of prayer. Such is taken for granted 
 — without this the others would be of little value. 
 
 I should like my Curate to have these qualifica- 
 tions : — 
 
 1. His heart in the work. I start with the shrine- 
 of our being. The heart is a higher measure than 
 the mind- Before his ordination Lacordaire wrote^ 
 " I have a very religious soul, and a very sceptical 
 mind ; but as it is in the nature of the mind to yield 
 to the soul, probably some day I shall be a Christian." 
 It is true that I have known young men, who em- 
 braced the Priesthood as a profession, and as little 
 else, manifesting afterwards not only a deep devotion, 
 but a deep love in the work of the ministry. But 
 such cases are by no means general. 
 
 2. That he be clever and well-educated. The 
 mind should take a prominent part. In these days, 
 especially we need young men, not only devoted and 
 earnest, but of profound thought and intelligence..
 
 94 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 It is a pitiful thing to see a clerg}^man beaten or 
 puzzled by the sophistry of an opponent who has 
 made it his speciaHty to undermine the cause of 
 reh'gion. Questions have to be grasped, arguments 
 to be met face to face — evasion will not do. It is 
 not, of course, to be expected that all our young 
 clergymen should be, mentally speaking, mighty men 
 of war. But it is possible for them to keep up their 
 reading and their thin/dug, and to have whatever 
 defensive weapons they are furnished with clean 
 and bright, ready for the battle. 
 
 I have dwelt on this subject because I have seen 
 religion suffer through the ignorance of a clerical 
 dunce. 
 
 3. That he be free from a wish to be popular. 
 There are many instances I could quote, showing 
 how popular clergymen *' filled their churches " — 
 they emptied them by leaving ; their work was built 
 on sand (perhaps I should say on bubbles). On the 
 other hand, I have known of unpopular men, who 
 laboured and left, but whose works followed them. 
 
 There is, however, a little caution to be noted- 
 here. Indifference to popularity does not mean in- 
 difference to the claims of our people. Besides, if 
 pushed to an extreme, an ignoring of popularity may 
 degenerate into that fanaticism, the self-gratulation 
 of being a martyr, which really consists in unne- 
 .cessarily offending people.
 
 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 95 
 
 4. To be a friend to the rich as well as to the 
 poor. Both classes need his spiritual counsel. He 
 need not be obsequious to the former class ; nor is 
 it necessary to make himself cheap to the latter. 
 How many clergymen who read the Bible in the 
 cottage never say a word about spiritual religion in 
 a rich man's house. We must remember that the 
 Master had friends among the rich, and He preached 
 to them. He entertained Nicodemus and instructed 
 him ; He supped with Simon the Pharisee and 
 rebuked him. 
 
 5. I trust it is not necessary for me to say that I 
 would have my Curate natural, free from affectation, 
 mannerism, servility, and all those blemishes which 
 are excrescences on manliness. 
 
 6. That, if possible, he be a graduate of one of 
 our Universities. Here I would not for a moment 
 disparage our Theological Colleges. I have met 
 with most excellent men — gentlemen — who were 
 trained at these Colleges. My reason for mentioning 
 this qualification is that I have noticed a certain 
 self-sufficiency about some alumni of Theological 
 Colleges. Perhaps they were very proud of having 
 distinguished themselves in a small way and against 
 few rivals. The conceit is generally knocked out of 
 a young fellow at the University, unless he be a 
 great fool. There, he finds himself beaten at all 
 points, on land and water, in the schools and at
 
 96 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 the sports. If not beaten, if he win all the big 
 Scholarships at Oxford, and come out a double 
 first, or if he be Senior Wrangler and Senior Classic 
 combined at Cambridge, then he is too great a man 
 to be conceited. 
 
 7. That he be an honour man. Number 2 partly 
 gives my reason for this. University training is 
 not by any means everything, but it is something. 
 
 I cannot refrain here from telling a little anecdote 
 about the great Bishop Wilberforce. It may be an 
 old one, and I dread lest it should be so, but I have 
 only just heard it. A candidate for Ordination was 
 being examined. The Bishop heard him reading 
 the Greek Testament, and was much annoyed at the 
 young man's pronunciation. He asked him rather 
 crossly, ** Where did you learn Greek, Sir ? " " At 
 Athens, my Lord," was the reply. 
 
 8. As a preacher, I should like him to be simple 
 and erudite — these can be combined. The following 
 quotation has pleased me, " The ideal sermon is 
 an ethical translation of supernatural truths from 
 the language of scientific dogma into forms con- 
 venient for daily practice." 
 
 9. That he be cheerful, contented, unsuspicious, 
 and a friend of his Rector. 
 
 10. That he be fearless in stating his opinions, 
 if he firmly holds them : this without ostentation or 
 obtrusiveness.
 
 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 97 
 
 11. That he convey the impression that he not 
 only says what he feels, but also feels what he says. 
 Children, especially, are quick to discern when the 
 feeling and saying are not in unison. I knew a 
 little girl who, after hearing a clergyman preach on 
 Christ's sympathy, said, " He says it, but I don't 
 feel he feels it." 
 
 12. I hope I should be satisfied with a Curate who 
 was imbued with all the virtues expressed in the 
 beginning of the fifth of S. Matthew, the thirteenth 
 of First Corinthians, and the twenty-second and 
 twenty-third verses of the Epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 But I branch off from catalogue and synopsis. 
 My readers, especially among the clergy, may say 
 that my suggestions are superfluous, that they are 
 all recognised and accepted. 
 
 And yet I would dwell, a little at length, on two 
 characteristics, which are essential to a clergyman's 
 usefulness, and which, although they be theoretically 
 recognised, are not always observed in the practical 
 life of clergymen, whether they be Bishops, Rectors, 
 or Curates. I mean humility and 2eal. 
 
 These two virtues, although at first sight tie 
 resemblance may not appear striking, are nearly 
 related : we might call them brother and sister, at 
 all events they are good friends, and when they 
 nestle in the inner shrine of the same tabernacle 
 they give it a wonderful lustre. 
 
 G
 
 98 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 Humility, what is it? If I may personify, I 
 should call her a quiet gentlewoman who is very 
 often misunderstood, who is the companion of the 
 three graces, and who helps a man to be a gentle- 
 man. Without her, the great man sometimes 
 a_ppears small : with her the small man looks 
 bigger. It is she that gives a refining touch to 
 love's work, and helps love to teach the soul the 
 true meaning of altruism. 
 
 But why need I eulogise Humility, seeing that it 
 is written " I am meek and lowly of heart," the 
 words of Him — 
 
 " The first true Gentleman that ever breathed." 
 
 And Zeal. Yes, Zeal is a man, and a noble-looking 
 fellow he is, too, and the more I look at him th^ 
 more he resembles Humility. They have the sarqe 
 expressive features; the difference is, that while hers 
 are of Grecian type, his are decidedly Roman. 
 
 Zeal — that rare and precious gift which has made 
 men heroes. What a glorious attribute in the young 
 officer of the Church Militant Army ! It draws him 
 away from the world and yet to the world, without 
 spoiling him ; it whets his sword and nerves his 
 arm ; it helps him to put self aside, and yet be no 
 Stoic ; it makes him an orator both outside and 
 inside the pulpit ; it endows him not only with what 
 Cicero calls a sernio corporis, but also with a senno
 
 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 99 
 
 spirihh ; his words are not his own — they are 
 ordinary EngHsh words, it may be, but they have 
 caught fire, because the thoughts behind them are 
 sparks which human necessity has struck from the 
 red-hot Anvil of the Divine Pleroma. Such a man 
 has power, a mighty power to win men ; but as 
 soon as he becomes aware of his power there is 
 danger of his losing it. I recall the noble lines — 
 
 " They out-talked thee, liiss'd thee, tore thee ! 
 Better men fared thus before thee j 
 Fired their ringing shot and pass'd, 
 Hotly charged — and sank at last. 
 
 Charge once more, then, and be dumb ! 
 Let the victors, when they come, 
 When the forts of folly fall, 
 Find thy body by the wall." 
 
 I would ask a Curate desiring preferment, Have 
 you such zeal as these words suggest ? If so, would 
 you take this quiet living of Lulbrook in exchange 
 for the work you might make for yourself amid the 
 masses of human souls ? If you would, then give 
 me your youth, your strength and your zeal, and I 
 will hand you over the living. 
 
 It is nearly time for me to close. I have not been 
 visiting in the parish much lately, and, I must 
 confess it, I preached old sermons on the last five
 
 100 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 Sundays. I must try and write a fresh one for next 
 Sunday, perhaps it will be on Zeal. 
 
 'AWa yap ?}(!)j ijpa aTTui-rrt — that is, I must take my hat 
 and stick and go out to the parish. Good-bye, my 
 friends, to whom I dedicate this book. If I have, 
 inadvertently, hurt or wounded any of you, forgive 
 me : I did not mean to do so. If I have exposed 
 some of our failings, it will do no harm. If I ever 
 become aware that my suggestions have helped any 
 of you I shall rejoice. If, perchance, I have made 
 you smile, why, I have smiled too ; and let us re- 
 member the saying — 
 
 " Quid vetat dicere verum 
 Etiam ridentem ? " 
 
 I still linger at my desk ; my pen wants to go on ; 
 it seems to whisper to me, " You have something 
 more to say 1 " Let it, then, be to " My Curates," 
 past, present, future, real and imaginary. Forgive, 
 if, as these conjured memories pass away, the parson 
 replaces the historian, the preacher the scribe. The 
 words, the deeds of great men rush upon me — 
 
 "Duty!" exclaims Kant, "wondrous thought, 
 that workest neither by fond insinuation, flattery, 
 nor by any threat, but merely by holding up thy 
 naked Maw in the soul,' and so extorting for thyself 
 always reverence, if not always obedience ; before 
 whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they 
 rebel; whence thy original.'"
 
 JVHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 101 
 
 Yes, if Duty be the soldier's watchword, let it be 
 the clergyman's too. 
 
 You look forward to preferment, possibly, some 
 of you, for the fine linen of the Episcopate. 
 Remember the only garment for which S. Paul 
 asked ; the cloak that he left behind him at Troas. 
 Are you better than was he ? Do you want more 
 than did he ? 
 
 And what are all the honours of life here com- 
 pared with one act of self-sacrificing kindness ? 
 What the laurels of your profession, compared with 
 the deep peace of helping one soul towards God ? 
 What the praise of men to the joy of giving a drop 
 of cold water in the name of a disciple ? 
 
 True to your great responsibility, you may be 
 called to patience, to endurance, to neglect and 
 omission — but Preferment will come — it may be 
 delayed till " these shadows flee away." 
 
 There are jars and jolts in our profession ; mis- 
 takes, misconceptions, injustice ; there is the trial 
 that you feel you could be more useful if more 
 independent. What are all these but " broken 
 syllables in the great poem of our redeemed 
 humanity ? " 
 
 A pamphlet is open before me ; I see there soul- 
 stirring words ; they are those of one who never 
 sought preferment, and only accepted it when the 
 sense of duty forced it on him. I had once the
 
 102 WHAT I WOULD LIKE MY CURATE TO BE. 
 
 great honour to know him : he has lately gone to 
 his rest, but his words remain, and I give them, for 
 they are worth reading — 
 
 "What, after all, is the individual life in the history 
 of the Church ? Men may come and men may go ; 
 individual lives float down like straws on the surface 
 of the waters till they are lost in the ocean of 
 Eternity ; but the broad, mighty, rolling stream of 
 the Church itself — the cleansing, purifying, fertilising 
 tide of the river of God flows on for ever and ever." 
 
 They recall j^et another quotation — 
 
 " Cleansing my streams as I hurry along 
 To the golden gate and the leaping bar, 
 And the taintless tide that awaits me afar ; 
 Till /lose myself'xw the infinite main, 
 Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
 
 Undefiled for ihe undefiled ; 
 Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child." 
 
 It is later than I supposed. There is no time to 
 visit in the parish to-day ; but I must begin my 
 sermon at once. Good-bye. 
 
 The End.
 
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