{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_58451/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_58451","id":"gutenberg_58451","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58451","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Church of England -- Clergy -- Biography","Jessopp, Augustus, 1823-1914","Rural churches -- England"],"text":"Produced by D A Alexander, Charlie Howard, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  THE TRIALS\n\n  OF\n\n  A COUNTRY PARSON\n\n\n  BY\n  AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D.\n\n  AUTHOR OF\n\n  \u201cONE GENERATION OF A NORFOLK HOUSE,\u201d \u201cHISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF\n  NORWICH,\u201d &c., &c.\n\n\n  London\n  T. FISHER UNWIN\n  PATERNOSTER SQUARE\n  MDCCCXC\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n\nARCADY:\n\nFOR BETTER FOR WORSE.\n\n_Fourth Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d._\n\n\u201cA volume which is, to our minds, one of the most delightful ever\npublished in English.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n\nThe COMING of the FRIARS,\n\nAND OTHER MEDI\u00c6VAL SKETCHES.\n\n_Fourth Edition. Cloth, 7s. 6d._\n\n\u201cThe book is one to be read and enjoyed from its title-page to its\nfinish.\u201d--_Morning Post._\n\n\nLONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n_Preface._\n\n\n_In a volume which I published three years ago[1] I attempted to give a\nfaithful picture of the habits and ways of thinking, the superstitions,\nprejudices and grounds for discontent, the grievances and the trials,\nof the country folk among whom my lot was cast and among whom it was my\nduty and my privilege to live as a country clergyman. I was surprised,\nand not a little pained, to hear from many who read my book that the\nimpression produced upon them was exactly the reverse of that which\nI had desired to convey. On returning to a country village after\nlong residence in a large town, I found things greatly changed, of\ncourse; but I found that, though the country folk had not shared in\nthe general progress which had been going on in the condition of the\nurban population, they still retained some of their sturdy virtues,\nstill had some love for their homes, still clung to some of their old\nprejudices which reflected their attachment to their birthplace, and\nthat if they were inclined to surrender themselves to the leadership\nof blatant demagogues, and to dwell upon some real or imagined wrongs\ncoarsely exaggerated by itinerant agitators with their living to get\nby speechifying, it was not because there was no cause for discontent.\nThe rustics were right when they followed their instincts and these\ntold them that their lot might be easily--so very easily--made much\nhappier than it is, if philanthropists would only give themselves a\nfair chance, set themselves patiently to study facts before committing\nthemselves to crude theories, try to make themselves really conversant\nwith the conditions which they vaguely desire to ameliorate, go to work\nin the right way and learn to take things by the right handles._\n\n_The circumstances under which I commenced residence in my country\nparish were, unhappily, not conducive to my forming a favourable\njudgment of my people. I was at starting brought face to face with the\nworst side of their characters. They were and had for long been in\nbad hands; they had surrendered themselves to the guidance of those\nwho had gone very far towards demoralizing them. I could not be blind\nto the faults--the vices if you will--which were only too apparent.\nI could not but grieve at the altered_ tone _which was observable in\ntheir language and their manners, since the days when I had been a\ncountry curate twenty years before. But while I lamented the noticeable\ndeterioration and the fact that the rustics were less cordial, less\ncourteous, less generous, less loving, and, therefore, less happy\nthan they had been, I gradually got to see that the surface may be\nruffled and yet the inner nature beneath that surface may have some\ndepths unaffected by the turmoil. The charity which hopeth all things\nsuggested that it was the time to work and wait. It was not long before\nI learnt to feel something more than mere interest in my people. I\nlearnt to love them. I learnt_--\n\n    _To see a good in evil, and a hope\n    In ill success; to sympathize, be proud\n    Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim\n    Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,\n    Their prejudice, and fears, and cares, and doubts,\n    Which all touch upon nobleness, despite\n    Their error, all tend upwardly though weak,\n    Like plants in mines which never see the sun,\n    But dream of him, and guess where he may be,\n    And do their best to climb and get at him._\n\n_I was shocked when friendly critics told me I had drawn a melancholy\npicture, and that to live in such a community, and with surroundings\nsuch as I had described, must be depressing, almost degrading, for any\nman of culture and refinement._\n\n_The essays which follow in this volume were written as a kind\nof protest against any such view of the case. I think the two\nvolumes--this and my former one--should in fairness be read each as the\ncomplement of the other. In \u201cArcady\u201d I have drawn, as best I could, the\npicture of the life of the rustics around me. In this volume I have\nsketched the life of a country parson trying to do his best to elevate\nthose among whom he has been called to exercise his ministry._\n\n_I hold that any clergyman in a country parish who aims_ exclusively\n_at being a Religious Teacher will miss his aim. He must be more, or\nhe will fail to be that. He must be a social power in his parish,\nand he ought to try, at any rate, to be an intellectual force also.\nIt is because I am strongly convinced of this that I have brought so\nmuch into prominence the daily intercourse which I have enjoyed with\nmy people on the footing of a mere friendly neighbour. I cannot think\nthat I have any right at all to lift the veil from those private\ncommunings with penitents who are agonized by ghastly memories, with\npoor weaklings torturing themselves with religious difficulties, or at\nthe bedside of the sick and dying. These seem to me to be most sacred\nconfidences which we are bound to conceal from others as if they had\nbeen entrusted to us under a sacramental obligation of impenetrable\nsilence. We all have our share of miserable experiences of this kind.\nWe have no right to talk of them; they never can become common property\nwithout some one alive or dead being betrayed. In the single instance\nin which I may seem to have departed from this principle, it was the\nexpressed wish of the poor woman whose sad story I told that others\nshould learn the circumstances of the case which I made public._\n\n_It may be thought, perhaps, that my surroundings have something\npeculiar in them. But, No! they are of the ordinary type. For two\ncenturies or so East Anglia was indeed greatly cut off from union and\nsympathy with the rest of England, and was a kingdom apart. The result\nhas been that there are certain characteristics which distinguish\nthe Norfolk character, and some of them are not pleasing. These are\nsurvivals, and they present some difficulties to him who is not an East\nAnglian born, when he is first brought face to face with them. But in\nthe main we are all pretty much alike, and let a man be placed where\nhe may, he will be sure to find something new in the situation, and\nalmost as sure to make some mistakes at starting. I do not believe that\na man of average ability, who is really in earnest in his desire to do\nthe best he can for his people, and who throws himself heartily into\nhis work, will find one place worse than another. Let him resolve to\nfind his joy in the performance of his duty according to his light,\nand the joy will come. So far from repining at my own lot, I have\nfound it--I do find it--a very happy one; and if I have dwelt on the\ncountry parson\u2019s trials, I have done so in no petty and querulous\nspirit as if I had anything to complain of which others had not--this I\nshould disdain to do--but rather as protesting that they press upon my\nbrethren equally as upon myself, and that, such as they are, some must\nbe, some need not be, some ought not to be._\n\n_As for the worries and annoyances, the \u201ctrials\u201d which are inseparable\nfrom our position, it is the part of a wise man to make the best of\nthem, and to put as good a face upon them as he can. But with regard to\nsuch matters as ought not to be and need not be, it behoves us all to\nlook about us to discover if possible some remedy for the remediable,\nto find out the root and source of any evil which is a real evil, to\nlift up our voices against an abuse which has grown or is growing\nto be intolerable, and by no means to acquiesce in the continuance\nof that which is obviously working to the serious prejudice of the\ncommunity. While every other class is crying out for Reform and getting\nit by simply raising the cry, it is a reproach upon us clergy--and I\nfear we deserve the reproach--that we are a great deal too ready to\nsubmit to the continuance of scandals and abuses rather than face the\nrisks which_ any _change is likely to bring upon our order. In no\nother profession is a man more certain to be regarded as a dangerous\ncharacter, wanting in loyalty and wanting in humility, who is even\nsuspected of a desire to improve upon the arrangements which have\nexisted since time was young, or of advocating measures which would\ninterfere with the order of procedure that was good enough for our\ngrandfathers, and therefore must be good enough for ourselves. It\nreally seems to be the belief of some among us that our Constitution\nin Church or State never_ grew _at all, but_ chrystalized _into its\npresent form, and dropped from heaven in perfect panoply like Minerva\nfrom the head of Jove. To point a finger at the texture of the awful_\npeplos, _and to hint that it was woven in the looms of this world, is\nto bring upon oneself the charge of impiety. And yet these men are\nwrong. Organic bodies grow because they are alive; when they cease to\ngrow and are no longer capable of adapting themselves to the changes\nthat are going on around them, they die. Nothing can prolong their\nlife. If you cramp and fetter a living thing by swathing it round about\nwith iron bands that may force it to keep exactly the form it presented\na thousand years ago--then you will kill it. It is only a question of\ntime when your slaying process will prove successful. As for the other\nmethod of \u201cletting things slide,\u201d that is, if possible, more foolish\nthan the other, and certainly more cowardly. What can be baser than\nthe craven whine, \u201cIt will last our time\u201d? An institution which has\nlasted through a long line of centuries, and which will_ only _last our\ntime, may be approaching dissolution from lack of inherent vitality,\nbut it may also be in peril because of the despairing supineness of its\npledged defenders_.\n\n_I have lifted up my voice against one relic of the past which is\nmost certainly doomed because it has been allowed to exist a great\ndeal too long already; it is a_ survival _which I am deeply convinced\nis answerable for much of the corruption that hurts us, much of the\noffence taken and given, much of the laxity and very much of the\ndeplorable want of discipline existing among us_.\n\n_The legal status of the beneficed clergy, in virtue of which they\nare freeholders for life in their several benefices, does not quite\nstand alone. The Parish Clerk, too, has a freehold in his benefice,\nand, after formal admission to it, he may retain it without fear of\nbeing turned out of it as long as the breath remains in his body. These\nfreeholds in an office have been swept away in every other department\nof the public service, though they died hard and cost a good deal to\nabolish. The buying and selling of \u201cplaces\u201d and reversions or next\npresentations to them was as common in the State as in the Church not\nso very long ago. The odious system was swept away for ever by the\nsimple expedient of making every public servant removable at pleasure\nfor negligence, misconduct, inefficiency, or even less. It is only\namong the holders of ecclesiastical preferment that the old abomination\nsurvives. Because it survives, other things survive too which ought\nnot to be tolerated. The first and foremost of these is the open sale\nof the right to present a clerk in orders to a cure of souls. But\nthat is the least mischievous consequence of the present system being\nretained. There are other consequences which are far more serious.\nAmong them is the almost entire want of movement and change, in the\nlives of the country clergy; the absence of fresh interests and of\nthe invigorating stimulus of a new career, however humble, with new\nassociations to give a zest to the performance, it may be, of the\nold duties, but discharged now among those who do not know all that\nyou have to say, and are not yet tired of the sound of your voice, or\nat any rate thinking they would like to hear another. The rule in our\ncountry parishes is that where a man is set down at first, there he\ndies at last. Exchange of benefices is, I admit, more common than it\nused to be, partly because the benefices themselves are less valuable\nand less jealously kept in the patrons\u2019 hands than they were; but even\nnow exchanges are not often made and are not \u201cnegotiated\u201d without\nsome difficulty. To begin with, before two clergymen can change their\ncures, however much they may themselves be agreed, it is necessary\nthat the consent of two patrons and two bishops should be obtained\nas a preliminary; and this is not always to be got for the asking.\nIf a patron has bestowed preferment upon a clergyman with whose\nministrations he is contented and something more, he is not too willing\nto part with him. If he has been so unfortunate as to have given the\nliving to the wrong man, there may be very good reasons why he should\nnot choose to be a party to such a transaction as would result in\npassing on a clerical scamp or incompetent from one cure to another.\nBut in any case it by no means follows that, because I have presented\na parson to a cure of souls, I should therefore give him the next\npresentation too, if he happens to be tired of his cure and anxious to\ngo elsewhere. The result is that, as a rule, a beneficed clergyman,\nwhen once he finds himself, irremovable, in his cure, gives up all\nthought of leaving it. It is \u201ca certainty,\u201d and gradually he gets to\nlook for nothing better; he goes through his duties as best he can,\nhowever mournfully conscious that he has lost the old fire and force\nand efficiency; he takes comfort in the thought that he has worked his\nparish while he could, and that he is entitled to take it easily now;\nand, indeed, in the eyes of those about him, he grows more and more\npicturesque and venerable, just as the old church tower does--but it is\nnot safe to ring the bells up there when so much restoration is wanted._\n\n_I have dealt with this subject in some detail in the Fourth Paper\nin this volume. At the time it appeared, the public mind was much\noccupied with and disturbed by certain political questions then in the\nascendant, and the essay fell dead, attracted little or no attention\nand, in fact, was read by few. It often happens that a book proves an\nutter failure by being published at the wrong time--a month too soon or\na month too late. The favour of the reading public is very capricious,\nnot always awarded to the most deserving, sometimes given with a kind\nof fury of acclamation to a lucky literary adventurer whose reputation\n\u201crushes up like the rocket and comes down like the stick.\u201d Moreover\nthe essay laboured under one rather serious defect, which I have not\nyet set myself to remedy by appending an almost necessary supplement.\nFor it may be asked, and it has indeed been objected, \u201cIf every\nbeneficed clergyman were to hold his appointment subject to removal,\nought not some provision to be made for his retirement in old age or\nwhen physically or mentally unfit for the discharge of his sacred\nfunctions?\u201d Yes! By all means. But why only the_ beneficed _clergy?\nWhy not all who are admitted to the sacred office? Surely it would not\nbe difficult to elaborate a scheme whereby every officiating clergyman\nshould be compelled to make provision for his family, or for his own\nretirement, by the simple expedient of stopping a certain percentage\nof his income and investing it in his name--much in the same way that\nthe Clive fund is managed in India, or as the compulsory insurance of\nrailway servants is enforced by some of the great companies. Until\nsomething of this sort is carried out, we shall continue to be pained\nby those distressing appeals for clergymen\u2019s families reduced to\nbeggary by the death of the bread-winner, which come to us all with\nincreasing frequency, and which, as matters now look, are not likely to\nbe fewer in the near future._\n\n_This however, is only a part, and I venture to think not quite a\nvital part, of the other question, which as a great national question\nappears to me of much greater importance. That question may be put in\nvery few words. Is it for the advantage of the Church or the nation\nthat the incomes of the clergy should continue to be assured to them by\na different tenure from that which prevails in the case of all other\npublic servants--a tenure which in the latter case was proved to be\nworking prejudicially to the interests of the community at large, and\nwhich it was found absolutely necessary to abolish?_\n\n_It is easy to raise a cry against any one who dares to ask such a\nquestion as this by denouncing him as an Erastian. But our clerical_\nincomes _are one thing, our sacred functions and office are another.\nAll the Parliaments in the world can never admit me or any one else to\nHoly Orders: but there is nothing to prevent a rich man from endowing\nany church or chapel with an income to be enjoyed by the parson of that\nchurch only under certain conditions or for a certain limited time.\nPeople seem to think that it is of the very essence of an endowment\nthat the income derived from it should belong to the man who is once\nadmitted to enjoy it as long as he lives and chooses to draw the pay.\nIf by anything I have written, or could write, I could exercise any\ninfluence in the direction of leading thoughtful men to give their\nserious attention to this subject and to discuss it earnestly, I should\nhave very little doubt about the result, and I should feel that I had\nnot lived in vain._\n\n_Very closely allied with this question is another which is forcing\nitself upon us all with increasing urgency every month. When we begin\nto ask ourselves and one another to whom do our Village Churches\nbelong? Who is bound to keep them from falling into ruin? Who has\nthe right to sell the lead off the roof, or the books in the ancient\nParish Library, or the bells in the steeple, or the very brasses in the\npavement?--and all these things have been done and nobody been called\nto account--when, I say, we begin to ask these things and press for an\nanswer, we may well be dismayed by the suspicion of how anomalous our\nposition is. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings\nhas been doing good work for us; it deserves more support than it has\nreceived, and needs many more subscribers before its influence can\nbe brought to bear upon the ignorance and Vandalism, and right down\nrascality too, with which it so often finds itself in conflict. But\nthe work of this society_, as things are, _can never be anything but\npalliative at the utmost. A local Philistine with a long purse and\nno more conscience or sentiment than a gorilla, may do almost what\nhe pleases. It is dreadful to think what might be perpetrated in our\ncountry churches with impunity, and what_ would be _perpetrated too, if\nonly the true state of the case were known. Here, too, there is need\nfor the reform of the law. Who_ do _the churches belong to? Who are\nresponsible for their protection from outrage and destruction? There\nare some country parishes where with a very little manipulation the\ninhabitants in Vestry assembled might be induced to vote anything; even\nto the using superfluous seats for boarding up all the windows on the\nnorth side to make themselves snug withal. What is to prevent their\ndoing it? Who is to bell the cat?_\n\n_The Fifth Paper in this volume may not at first sight appear to have\nanything to do with a Country Parson\u2019s \u201ctrials\u201d; and yet it has.\nThere are some people who are never tired of declaiming against the\nuselessness of our Cathedral buildings. More than once I have been put\nupon the defensive when railers have lifted up their voices especially\nagainst the waste of space which might be turned to good account in our\nown glorious East Anglian Cathedral. When they whose chief amusement in\nlife it is to find fault are on the look out for something to rail at,\nthey will never be without an excuse for indulging in their amiable\npastime. That there are many spaces which might, with great advantage,\nbe made available for worthy purposes in most of our cathedrals, must\nbe apparent to any one who thinks about the matter. The question is,\nwhat are worthy purposes, and how may those vacant spaces be best\nturned to account without sacrificing the dignity of those majestic\nbuildings and their surroundings, and without vulgarising them by\nintroducing associations out of harmony with the traditions that belong\nto them and, the sentiment of reverence that they arouse? Who that has\nseen the Cathedral Library at Ely, could doubt whether it is in the\nright place or no? Or who that knows anything of what has been doing\nof late among the Archives of Canterbury or Lincoln, can help wishing\nthat such work were doing elsewhere? But why should not our cathedrals\nbecome the great storehouses for all our ancient muniments, in which\nthey might find the protection they deserve and the intelligent\nsupervision which might render them accessible to students of our\nhistory?_\n\n_Little need be said to justify the appearance of the Sixth Paper in a\nvolume which professes to treat of a Country Parson\u2019s \u201ctrials.\u201d I hope\nI have made it appear that even such a trial as this is bearable--nay!\nthat it is one of those which may even become a very delightful trial\nindeed to those who have some resources in themselves, and whose\noccupations and tastes are such as to make them habitually regret that\nthe winter days are so short, and sometimes even half complain because\nthe summer sunshine brings such irresistible temptations to be idle._\n\n_Is it true that we poor country parsons have our trials? Then do not\ngrudge us such comfort as we can find in being snowed up in Arcady._\n\n_The last Essay in the volume may be taken as a hint that among\nother trials which a Country Parson has to bear is the necessity of\nacquiescing in certain unsatisfied yearnings. That sounds so very\nheroic now that I have written it, that I am inclined to be rather\nproud of my own resignation. All my life I have had a hankering to\npay a visit to the United States of America. There was a time when I\ncould have afforded the expense of such a trip, but I could not then\nafford to give the time. Now with an annually decreasing income the_\nway _is open, but the_ means _are not forthcoming. But as I think of\ntoo many of my brethren who every day of their lives are sadly put to\nit to keep the wolf from the door and find it difficult to provide\neven the bare necessaries of life, not to speak of those comforts and\nsimple indulgences which it is so hard to miss when old age and its\ninfirmities have set in--the contrast between their lot and my own\ncomes home to me almost with a sense of self-reproach. Let them whose\nsterner trials are so much more hard to bear than mine, forgive the\nirony of one who grumbles that he is too poor to cross the Atlantic on\na new voyage of discovery--as though that were a serious deprivation\nand a proof of his being only one step from indigence. Let them do him\nthe justice to believe that he himself is not insensible to the pathos\nthat lurks in the background of his own lament._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n    CHAP.                                                PAGE\n     I.  THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON                     1\n\n    II.  THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON (_continued_)      49\n\n   III.  THE CHURCH AND THE VILLAGES                       97\n\n    IV.  QUIS CUSTODIET                                   143\n\n             _Note_                                       176\n\n     V.  CATHEDRAL SPACE FOR NEGLECTED RECORDS            180\n\n    VI.  SNOWED UP IN ARCADY                              223\n\n             _Note_                                       264\n\n   VII.  WHY I WISH TO VISIT AMERICA                      270\n\n\n[_The first six essays have, in the main, appeared in the \u201cNineteenth\nCentury:\u201d the seventh first saw the light in the \u201cNorth American\nReview.\u201d_]\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n_THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON._\n\n\nMy friends from Babylon the great are very good to me in the\nsummer-time. They come in a delightful stream from their thousand\nluxuries, their great social gatherings, their brilliant talk, and\ntheir cheering and stimulating surroundings; they come from all the\nexcitement and the whirl of London or some other huge city where men\n_live_, and they make their friendly sojourn with us here in the\nwilderness even for a week at a time. They come in a generous and\nself-denying spirit to console and condole with the man whom they\npity so gracefully--the poor country parson \u201crelegated,\u201d as Bishop\nStubbs is pleased to express it, \u201cto the comparative uselessness of\nliterary (and clerical) retirement.\u201d I observe that the first question\nmy good friends ask is invariably this: \u201cWhat shall we do and where\nshall we go--to-morrow?\u201d It would be absurd to suppose that any man\nin his senses comes to the wilderness to _stay_ there, or that there\ncould be anything to _do_ there. A man goes to a place to see, not\nthe place itself, but some other place. When you find yourself in the\nwilderness you may use any spot in it as a point of departure, but as a\ndwelling-place, a resting-place, never!\n\nMoreover, I observe that, by the help of such means of locomotion as\nwe have at command, the days pass merrily enough with my visitors in\nfine weather. But as sure as ever the rain comes, so surely do my\nfriends receive important letters calling them back, much to their\ndistress and disappointment. If the weather be _very_ bad--obstinately\nbad--or if a horse falls lame and cannot be replaced, or some equally\ncrushing disaster keeps us all confined to the house and garden,\nmy visitors invariably receive a telegram which summons them home\ninstantly even at the cost of having to send for a fly to the nearest\nmarket town. Sometimes, by a rare coincidence, a kindly being drops in\nupon us even in the winter. He is always genial, cordial, and a great\nrefreshment, but he never stays a second night. We keep him warm, we\nallow a liberal use of \u201cthe shameful,\u201d we give him meat and drink of\nthe best, we flatter him, we coddle him, we talk and draw him out,\nwe \u201cshow him things,\u201d but he never stays over that single night; and\nwhen he goes, as he shakes our hands and wraps himself up in his rugs\nand furs, I notice that he has a sort of _conflate_ expression upon\nhis countenance; his face is as a hybrid flower where two beauties\nblend. One eye says plainly, \u201cI _am_ a lucky dog, for I am going away\nat last,\u201d and the other eye, beaming with kindliness, sometimes with\naffection, says just as plainly, \u201cPoor old boy, how I do pity you!\u201d\n\nWell! this is a pitiful age; that is, it is an age very full of pity.\nThe ingenuity shown by some good people in finding out new objects of\ncommiseration is truly admirable. It is hardly to be expected that the\ncountry parson should escape the general appetite for shedding tears\nover real or supposed sufferers.\n\nBut it strikes some of us poor forlorn ones as not a little curious\nthat our grand town friends never by any chance seem to see what there\nis in our lot that is really pathetic or trying. \u201cHow often do you give\nit meat?\u201d said a blushing, mild-eyed, lank-haired young worthy in my\nhearing the other day. \u201cLawk! sir, that don\u2019t have no meat,\u201d answered\nthe laughing mother, as she hugged her tiny baby closer to her bosom.\n\u201cNever have meat? How dreadful!\u201d Just so! But it is not only ludicrous,\nit is annoying, to be pitied for the wrong thing; and though I am not\ninclined to maintain the thesis that we, the soldiers of God\u2019s army\nof occupation, who are doing outpost duty, pass our lives in a whirl\nof tumultuous and delicious joy, yet, if I am to be pitied, do let me\nbe pitied intelligently. I cannot expect to be envied, but surely it\nis not such a very heavy calamity for a man never to catch a sight of\n_Truth_ or _The World_, or to find that there is not such a thing as an\noyster-knife in his parish.\n\nMoreover, side by side with pity, there is a large amount of much more\nirritating and ignorant exaggeration of the good things we are supposed\nto enjoy. We do not, I admit, hear quite so often as formerly about\n\u201cfat livings\u201d and \u201cvaluable preferment,\u201d nor about the \u201crectorial\nmansion with a thousand a year\u201d; but we hear a great deal more about\nsuch fabulous lands of Goshen than we ought to hear. There is always a\ndisposition to represent our neighbours as better off than ourselves,\nand whereas the salaried townsman knows that his income, whatever it\nmay be, is his net income which he may count upon as his spending\nfund to use as _he_ pleases, when he hears of others as receiving or\nentitled to receive so many pounds a year, he assumes that they do\nreceive it and that they may spend it as _they_ please. The townsman,\nagain, who moves among the multitude and every hour is reminded of that\nmultitude pressing, as all fluids do, \u201cequally in all directions,\u201d\nhears, and sometimes he knows, that the clergy in the towns have\nimmense claims upon their time and are always on the move in the\nstreets and courts. They are always about, always _en \u00e9vidence_. If a\nman has only to minister to a paltry seven hundred, what _can_ he have\nto do? He must be a drone.\n\nMoreover, the aforesaid townsman has read all about those country\nparsons. You can hardly take up a novel without finding a sleek rector\nfiguring in the volumes. These idealized rural clerics always remind\nme of Mr. Whistler\u2019s _Nocturnes_. The figures roll at you through\nthe mists that are gathering round them. The good people who try to\nintroduce us to these reverend characters very rarely venture upon a\nfirm and distinct outline. The truth is, that for the most part the\nnovelists never slept in a country parsonage in their lives, never knew\na country parson out of a book.\n\nA year or two ago my friend X. was dining in a London mansion. \u201cWho\u2019s\nthat?\u201d said a lady opposite, as she ducked her head in his direction\nand looked at her partner. X. turned to speak to _his_ partner, but\ncould not help hearing the scarcely whispered dialogue: \u201cA country\nparson, did you say? Why, he\u2019s tall!\u201d\n\n  And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted\n  All the air about the windows with elastic laughter sweet.\n\nIt was quite a surprise to that lady novelist that a country parson\ncould be tall! Many men are tall--policemen, for instance. But only\nshort men ought to be country parsons. Why! we shall hear of one of\nthem being good-looking next!\n\nWhen any class of men feel themselves to be the butt of others, they\nare apt to be a little cowed. They hold their peace and fret, and\nif they resent their hard treatment and speak out, they rarely do\nthemselves justice. Very few men can come well out of a _snub_, and the\ncountryman who is not used to it never knows what to reply to offensive\nlanguage. Yet worms have been known to turn, not that I ever heard\nthey got any good by it; they can\u2019t bite, and they can\u2019t sting, but I\nsuppose it comforts them to deliver their own souls. Poor worms! Yes!\nyou may pity them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut if the country parson has his trials, how may he hope to be\nlistened to when he desires to make it clear what they are? Where shall\nhe begin? Where shall he begin if not by pointing to that delicate\nnerve-centre of draped humanity, exquisite in its sensitiveness,\nknowing no rest in its perpetual giving out of force, for ever\nhungering for renewal of its exhausted resources, feeling no pain in\nits plethora and dreading no death save from inanition--to wit, the\nPocket? Touch a man\u2019s pocket, and a shudder thrills through every fibre.\n\nThe country parson has a great deal to complain of at the hands of\nthose who will persist in talking of him as an exceptionally thriving\nstipendiary. It is one thing to say that in all cases he gets more than\nhe deserves; it is quite another to put forth unblushingly that his\nincome is half as much again as in fact it is, and his outgoings only\nwhat the outgoings of other men are. Logicians class the _suppressio\nveri_ among sophisms; but would it not be better to call that artful\nproceeding a fraud? \u201cDrink fair, Betsy, whatever you do!\u201d said Mrs.\nGamp on a memorable occasion. Yes, if it is only out of the teapot.\n\ni. With regard to the income of the country parson, it may be laid\ndown as a fact not to be disputed, that hardly one per cent. of the\ncountry clergy ever _touch_ the full amount which theoretically they\nare entitled to receive. In the case of parishes where the land is much\nsubdivided, and where there are a number of small tithepayers, it would\nbe almost impossible for the clergyman personally to collect his dues;\nhe almost invariably employs an agent, who is not a likely man to do\nhis work for love. Even the agent can rarely get in all the small sums\nthat the small folk ought to pay. Even he has to submit to occasional\ndefalcations, and to consider whether it is worth while to press the\nlegal rights of his employer too far. Moreover, the small folk from\ntime immemorial have expected something in the shape of a tithe dinner\nor a tithe tea, for which the diners or the tea-drinkers do not pay,\nyou may be sure; this constitutes a not inconsiderable abatement on the\nsum-total of receipts which ought to come to hand at the tithe audit.\n\nTaking one year with another, it may be accepted as a moderate estimate\nthat the cost of collecting his tithe, _plus_ bad debts in some shape\nor other, amounts to six per cent., and he who gets within seven per\ncent. of his clerical income gets more than most of us do. But the law\nallows of no abatement in respect of this initial charge; and because\nthe law takes up this ground, the world at large assumes that the\nnominal gross income of the benefice does come into the pockets of\nthe incumbent. The world at large is quite certain that nobody in his\nsenses makes a return of a _larger_ income than he enjoys, and if the\nparson pays on \u00a3500, people assume that he does not get _less_ from his\nliving than that. The world at large does not know that the parson\nis not asked to make a return. The surveyor makes up his books on the\ntithe commutation table for the parish, and on that the parson is\nassessed, whatever he may say.\n\nii. For be it known it is with the surveyor or rate-collector that\nthe parson\u2019s first and most important concern lies. Whatever he may\nreceive from his cure, however numerous may be the defaulters among the\ntithe-payers, however large the expense of collecting his dues, the\nparson has _to pay rates_ on his gross income. The barrister and the\nphysician, the artist or the head of a government department, knows or\nneed know nothing about rates. He may live in a garret if he likes; he\nmay live in a boarding-house at so much a week; he may live in a flat\nat a rent which covers all extraneous charges. I suppose we most of\nus have known men of considerable fortune, men who live in chambers,\nmen who live in lodgings, men who live in college rooms, who never\n_directly_ paid a rate in their lives. Our lamented H., who dropped\nout recently, leaving \u00a397,000 behind him, invested in first-class\nsecurities, was one of these languidly prosperous men. \u201cI do detetht\nviolent language on any thubject whatever,\u201d he lisped out to me\nonce. \u201cI hope I thall never thee that man again who thtormed at rate\ncollectorth tho. What _ith_ a rate collector? Doth he wear a uniform?\u201d\n\nBut a country parson and all that he has in the world, _qua_ country\nparson, is rateable to his very last farthing, and beyond it: the\nfiction being that he is a landed proprietor, and as such in the\nenjoyment of an income from real property. It is in vain that he pleads\nthat his nominal income is of all property the most unreal:--he is told\nthat he has a claim upon the land, and the land cannot run away. It is\nin vain that he plaintively protests that he would gladly live in a\nsmaller house if he were allowed--he _does_ live in it, chained to it\nlike a dangerous dog to his kennel. It is in vain that he urges that\nhe cannot let his glebe, and may not cut down the trees upon it--that\nhe is compelled to keep his house in tenantable repair, and maintain\nthe fences as he found them. The impassive functionary expresses a\nwell-feigned regret and some guarded commiseration; but he has his\nduty to perform, and the rates have to be paid--Poor rates, County\nrates, School Board rates, and all the rest of them; and paid upon\nthat parson\u2019s gross income--such an income as never comes, and which\neverybody knows never could be collected.\n\nYou may say in your graceful way that a parson does not pay a bit more\nthan he ought to pay, and that he may be thankful if he be allowed to\nlive at all. That may be quite true--I don\u2019t think it is, but it _may\nbe_--but there are some things that are not true, and one of them is,\nthat the gross income awarded to the country parson on paper gives\nanything approaching to a fair notion of the amount of income that\ncomes to his hands. And if you are going to pity the country parson,\ndo begin at the right end, and consider how you would like to pay such\nrates as he pays on _your_ gross income.\n\niii. But when the country parson\u2019s rates have been duly paid, the next\nthing that he is answerable for is the Land-tax. The mysteries of the\nLand-tax are quite beyond me. If I could afford to give up three years\nof my life to the uninterrupted study of the history and incidence of\nthe Land-tax, I think, by what people tell me, I might get to know\nsomething about it, and be in a position to enlighten mankind upon this\nabstruse subject; but as I really have not three years of my life to\nspare, I must needs acquiesce in my hopeless ignorance even to the end.\nOnly this I do know, that, whereas the country parson is called upon\nto pay sixpence in the pound for Income-tax, he is called upon to pay\nnearly ninepence in the pound for Land-tax: at any rate, I know one\ncountry parson who has to do so.\n\nLet the Land-tax pass--it is beyond me. But how about the Income-tax?\nAs I have said above, in the case of all other professions except the\nclerical, a man makes his return of income upon the _available_ income\nwhich comes to him after deducting all fair and reasonable _office\nexpenses_. But for the crime of clericalism, the country parson is\ndebarred from making any such deductions as are permitted to other\nhuman beings. Many of the \u201cgood livings\u201d in East Anglia have two\nchurches, each of which must be served. A man cannot be in two places\nat once; and the laws of nature and of the Church being in conflict,\nthe laws of the Church carry it over the laws of nature, and the\nrector has to put in an appearance at his second church by deputy--in\nother words, the poor man has to keep a curate. If he were a country\nsolicitor who was compelled to keep a clerk, he would deduct the salary\nof the clerk from the profits of his business; but being only a country\nparson, he can do nothing of the sort: he has to pay Income-tax all the\nsame on his gross returns. A curate is a luxury, as a riding horse is\na luxury; and the only wonder is that curates have not long ago been\nincluded among those superfluous animals chargeable to the assessed\ntaxes.\n\niv. Perhaps the most irritating of all imposts that press upon\nthe country parson is that to which he has to submit because the\nchurchyard is technically part of his freehold. In many parts of\nthe country a fee is charged for burying the dead. In the diocese\nof Norwich there are no burial fees. The right of burying his dead\nin the churchyard is a right which may be claimed by any inhabitant\nof the parish; the soil of the churchyard is said to belong to the\nparishioners; the _surface of the soil_ belongs to the parson. This\nbeing so, the parson is assessed in the books of the parish for the\nassumed value of the herbage growing upon the soil, and on this\nassumed value he is accordingly compelled to pay rates, Income-tax,\nand Land-tax. Of course the parson could legally turn cattle or\ndonkeys into the churchyard to disport themselves among the graves;\nbut happily that man who should venture to do this nowadays would be\nthought guilty of an outrage upon all decency. Who of us is there who\ndoes not rejoice that this state of feeling has grown up among us?\nBut the result is that the churchyard, so far from being a source of\nincome to the parson, has become a source of expense to him in almost\nall cases. Somebody has to keep the grass mown, and see that God\u2019s acre\nis not desecrated. Few of us grumble at that; and some who have large\nresources pride themselves on keeping their churchyards as a lawn is\nkept or a garden. But it surely is monstrous when everybody knows that\nthe churchyard, so far from bringing the parson any pecuniary benefit,\nentails an annual expense upon him which is practically unavoidable--it\nis monstrous, I say, that the parson should be assessed upon the value\nof the crop which might be raised off dead men\u2019s graves, and that he\nshould be taxed for showing an example of decency and right feeling to\nthose around him.\n\n\u201cWell! But why don\u2019t you appeal?\u201d\n\nMy excellent sir, do you suppose that nobody ever has appealed? Do you\nsuppose that very original idea of yours has never occurred to any one\nelse before? Or do you suppose that we the shepherds of Arcady, find\nappealing against an assessment, made by our neighbours to relieve\nthemselves, before the magistrates at Quarter Sessions, is a process\npeculiarly pleasurable and particularly profitable when the costs are\ndefrayed? We grumble or fret, we count it among our trials, but we\nsay, \u201cAfter all, it is only about five shillings a-year. Anything for\na quiet life. Let it go!\u201d So the wrong gets to be established as a\nright. But it is none the less a wrong because it continues to exist,\nor because in coin of the realm it amounts to a trifle. Was it Mr.\nMidshipman Easy\u2019s nurse who urged in excuse of her moral turpitude in\nhaving an infant of her very own, \u201cPlease, ma\u2019am, it was _such_ a\nlittle one?\u201d\n\nThe grievance of having to pay rates on the churchyard may be in one\nsense a little one. But when it comes to being charged rates upon\nthe premiums you pay upon your insurance policies, some of them--the\ninsurance of his church and other buildings--being compulsory payments,\nand upon the mortgage of your benefice effected in your predecessor\u2019s\ntime--even the sneerer at a sentimental grievance could hardly call\nsuch charges as these not worth making a fuss about. In many a needy\ncountry parson\u2019s household the rates make all the difference whether\nhis children can have butter to their bread or not.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt must be obvious to most people from what has been already said--and\nmuch more might be said--that, unless a country parson have some\nresources outside of any income derivable from his benefice, he must\nneeds be a very poor man. Our people know this better than any one\nelse, and it is often a very anxious question on the appointment of\na new incumbent whether he will live in the same style as that which\nhis predecessor maintained. Will he keep a carriage, or only a pony\nchaise? Will he employ two men in the garden? Will he \u201cput out his\nwashing?\u201d[2] Will his house be a small local market for poultry and\nbutter and eggs? Will he farm the glebe or let it? How many servants\nwill he keep, and will the lady want a girl to train in the kitchen or\nthe nursery from time to time? Such questions as these are sometimes\nvery anxious ones in a remote country village where every pound\nspent among the inhabitants serves to build up a _margin_ outside\nthe ordinary income of the wage-earners, and which helps the small\noccupiers to tide over many a temporary embarrassment when money is\nscarce, and small payments have to be met and cannot any longer be\ndeferred.\n\nLet me, before going any further, deal with a question which I have had\nsuggested to me again and again by certain peculiar people with dearly\nbeloved theories of their own. It is often asked, Ought clergymen ever\nto be rich men? Is not a rich clergyman out of place in a country\nparsonage? Does not his wealth raise him too far above the level of\nhis people? Does it not make him sit loosely to his duties? Does not\nthe fact of a country parson being known to be a rich man tend _to\ndemoralize_ a parish?\n\nLest it should be supposed that the present writer is one of the\nfortunate ones rolling in riches, and therefore in a manner bound to\nstand up for his own class--let it be at once understood that the\npresent writer is a man of straw, one of those men to whom the month\nof January is a month of deep anxiety, perplexity, and depression of\nsoul. Yet he would disdain to join the band of whining grumblers only\nbecause one year after another he finds that he must content himself\nwith the corned beef and carrots, and cannot by hook or by crook afford\nto indulge in some very desirable recreation or expense which the\nmajority of his acquaintance habitually regard as absolutely necessary\nif existence is to be endured at all. No! I am very far indeed from\nbeing a rich man; but this I am bound to testify in common fairness to\nmy wealthier brethren in the ministry of the Church of England, that if\nany impartial person, with adequate knowledge of the facts, were asked\nto point out the most devoted, zealous, unworldly, and practically\nefficient country parsons in the diocese of Norwich--for let me speak\nas I do know--he would without hesitation name first and foremost some\nof the richest of the clergy in the eastern counties.\n\nDo you desire that your son should begin his ministerial life under a\nman of great ability, sound sense, courage, and religious earnestness,\na man who never spares himself and will not suffer his subordinates to\nsink into slovenly frivolity and idleness, then make your approaches\nto Lucullus, and you will have cause to thank God if the young fellow\nserves his apprenticeship under a guide and teacher such as this.\nHe will learn no nonsense there, and see no masquerading, only an\nundemonstrative but unflinching adherence to the path believed to be\nthe path of duty, and a manliness of self-surrender such as can only\narouse an enthusiasm of respect and esteem.\n\nDoes \u201cour own correspondent\u201d wish to see how a score of infamous hovels\ncan be changed into a score of model cottages which pay interest on the\ncost of their erection, and which in half a dozen years have helped\nperceptibly to raise the tone and tastes and habits of the population\ntill it really looks as if some barbarians could be civilized by a\n_coup de main_?--let him pay a visit to the parish of our Reverend\nHercules, only one of whose many labours it has been to cleanse an\nAugean stable. It will do him good to see the mighty shoulders of\nthat rugged philanthropist, him of the broad brow and the great heart\nand the deep purse, always at work and always at home, about the very\nlast man in England to be suspected of belonging to the sickly sort of\npuling visionaries.\n\nDo you want to meet with a type of the saintly parish priest, one after\nholy George Herbert\u2019s heart, one with hardly a thought that does not\nturn upon the service of the sanctuary or the duties that he owes to\nhis scattered flock? Come with me, and we will go together and look\nat one of the most beautiful village churches in the land, on which\nour devout Ambrose has spent his thousands only with deep gratitude\nthat he has been permitted to spend them so--and with never a word of\nbrag or publicity, never a paragraph foisted into the newspapers. And\nas we pass out of that quiet churchyard, trim as a queen\u2019s parterre,\nI will show you the window of that little study which Ambrose has not\nthought it right to enlarge, and if he be not there, be sure we shall\nfind him at his school or by the sick-bed of the poor, or inquiring\ninto some case of sorrow or sin where a kindly hand or a wise word may\nperadventure solace the sad or go some way to raise the fallen.\n\nWhat country parson among all the nine hundred and odd within this\nunwieldy diocese has lived a simpler or more devoted life than our\nNestor--[Greek: \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u1f31\u03c0\u03c0\u03b7\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03c1]--he who for more than threescore\nyears and ten has gone in and out among his people, and doing his\npastoral work so naturally, so much as a matter of course, that no one\nthinks of his being a rich man, except when those towering horses\nof his stop at our lowly portals and have to be corkscrewed into our\ndiminutive stables?\n\nAnd who knows not of thee, Euerges, treasurer and secretary and general\nmainstay of every good work, the idol of thy people and their healer,\nthe terror of the impostor, and the true friend of all that deserve thy\nhelping hand and purse! or thee, too, Amomos, who after thirty years\nof work as an evangelist in the city, spending there thyself and thy\nsubstance all the while, hast now betaken thee to the poor villagers,\nif haply some little good may yet be done among the lowly ones before\nthe night cometh when no man can work?\n\n\u201cBut do not such well-meaning gentlemen as these _demoralize_ the\npoor?\u201d Oh dear yes! of course they do. It is so very demoralizing to\nhelp a lame dog over a stile. It does so pauperize a broken-down couple\nto whom the Poor Law Guardians allow three shillings a week and half\na stone of flour, if you give them a sack of potatoes about Christmas\ntime. It corrupts and degrades Biddy Bundle to bestow an old petticoat\nupon her when she is shivering with the cold, and it takes all\nself-respect and independence from the unruly bosom of Dick the fiddler\nto offer him your old hat or a shabby pair of trousers. The truest,\nwisest, most far-sighted and most magnanimous charity is to let Harry\nDobbs have \u201can order for the house\u201d when he is out of work and short of\ncoals--Harry Dobbs, who set himself against all the laws of political\neconomy, and married at eighteen, when he had not the wherewithal to\nbuy the chairs and tables. So we country parsons are a demoralizing\nforce in the body politic forsooth, because we cannot bear to see poor\npeople starve at our gates. We have been known actually to give soup\nto a reckless couple guilty of twelve children; actually soup! And we\nhave dropped corrupting shillings into trembling hands, only because\nthey were trembling, and distributed ounces of tobacco to the inmates\nof the Union, and poisoned the souls of old beldames with gratuitous\nhalf-pounds of tea. And we counsel people to come to church, when they\nwould much rather go to the public-house, and we coddle them and warm\nthem now and then, and instead of leaving them to learn manliness and\nindependence and self-reliance on twelve shillings a week, we step\nbetween them and the consequences of their own improvidence, and we\ndisturb the action of the beautiful laws of the universe, and where\nwe see the ponderous wheels of Juggernaut just going to roll over a\nhelpless imbecile who has tripped and dropped, we must needs make a\nclutch at him and pull him out by the scruff of the neck, and tell\nhim to get up and not do it again. And all this is _demoralizing_ and\n_pauperizing_, is it?\n\nOut upon you! you miserable prigs with your chatter and babble! _You_\nto talk of the parson\u2019s narrowness and his bigotry and his cant?\n_You_ to sneer at him for being the slave of a superstition? _You_ to\npose as the only thinkers with all the logic of all the philosophers\non your side, all the logic and never a crumb of common sense to\nback it? Bigotry and intolerance and cant and class jealousy and\nscorn--that refuge for the intellectually destitute and the blustering\ncoward--where will you find them in all their most bitter and sour\nand hateful intensity, if not among the new lights, the self-styled\neconomists? And we have to sit mum and let brainless pretenders\nsuperciliously put us out of court with a self-complacent wave of the\nhand, as they give utterance to perky platitudes about the clergy\npauperizing the working man. No, Mr. Dandy Dryskull. No! this gospel of\nyours, a little trying to listen to, is being found out; ours will see\nthe end of it.\n\n    You preach Sir Andrew and his love of law,\n    And we the Saviour and His law of love!\n\nI, for one, hereby proclaim and declare that I intend to help the sick\nand aged and struggling poor whenever I have the chance, and as far\nas I have the means, and I hope the day will never come when I shall\ncease to think without shame of him who is said to have made it his\nboast that he had never given a beggar a penny in his life. I am free\nto confess that I draw the line somewhere. I do draw the line at the\ntramp--I do find it necessary to be uncompromising there. Indeed I keep\na big dog for the tramp, and that dog, inasmuch as he passes his happy\nlife in a country parsonage--that dog, I say, is _not_ muzzled.\n\n\u201cBut don\u2019t you get imposed upon? Don\u2019t you get asked to replace dead\nhorses and cows and pigs and donkeys, that never walked on four legs\nand no mortal eye ever saw in the land of the living?\u201d\n\nOf course we do! Is it a prerogative of the country parson to be duped\nby a swindler? Oh, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, were you never taken in?\nNever! Then, sir, I could not have you for a son-in-law! As for us--we\ncountry parsons--we do occasionally get imposed upon in very absurd\nand contemptible fashion. Sometimes we submit to be bled with our eyes\nopen. A bungling bumpkin has managed to get his horse\u2019s leg broken\nby his own stupidity. We know that the fellow was jiggling the poor\nbrute\u2019s teeth out of his mouth at the time, or the animal would never\nhave shown himself as great an idiot as his master. But there stands\nthe master horseless, with the tears in his eyes, and we know all about\nhim and the hard struggle he has had to keep things going, and we say\nto ourselves, \u201cI wonder what would happen to _me_ if my horse dropped\ndown dead some fine morning. Who would help _me_ to another? and what\nthen?\u201d So we pull out the sovereign, and give the fellow a note to\nsomebody else, and that is how we demoralize _him_.\n\nOr another comes at night-time and wants to speak to us on very\nparticular business, and implores us to tide him over a real\ndifficulty, and.... \u201cWhat? do you mean to say, you lend fellows money?\u201d\nYes. I mean to say I have even done that and very very rarely repented\nof it, and I mean to say there are men, and women too, to whom I would\nlend money again if I had it; but it does not follow that I would lend\nit to everybody, least of all that I would lend it to you, Mr. Worldly\nWiseman. Try it on, sir! Try it on! and see whether you would depart\ntriumphant from the interview!\n\nMoreover, the country parson has always to pay a little--just a very\nlittle--more than any one else for most things that come to his door.\nThe market has always risen when he wants to buy, and has always\nsuddenly fallen when he wants to sell. The small man\u2019s oats are\ninvariably superior to any one\u2019s when he has a small parcel to dispose\nof to the parson. As to the price of hay, when the parson has to buy\nit, that is truly startling. I never see half a rood of carrots growing\nin a labourer\u2019s allotment, but I feel sure I shall have to buy those\ncarrots before Christmas, and sorry as I am to observe how rarely any\nfruit trees are ever planted in a poor man\u2019s garden, I reflect that\nperhaps it is just as well, for already the damsons and the apples\nthat besiege the rectory are almost overwhelming. I never ask what\nbecomes of them, but it is morally and physically impossible that they\nshould be eaten under this roof. \u201cBut, my dear, you must buy Widow\nCoe\u2019s damsons; nobody else will, you know!\u201d This is what I am told is\n\u201cconsidering the poor people\u201d; that is our way of putting it. You, Mr.\nWorldly Wiseman, you call it demoralizing them.\n\nThen, too, the country parson is expected to \u201cencourage the local\nindustries.\u201d I wonder whether they make pillow-lace in Bedfordshire\nas they did once. If they do, and especially if the demand for it in\nthe outer world has waned, the country parsons\u2019 wives in that part of\nEngland must have a very trying time of it.\n\nOnce, when I was in the merry twenties, a dirty old hag with an evil\nreport, but no worse than other people, except that she was an old\nslut, knocked at my back door and asked to see \u201cThe Lady Shepherd.\u201d\nMrs. Triplet was a Mormonite, at any rate her husband was; and it\nwas credibly believed that Mrs. Triplet herself had been baptized by\nimmersion in a horsepond in the dead of night, dressed as Godiva was\ndressed during her famous ride, and seated, not upon a palfrey, but\nupon a jackass. How Triplet could ever have been converted to a belief\nin polygamy with his experience of the married state, I am entirely\nunable to explain. But Mrs. Triplet came to our door and asked for\n\u201cThe Lady Shepherd.\u201d It was a delicate piece of flattery. She must\nhave thought over it a long time. Was not the parson the shepherd?\na bad one it might be, a hireling, a blind leader of the blind, but\nstill a shepherd. Then his wife must needs be a shepherdess--and she\ndid not look like it--or a sheep--No! that wouldn\u2019t do at all--or\nthe shepherd\u2019s lady--and shepherds don\u2019t have ladies; or--happy\nthought!--the Lady Shepherd.\n\nAccordingly Mrs. Triplet asked for the Lady Shepherd. Mrs. Triplet in\nformer times had been a tailor\u2019s hand, and in that capacity had made\na few shillings a week by odd jobs for the Cambridge tailors in term\ntime; but she had married, and now she lived too far away in the wilds\nto be able to continue at her old employment, and being a bad manager,\nshe soon had to cast about for some new source of income. In the more\ncomfortable cottages in the eastern counties you may often see laid\nout before the fire a mat of peculiar construction which sometimes\nlooks like a small mattress in difficulties. It is made from selvages\nand clippings, the refuse of the tailor\u2019s workshop; these strips of\ncloth are cut into lengths of two or three inches long by half an\ninch wide, and are knitted or tightly tied together with string, the\nvariously coloured scraps being arranged in patterns according to the\ngenius and taste of the artist. The complex structure when completed is\nstuffed with the clippings too small to be worked up on the outside,\nand the mass is then subjected to a process of thumping and stamping\nand pulling and hammering till at last there exudes--yes! that is\nthe correct term, whatever you may say--a lumpy bundle, which in its\npillowy and billowy entirety is called a hearthrug. The thing will last\nfor generations, it never wears out, and it takes years of continuous\nstamping upon it before you can anyhow get it flat. It was one of these\ntriumphs of industry that Mrs. Triplet desired to turn an honest penny\nby. Would her ladyship come and look at it _in situ_?\n\nNow the lady shepherd is a woman of business, which the shepherd,\nnotoriously, is not, and if she had gone alone no great harm would\nhave come of the interview; but on that unlucky day the shepherd and\nhis lady resolved to go together. That is a course which no shepherd\nand shepherdess should ever be persuaded to follow. Two men will often\nhelp one another when associated in a difficult enterprise; two women\nwill almost always do better together than single-handed, but a man\nand a woman working together will always get in one another\u2019s way. On\nthe occasion referred to the quick-witted old crone saw her chance in\na moment, and commenced to play off one of her visitors against the\nother with consummate skill. From a hole beneath the narrow stairs she\ndragged the massive structure, and slowly unfolding it before our eyes\ncommenced to stamp upon it in a kind of hideous demon dance, gazing at\nit fondly from time to time as if she could hardly bear to part with it.\n\nIn those days the fashion of wearing gay clothing had only just gone\nout among the male sex. For, less than forty years ago, we used to\nappear, on state occasions, in blue dress coats and brass buttons, and\nat great gatherings you might see green coats and brown ones, mulberry\ncoats and chocolate ones, and there was a certain iridescence that\ngave a peculiarly sprightly look to an assembly even of males in those\ndays, which has all passed away now. Hence when Mrs. Triplet displayed\nher _exhibit_ we found ourselves gazing at a very gaudy spectacle.\n\u201cThere, lady! And I made the pattern all myself, I did. Many\u2019s the\nnight I\u2019ve laid awake thinking of it. Ah! them bottle-greens was\nhard to get, they was; gentlefolks has give up wearing greens. But\nthat yaller rose, lady. Ain\u2019t _that_ a yaller rose?\u201d For once in her\nlife the lady shepherd lost her nerve. Spasms of hysterical laughter\nwrestled within her, and her flushed face and contorted frame betrayed\nthe conflict that was raging. How would it end? in the rupture of a\nvein or in shrieks of uncontrollable merriment? The shepherd was in\nterror; he stooped to the foolishest flattery; he went as near lying\nas a shepherd could without literally lying; but comedy changed to\ntragedy when from his lean purse he desperately plucked his very last\nsovereign, and giving it to that guileful old sorceress, ordered her to\nbring that hearth-rug to the parsonage without delay.\n\nNext week--the very next week--came a pressing offer from another\nparishioner of another of these articles of home manufacture; next\nmonth came a third, though the price had dropped fifty per cent.,\nwhich was accepted with exultant thankfulness. There was positively no\nstopping the activity of the new industry; until, before three months\nwere over, six of these fearful contrivances had been all but forced\nupon us, one of them travelling to our door in a donkey-cart and one in\na wheel-barrow--the lady shepherd being told she might have them at her\nown price, and pay for them at her own convenience--only have them she\nmust: the makers could by no means take them away.\n\n\u201cWell, but you had nobody but yourselves to thank. How could you be so\nweak and silly?\u201d\n\nThat may be very true. But do not our trials--our smaller\ntrials--become so just because we have only ourselves to thank for\nthem? We in the wilderness are exposed to temptations which go some way\nto make us silly and soft-hearted. Somehow, few of us are certain to\nkeep our hearts as hard as the nether millstone. I do not pretend to be\none of the seven sages: what I do say is that we country parsons have\nour trials.\n\nIt is, however, when the country parson has to buy a horse that he\nfinds himself tried to the uttermost. Day after day, from all points\nof the compass, there appear at his gate the cunningest of the cunning\nand the sharpest of the sharp; and if at the end of a week the parson\nhas not arrived at the settled conviction that he is three parts of\na fool, it is impossible for him to dispute that the whole fraternity\nof horsey men feel no manner of doubt that he is so. Now, I don\u2019t\nlike to be thought a fool: not many men do, unless they hope to gain\nsomething by it. The instinct of self-preservation or the hope of a\nkingdom might induce me to play the part of Brutus; but in my secret\nheart I should be buoyed up by the proud consciousness of superior\nwisdom. When, however, it comes to a long line of rogues--one after\nanother for days and days without any collusion--continuing to tell\nyou to your face, almost in so many words, that you certainly are a\nfool--it really ceases to be monotonous and becomes, after a while,\nvexatious. The fellows are so clever, too; they have such an enviable\nfluency of speech; they are possessed of such a rich fund of anecdote,\nsuch an easy play of fancy, such a readiness of apt illustration, and\nsuch a magnificent command of facial contortion, expressive of the\nsubtlest movements of the heart and brain, that you cannot but feel how\nimmeasurably inferior you are to the dullest of them in dialectic. But\nwhy should a man, when he asks you to try his charger, bring it round\nto the door-step, tempting you to get up on the off side?--what does\nhe gain by it? Why should he tell you that \u201cthis hoss was a _twin_ with\nthat as Captain Dixie drives in his dog-cart\u201d? Why should he assure\nyou, upon his sacred honour, \u201cthat Roman nose will come square when the\nhorse gets to be six years old--they always do\u201d? or that \u201cyou always\nfind bay horses turn chestnut if they\u2019re clipped badly\u201d?\n\nThese men would not try these fictions upon any one else; why should\nI suffer for being a country parson by being told a long story--with\nthe most religious seriousness--of \u201cthat there horse as Mr. Abel had,\nthat stopped growing in his fore-quarters when he was two and went on\ngrowing with his hind-quarters till he was seven--that hoss that they\ncalled Kangaroo, \u2019cause he\u2019d jump anything--anything under a church\ntower, only you had to give him his head\u201d? I used to get much more\nirritated by this kind of thing when I was less mellowed by age than I\nam: and I have learnt to be more tolerant even of a horse-dealer than\nI once was. In an outburst of indignation one day, I turned angrily\nupon one of the fraternity, and said to him, \u201cMan! how can you go on\nlying in this way; why won\u2019t you deal fairly, instead of always trying\nto take people in?\u201d The man was not a bit offended--indeed he smiled\nquite kindly upon me. \u201cLor,\u2019 sir, do you suppose _we_ never get took\nin?\u201d I am fully persuaded that horse-dealer thought I was going to try\nthe confidence trick with him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am often assured by my town friends that the _loneliness_ of my\ncountry life must be very trying. I reply with perfect truth that I\nhave never known what it is to feel lonely except in London. Some years\nago one Sunday afternoon I was compelled to consult an eminent oculist.\nWhen the cab drove up to the great man\u2019s door in Cardross Square, his\neminence was at the window in a brown study, with his elbows leaning\non the wire blind, the tip of his nose flattened against the pane, his\neyes vacantly staring at nothing. When we were shown into his presence,\nthe forlorn and desolate expression on that forsaken man\u2019s face was\nquite shocking to the nerves. A painter who could have reproduced the\nlook of aimless and despairing woe might have made a name for ever.\nWhen people talk to me of loneliness I always instinctively recall\nthe image of that famous oculist in the heart of London on a Sunday\nafternoon. Ever since that day I have never been able to get over a\nhorror of wire blinds. Happily, they are articles of furniture which\nhave almost gone out now, but they used to be fearfully common. Even\nnow the Londoner thinks it _de rigueur_ to darken the windows of his\nsitting-room on the ground floor; and in furnished lodgings you must\nhave wire blinds. Why is this? When I ask the question I am told that\nyou _must_ have wire blinds: if you didn\u2019t, people would look in.\nIn the country we never have wire blinds, and yet nobody looks in;\ntherefore you call our life lonely. But loneliness is not the simple\nproduct of external circumstances--it is the outcome of a morbid\ntemperament, creating for itself a sense of vacuity, whatever may be a\nman\u2019s surroundings.\n\n    To sit on rocks, to muse on flood and fell,\n    To climb the trackless mountain, &c.\n\nI suppose we all know that wishy-washy stuff, so there is no need to go\non with the quotation.\n\nWhat _is_ trying in the country parson\u2019s life is its _isolation_. That\nis a very different thing from saying that he lives a lonely life.\nThe parson who is conscientiously trying to do his duty in a country\nparish occupies a unique position. He is a man, and yet he must be\nsomething more than man, and something less too. He must be more than\nman in that he must be free from human passions and human weaknesses,\nor the whole neighbourhood is shocked by his frailty; he must be\nsomething less than man in his tastes and amusements and way of life,\nor there will be those who will be sure to denounce him as a worldling\nwho ought never to have taken orders. If he be a man of birth and\nrefinement, he is sure to be reported of as proud and haughty; if he\nbe not quite a gentleman, he will be snubbed and flouted outrageously.\nThe average country parson and his family has often to bear an amount\nof patronizing impertinence which is sometimes very trying. Even the\nsquire and the parson do not always get on well together, and when\nthey do not, the parson is very much at the other\u2019s mercy, and may\nbe thwarted and worried and humiliated almost to any extent by a\npowerful, ill-conditioned, and unscrupulous landed proprietor. But it\nis from the come-and-go people who hire the country houses which their\nowners are compelled to let, that we suffer most. Not that this is\nalways the case, for it not unfrequently happens that the change in\nthe occupancy of a country mansion is a clear gain socially, morally,\nand intellectually to a whole neighbourhood--when, in the place of a\nnecessitous Squire Western, and his cubs of sons and his half-educated\ndaughters, drearily impecunious, but not the less self-asserting and\nsupercilious, we get a family of gentle manners and culture and\naccomplishments, and lo! it is as sunshine after rain. But sometimes\nthe new comers are a grievous infliction. Town-bred folk who emerge\nfrom the back streets and have amassed money by a new hair-wash or an\nimprovement in sticking-plaster. Such as these are out of harmony with\ntheir temporary surroundings: they giggle in the faces of the farmers\u2019\ndaughters, ridicule the speech and manners of the labourers and their\nwives, and grumble at everything. They cannot think of walking in the\ndirty lanes, they are afraid of cows, and call children nasty little\nthings. These people\u2019s hospitalities are very trying.\n\n\u201cCome, my boy. Have a cut at the venison. Don\u2019t be afraid. You shall\nhave a good dinner for once; sha\u2019n\u2019t he, my dear? and as much champagne\nas you like to put inside you?\u201d It was a bottle-nosed Sir Gorgious\nMidas who spoke, and his lady at the other end of the table gave me a\nkindly wink as she caught my eye. But the wine was Gilby\u2019s, and not his\nbest. These are the people who demoralize our country villages. They\nintroduce a vulgarity of tone quite indescribable, and the rapidity of\nthe change wrought in the sentiments and language of the rustics is\nsometimes quite wonderful.\n\nThe rustics don\u2019t like these come-and-go folk, but they get dazzled\nby them notwithstanding; they resent the airs which the footmen and\nladies\u2019 maids give themselves, but nevertheless they envy them and\nthink, \u201cThere\u2019s my gal Polly--she\u2019d be a lady if she was to get into\nsich a house as that!\u201d When they hear that up at the hall they play\ntennis on Sunday afternoons, the old people are perplexed, and wonder\nwhat the world is coming to; the boys and girls begin to think that\n_their_ jolly time is near, when they too shall submit to no restraint,\nand join the revel rout of scoffers. The sour puritan snarls out, \u201cAh!\nthere\u2019s your gentlefolks, they don\u2019t want no religion, they don\u2019t--and\nwe don\u2019t want no gentlefolks!\u201d For your sour puritan somehow has always\na lurking sympathy with the Socialist programme, and it\u2019s honey and\nnuts to him to find out some new occasion for venting his spleen at\nthe things that are. But one and all look askance at the parson, and\ninwardly chuckle that he is not having a pleasant time of it. \u201cOur\nReverend\u2019s been took down a bit, since that young gent at the Hall\nlit his pipe in the church porch. \u2018That ain\u2019t seemly,\u2019 says parson.\n\u2018Dunno about that,\u2019 says the tother, \u2018but it _seems_ nice.\u2019\u201d Chorus,\nhalf-giggle, half-sniggle.\n\nDo not the scientists teach that no two atoms are in absolute contact\nwith each other; that some interval separates every molecule from its\nnext of kin? Certainly this is inherent in the office and function of\nthe country parson, that he is not _quite_ in touch with any one in his\nparish if he be a really earnest and conscientious parson. He is too\ngood for the average happy-go-lucky fellow who wants to be let alone.\nThere is nothing to gain by insulting him. \u201cHe\u2019s that pig-headed he\ndon\u2019t seem to mind nothing--only swearing at him!\u201d You cannot get him\nto take a side in a quarrel. He speaks out very unpleasant truths in\npublic and private. He occupies a social position that is sometimes\nanomalous. He has a provoking knack of taking things by the right\nhandle. He does not believe in the almighty dollar, as men of sense\nought to believe; and he is usually in the right when it comes to a\ndispute in a vestry meeting because he is the only man in the parish\nthat thinks of preparing himself for the discussion beforehand. This\nisolation extends not merely to matters social and intellectual; it is\nmuch more observable in the domain of sentiment. A rustic cannot at all\nunderstand what _motive_ a man can possibly have for being a bookworm;\nhe suspects a student of being engaged in some impious researches. \u201cTo\nhear that there Reverend of ours in the pulpit you might think we was\nall right. But, bless you! he ain\u2019t same as other folk. He do keep a\nhoroscope top o\u2019 his house to look at the stares and sich.\u201d\n\nNot one man in a hundred of the labourers reads a book, and only when\na book is new with a gaudy outside does he seem to value it even as a\nchattel. That any one should ever have any conceivable use for a big\nbook is to him incomprehensible.\n\n\u201cIf I might be so bold, sir,\u201d said Jabez, an intelligent father of a\nfamily with some very bright children who are \u201cwon\u2019erful for\u2019ard in\ntheir larning,\u201d \u201cIf I might be so bold, might I ask if you\u2019ve really\n_read_ all these grit books?\u201d \u201cNo, Jabez; and I should be a bigger\ndunce than I am if I ever tried to. I keep them to _use_; they\u2019re my\ntools, like your spade and hoe. What\u2019s that thing called that I saw\nin your hand the other day when you were working at the draining job?\nYou don\u2019t often use that tool I think, do you?\u201d \u201cWell, no. But then we\ndon\u2019t get a job o\u2019 draining now same as we used. I mean to say as a man\nmay go ten years at a stretch and never lay a drain-tile.\u201d \u201cWell, then\nhow about the use of his tools all this time?\u201d Jabez smiled, slowly\nput his hand to his head, saw the point, and yet didn\u2019t see it. \u201cBut,\nlawk sir! that\u2019s somehow different. I can\u2019t see what yow _can du_ wi\u2019 a\ngrit book like this here.\u201d It was a massive volume of Littr\u00e9\u2019s great\ndictionary, which I had just taken down to consult; it certainly did\nlook portentous. \u201cWhy, Jabez, that\u2019s a dictionary--a French dictionary.\nIf I want to know all about a French word, you know, I look it up here.\nSometimes I don\u2019t find exactly what I want; then I go to _that_ book,\nwhich is another French dictionary; and if....\u201d I saw by the blank look\nin honest Jabez\u2019 face that it was all in vain. \u201cWant to know ... all\nabout ... words.... Why you ain\u2019t agoing to fix no drain-tiles with\nthem sort o\u2019 things. Now that du wholly pet me aywt, that du.\u201d\n\nI think no one who has not tried painfully to lift and lead others can\nhave the least notion of the difficulty which the country parson has\nto contend with in the extreme thinness of the stratum in which the\nrural intellect moves. Since the schools have given more attention\nto geography, and since emigration has brought us now and then some\nentertaining letters from those who have emigrated to \u201cfurren parts,\u201d\nthe people have slowly learnt to think of a wider area of _space_\nthan heretofore they could imagine. Though even now their notions of\ngeography are almost as vague as their notions of astronomy; I have\nnever seen a map in an agricultural labourer\u2019s cottage. But their\nabsolute ignorance of history amounts to an incapacity of conceiving\nthe reality of anything that may have happened in past time. What\ntheir grandfathers have told them, that is to them history--everything\nbefore that is not so much as fable; it is not romance, it is a\nformless void, it is chaos. The worst of it is that they have no\ncuriosity about the past. The same is true of their knowledge of\nanything approaching to the rudiments of physical science; it simply\ndoes not exist. A belief in the Ptolemaic system is universal in\nArcady. I suspect that they think less about these things than they\ndid. \u201cThat there old Gladstone, lawk! he\u2019s a deep un he is! He\u2019s as\ndeep as the Pole Star he is!\u201d said Solomon Bunch to me one day. \u201cPole\nStar?\u201d I asked in surprise, \u201cWhere is the Pole Star, Sol?\u201d \u201cLawks! I\ndunno; I\u2019ve heard tell o\u2019 the Pole Star as the deep un ever sin\u2019 I was\na booy!\u201d\n\nIt is this narrowness in their range of ideas that makes it so hard for\nthe townsman to become an effective speaker to the labourers. You could\nnot make a greater mistake than by assuming you have only to use plain\n_language_ to our rustics. So far from it, they love nothing better\nthan sonorous words, the longer the better. It is when he attempts to\nmake his audience follow a chain of reasoning that the orator fails\nmost hopelessly, or when he comes to his illustrations. The poor people\n_know_ so little, they read nothing, their experience is so confined,\nthat one is very hard put to it to find a simile that is intelligible.\n\n\u201cYoung David stood before the monarch\u2019s throne. With harp in hand he\ntouched the chords, like some later Scald he sang his saga to King\nSaul!\u201d It really was rather fine--plain and simple too, monosyllabic,\nterse, and with a musical sibillation. Unfortunately one of the\nworthy preacher\u2019s hearers told me afterwards with some displeasure\nthat \u201che didn\u2019t hold wi\u2019 David being all sing-songing and scolding,\nhe\u2019d no opinion o\u2019 that.\u201d The stories of the queer mistakes which our\nhearers make in interpreting our sermons are simply endless, sometimes\nalmost incredible. Nevertheless, no invention of the most inveterate\nstory-teller could equal the facts which are matters of weekly\nexperience.\n\n\u201cAs yow was a saying in your sarment, \u2019tarnal mowing won\u2019t du wirout\n\u2019tarnal making--yow mind that! yer ses, an\u2019 I did mind it tu, an\u2019 we\ngot up that hay surprising!\u201d Mr. Perry had just a little misconceived\nmy words. I had quoted from Philip Van Arteveldt. \u201cHe that lacks time\nto mourn, lacks time to mend. Eternity mourns that.\u201d\n\nNot many months ago I was visiting a good simple old man who was\ndeath-stricken, and had been long lingering on the verge of the dark\nriver. \u201cI\u2019ve been a thinking, sir, of that little hymn as you said\nabout the old devil when he was took bad. I should like to hear that\nagain.\u201d I was equal to the occasion.\n\n    The devil was sick--the devil a saint would be;\n    The devil got well--not a bit of a saint was he!\n\n[It was necessary to soften down the language of the original!]\n\n\u201cIs that what you mean?\u201d Yes! it was that. \u201cWell I\u2019ve been a thinking,\nif the old devil had laid a bit longer and been afflicted same as some\non \u2019em, as he\u2019d a been the better for it. Ain\u2019t there no more o\u2019 that\nthere little hymn, sir?\u201d\n\nThe religious talk of our Arcadians is sometimes very trying--trying I\nmean to any man with only too keen a sense of the ludicrous, and who\nwould not for the world betray himself if he could help it.\n\nIt is always better to let people welcome you as a friend and\nneighbour, rather than as a clergyman, even at the risk of being\nconsidered by the \u201cunco guid\u201d as an irreverent heathen. But you are\noften pulled up short by a reminder more or less reproachful, that if\nyou have forgotten your vocation your host has not; as thus:--\n\n\u201cEver been to Tombland fair, Mrs. Cawl?\u201d Mrs. Cawl has a perennial\nflow of words, which come from her lips in a steady, unceasing,\nand deliberate monotone, a slow trickle of verbiage with never the\nsemblance of a stop.\n\n\u201cNever been to no fairs sin\u2019 I was a girl bless the Lord nor mean to\n\u2019xcept once when my Betsy went to place and father told me to take\nher to a show and there was a giant and a dwarf dressed in a green\npetticoat like a monkey on an organ an\u2019 I ses to Betsy my dear theys\nthe works of the Lord but they hadn\u2019t ought to be shewed but as the\nworks of the Lord to be had in remembrance and don\u2019t you think sir as\nwhen they shows the works of the Lord they\u2019d ought to begin with a\nlittle prayer?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is one salient defect in the East Anglian character which\npresents an almost insuperable obstacle to the country parson who is\nanxious to raise the _tone_ of his people, and to awaken a response\nwhen he appeals to their consciences and affections. The East Anglian\nis, of all the inhabitants of these islands, most wanting in native\ncourtesy, in delicacy of feeling, and in anything remotely resembling\nromantic sentiment. The result is that it is extremely difficult,\nalmost impossible, to deal with a genuine Norfolk man when he is out of\ntemper. How much of this coarseness of mental fibre is to be credited\nto their Danish ancestry I know not, but whenever I have noticed a\ngleam of enthusiasm, I think I have invariably found it among those who\nhad French Huguenot blood in their veins. Always shrewd, the Norfolk\npeasant is never tender; a wrong, real or imagined, rankles within him\nthrough a lifetime. He stubbornly refuses to believe that hatred in\nhis case is blameworthy. Refinement of feeling he is quite incapable\nof, and without in the least wishing to be rude, gross, or profane, he\nis often all three at once quite innocently during five minutes\u2019 talk.\nI have had things said to me by really good and well-meaning men and\nwomen in Arcady that would make susceptible people swoon. It would have\nbeen quite idle to remonstrate. You might as well preach of duty to an\nantelope. If you want to make any impression or exercise any influence\nfor good upon your neighbours, you must take them as you find them,\nand not expect too much of them. You must work in faith, and you must\nwork upon the material that presents itself. \u201cThe sower soweth the\nword.\u201d The mistake we commit so often is in assuming that because we\nsow--which is our duty--therefore we have a right to reap the crop and\ngarner it. \u201cIt grows to guerdon after-days.\u201d\n\nMeanwhile we have such home truths as the following thrown at us in\nthe most innocent manner.\n\n\u201cTree score? Is that all you be? Why there\u2019s some folk as \u2019ud take you\nfor a hundred wi\u2019 that _hair_ o\u2019 yourn!\u201d\n\nMr. Snape spoke with an amount of irritation which would have made an\noutsider believe I was his deadliest foe; yet we are really very good\nfriends, and the old man scolds me roundly if I am long without going\nto look at him. But he has quite a fierce repugnance to grey hair.\n\u201cYou must take me as I am, Snape,\u201d I replied; \u201cI began to get grey at\nthirty. Would you have me dye my hair?\u201d \u201cDoy! Why that hev doyd, an\u2019\nwuss than that--thet\u2019s right rotten thet is!\u201d\n\nOr we get taken into confidence now and then, and get an insight into\nour Arcadians\u2019 practical turn of mind. I was talking pleasantly to a\ngood woman about her children. \u201cYes,\u201d she said, \u201cthey\u2019re all off my\nhands now, but I reckon I\u2019ve had a expense-hive family. I don\u2019t mean\nto say as it might not have been worse if they\u2019d all lived, and we\u2019d\nhad to bring \u2019em all up, but my meaning is as they never seemed to die\nconvenient. I had twins once, and they both died, you see, and we had\nthe club money for both of \u2019em, but then one lived a fortnight after\nthe other, and so that took two funerals, and that come expense-hive!\u201d\n\nIt is very shocking to a sensitive person to hear the way in which the\nold people speak of their dead wives or husbands exactly as if they\u2019d\nbeen horses or dogs. They are _always_ proud of having been married\nmore than once. \u201cYou didn\u2019t think, Miss, as I\u2019d had five wives, now\ndid you? Ah! but I have though--leastways I buried five on \u2019em in the\nchurchyard, that I did--and _tree on \u2019em beewties_!\u201d[3] On another\noccasion I playfully suggested, \u201cDon\u2019t you mix up your husbands now\nand then, Mrs. Page, when you talk about them?\u201d \u201cWell, to tell you\nthe truth, sir, I really du! But my third husband, he _was_ a man! I\ndon\u2019t mix him up. He got killed, fighting--you\u2019ve heerd tell o\u2019 that I\nmake no doubt. The others warn\u2019t nothing to him. He\u2019d ha\u2019 mixed them\nup quick enough if they\u2019d interfered wi\u2019 him. Lawk ah! He\u2019d \u2019a made\nnothing of \u2019em!\u201d\n\nInstances of this obtuseness to anything in the nature of poetic\nsentiment among our rustics might be multiplied indefinitely. Norfolk\nhas never produced a single poet or romancer.[4] We have no local\nsongs or ballads, no traditions of valour or nobleness, no legends of\nheroism or chivalry. In their place we have a frightfully long list of\nferocious murderers: Thurtell, and Tawell, and Manning, and Greenacre,\nand Rush, and a dozen more whose names stand out pre-eminent in the\nhorrible annals of crime. The temperament of the sons of Arcady is\nstrangely callous to all the softer and gentler emotions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere still remains something to say. In the minor difficulties with\nwhich the country parson has to deal, there is usually much that is\ngrotesque, and this for the most part forces itself into prominence.\nWhen this is so, a wise man will not dwell too much upon the sad and\ndepressing view of the situation; he will try and make the best of\nthings as they are. There are trials that are, after all, bearable with\na light heart. Unhappily there are others that make a man\u2019s heart very\nheavy indeed, partly because he thinks they need not be, partly because\nhe can see no hope of remedy. It is of these I hope to speak hereafter.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n_THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON._\n\n    \u201cTher\u2019s times the world does look so queer,\n    Odd fancies come afore I call \u2019em,\n    An\u2019 then agin, for half a year,\n    No preacher \u2019thout a call\u2019s more solemn.\u201d\n\n\nIn speaking of the trials of the country parson\u2019s life in my last\nessay, I left much unsaid that needed saying. I rather shrank from\ndealing with matters which are outside the range of my own experience,\nand confined myself to such illustrations of the positions maintained\nas my own personal knowledge could supply. There are, however, some\nphases of the country parson\u2019s life which I am perhaps less competent\nto dwell on than others who have been all their lives _rustics_, and\nbecause I would not willingly wound the feelings of those whom I honour\nand respect, therefore I am inclined to hang back and hold my peace and\nsay nothing.\n\nWhy does not somebody else step in and take up the thread where I\ndropped it, deliver his testimony, and give us the record of his larger\nexperience? Or shall we ask another question? How is it that people who\nhave much to tell, so often have no faculty of setting it down in words\nand sentences? We boast of our advance in education, and yet what has\nit done for us--what is it doing for us?\n\nI mean my son to be _really_ educated. I mean him to be able to sit\ndown to an organ and satisfy his soul as he dreams his dreams or sends\nforth his wail of aspiration, or sobs out his grief and penitence, or\nlaughs forth his ecstasy of rapture, now in a passion of melody, now\nin subtle tangle of mysterious fugue, now in awful billows of harmony,\nmaking full concert to the angelic symphony. I mean him to be able\nto catch the laugh of the child, or the scowl of the ruffian, or the\nsmirk of the swindler, or the wonder and triumph and joy and pride of\nthe maiden who has just listened to her lover\u2019s tale, or the sombre\nbeauty of the aged when the twilight deepens and they are thinking of\nthe dawn. I mean my son to have the power to catch these things, and to\n_hold_ them and show them to me, saying, \u201cLook! there they are for you\nand me to dwell on when we will.\u201d Then, and not till then, will that\nlad of promise have begun to be educated. But we--or such as I--what\nupstarts we are! We that talk badly, write worse, and fumble and bungle\nmiserably with that beggarly vehicle of communication between man and\nman which we call language--that wretched _calculus_ which serves\njust a very little way towards helping us to hold converse with men\nas foolish as ourselves, but leaves us helpless to make the throstle\nfeel how much we love him, and which we fling aside as a mere burden\nwhen our hearts are dying in us with what we call our loneliness or\nour despair. Educated! Who is educated? Certainly not the man who,\nhaving his memory full of a vast assemblage of odds and ends, can no\nmore bring them out and produce them in an intelligible shape than I\ncan produce on canvas the face of yonder old beldame with the square\njaw and the bushy brows and the blazing eyes, and that burlesque of a\nbonnet, square and round and oval at one and the same moment, and no\nmore capable of being described in words than of being written out in\nmusical notation.\n\nYet it is undeniable that the knack of Mr. Gigadibs is a convenient\nknack, and it is a pity that my friend Mr. Cadaverous has not got it;\nhe is \u201cof those who know.\u201d Gigadibs is of those who can juggle with\nthe parts of speech, and very pretty jugglery it is. I envy Gigadibs\nwhenever I am compelled to relate things at second hand; for who can\nhelp lying when he tries to bear evidence upon what others have seen\nand heard and felt--and worst of all--have reasoned about?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt may have been observed that when I began upon the subject of the\ncountry parson\u2019s trials, I dwelt first upon those annoyances and\npositive wrongs which he is compelled to submit to at the hands of the\npowers that be, and which may be classed under the head of Financial;\nand, secondly, upon such as are inherent in his position as a personage\nliving a life apart from those among whom he has to discharge his\npeculiar duties.\n\nAs far as regards the mere peasant, this isolation is only what any\none must expect who is brought into relations more or less intimate\nwith a class socially and intellectually below or above his own. But\nthere are villages and villages, and the differences between them\nare as great as between the East End of London and the West, between\nMay Fair and Red Lion Square. The ideal village is a happy valley,\nwhere a simple people are living sweetly under the paternal care of a\ngracious landowner, benevolent, open-handed, large-hearted, devout, a\nman of wealth and culture, his wife a Lady Bountiful; his daughters\nthe judicious dispensers of liberal charity; his house the home of all\nthat is refining, cheering, elevating. There the happy parson always\nfinds a cordial welcome, and all those social advantages which make\nlife pleasant and serene for himself and his family. Parson and squire\nwork together in perfect harmony, the rectory and the hall are but the\ngreater and the lesser parts of a well-adjusted piece of machinery\nwhich moves on with no friction and never comes to a dead stop. This is\nthe ideal village.\n\nHow different are the real villages, and how various! Take the case of\nmy friend Burney\u2019s parish. An oblong surface through which a high road\nruns straight as a ruler--wide ditches dividing the fields, with never\na hedge and never a tree--nine square miles of land with a population\nof 900 human beings, here and there collected into an ugly hamlet,\neach with a central alehouse, and a few feeble poplars looking as if\nthey were ashamed of themselves. There is not a farmer in the parish\nwho occupies 300 acres of land. There is not a squire\u2019s house within a\nradius of eleven miles from the rectory door. The nearest market town\nis six miles off, the nearest railway station five. Friend Burney has\nhis house and garden and perhaps \u00a3350 a year to spend--that is quite\nthe outside. Every morning he goes to his school a long mile off,\nevery afternoon he has some one to \u201clook after,\u201d to visit in sickness\nor sorrow, to watch or advise or comfort. One year with another he\ncalculates that he has to walk at least 1,500 miles in the way of duty.\nAs to the mere Sunday work, that needs no dwelling on; take it all in\nall, it is about the least _wearing_ and least troublesome part of the\nparson\u2019s duties, always provided he puts his heart into it, and has\nsome faculty for it. But in all that tract of country over which he\nis sometimes cruelly assumed to be no more than a spiritual overseer,\namong all those 900 people, there is not a single man, woman, or child\nthat cares to talk to him, or ever does talk to him, about anything\noutside the parish and its concerns. Nay! I forgot the schoolmaster and\nhis wife. They are young, intelligent, hopeful, and they came out of\nYorkshire, and have something to say of their experience in the North.\nBut they are just a little--undeniably a _little_ sore, just a _little_\ntouchy: they have a grievance. When they first came down to X., Mrs.\nRector did not leave her card on Mrs. Petticogges. It was a slight. It\nwas hoity-toity, it was airified. That is not all; the farmers are not,\nas you may say, _cordial_ with the schoolmaster; and Farmer Gay, the\nbig man who holds 700 acres in the next parish and gives lawn-tennis\nparties, never had the grace to take any notice of the Petticogges,\ndoes not in fact _know_ the Petticogges. Meanwhile, friend Burney is\nmanager of the school, and by far the largest contributor to the funds,\nand day by day he is in and out, he and his daughters. But there is no\ntime to talk or confer. The Petticogges have their hands full; when\ntheir day\u2019s work is over they have had enough of it. Round and round\nand round they go in the dreary mill; every now and then there is a new\nregulation of My Lords to worry them, a new book to get up, a new code\nto study. Then there are the pupil teachers to look after, and returns\nto make up, and all the dull routine which has to be got through.\n\nHow _can_ an elementary schoolmaster in a remote country village be a\nreading-man, or what motive has he to get out of the narrow groove in\nwhich he has been brought up? The best teachers, as a rule, are they\nwho know their work best and very little indeed outside it. \u201cHow is it\nthat at Dumpfield they don\u2019t get a larger grant?\u201d I asked one day of\nan inspector noted for his shrewdness and good sense. \u201cSurely Coxe is\nby far the ablest and most brilliant teacher for miles round; he is\nalmost a man of genius?\u201d \u201cPrecisely so,\u201d was the reply, \u201cthe man\u2019s out\nof place. These brilliant men with a touch of genius are a nuisance\nin an elementary school. My dear fellow, never let a _man of views_\ncome into your school. Keep him out. Beware of the being who is for\nrevolutionizing spelling and grammar!\u201d\n\nMr. Petticogge is not a man of genius, only a better sort of elementary\nschoolmaster, and entirely absorbed in his work. He, too, as all\nthe members of his fraternity do, occupies a position of isolation,\nand between him and the parson there is just so much in common as\nto make each hold aloof from the other without making either of\nthem congenial to their other neighbours. As for the rest of friend\nBurney\u2019s neighbours, take them in the gross, and you may say of them\nwhat the ticket-of-leave man said of the Ten Commandments; \u201cThey\u2019re\nrather a poor lot and you can\u2019t make much out of \u2019em.\u201d I know no class\nof men who are less sociable than the smaller farmers, as we reckon\nsmallness in the East. I mean the men who hold a couple of hundred\nacres and under. It has often been laid to the charge of the great\noccupiers in West Norfolk and elsewhere that in the good times they\nwere lavish beyond all reason in their hospitalities. I believe there\nnever has been anything of the sort among the smaller men; they are\nnot unfriendly, they are not wanting in cordiality, but they are not\ncompanionable.\n\nIt is my privilege to know some who are notable exceptions to the all\nbut universal rule. I have not far to go from my own door to find\none whom I never pay a visit to without pleasure and profit, one who\nhas for many years been a great reader of Lord Tennyson\u2019s poems, has\nstrong opinions on politics and the questions of the day, a thoughtful,\nresolute, and true-hearted woman, who farms a hundred acres of land\nwithout a bailiff, and, among other evidences of her good taste and\nintelligence, is a diligent reader of the _Spectator_. But such are few\nand far between.\n\nIt is one of the trials of the country parson that, as soon as he\npasses out of the stratum to which the labourer belongs, he finds\nhimself in a stratum where there is nothing that has any of the\ninterest of originality, picturesqueness, or even passion. The people\nwho live and move in that stratum are dismally like the ticket-of-leave\nman\u2019s ten commandments. My neighbours hardly believe me when I tell\nthem I can see, even among the smaller farmers, much to admire, much to\nrespect, and something to love; but I do not wonder that many a country\nparson \u201ccan\u2019t make much out of \u2019em.\u201d These men are having rather a hard\nlife just now, but they have _not_ to learn the most elementary lessons\nof thrift and frugality. As a class they have always practised these\nvirtues, and as a class they are far less complaining than those who\nbelong to the higher stratum; they bear their burdens silently, perhaps\ntoo silently, and they tell you that it\u2019s no good grumbling--\u201cthat,\u201d\none of them said to me, \u201conly makes things worse, \u2019cause it makes _you_\nworse!\u201d Take them all in all, they whom I have elsewhere called _the\nlittle ones_ are usually those of his parishioners with whom the parson\nseldom comes into unpleasant relations; they are usually very hard at\nwork, very practical, very straightforward, and very seldom indeed\nprone to give themselves airs.\n\nIt is often very different with the large occupiers. In the good times\nthe large farmers must have made very large profits, the percentage\nupon the actual capital embarked (unless my information has been\nstrangely untrue, and the calculations that have been laid before me\nstrangely inaccurate) being in many cases larger even than that which\nthe shipowners earned in _their_ good times. Is it to be wondered\nat that they became frequently intoxicated by their success, and\ngot to believe that they were a superior order on whom the welfare\nof the nation depended? Or, again, can we be surprised that their\nawakening from their dream has not been pleasurable, and has somewhat\nsoured them? Ten years ago a _gentleman farmer_--and every man who\nfarmed 500 acres was a gentleman farmer--looked down upon the retail\ntradesman as quite beneath him in station, and regarded the parson\nas a respectable official whom it was the right thing to support,\nthough he might care very little for him and his ways. In those days\nthe farmer\u2019s sons and the parson\u2019s were frequently schoolfellows; the\nyoung people drew together, and the farmer\u2019s pupils too were another\nlink between the farmhouse and the rectory. The bad seasons and the\nfall in prices came together, and the collapse was very rapid. But in\nnine cases out of ten, whereas the farmer\u2019s losses meant a disastrous\nabatement which extended over his _whole_ income, the parson felt the\npinch only in the fall of the tithe or in the rent of his glebe. His\nprivate fortune, being for the most part settled, remained as it was\nbefore. In East Anglia not 5 per cent. of the clergy are living upon\nthe income of their benefices; but I should be very much surprised\nto find that 5 per cent. of the tenant-farmers have any considerable\ninvestments outside their working capital. The result is, that though\nthe clergy have suffered quite severely enough, they have not suffered\nnearly so much as the farmers. The one has had to submit to a painful\nloss of professional income, and has had to fall back upon his private\nresources; the other has too often found himself with his credit\nbalance approaching the vanishing point, the trade profit has been\n_nil_, and there have been no dividends from investments outside the\ngoing concern to keep up the old style or meet the old expenditure.\nWhen neighbours have been in the habit of meeting on equal terms,\nand one goes on pretty much as before, while the other has become a\ntrifle shabby, and has to consider every shilling that he spends,\nit is almost inevitable that the poorer of the two should feel less\ncordial than before. He revenges himself upon the laws of the universe\nby proclaiming that there is wrong and injustice somewhere. Why is he\non the brink of ruin while the parson has only knocked off his riding\nhorse, or ceased to take his annual trip to the Continent, or lessened\nhis establishment by a servant, or it may be two? He forgets that his\nneighbour is living upon the interest of realized property, and that he\nhimself has to live upon what he can make, and upon that alone.\n\nBut what irritates the farmer most is that, at the worst, the parson\nis getting _something_ out of the land while he is getting little or\nnothing; and though he knows as well as any one else that the tithe\nstands for a first mortgage upon the land, or for an annuity charged\nupon the land, which takes precedence of every other payment; and\nthough he knows also that, in too many instances, he has himself to\npay interest on the capital with which he has been pursuing his\nbusiness, and that this interest has to be provided for whether that\nbusiness is carried on at a profit or a loss, yet he persists in trying\nto convince himself that he was \u201clet in\u201d when he made himself liable\nfor the tithes; he tells you he has \u201cto pay the parson,\u201d and he does\nnot like it. The parson is always _en \u00e9vidence_, the landlord is out of\nthe way--almost an abstraction, as the Government is; the agent _must_\nbe submitted to, so must the tax gatherer. But the parson, could he not\nbe got rid of? Granted that it would all come to the same in the end,\nand that if you could eliminate the parson the tithe would be laid on\nto the rent sooner or later, yet it might be very much later, and the\nend might be a long way off, and in the meantime he, the farmer, would\nput the tithe into his own pocket and into that of no one else. Hence\nthere smoulder in the minds of many the smoky embers of discontent, and\nthere is a coldness between the former friends. We are conscious of\nit, but we see no cure at present. When the tithe comes to be paid by\nthe landlord, there may be a return to the old friendliness; but the\n_gratia male sarta_ always leaves traces of the rift. I forbear from\ndwelling any longer upon this branch of the subject. When men are sore\nand in danger of becoming soured, then is the time for exercising a\nwise and tender reserve.\n\nSo far I have dealt with those trials which the country parson is\nexposed to from without; that is, such as arise from his intercourse\nwith the wicked world--the wicked world that puts its cruel claw into\nhis pocket, or growls at him, or glares at him, or frightens him, or\nlaughs at him, or tries to gobble him up. But his trials do not end\nthere. He has relations with another world--that professional world to\nwhich he belongs in another sense than that by which he is regarded\nas a citizen. As a clergyman he is a member of a class, a profession,\na clique if you will, which has a coherence and a homogeneity such as\nno other profession can lay claim to, not even the profession of the\nlaw. The lawyer may be half a dozen things at the same time--a trader,\na politician, a practical agriculturist, a land agent, a coroner, a\nsteeple-chase rider, a general Jack-pudding. Everything brings grist\nto his mill, and the more irons he has in the fire the larger will be\nthe number and the more varied the character of his clients. But the\nparson must be a clergyman, and a clergyman only; he is, so to speak,\nconfined within the four walls of his clerical associations, and if\nhe steps beyond them he is always regarded with a certain measure of\nsuspicion. Even literature, unless there be a distinctly theological\nflavour about it, he embarks in at his peril; a clergyman who writes\nbooks is looked askance at, as a person whose \u201cheart isn\u2019t in his\nwork.\u201d Of course we get \u201cnarrow-minded.\u201d We all go about with an iron\nmask weighing upon us--hiding our handsome features, interfering with\nour respiration, stunting our growth.\n\nThat is not all, though that is bad enough; we are all ticketed and\nlabelled in a way that no other class is. Of late years it appears that\nthe rising generation of clerics has begun to insist more and more\nupon the necessity of this professional exclusiveness, and desires\nto claim for itself the privileges of a _caste_. It shaves off its\nnascent whiskers and glories in a stubby cheek; it dresses in a hideous\ngarment, half petticoat, half frock, for the most part abominably\nill made; above all, it rumples about its bullet head a slovenly\nabomination called a _wide-awake_, as if _that_ would preserve it from\nall suspicion of being sleepy and stupid, and it adopts a tone and a\nvocabulary which shall be distinctive and as far as possible from the\nspeech of ordinary Englishmen. \u201cWe must close up our ranks,\u201d said one\nof them to me, \u201cclose up our ranks and present a united front, and\nshow the world that we are prepared to hang together, act together,\nmarch together. We have been atoms too long; we want coherence, my\ndear sir--coherence. We are moving towards the general adoption of the\nCatholic cassock!\u201d \u201cDo you mean to say,\u201d I answered, \u201cthat you will\npersist in sporting that emasculated felt turbanette till you arrive at\nthe general adoption of the cassock? Then, in the name of all the lines\nof beauty, on with the cassock, but away with the wide-awake!\u201d I\u2019m\nafraid my young friend was hurt; suspected me of some covert profanity,\nand deplored my flagrant want of _esprit de corps_.\n\nAnd yet I have been almost a worshipper of Burke from my boyhood,\nand was early so impregnated with the fundamental positions of the\n_Thoughts on the Causes of our present Discontents_ that, if I only\n_could_ choose my party, I should follow my leader to prison or to\ndeath, and do his bidding, \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, never looking behind\nme. Unhappily in matters political the curse of a flabby amorphous\neclecticism is upon too many of us; watching the conflict of principles\nor policies in a dazed and bewildered frame of mind, we persuade\nourselves that we are philosophically impartial when we are only\nindolently indifferent. \u201cWhich train are you going by, sir--up or\ndown?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll wait and see!\u201d And both engines rush out and leave the\nunhappy vacillator to his reveries, till by-and-by the platform is\ncleared and the station is shut up for the night, and the gas lamps are\nturned down; and there is no moon and no stars and no shelter, and the\nwind is rising.\n\nBut ever since I have, so to speak, taken the shilling and entered the\nChurch\u2019s service and put myself under orders, I have loyally stood up\nfor my cloth, and I am quite willing to bear the reproaches of that\nservice where there are any to bear. We clergy get a good deal of\nstupid and very vulgar ridicule hurled at us, and we cannot very well\nretaliate. It is a case of _Athanasius contra mundum_. The \u201cworld\u201d is\nvery big and rather unassailable, and we of the minority are apt to\nassume that we can afford to hold our peace, that we gain by turning\nthe right cheek to him who smites us on the left, and that we should\nlose by giving a foul-mouthed liar and coward a drubbing and tossing\nhim into the horse-pond. We stand upon the defensive. We have hardly\nany other choice. But it is rather trying to have to answer for all the\nsins, negligences, and ignorances, the follies and the bad taste of all\nwho wear the wide-awake.\n\nAs far as the instances of downright wickedness and immorality go, I\nthink nobody will pretend that any class in the community can show\nsuch a clean bill of health as the clergy. As I look round me upon my\nclerical brethren of all ages and all opinions, I can honestly say I\ndo not know one of them whose daily life is not free from reproach or\nsuspicion. During all my life I have never myself known more than one\nbeneficed clergyman who was a real black sheep. That there are such men\nof course I cannot doubt, but their aggregate number constitutes, I am\nsure, a very small percentage of the class which they disgrace by being\nincluded in it. Surely it is very trying and very irritating to have\nsuch instances brought up against you, not as rare exceptions, but as\nexamples of the general rule.\n\nOur Nonconformist neighbours know all about such cases, and cannot\nunderstand why they should exist. They know that a Wesleyan or a\nCongregational minister who should underlie any grave suspicion would\ninfallibly disappear from the neighbourhood in a week. Why should\nthe rector of Z----, whose intemperance has been clearly proved, be\nallowed to return to his parish after his term of suspension, and begin\nagain to minister among the same people whose sense of decency he has\noutraged till it was past all bearing? You tell your Nonconformist\nfriend that it cannot be helped because the reverend sot has got a\nfreehold in his benefice. \u201cOh, it can\u2019t be helped, can\u2019t it?\u201d he\nanswers; \u201cthat\u2019s it, is it? The law ain\u2019t to blame, and the bishop\nain\u2019t to blame, and the churchwardens ain\u2019t to blame, and, according\nto that, the parson ain\u2019t to blame neither, except that the old fool\u2019s\nbeen and got found out.\u201d These people know that such scandals are\nimpossible at the chapels; they are not impossible at the churches;\nthey know that the deacons, and the elders, and the conference, or\nwhatever the power may be that keeps up the discipline, comes down with\nswift severity in the one case, and the rural dean and archdeacons\nand the bishops are all but powerless in the other. In many cases the\ninfluence of a bad example, or the memory of a shameful reputation, is\navoided by giving an incumbent indefinite leave of absence; but this\nis, after all, only a confession of weakness, and the fact that the\nparson still takes the income of the benefice, though his work is done\nby another, that itself is a scandal. Ecclesiastical reformers, lay or\nclerical, who stop short of dealing with the subject of the parson\u2019s\nfreehold, are merely hacking and lopping the branches in the vain hope\nof saving the tree. If the thing is rotten, let it die placidly, or\nlet it be cut down bravely. Where you have not the pluck to do the one\nthing, why fidget about the other?\n\nHappily, however, we are not much troubled with \u201ccriminous clerks,\u201d\nwe country parsons. The regular out-and-out bad ones usually retire\ninto holes and corners, and they are but few and far between. We hear\nof them much more from our Meetingers than from any one else. The\nMeetinger keeps himself posted up with the last clerical escapade, and\nfires it off at us when he gets a chance, and the old argument has to\nbe gone over again, and the parson goes home feeling that he was born\nto be badgered, and that he must expect it even to the end of the world.\n\nIt may seem strange to the inexperienced, but it is none the less true,\nthat we suffer a great deal more from the best of our brethren than\nwe do from the worst. They are the over-zealous, who are determined\nto change the face of the world and revolutionize society and reform\neverything, and improve everybody, and who cannot leave things alone\nto develop and grow, who make their fellow-creatures\u2019 lives a burden\nto them. When we are young we have such unbounded faith in ourselves,\nand such unbounded ignorance and inexperience. The world is all before\nus, and all to conquer and remodel; our seniors are sad fogeys, so\nslow, so stiff, so cautious. There is so much dust everywhere and upon\neverything. Our brooms are so new, so swishy, and our arms so strong.\nWe have our wits about us, and our senses all keen and sharp. We find\nit hard to believe that we have not been called into being to do a\ngreat deal of sweeping and getting rid of cobwebs. I love to see the\nyoung fellows all bubbling over with energy, and all aflame with fiery\nzeal; I would not have it otherwise. God bless them! say I, but they do\nrout us about very uncomfortably, and they are very foolish.\n\nIt was only the other day that I was asked to go and visit a church to\nwhich a very hurricane of a man had been recently appointed, and which\nhe had already set himself to restore. He knew no more about church\narchitecture than I do about Sanskrit, and less about history than I\ndo about chemistry. He had a small army of bricklayers picking and\nslopping about the sacred edifice, tearing down this and digging up\nthat and smalming over the other. And this reverend worthy had not even\nconsulted the parish clerk! \u201cOf course you have had a faculty for all\nthis?\u201d I suggested.\n\n\u201cNot I! Faculty indeed! I have to save all the expense I can. I have\nmade up my mind to have nothing whatever to do with any officials or\nprofessionals of any sort or kind; I\u2019m my own architect!\u201d\n\nNow, if a man chooses to be his own tailor, nobody will be much the\nworse and nobody will much care; but when a man sets himself to\n\u201crestore\u201d a church by the light of nature, it is a much more serious\nmatter, and it is almost beyond belief what a brisk and bouncing young\nfellow, with the best intentions, and an immeasurable fund of ignorance\nto fall back upon, can do without any one interfering with him. You\ntell him he\u2019ll get into a scrape--that the bishop will be down upon\nhim--that there are such things as law courts. He smiles the benevolent\nsmile of superior wisdom, and dashes on with heroic valour. If he calls\nhimself a Ritualist, he gets rid of the Jacobean pulpit, or the royal\narms, or the ten commandments, and sets up a construction which he\ncalls a reredos, all tinsel and putty and _papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9_; hurls away\nthe old pews before you know where you are, nails the brasses to the\nwalls, sets up a lectern, and intones the service, keeping well within\nthe chancel, from which he firmly banishes all worshippers who are not\nmales. As for that gallery at the west end where the singers used to\nsit for a couple of centuries, and never failed to take their part with\nconscious pride in their own performances, that is abomination in his\neyes--that must go of course, \u201cto throw out the belfry arch, you see,\nand to bring the ringers into closer connection with the worship of\nthe sanctuary.\u201d \u201cI love to see the bell ropes,\u201d said one of these dear\nwell-meaning young clergymen to me. \u201cThey are a constant lesson and\nreminder to us, my friend. Did you ever read Durandus on Symbolism?\nThat is a very precious observation of his, that a bell rope symbolises\nhumility--it always hangs down.\u201d\n\nBut if an energetic young reformer calls himself an Evangelical, he is,\nif possible, a more dangerous innovator than the other. Then the axes\nand hammers come in with a vengeance. None of your pagan inscriptions\nfor him, teaching false doctrine and popery. None of your _Orate pro\nanima_, none of your crosses and remains of frescoes on his walls; St.\nChristopher with the Child upon his shoulder wading through the stream,\nSt. Sebastian stuck all over with arrows, or St. Peter with those very\nobjectionable keys. As for the rood screen, away with it! Are we not\nall kings and priests? If you must have a division between the chancel\nand the nave, set up the pulpit there, tall, prominent, significant;\nand if the preacher can\u2019t be heard, then learn the lesson which our\ngrandfathers taught us, and let there be a sounding-board.\n\nThe serious part of all this passionate meddling with the _status quo\nante_ is that any young incumbent can come in and play the wildest\nhavoc with our old churches without any one interfering with him. The\nbeneficed cleric is master of the situation, and is frightfully more so\nnow that Church rates have been abolished than he was before. It is no\none\u2019s interest to open his mouth; is he not _inducted_ into possession\nof the sacred building, and is he not therefore tenant for life of the\nfreehold? As long as he makes himself liable for all the expense, it is\nsurely better to let him have his way. \u201cI ain\u2019t a going to interfere,\u201d\nsays one after another; and in six weeks a church which had upon its\nwalls and floors, upon its tower and its roof, upon its windows and its\ndoors, upon its every stone and timber, the marks and evidences which\nconstituted a continuous chronicle, picturing--not telling--a tale of\nthe faith and hope, and folly and errors, and devotion and sorrow, and\nstriving after a higher ideal and painful groping for more light in\nthe gloom--a tale that goes back a thousand years, a tale of the rude\nforefathers of the village world which still regards the house of God\nas somehow its own--in six weeks, I say, all this is as effectually\nobliterated as if a ton of dynamite had been exploded in one of the\nvaults, and the genius of smugness had claimed the comminuted fragments\nas her own.\n\nThen there is the mania for decorations too. I like to see them; I am\nsure the new fashion has been the occasion for awakening a great deal\nof interest in, and something approaching proud affection for, our old\nchurches; but here again people, with every desire to be reverential\nand to do the right thing, succeed amazingly in doing just the wrong\none. Have I not seen a most beautiful fourteenth-century rood screen\nliterally riddled with tin tacks and covered with various coloured\npaper roses, festooned in fluffy frills of some cheap material on\nwhich languid dandelions and succulent bluebells lolled damply at the\nEastertide? Next time I saw that exquisite work of art, lo! there was\na St. Lawrence with his eye put out and two holes in his forehead,\nand between the lips of a St. Barbara, who for her loveliness might\nhave been painted by Carlo Crivelli, there protruded a bent nail which\nlooked for all the world like an old tobacco pipe. Who can \u201crestore\u201d\nthat precious rood screen or repair the damage wrought in an hour by\nthe _decorators_ turned loose into that meek little church a year ago?\n\nI think the average laymen who live in the towns can have very little\nnotion of what the parson suffers when he finds himself turned into a\nchurch in which he has to officiate for the rest of his life, and which\nhis predecessor has mauled and mangled and murdered, leaving no more\nlife in it than there is among the wax figures at Madame Tussaud\u2019s.\n\n\u201cBut do not these rash and furious young zealots of whom you have\nspoken burn their fingers sometimes, and does not the bishop sometimes\ncome down upon them?\u201d Yes! very often, _after the mischief has been\ndone_. I knew one monster who upon his glebe had some seven of the\nnoblest oak trees in the county of Norfolk. _Lucus ligna_ was his\nview of the case, and he sold them all. Down they came every tree of\nthem. Some said he wanted to see how the landscape would look without\nthem, some that he wanted to go to Norway, and there are plenty of\ntrees there. The patron of the living called that man to account, and\nI am told made him disgorge the proceeds of his ill-gotten gains; and\nthe bishop is generally believed to have sent him a mandate to put\nback those trees in their former position. But that clerical monster,\nthough he plays the fiddle to put Amphion to shame, has never learnt\nAmphion\u2019s tune or cared to charm back the giant vegetables that were\nonce the pride and glory of the countryside. In the days when the\nwicked received their reward in this world a thousand evil-doers have\nbeen hanged for crimes incomparably less injurious to the community at\nlarge than that which lies to the charge of this reverend sinner; but\nhe enjoys the income of his benefice to this day, and grows willows\ninstead of oaks, not to turn to the use which Timon recommended to one\nof his visitors, but to turn into cash; for they grow fast, and the\nmanufacturers of cricket bats are hard put to it to supply the demand\nfor their wares.\n\nWhat we want is to make it at least a misdemeanour punishable by\nimprisonment for the parson to touch the fabric of the church under any\ncircumstances whatever, except with the consent and under the license\nof some external authority. But that implies that the ownership of the\nchurch should no longer be vested in a _corporation sole_. It brings us\nagain face to face with the whole question of the parson\u2019s freehold,\nand how long is that mischievous legal fiction--which is, however, a\nvery stubborn legal fact--to be endured?\n\nIf I were to go on in this vein, and dwell upon all the parson has to\nsuffer from his _predecessors_--the man who built the house two miles\nfrom the parish church; the man who added to it to find room for a\nscore of pupils; the man who loved air, or the man who loved water, or\nthe man who loved society, or the man who bred horses, or the man who\nturned the rectory into a very lucrative lunatic asylum--I should tire\nout my reader\u2019s patience, and the more so that there are other trials\nabout which it is advisable that I should utter my querulous wail.\n\nI know one clergyman who, though ordained some forty years ago, has\nnever written or preached a sermon in his life; but I only know one.\nHis is perhaps a unique case. As a rule, we all begin by being\ncurates--that is, we begin by learning our business as subordinates.\nIt would be truer to say we used to begin that way; but subordination\nis dying out all over the world, and in the ministry of the Church\nof England subordination is a virtue which is _in articulo mortis_.\nNowadays a young fellow at twenty-three, who has become a reverend\ngentleman for just a week, poses at once as the guide, philosopher, and\nfriend of the whole human race. He poses as a great teacher. It is not\nonly that he delivers the oracles with authoritative sententiousness\nfrom the tripod, but he has no doubts and no hesitation about anything\nin earth or heaven. He fortifies himself with a small collection of\nbrand-new words which you, poor ignorant creature, don\u2019t know the\nmeaning of. You feel rather \u201cout of it\u201d when he gravely calls your\ngloves _Mannaries_ (he does not wear them), and your dressing-gown\na _Poderis_; expresses his mournful regret that there is no\n_Scuophylacium_ in the _Presbytery_, nor any _Bankers_ on the walls;\ngently admonishes you for standing bareheaded by the grave at your time\nof life, when prudence would suggest, and ecclesiastical precedent\nwould recommend, the use of the _Anabata_; tells you he always goes\nabout with a _Totum_ under his arm, and a _Virge_ in his right hand.\nWhen he vanishes you slyly peep into your Du Cange, but the _Bankers_\nare quite too much for you.\n\nI am not much more ignorant than other men of my age, but I never did\npretend to omniscience, and when I don\u2019t know a thing I am not ashamed\nof asking questions. But our modern curates never ask questions.\n\u201cInquire within upon everything,\u201d seems to be stamped upon every line\nof their placid faces. When I was a young curate I was very shy and\ntimid, and held my dear rector in some awe. It might have been hoped\nthat as the years went by I should have grown out of this weakness--but\nno! I am horribly afraid of the _curates_ now. I dare hardly open my\nmouth before my superiors, and that they are my superiors I should not\nfor a moment presume to question. I know my place, and I tremble lest\nI should betray my silliness by speaking unadvisedly with my lips.\nAll this is very trying to a man who will never see sixty again. The\nhoary head is no crown at all to the eyes of the young and learned.\nThey don\u2019t yet cry out at me, \u201cGo up, thou baldhead,\u201d but I can\u2019t help\nsuspecting that they\u2019re only waiting to do it sooner or later. For\nmyself I have, unfortunately, never been able to afford to engage the\nservices of a clergyman who should assist me in my ministrations. So\nmuch the worse for me, and so much the worse for my parish. When I am\nno longer able to do my own pastoral work, I shall feel the pinch of\npoverty; but I am resolved to be very meek to my curate when he shall\nvouchsafe to take me under his protection. I will do as I am told.\n\nIt is a very serious fact, however, which we cannot but think of with\nanxiety, that since the _Curate Market_ rose, as it did some fifteen or\ntwenty years ago, there has been a large incursion of young men into\nthe ministry of the Church of England who are not gentlemen by birth,\neducation, sentiment, or manners, and who bring into the profession\n(regarded as a mere profession) no _capital_ of any sort--no capital\nI mean of money, brains, culture, enthusiasm, or force of character.\nThis is bad enough, but there is a worse behind it. These young curates\nalmost invariably marry, and the last state of that man is worse than\nthe first. My friends assure me, and my observation confirms it, that\nthe domestic career of these young people is sometimes very pathetic.\nSanguine, affectionate, simple-minded and childlike, they learn the\nhard lessons of life all too late, and their experience comes to them,\nas Coleridge said, \u201clike the stern lights of a ship, throwing a glare\nonly upon the path behind.\u201d When their children come upon them with the\nusual rapidity, it is but rarely that we country parsons keep these\nmarried curates among us. They emigrate into the towns for the sake\nof educating their progeny, or because they soon find out that there\nis no hope of preferment for them among the villages. When there is no\nfamily, or when the bride has brought her spouse some small accession\nof income, the couple stay where they are for years till somebody gives\nthem a small living, and there they do as others do. But in the first\nexuberance of youth, and when the youthful pair are highly delighted\nwith the position that has been acquired, _he_ is profoundly impressed\nwith the sense of his importance, and _she_ exalted at the notion of\nhaving married a \u201cclergyman and a gentleman;\u201d _he_ is apt to be stuck\nup, and _she_ is very apt to be huffy. It\u2019s bad enough to be associated\nofficially with an underbred man, but it\u2019s a great deal worse to find\nyourself brought into social relations, which cannot be avoided, with\nan underbred woman. The curate\u2019s wife is sometimes a very dreadful\npersonage, but then most dreadful when she is a \u201cyoung person\u201d of your\nown parish who has angled for the clerical stickleback and landed him.\n\nThe Rev. Percy De la Pole was a courtly gentleman, sensitive,\nfastidious, and just a trifle, a little trifle, distant in his\ndemeanour. His curate, the Rev. Giles Goggs, was a worthy young fellow\nenough, painstaking and assiduous, anxious to do his duty, and not\nat all airified. We all liked him till Rebecca Busk overcame him.\nMr. De la Pole was cautious and reserved by temperament; but who has\nnever committed a mistake? In an evil hour--how could he have been so\nimprudent?--he gently warned the curate against the wiles of Miss Busk\nand her family, telling him that she was far from being a desirable\nmatch, and going to the length of saying plainly that she was making\nvery indelicate advances. \u201cAll that may be quite true,\u201d replied Mr.\nGoggs, \u201cbut I am sure you will soon change your opinion. I come in now\nto let you know that I am engaged to be married to Miss Busk.\u201d From\nthat day our reverend neighbour had so bad a time of it that it is\ncommonly believed his valuable life was shortened by his sufferings.\nI am afraid some people behaved very cruelly, for they could not help\nlaughing. Mrs. Goggs took her revenge in the most vicious way. On all\npublic occasions she clasped the rector\u2019s arm and looked up in his\nface with the tenderest interest. She tripped across lawns at garden\nparties to pluck him by the sleeve, screamed out with shrill delight\nwhen he appeared, called him her dear old father confessor, giggled and\nsmirked and patted him, and fairly drove him out of the place at last\nby finding that he had twice preached borrowed sermons, and keeping\nthe discovery back till the opportune moment arrived, when, at a large\nwedding party, she shook her greasy little ringlets at him with a\nwicked laugh, exclaiming, \u201cAh! you dear old sly-boots, when you can\nspeak like that why do you preach the Penny Pulpit to us?\u201d The wretched\nvictim could not hold up his head after that, and when a kind neighbour\nstrongly advised him to dismiss the curate whose wife was unbearable,\nthe broken-down old gentleman feebly objected. \u201cMy dear friend, I may\nhave an opportunity of getting preferment for Mr. Goggs some day, but\nin the meantime I have no power to send away my curate because his\nwife--well, because his wife is _not nice_.\u201d\n\nIt often happens that the parson has to go away from his parish for\nsome months, and he finds considerable difficulty in getting any one\nto take charge of it during his absence. At the eleventh hour he is\ncompelled to take the last chance applicant. And behold, he and his\nparishioners are given over to a _locum tenens_. This is nothing more\nthan saying that he has put himself into the power of a man with a\nloose end.\n\nWhen the worthy rector of Corton-in-the-Brake had reached his fiftieth\nyear, he obtained an accession of fortune and gave out that he intended\nto marry. He furnished his house anew at a great expense, and found\nno difficulty in getting a wife. Then he vowed that he would go to the\nsouth of France for the winter, and get a curate. He was a prim and\npunctilious personage, and he did not mean to deal shabbily with his\nsubstitute. But two things he insisted on: first, that this _locum\ntenens_ should be married, and secondly that he should be childless.\nHe got exactly the right man at last, a scholarly, well-dressed,\nand evidently accomplished gentleman, who spoke of Mrs. Connor with\nrespectful confidence and affection, who had been married ten years,\nand had no family, who made no difficulties except that the stables\nwere, he feared, inconveniently too small, but he would make shift.\nWith a mind relieved and a blissful honeymoon before him, the Rev.\nJohn Morris set out for Nice--in the days when the railway system was\nnot as complete as now--and the Rev. Mr. Connor arrived at the rectory\nthe next Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Connor came too, with _fourteen\nbrindled bulldogs_--young and old. That was her speciality, and she\ngave her whole mind to keeping the breed pure and making large sums\nby every litter. During the following week appeared seven pupils, the\nrejected of several public schools, who were committed to the care of\nMr. Connor to be kept out of their parents\u2019 sight and to \u201cprepare for\nthe University.\u201d Mrs. Connor kept no female servants. Not a woman or a\ngirl dared pass the rectory gate. The Connors had a man cook and _men\nhousemaids_. The bulldogs would prowl about the neighbourhood in threes\nand fours with a slow shuffling trot, sniffing, growling, turning their\nhideous blood-shot eyes at you, undecided whether or not to tear you\nlimb from limb; and then passing on with menacing contempt. Sometimes\nthere were rumours of horrible fights; no one dared to separate the\nbrutes except Mrs. Connor. Once the two mightiest of the bulldogs got\n\u201clocked,\u201d as the head man expressed it. \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d \u201cDo? Why\nI shrook out to Billy to hang on, and I called the Missus, and she\ngave \u2019em the hot un, and they give in!\u201d The _hot un_ turned out to be\na thin bar of steel with a wooden handle which was always kept ready\nfor use in the kitchen fire, and which Mrs. Connor had her own method\nof applying red hot so as to paralyze the canine culprit without\nblemishing him. But imagine the condition of that newly furnished\nparsonage when the poor rector came back to his home.\n\nIt is easy for everybody else to look only at the ludicrous side,\nbut the clerical sufferer has to bear the real bitterness of such an\nexperience, and to him the mere damage to his property is the least\npart of the business. Everybody says sulkily, \u201cWhy were we left to\nsuch a man as that?\u201d For the country parson has to answer for all the\nsins and short-comings of those whom he leaves to represent himself;\nall their indiscretions, their untidiness, their careless reading,\ntheir bad preaching, their irreverence or their foolery, their\ntimidity or their violence, their ignorance or their escapades. One\nman is horribly afraid of catching the measles; another \u201chas never\nbeen accustomed to cows\u201d and will not go where they are; a third is a\nwoman-hater, and week by week bawls out strong language against the\nother sex, beginning with Eden and ending with Babylon. The absentee\nreturns to find everything has been turned topsy-turvy. The _locum\ntenens_ has set every one by the ears, altered the times of service,\nbroken your pony\u2019s knees, had your dog poisoned for howling at the\nmoon, or kept a monkey in your drawing-room. People outside laugh, but\nwhen you are the sufferer, and the conviction is forced upon you that\nharm has been done which you cannot hope to see repaired, you are not\nso likely to laugh as to do the other thing.\n\nShall I go on to dwell upon the aggrieved parishioner, the amenities\nof the School Board, the anxieties of the school treat, the scenes at\nthe meetings of the Poor-law guardians, the faithful laity who come to\nexpostulate, to ask your views and to set you right? Shall I? Shall I\ndwell upon the occasional sermons which some delegate from some society\ncomes and fulminates against you and your people? Nay! Silence on some\nparts of our experience is golden.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen we have said all that need be said about the minor vexations and\nworries which are incident to the country parson\u2019s life, and which,\nlike all men who live in isolation, he is apt to exaggerate, there is\nsomething still behind it all which only a few feel to be an evil at\nall, and which those who do feel, for many good reasons, are shy of\nspeaking about; partly because they know it to be incurable, partly\nbecause if they do touch upon it they are likely to be tabulated among\nthe dissatisfied, or are credited with unworthy motives which they know\nin their hearts that they are not swayed by.\n\nThat which really makes the country parson\u2019s position a cheerless and\ntrying one is its absolute _finality_. Dante\u2019s famous line ought to\nbe carved upon the lintel of every country parsonage in England. When\nthe new rector on his induction takes the key of the church, locks\nhimself in, and tolls the bell, it is his own passing bell that he\nis ringing. He is shutting himself out from any hope of a further\ncareer upon earth. He is a man transported for life, to whom there\nwill come no reprieve. Whether he be the sprightly and sanguine young\nbachelor of twenty-four who takes the family living; or the podgy\nplebeian whose uncle the butcher has bought the advowson for a song;\nor the college tutor, fastidious, highly cultured, even profoundly\nlearned, who has accepted university preferment; or the objectionable\nand quarrelsome man, whom it was necessary to provide for by \u201csending\ninto the country\u201d;--be he who he may, gifted or very much the reverse,\ncareless or earnest, slothful or zealous, genial, eloquent, wise, and\nnotoriously successful in his ministrations, or the veriest stick and\nhumdrum that ever snivelled through a homily--from the day that he\naccepts a country benefice he is a shelved man, and is put upon the\nretired list as surely as the commander in the navy who disappears on\nhalf-pay. I do not mean only that the country parson is never promoted\nto the higher dignities in the Church, or that cathedral preferment is\nvery rarely bestowed upon him; but I do mean that he is never moved\nfrom the benefice in which he has once been planted. You may ply me\nwith instances to the contrary here and there, but they are instances\nonly numerous enough to illustrate the universality of the law which\nprevails--_Once a country parson always a country parson_; where he\nfinds himself there he has to stay.\n\nAs long as the patronage of ecclesiastical preferment in the Church of\nEngland remains in the hands it has remained in for a thousand years\nand more, and as long as the tenure of the benefice continues to be\nas it is and as it has been since feudal times, I can see no remedy\nand no prospect that things should go on otherwise than they do now.\nGive a man some future in whatever position you put him, and he will\nbe content to give you all his best energies, his time, his strength,\nhis fortune, in return for the chance of recognition that he may\nsooner or later reasonably look forward to; but there is no surer way\nof making the ablest man a _fain\u00e9ant_ at the best, a soured and angry\nrevolutionist at the second best, and something even more odious and\ndegraded at the worst, than to shut him up in a cage like Sterne\u2019s\nstarling, and bid him sing gaily and hop briskly from perch to perch\ntill the end of his days, with a due supply of sopped bread crumbs and\nhemp seed found for him from hour to hour, and a sight of the outer\nworld granted him--only through the bars.\n\nThere is a something which appeals to our pity in every _carri\u00e8re\nmanqu\u00e9_. The statesman who made one false step, the soldier who at the\ncrisis of his life was out-generalled, the lawyer who began so well but\nwho proved not quite strong enough for the strain he had to bear--we\nmeet them now and then where we should least have expected to find\nthem, the obliterated heroes of the hour, and we say with a kindly\nsigh, \u201cThis man might have had another chance.\u201d But each of these has\nhad his chance; they have _worked up_ to a position and have forfeited\nit when it has been proved they were in the wrong place; they have\ngone into the battle of life, and the fortune of war has gone against\nthem; tried by the judgment of that world which is so \u201ccold to all that\nmight have been,\u201d they have been found wanting; they have had to step\naside, and make way for abler men than themselves. But up and down the\nland in remote country parsonages--counting by the hundreds--there are\nto be found those who have never had, and never will have, any chance\nat all of showing what stuff is in them--sometimes men of real genius\nshrivelled, men of noble intellect, its expansion arrested, men fitted\nto lead and rule, men of force of character and power of mind, who from\nthe day that they entered upon the charge of a rural parish have had\nnever a chance of deliverance from\n\n    The dull mechanic pacing to and fro,\n    The set grey life and apathetic end.\n\nYou might as well expect from such as these that they should be able\nto break away from their surroundings, or fail to be dwarfed and\ncramped by them, as expect that Robinson Crusoe should develop into a\nsagacious politician.\n\n\u201cPathos,\u201d did I say? How often have I heard the casual visitor to our\nwilds exclaim with half-incredulous wonder, \u201cWhat, _that_ Parkins?\nWhy, he used to walk the streets of Camford like a god! He carried all\nbefore him. The younger dons used to say the world was at his feet--a\nball that he might kick over what goal he might please to choose. And\nwas that other really the great Dawkins, whose lectures we used to\nhear of with such envy, we of St. Chad\u2019s College, who had to content\nourselves with little Smug\u2019s platitudes? Dawkins! How St. Mary\u2019s used\nto be crowded when he preached! Old Dr. Stokes used to say Dawkins had\ntoo much fire and enthusiasm for Oxbridge. He called him Savonarola,\nand he meant it for a sneer. And that\u2019s Dawkins! How are the mighty\nfallen!\u201d\n\nI lay innocent traps for my casuals now and then, when I can persuade\nsome of the effaced ones to come and dine with us, but it is often just\na little too sad. They are like the ghosts of the heroic dead. Men of\nsixty, old before their time; the broad massive brow, with the bar of\nMichael Angelo, is there, but--the eyes that used to flash and kindle\nhave grown dim and sleepy, those lips that curled with such fierce\nscorn, or quivered with such glad playfulness or subtle drollery--it\nseems as if it were yesterday--have become stiff and starched. Poverty\nhas come and hope has gone. Dawkins knew so little about the matter\nthat he actually believed he only required to get a _pied \u00e0 terre_ such\nas a college living would afford him, and a (nominal) income of \u00a3700\na year, and there would be a fresh world to conquer as easy to subdue\nas the old Academic world which was under his feet. Poor Dawkins! Poor\nParkins! Poor any one who finds himself high and dry some fine morning\non his island home, while between him and the comrades who helped him\nto his fate the distance widens; for him there is no escape, no sailing\nback. There are the fruits of the earth, and the shade of the trees,\nand the wreckage of other barks that have stranded there; but there is\nno to-morrow with a different promise from to-day\u2019s, nor even another\nislet to look to when this one has been made the most of and explored,\nonly the resource of acquiescence as he muses on the things that were,\n\n    Gazing far out foamward.\n\nSuch men as these I have in my mind were never meant to be straitened\nand poor. They never calculated upon six or eight children who have\nto be educated; the real dreariness of the prospect, its crushing\nunchangeableness only gradually reveals itself to them; they shut their\neyes not so much because they will not as because they _cannot_ believe\nthat such as they have no future. Their first experience of life led\nup to the full conviction that character and brain-power _must_ sooner\nor later bring a man to the first rank--what did it matter where a man\ncast anchor for a time? So they burnt their ships bravely, \u201chope like\na fiery column before them, the dark side not yet turned.\u201d But suppose\nthere was no scope for the brains and consequently no demand for them?\nWe in the wilderness have abundance of butter and eggs, but _keep_\nthese commodities long enough, and they infallibly grow a trifle stale.\n\nPeople say with some indignation, \u201cWhat a pity, what a shame, that\nParkins and Dawkins should be buried as they are!\u201d No, that is not the\nshame nor the pity; the shame is that, being buried, they should have\nno hope of being dug up again. Yonder splendid _larva_ may potentially\nbe a much more splendid _imago_; let it bury itself by all means, but\ndo not keep it for ever below ground. Do not say to it, \u201cOnce there,\nyou must stop there, there and there only. For such as you there shall\nbe no change, your resting place shall inevitably be your grave.\u201d\n\nBut if it be a melancholy spectacle to see the wreck of a man of great\nintellect and noble nature, whom banishment in his prime and poverty\nin his old age have blighted; scarcely less saddening is the sight of\nthe active and energetic young man of merely ordinary abilities to whom\na country living has come in his youth and vigour, and once for all\nhas stunted his growth and extinguished his ambition. There is no man\nmore out of place, and who takes longer to fit into his place, than\nthe worthy young clergyman who has been ordained to a town curacy,\nkept for four or five years at all the routine work of a large town\nparish, worked and admirably organized as--thank God!--most large town\nparishes are, and who, at eight or nine and twenty, is dropped down\nsuddenly into a small village, and told that there he is to live and\ndie. He does not know a horse from a cow. He has had his regular work\nmapped out for him by his superior officer as clearly as if he were a\npoliceman. He has been part of a very complex machinery, religious,\neducational, eleemosynary. Every hour has been fully occupied, so\noccupied that he has lost all the habits of reading and study which he\never possessed. He has to preach at least one hundred sermons in the\ncourse of the year, and there is not a single one in his very small\nrepertory that is in the least suitable for the new congregation; and\nfor the first time in his life he finds himself called upon to stand\nalone with no one to consult, no one to lean on, no one to help him,\nand in so much a worse condition than the aforesaid Robinson Crusoe\nthat the indigenous sons of the soil come and stare at him with an eye\nto their chances of getting a meal out of him, or making a meal off\nhim, in the meantime doing, as the wicked always have done since the\nPsalmist\u2019s days, making mouths at him and ceasing not!\n\nTalk of college dons being thrown away upon a handful of bumpkins! You\nforget that the cultured Academic has almost always some resources\nwithin himself, some tastes, some pursuits; and if he spends too\nmany hours in his library, at any rate his time does not hang so\nvery heavily upon his hands. When he goes among his people he will\nalways have something to tell them which they did not know before, and\nsomething to inquire of them which they will be glad to tell him about.\nBut your young city curate pitchforked into a rural benefice when all\nhis sympathies and habits and training are of the streets streety, is\nthe most forlorn, melancholy, and dazed of all human creatures. An\nomnibus driver compelled to keep a lighthouse could scarcely be more\ndeserving of our commiseration. Ask him in his moments of candour and\ndepression, when he realizes that he has reached the limit of his\nearthly hopes, when he has been in his parsonage long enough to know\nthat he will never leave it for any other cure, when he realizes that\nhe must (by the nature of the case, and by the unalterable law which\nprevails for such as he) wax poorer and poorer year by year, and that\nmen may come and men may go, but he will stay where he is till he\ndrops--ask him what he thinks of the bliss of a country living, its\nindependence, its calm, its sweetness, its security, above all, ask him\nwhether he does not think the great charm of his position is that he\ncan never be turned out of it, and I think you will find some of these\nyoung fellows impatiently giving you just the answer you did _not_\nexpect. I am sure you will find _some_ among them who will reply: \u201cIt\nis a useful life for a time. It is a happy life for a time. For a time\nthere is a joy in the country parson\u2019s life which no other life can\noffer; but we have come to see that this boasted fixity of tenure is\nthe weak point, not the strong one; it is movement we want among us,\nnot stagnation; the Parson\u2019s Freehold is a fraud.\u201d\n\nOur vehement young friends in the first warmth of their conversion to\nnew ideas are apt to express themselves with more force than elegance,\nand to push their elders somewhat rudely from behind. But they mean\nwhat they say, and I am glad they are coming to think as they do. As\nfor us, the veterans who have lived through sixty summers and more,\nthere is no cloud of promise for us in the horizon. _We_ are not the\nmen who have anything to gain by any change; we know the corner of the\nchurchyards where our bones will lie. We do not delude ourselves; some\nof us never looked for any career when we retired into the wilderness.\nWe asked for a refuge only, and that we have found.\n\nOh, Hope of all the ends of the earth, is it a small thing that for the\nremainder of our days we are permitted to witness for Thee among the\npoor and sad and lowly ones?\n\nBut you, the strong and young and fervid, take heed how you leave the\nlife of the camp, its stir and throb and discipline, too soon. Take\nheed how before the time you join the reserve, only to discover too\nlate that you are out of harmony with your surroundings, that you are\nfretting against the narrowness of the inclosure within which you\nare confined, that there is for you no outlook--none--only a bare\nsubsistence and a safe berth, as there is for other hulks laid up to\nrot at ease. If that discovery comes upon you soon enough, break away!\n_Make_ the change that will not come, and leave others to chuckle over\ntheir fixity of tenure, and their security, and their trumpery boast\nthat \u201cno one can turn them out.\u201d But let us have your testimony before\nwe part--you and we. Bear witness Yes or No! Has the consciousness of\noccupying a position from which you could never be removed raised you\nin your own estimation, or helped you for one single moment to do your\nduty? Has it never kept you down? _Frauds_ are for the weak, not for\nthe strong--for the coward, not for the brave; they are for those who\nonly live to rust at ease, as if to breathe were life; they are not for\nsuch as make the ventures of Faith, and help their brethren to overcome\nthe world.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n_THE CHURCH AND THE VILLAGES._\n\n\nFew men can have watched the movements of opinion during the last few\nyears without being impressed by the change of attitude observable in\nthe two contending parties engaged upon the assault and defence of the\npossessions of that mysterious entity which goes by the name of the\nChurch of England.\n\nThis entity it must be premised, so far as it has a collective\nexistence, exists in the person of certain officials who are supposed\nto be devoting their lives to certain duties, and are in the possession\nof funds which, after every deduction from the grossly exaggerated\nestimates of the rhetoricians, are certainly large, and yet are being\nadded to every week by the lavish offerings of the English people. We\nmust go back to a remote past if we desire to trace the origin of that\nreserve fund for the maintenance of our clergy on which they now live;\na fund which has gone on growing, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly,\nfor considerably more than a thousand years.\n\nWhen people talk of _disendowing_ the Church of England, they mean that\nthis accumulated fund shall be confiscated by the nation for whose\nbenefit it exists, and that it shall no longer be used for the purpose\nto which it has been so long devoted.\n\nBut what is this _Church_ that it is to be despoiled and beggared, to\nbe disestablished and disendowed? We cannot call it a corporation,\nfor it has no corporate existence as a chartered company or a college\nhas. It has no representatives in the Lower House of Parliament, as\nthe universities have. It has no common council with disciplinary\npowers, as the Incorporated Society of Law or the Inns of Court have.\nIt has no _voice_ speaking with authority, no homogeneity deserving\nthe name. It cannot pass ordinances for the regulation of its minutest\naffairs, or impose rules of conduct upon any one, or levy the smallest\ncontribution from man, woman, or child by its own decrees. You may call\nit an army if you please; but it is an army in which the commissioned\nofficers have no control over the rank and file, no power of enforcing\nattendance at drill, no articles of war which any one heeds, and no\ngenerals whom any one fears. This mysterious entity, which is the\nsum-total of a multitude of more or less isolated units, we say is the\nowner of lands and buildings and rent-charge, and this property it is\nsaid is the property of the Church--the Church? _Nos numerus sumus!_\n\nWithout any very great misuse of language, it may be said that among\nus there is another mysterious entity; this, too, the sum-total of a\nnumber of isolated units. These units, too, were only the other day\nin possession of houses and lands, and buildings considered to be\npublic buildings; the units were almost in the same position as the\nclergy are at this moment, freeholders and practically irremovable;\nthey were expected to perform certain duties which, as a rule, they\nperformed with zeal and fidelity. In many cases, when sickness or old\nage came upon them, they discharged their functions by deputy; they had\npractically little or no discipline of control over them; \u201cvisitors\u201d\nwho never visited, feoffees who never interfered, governors who never\ngoverned. Each of these functionaries was called a Schoolmaster,\nand the building in which he officiated was called _a_ school.\nThe sum-total of these many units had no name; but if the public\nbuildings were rightly called schools, the aggregate of them might for\nconvenience be called _The School_. A noun of multitude, standing in\nthe same relation to its units as the current term \u201cthe Church\u201d does to\nits units--the Churches.\n\nTo whom did the property from which the schools were kept in\nefficiency, and their masters furnished with a maintenance--sometimes\nwith much more than a mere maintenance--to whom did this property\nbelong? I can find but one answer. It was the property of the nation;\na reserve fund which the nation had permitted certain individuals to\nset apart from time to time for the furtherance of the education of\nthe people, the object aimed at being considered so excellent that\nthe conditions imposed upon posterity by the founders were allowed to\nremain in force, these founders being supposed to have entered into a\ncontract with the nation that, in consideration of the value of the\nsurrender made, the reserve of property should be sanctioned, and the\nconditions imposed be held to be binding upon posterity. The land or\nthe rent-charges which yesterday were private possessions ceased to be\nso to-day: they _were_ private property, they became public property,\nand constituted the Educational Reserve.\n\nI can no longer resist the conviction that, as in the one case so in\nthe other, the nation may reconsider its treaty with School or Church;\nmay determine that the reserve hitherto set apart for the education\nof a class, or a district, or the founder\u2019s kin, should no longer be\napplied according to the compact sanctioned in previous ages, and may\nin the same way reconsider its compact with the alienation of property\nnow known as Church property, and deal with that far larger reserve\nhitherto applied for the promotion of the moral and spiritual welfare\nof the people. The nation has the right to do this, as it undoubtedly\nhas the power. Whether in this case _summum jus_ would not be found to\nbe _summa injuria_ is quite another question.\n\nBut it is one thing to say this large reserve shall be administered\notherwise than it is, and quite another thing to say that it shall\ncease to exist as a reserve at all. It is one thing to deal with our\necclesiastical endowments on the lines that school endowments have been\ndealt with, and quite another to deal with them as Henry the Eighth\ndealt with the property of the religious houses. To adopt the one\ncourse would be readjustment, to adopt the other would be confiscation.\nNevertheless, if the majority of the new electorate should decidedly\nand unequivocally pronounce that such is its pleasure, assuredly the\nproperty now held in reserve in the shape of religious endowments will\nbe confiscated. Religion will be the luxury of the rich and well-to-do;\nthe proletariate and the agricultural labourer will have to supply\nthemselves with an inferior article, or to do without it altogether.\n\nIf a revolution so tremendous, if a calamity so overwhelming, is to\nbefall this nation, and is to take effect by the deliberate choice of\nits people, at least let a great nation address itself to the task with\nthe semblance of dignity; at least let it be clearly explained and\nfirmly adhered to that the clergy reserve is not to be given over to\ngeneral pillage. Do not be guilty of the baseness of bidding for the\nvotes of the proletariate by holding out hopes of a general scramble.\nDo not corrupt the poor dwellers in the villages by inviting them to\nembark in a filibustering raid upon their friends and neighbours.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a question which a philosopher might worthily employ himself in\nanswering--how it has come to pass that during the last fifty years the\nstruggle for supremacy between political parties has tended to become\nless and less a regular _warfare_ and to assume more and more the\ncharacter of a _game_. Nay! It is rapidly developing into a game rather\nmore of chance than of skill, and one in which the most daring and\nreckless adventurer is just as likely to sweep off the stakes as the\nmost gifted and sagacious player. It is one of the most unhappy results\nof this condition of affairs that there has grown up in our midst a\nclass of touts and hangers-on who do the dirty work of either side and\nbring discredit upon both. They are the swell-mob of politics. Such\ncreatures live by inventing grievances and fomenting discontent, their\ndoctrine being that whatever is is wrong; their artillery is always\ncharged with explosive promises. These men are going up and down the\nland loudly proclaiming that the parsons have robbed _the poor_ of\ntheir own, and are holding out to their dupes the wildest hopes that\nwhen the spoliation comes _the poor_ shall be the first to benefit by\nthe great change.\n\nWe shall never be able to silence the voice of charlatans. The\nsausage-seller in Aristophanes is the type of a class of men who have\nfound no scope for their talents in any honest calling, and who because\nthey must live have been forced into the trade of lying vociferously.\nI do not write for these--to these I have no word to say. It is\nwith the men whose hearts are throbbing with some patriotism, and\nwho have not lost all loyalty to truth and honour, that I desire to\nhave my dealings. It is with such that I would humbly and earnestly\nexpostulate, whatever their philosophical or political opinions, and\nwhatever may be their creed. Even if it were as easy to prove, as it is\ndemonstrably the reverse, that there ever did exist in England at any\ntime or in any place a right on the part of the poor to any portion of\nthe tithes of a parish or to the glebe, who, it may be asked, are _the\npoor_? The receivers of parochial relief, whether in the work-house or\noutside it? Or every able-bodied peasant who claims to belong to the\nneedy classes? Are you going to ask the agricultural labourer to cry\nfor spoliation, and to bribe him to raise the cry by the promise of\nconverting him into what our fathers called a \u201csturdy beggar\u201d? And then\nare there no poor artisans? Are the millions of our towns to be left\nout in the cold while Hodge disports himself with his new possessions?\nAre Liverpool and East London to go on as they are, while Little\nMudborough is to enjoy a feast of fat things?\n\nBut the demagogues who live to corrupt the people have promises to make\nto others than the labourers. They are telling the tenant-farmers, too,\nthat they will be gainers by the great confiscation, and endeavouring\nto persuade them, too, that when it comes they will be relieved\nfrom the burden of the tithes. Would they be so? If the payment of\ntithe were abolished to-morrow, can any sane man believe that the\ntenant-farmer would be allowed to put the tithe into his pocket or\nto keep it there? Can any sane man believe that rents would not rise\nexactly in proportion to the amount of charges from which the tenant\nwas relieved? Rent is nothing more than the money payment supposed to\nrepresent the just return which the owner claims from the occupier for\nthe privilege of cultivating his land. The occupier makes his account\nand calculates how much he can gain by the compact. The landlord\u2019s\nshare is his rent. He is the sleeping partner. Relieve the expenses\nof the going concern from the payment of the tithe, or, which is the\nsame thing, add it to the profits, and what power on earth will prevent\nthe landlord, directly or indirectly, sooner or later, absorbing the\nproceeds of the newly-created _bonus_?\n\nMoreover, if you begin to \u201cdo away with the tithes,\u201d are you going to\ndo away with them _only_ in the case where the parson receives them and\ndoes something--at any rate _some_thing--in return for the income he\nderives from them? Are you going to let the tithes be levied as before\nwhere they are paid to laymen, to corporations, or colleges? Are those\ntithes which are necessarily spent in the parish by the resident parson\nto be \u201cdone away with,\u201d but all such tithes as are necessarily carried\nout of the parish and paid to a London company, an alien, or a college\nat Oxford or Cambridge, to be levied as before? Is it a _gravamen_\nagainst the parson that he spends his tithe where it is paid him, and\namong the people who pay it, and that he is bound in return for it to\ndo the payers some services which they may exact on demand? Are you\ngoing to confiscate the tithe where the receiver does something for\nit, and to let the man who does nothing for it collect it as before?\nImagine the amazement and disgust of a farmer who should be told that\nhis neighbour on the other side of the hedge is never to pay tithe\nagain because in that parish there has been a parson to pillage; but\nthat he, on this side of the hedge, is to pay it as before, because\nMr. Tomkins, or Mrs. John Smith, or the Saddlers\u2019 Company is the lay\nimpropriator, and the rights of property are to be respected. It would\nnot be long, I imagine, before our friend the farmer would go for the\nlay impropriator, and with a will too.\n\nBut, if the labourer and the tenant-farmer are not to be cajoled by\npromises that must needs be illusory, least of all are the landlords\nto be gained over by the inducement held out to them that they, of\nall men, are to benefit by the change. They more than any other\nclass are responsible for the loud outcry that has been raised. The\ntithe-rent-charge is a first charge upon the produce of the land. They\nare the landlords who, as a class, have done their best to make people\nforget this fact. How often have we heard of a landlord or his agent\ndeclaring loudly, \u201cI have nothing to do with the tithe--that is a\nmatter between the tenant and the parson!\u201d A more monstrous assertion\nit would be difficult to invent! Far more true would be the direct\nopposite, if the parson, or the impropriator, should say, \u201cI, as\nreceiver of tithe, have nothing to do with you, the tenant--the tithe\nis no concern of yours; my claim is upon the owner of the soil!\u201d In\npoint of fact, it is in the last resort upon the landlord, and the\nlandlord alone, that the tithe-owner, lay or clerical, has his claim.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut, if we should only aggravate the incidence of the immense calamity\nwhich would ensue from the confiscation of the clergy reserve by\nhanding over the spoils to the labourers, or the proletariate, or the\nfarmers, or the landlords, and yet the electorate should resolve to\ncarry out this great spoliation, and call upon the executive to sweep\naway the clerical incomes, and lay its hand upon the property from\nwhich these incomes are derived; what is to be done with this huge fund\nso confiscated, and how are we to prevent the landlords being in some\nform or other the only gainers by the change?\n\nIf confiscation comes, let it come, say I, as no half-measure. Let\nthere be no bargaining, no tinkering, no compromise--in fact, no mercy!\nNo--no mercy! Let this thing be done in root-and-branch fashion. Let\nthe nation set its face like a flint; let the Church--it would be the\nChurch then--begin its new life naked and bare. Both sides will have\na bad time of it. It takes little to decide which will have the worst\ntime of it, the starved Church or the starved people.\n\n    Set the two forces foot to foot,\n    And every man knows who\u2019ll be winner,\n    Whose faith in God has e\u2019er a root\n    That goes down deeper than his dinner.\n\nTherefore, if indeed this nation decides that it can do without\nreligious teachers, and that these shall live of those who want them,\nlet us put up our parish churches to auction, and dispose of the\nglebes to the highest bidder, and flood the market with comfortable\nparsonage-houses, sold without reserve, and let the tithe be levied\nby the tax-gatherer, and let _it be levied from the owner of the\nsoil_, as the land-tax is. Furthermore, let us have no assignment of\nany share of the plunder to any class or any special fund. Let us\nhand over the proceeds of the sale of churches and houses and lands\nto the Commissioners for the Extinguishing of the National Debt, and\nnot to the ratepayers, not to the Education Commissioners, nor to the\nCommissioners in Lunacy for building madhouses, or any other cheerful\nand heroic object. Let us have a measure which shall be simple and\nthorough, with the fewest possible details to vex and embarrass us\nall. As the parsons die, sell their houses, their glebes and their\nchurches, and let the State at once appropriate the tithe. Let us\nbe brought face to face with the real meaning of a revolution, the\ntremendous magnitude of which few men can have the faintest conception\nof. In less than a year after the measure had become law, we should\nbegin to know in what an experiment we had embarked. The sooner our\neyes were opened the better for us all. The logic of facts is better\nthan gabble.\n\nNevertheless, firmly convinced as I am that such a revolution would be\nan immeasurable calamity to the people of this country, and especially\nso to the agricultural districts, I am quite as firmly convinced\nthat the present condition of affairs as regards the tenure and\nadministration of the property now constituting the clergy reserves\ncannot possibly go on much longer; that the mere mockery and pretence\nof discipline among the clergy themselves must be replaced by something\nmuch more real and effective; that, in short, some large and radical\nmeasures of Church reform are being called for, such as the nation\nfeels must and shall be carried out, though the great body of the\npeople do not yet see, and cannot yet be expected to see, on what\nfundamental principles such reform should be advocated, or on what\nlines such reform should travel.\n\nAs a preliminary, as a _sine qu\u00e2 non_ of all really effective Church\nreform, it seems to me that, first and foremost, you must begin, not\nby _disestablishing_, but by _establishing_, the Church. As things\nare among us, it seems to me that the very word establishment is a\nconfession on the part of those who use it that they have failed to\ndiscover the right word for that which they would fain obliterate.\n\nWe say the Church is a great landlord and wealthy owner of property.\nOught not such an owner to have some control over its own and some\nvoice in the disposition of that property. Every railroad company in\nthe land, every joint-stock bank or co-operative association for the\nproviding of milk and butter, every society for the protection of\ncats and dogs, has a constitution. It has its directors or governors,\nits recognized officers, its power to make or to alter at least its\nown bye-laws, its liberty to dispose of its own funds within certain\nlimits, the privilege of meeting and of discussing its own affairs when\nand where it pleases, and the right of applying to the Legislature of\nthe country for larger powers if such shall appear necessary for the\ncarrying out of objects not dreamt of at its first start.\n\nThe Church is absolutely lacking in all these respects, for the very\nsimple reason that the Church, viewed as a going concern in possession\nof property, has nothing that can be called a constitution.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf the glaring anomalies and the wholly unjustifiable grotesqueness\nwhich startle us at every turn when we begin to discuss \u201cChurch\nquestions\u201d are to be removed, where are we to begin, and what should be\nthe lines on which any scheme of readjustment should proceed?\n\nFirst and foremost, let all obsolete and antiquated privileges, which\nare survivals of a long extinct condition of affairs, be swept away,\nand with the privileges let the disabilities go also. Let no man be\nmade either more or less than a citizen of the Empire by reason of his\nbeing in any sense a member of the Church--not a peer of the realm on\nthe one hand, not disqualified from entering the House of Commons on\nthe other.\n\nAs a preliminary to giving the Church a working constitution, it is my\nconviction that the bishops should no longer have seats in the House of\nLords. I cannot see how any director or overseer of any corporation,\nor indeed of any department of the State, should be made a peer of\nthe realm by virtue of his holding office. I am not wholly ignorant\nof our constitutional history, although into the historical aspect of\nthe question I decline to enter now. The facts are what we have to\nface; and as things are, however much we may deplore it, there seems\njust as little reason why bishops should be raised to the peerage as\nwhy the naval lords of the Admiralty should be created barons. But,\nif you dismiss the bishops from the Upper House, you certainly cannot\nexclude the inferior clergy from the lower one. Whether in the one\ncase the Church or the House of Lords would be much the loser may\nvery reasonably be doubted, notwithstanding the conspicuous ability\nwhich is and has for long been characteristic of the Episcopal Bench.\nIn the other case, the Church and the House of Commons are just as\nlittle likely to be much the gainers by letting clergymen represent the\nconstituencies in Parliament. As in France, so would it be in England;\nthe clerical candidates would be very few, the clerical members fewer.\nThat, however, does not affect the question whether or not clerical\ndisabilities should be abolished.\n\nBut by far the most necessary and radical reform that is imperatively\ncalled for is the abolition of that preposterous antiquarian curiosity,\nthe Parson\u2019s Freehold.\n\nThe philosopher of the future who \u201cwith larger, other eyes than\nours,\u201d shall survey the history of our institutions and tell of their\norigin, their growth or their decay, will, I believe, be amazed and\nperplexed by nothing so much as by the strange vitality of this legal\nphenomenon--the _Parson\u2019s Freehold_. That any man who is in any sense\na public servant should, by virtue of being nominated to hold an\noffice, be made tenant for life of a real estate from which only by an\nact of his own can he be removed--_that_ would seem to most of us so\nentirely startling and outrageous in the abstract as to be absolutely\nintolerable in the concrete reality. Let us look this thing in the face.\n\nImagine a postman or a prime minister, a clerk in the Custom House or\nthe captain of a man-of-war, an assistant in a draper\u2019s shop or your\nown gardener, having an estate for life in his office, and being able\nto draw his pay to his dying day, though he might be for years blind\nand deaf and paralyzed and imbecile--so incapable, in fact, that he\ncould not even appoint his own deputy, or so indifferent that he cared\nnot whether there was any deputy to discharge the duties which he\nhimself was paid to perform. Imagine any public servant being thrown\ninto prison for a flagrant misdemeanour, or worse than a misdemeanour,\nand coming back to his work when the term of his imprisonment was\nover, receiving the arrears of pay which had accrued during the time\nhe was in gaol, and quietly settling down into the old groove as if\nnothing had happened. Imagine _any_ public servant being suspended from\nhis office for habitual drunkenness, suspended say for two years, and\nnot even requiring to be reinstated when the two years were over, but\ngaily taking his old seat and returning to his desk and his bottle, as\nirremovable from the emoluments of the first as he was inseparable from\nhis devotion to the last.\n\nYet all this, and much more than this, is possible for us beneficed\nclergymen. I am myself the patron of a benefice from which the late\nrector was nonresident for fifty-three years. Is it at all conceivable\nthat we should continue to keep up this condition of affairs under\nwhich we have been living so long? The last thing that any other public\nservant would dare to confess would be that he was physically or\nintellectually or morally unfit for his office. The retort in his case\nwould be obvious enough--then leave it, and make way for a better man.\nBut the holder of the Parson\u2019s Freehold smilingly replies, \u201cCertainly I\nwill retain my hold upon the income after paying my deputy. Am I not a\nlandlord? and as tenant for life I will assuredly cling to my own.\u201d\n\nBeing such as we are, men of flesh and blood as others, and occupying\nthe frightfully impregnable position which we do; fenced about with\nall sorts of legal safeguards which put us above our parishioners\non the one hand, and out of the reach of our bishops on the other;\nhaving, as we have, an almost unlimited power of turning our benefices\ninto sinecures while we reside upon them, or of leaving them to the\nveriest hireling to serve while we are disporting ourselves in foreign\ntravel almost as long as we should choose to stay away;--I know no\nmore splendid testimony to the high and honourable character of the\nEnglish clergy than that which would be wrung from their worst enemies\nwho should fairly consider what the law of the land would allow of\ntheir being if they were so disposed--and what, in fact, they are. It\nis because as a class they are so animated by a high ideal; because\nas a class their conscience is their law; it is, therefore, that, in\nspite of legal safeguards which in their tendency are corrupting and\ndemoralizing, as a class they are incomparably _better than they need\nbe_. The clergy of the Church of England constitute the one protected\ninterest in the universe that does not languish. Nevertheless, _C\u2019est\nmagnifique, mais ce n\u2019est pas la guerre_. These things ought not so to\nbe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow then are the evils inseparable from the present state of things to\nbe remedied? They are evils which do not appear on the surface where\nthe clergy themselves are conscientious, high-minded, and zealous,\nthrowing themselves into their duties with self-denying earnestness,\nand hardly aware of how much they might abuse their powers if they were\nso disposed. They are very real and scandalous evils in the case of the\ncareless, the worthless, and the immoral; that is, exactly in the case\nof those whom we can least afford to leave as they are.\n\nI can see no other plan for utilizing to the utmost the resources\nalready at our disposal than by sweeping away altogether this archaic\nanomaly of the parson\u2019s freehold. We are all a great deal too tenacious\nof vested rights, a great deal too reluctant to deal harshly with\nthose who have accepted any office under certain conditions expressed\nor implied, to allow of our disturbing the present occupants of the\nbenefices, or to bring them under any new _r\u00e9gime_. As long as the\nexisting beneficed clergy choose to retain their hold upon their\nbenefices, obviously they must be left undisturbed; as they are\nfreeholders, so they must continue to be, and practically irremovable;\nbut, as they drop off either by death or voluntary resignation, let the\nfreehold be vested in other hands. Let us follow the main lines upon\nwhich the Endowed School Commissioners pursued their revolution in the\ncase of the educational reserve fund, learning experience by their\nblunders, their failures or their _fads_.\n\nAnd when we do so, where shall we find ourselves?\n\n1. The freehold of every church, churchyard, glebe-house and lands,\ntogether with the tithes and any other invested funds now constituting\nthe endowment of a benefice, would be vested in a body of trustees or\ngovernors exactly as the estates and buildings of the endowed schools\nare at this moment. These governors would have the administration of\nthis estate entrusted to them, and be personally and collectively\nresponsible for its management--responsible, that is, to a _duly\nconstituted authority_ with a power of enforcing its precepts.\n\n2. All liability to keep house and chancel in repair, together with all\npowers of mortgaging the lands of a benefice, would be transferred from\nthe incumbent to the governing body of trustees.\n\n3. The patronage of every benefice would, as a matter of course,\npass out of the hands of the present patrons, and would be vested in\nthe trustees of the benefice; exactly as the patronage of Shrewsbury\nand Sedbergh schools passed out of the hands of St. John\u2019s College,\nCambridge, or as the patronage of Thame school passed out of the hands\nof New College, Oxford, or as the patronage of Brentwood, Kirkleatham,\nand Bosworth schools has passed out of the hands of _private patrons_\ninto those of the newly-constituted governing bodies.\n\n4. The governors in presenting to a benefice would in each case be\nexpected to consider the financial position in which it happened to\nbe at the time of the vacancy, and would be empowered to determine\nwhat amount of net income could be assigned to the incumbent according\nto the circumstances of the estate in their hands; in all cases\nguaranteeing a minimum stipend and, in cases where a house was\nprovided, a house free of all rates, taxes, and repairs.\n\n5. The governing body would be required to render an account of all\nmoneys received and expended to the _constituted authority_, to which\nthey would be answerable.\n\n6. Any clergyman presented to a benefice by the governing body would be\nliable to be dismissed for inefficiency or misconduct; such dismissal\nto be subject to an appeal as against caprice, malevolence, or tyranny.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore proceeding further, it will be as well at this point to consider\nan objection that may be offered, and then to see how such a reform as\nthat proposed would work.\n\nFirst, with regard to handing over the property of a benefice,\ntogether with the patronage, to a body of trustees. Such a course\nwill certainly be denounced as revolutionary, and of course that word\nhas a very alarming sound. But I venture to remind objectors that\nwe have already embarked upon this revolutionary course, and on a\nvery large scale too. We have already taken vast estates out of the\nhands of ecclesiastical corporations, and vested them in the hands of\nthe Ecclesiastical Commissioners. We have already made our bishops\nstipendiaries, receiving their _salaries_ from the holders of their\nestates; and happy are those deans and canons who are in such a case,\nand not in the pitiable condition of landlords with their farms upon\ntheir hands, or let to tenants who, just now, can make their own terms\nwith the panic-stricken lifeholders of the freehold. But this is not\nall. There are at least a thousand benefices in England at this moment,\nthe patronage of which _is already in the hands of trustees_; and in\nmany of these cases--in many more cases than people suspect--the very\nfreehold of the church itself is vested in those trustees, who have\nalmost entire control over the funds, and almost entire control over\nthe fabric of the church. At this moment, as I write, there is lying on\nmy table an application from _the Trustees_ of St. Excellent\u2019s Church,\nat Jericho, asking me to subscribe for the erection of a tower, and\npleading that the _Trustees_ have done all that was possible, and have\nbeen loyally _seconded_ by their devoted vicar.\n\nAsk those who know anything of what has been going on in the second\ncity in England during the last forty years what condition the masses\nat Liverpool would be in at this moment but for the church-building on\nthe Trustee system which has been in operation there so long. Ask them\nwhether that system has worked well or ill, and whether there is any\nreason to regret that the patronage of the Trustee churches is not in\nother hands.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now with regard to the working of the scheme proposed.\n\nThe rectory of Claylump finds itself vacant by the promotion of its\nrector to the bishopric of Loo Choo. The governors forthwith proceed to\ntake a survey of the property they hold in trust, and to look about for\na new parson. The character and qualification of the various candidates\nfor the vacant benefice are carefully inquired into, and, the choice\nbeing made, the new incumbent is presented to the bishop of the see and\ninstituted with all fitting and necessary solemnity.\n\nBut before he enters upon his charge the new rector has been informed\nthat, in view of the governors being responsible for certain outgoings,\nthey can for the present guarantee the parson only a minimum income of\n_x_ pounds per annum, to be increased according as the funds at their\ndisposal shall allow of the augmentation.\n\nObserve that we already find ourselves face to face with the problem\nwhich has been found so difficult of solution--viz., how to deal with\nEcclesiastical Dilapidations. A beneficed clergyman at present may, if\nhe pleases, let his house tumble about his ears--may let his barn be\ntenanted by the rats, turn his stable into a pigsty, and, keeping his\nglebe in his own hands, render it valueless for his successor for the\nnext five years. At his death he may be absolutely insolvent. The next\nincumbent is, however, called upon to put all into tenantable repair at\nhis own cost, and by the very fact of accepting the living is liable\nfor these substantial repairs.\n\nOr a beneficed clergyman may do exactly the reverse. Being tenant for\nlife of a living of less than three hundred a year, he may convert\nthe parsonage-house into a noble mansion--erect hot-houses and\nconservatories _ad libitum_, build stables for a dozen horses, and lay\nout acres of the glebe in ornamental gardens; and he too may die in\ndifficulties. At the avoidance of the living the bishop may give orders\nfor pulling down half the house and more than half the appurtenances;\nbut the question of who is to pay for the expenses of the alteration\nwill present a serious difficulty, and may be settled in the strangest\nway at last. As long as the living is in a good neighbourhood, with\ncertain advantages which it is unnecessary to particularise, it\nwill not be hard to find another man of fortune who for the sake of\nthe house will consent to accept the cure. But, if it chance that a\nneighbourhood has \u201cchanged,\u201d and the parish has become otherwise than a\ndesirable place of residence, that parish may find it very hard indeed\nto get any who will face the terrible prospect of having to keep up a\npalace on \u00a3300 a year. In either case--that of finding himself with\na tumble-down rectory, or that of finding himself with an entirely\nunsuitable one--the incoming parson will assuredly have to make his\naccount to submit to a serious abatement from the nominal revenue of\nhis preferment, and will assuredly be in no better position than he\nwould be if, not he, but the trustees, were the owners of the parson\u2019s\nfreehold.\n\nBut once more. Let us suppose that the new rector under the new\n_r\u00e9gime_ finds it desirable to add to his parsonage-house for any\nreason or for none. What follows? Is he to be allowed to do as he\npleases? Certainly not. If he can get the consent of his governors,\nwell and good; without that consent he would have no more right\nto build up than to pull down. He would be living in an _official\nresidence_ provided for him. Clearly, he could not be permitted to deal\nwith it as if it were his own.\n\nAgain, let us suppose that the parsonage should sorely need repair,\nand that the parson, being poor or otherwise unwilling to be meddled\nwith, should declare it was good enough for him. Would it be reasonable\nto let an obstructive eccentric continue living in a house which was\nseriously lessening in value from the want of structural repairs? It is\nobvious that the governors who were liable for these repairs being duly\nexecuted, and whose interest was to maintain the buildings in good and\ntenantable condition, would interpose. The official residence having to\nbe kept up by the income of the benefice in their view would clearly\nnot be regarded as something to be handed over in its entirety to the\npresent holder of the living, as if his personal interest were the only\nthing to consider.\n\nAs it would not be allowable for a Plutus to over-build, so it\nwould not be permitted to a niggard to let the parsonage fall into\ndisrepair. In either case the governing body would have a voice, and\nover the buildings of the benefice they would exercise a general\nsupervision and control.\n\nWhat, however, will startle most people, and especially clergymen, is\nthe proposal to give to _any_ body at all or any person or any officer\nthe power to dismiss a parson from his cure. Yet, as an abstract\nquestion, why should the parson be the only functionary to enjoy\nthe immunity he does? Is it because it does not matter much to his\nparishioners whether he is fit or unfit, moral or immoral, active or\nindolent, whether he is exhibiting an example of holiness or is a mere\nhelot whose daily walk is an abominable scandal? As things are, the\nmore conscientious a clergyman is, the more easily you may hunt him out\nof his preferment; such men cannot bear to stay where--as they put it\nin all earnestness and devout sincerity--they are \u201cdoing no good.\u201d Such\nmen are ready enough to go out into the wilderness if you tell them\nthey are not wanted or are hindering Christ\u2019s work by staying where\nthey are. But tell the bad man that he is not wanted in his parish, and\nhis ministrations are hateful to the people among whom he lives, and he\nwill laugh in your face with the grim joke that, if the people don\u2019t\nlike to come to church, they may stay away, and if they don\u2019t want\nhim at the font or the altar or the grave, so much the better; he will\nhave less work to do for his money. The thick-skinned with a seared\nconscience defies you; safe in the possession of the parson\u2019s freehold,\nhe holds his own.\n\nHow is it that we are always so ready to conjure up the worst\nimaginable evils when any new proposal is offered to us, and always\ndraw some picture of abuses and horrors when we begin to think of any\ngreat change, as if there were no abuses and horrors which called\nfor the change? \u201cA body of governors with a power of dismissal,\u201d it\nis said; \u201cwhy, no man\u2019s position would be safe!\u201d To begin with, I do\nnot see why the first thing to be aimed at should be that _any one\u2019s_\nposition should be _safe_. The first thing that is needed, imperatively\nneeded, is that the duties of any office, from that of the Prime\nMinister downwards, should be effectively discharged. It may be very\ndesirable that the driver of an express train should be safe of getting\nhis wages as long as he lives. It is infinitely more desirable that the\ntrain itself should not run off the metals from the aforesaid driver\ngoing to sleep.\n\nBut _whose_ position in the case before us would be _unsafe_? As a\nrule, only his whose position ought to be unsafe. The Endowed Schools\nCommissioners have been at work for more than twenty years. Every one\nof their schemes gives to the governing body a power of dismissal,\nand that too with usually no appeal. During these twenty years, I\nhave never heard of more than two cases in which this power has been\nexercised; so slow are we Englishmen to be hard on an old servant, or\nto use to the utmost the powers which we have in our hand.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOur next point to consider is, what should be the constitution of the\ngoverning body?\n\nLet it be premised that, in embarking upon a reform so radical as this\nthat is contemplated, I for one at the outset shrink from committing\nourselves to any details until we have first laid down the grand\nprinciples on which we are going to proceed. Moreover, it must never\nbe forgotten that the circumstances of every parish or district in\nEngland vary to an extent which they who have never thought much upon\nthe subject could hardly bring themselves to believe. In a matter of so\nmuch intricacy and complexity we must not be afraid to feel our way,\nand at any rate let us have at the outset as few hard-and-fast lines as\nmay be.\n\nWith this caution and proviso, I yet venture to suggest that the main\nlines to be laid down should be as follows:--\n\n1. The governing body should not be too large, nor should it ever be\nchosen from the inhabitants of the parish exclusively.\n\n2. It should be a representative body.\n\n3. Its meetings should not be held too frequently.\n\n4. Its proceedings should be duly chronicled, and a record kept which\nmight be produced and referred to when necessary.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n1. Not too large, because experience proves that any administrative\nbody is in danger of becoming a speechifying body, and liable to be\ninfluenced by pressure from without, almost exactly in proportion to\nthe increase of its numbers. Nor should this body be chosen exclusively\nfrom the inhabitants of the parish. In the case of small parishes, it\nwould be quite impossible to find persons qualified to exercise the\npowers to be conferred, or fitted by education and intelligence to\noccupy the independent and important position of governor.\n\n2. It will be necessary that the governing body should in all cases\nbe a representative body. In such a body what interests should be\nrepresented?\n\n(i) First the owners of the land on which tithes are paid. Observe, I\ndo not say the tithe-_payers_; for, of all the objectionable practices\nwhich have sprung up among us affecting the tenure of the land, and\nthe burdens it has to bear, none appears to me more mischievous or\nindefensible, none has done more to make the tillers of the soil\ndiscontented, or led them more passionately to set themselves against\ntheir best friends, than the practice sanctioned by the Legislature of\ncalling upon the tenant to pay the tithe in addition to the rent of his\nland. As long as this goes on, so long will both tenant and landlord be\ntempted to make common cause with one another in hopes of getting rid\nof the tithe. You might just as well call upon the tenant to pay the\nlandlord\u2019s mortgage interest, or the jointures and annuities with which\nthe estate is charged, or the premiums upon his policies of insurance,\nas call upon him to pay the tithe. A landlord holds his lands subject\nto certain charges, which are antecedent to any profits that may remain\nto him after they are discharged.\n\nThe land-tax, the county-rates, the tithe, are all on the same level;\nso are the jointures, annuities, and interest of money borrowed. Of\ncourse the landlord would gladly throw them all upon the tenant if\nhe could, and does throw upon him all he can. In permitting him to\nfollow this course, you tempt the tenant to cry out, \u201cAway with this\npayment, and away with that!\u201d and you tempt the landlord to cry, \u201cAmen!\nSo be it, as long as my rent is assured me!\u201d Worried by the annual\nrecurrence of _extra_ payments, for which he has to provide at all\nsorts of inconvenient times, the tenant is ready enough to demand\nrelief from these burdens, never reflecting that he is playing the\nlandlord\u2019s game, directly or indirectly robbing somebody else to enrich\nthe owner of the soil. \u201cDown with the rates!\u201d means \u201cThrow them upon\nthe Consolidated Fund and let the taxpayer relieve the landlord.\u201d \u201cDown\nwith the jointures!\u201d would mean \u201cRob the dowagers and let the landlord\nbe the richer for the pillage.\u201d \u201cDown with the mortgage interest!\u201d\nwould mean \u201cUp with the debtor at the expense of the creditor;\u201d and\n\u201cDown with the tithe!\u201d would mean the extinction of the parson, but\nwith the gain of not a shilling ultimately to the tenant, though with\na very considerable gain to the owner of the land. It must be, and it\nis, demoralizing to allow the payment of the tithe to be regarded as\nan _extra_ with which the tenant is chargeable. The obligation to pay\nthe tithe is a condition antecedent to the _owner_ of the soil enjoying\nthe very possession of his land. The tithe is a _rent-charge_ upon\nthe land, exactly as an annuity or jointure is--or, if you choose to\ncall it a tax because the term tax is an odious word, and therefore\nserviceable when you want to make those you hate odious--it is a\nlandlord\u2019s _tax_, and no tenant should be allowed to pay it without\nhaving the right under all circumstances of deducting it from his rent.\n\nMoreover, without yielding to the temptation of straying into an\nhistorical argument, yet remembering that in the past there was a very\nclose connection between the landlord whose estate supplied the tithe\nfrom which the parson was supported and the patron of the living to\nwhich the parson was instituted, I think there are good reasons why\nthe owners of the soil liable to pay tithe should be represented in\nthe proposed governing body of a benefice. Where the parish was a\nclose parish--_i.e_., owned by a single landlord--he would naturally\nand very properly be the only person eligible, or at any rate capable\nof nominating the tithe-owner\u2019s representative. Where there were many\nlandlords, they could elect their representatives--one or more, as the\ncase might be--in the ordinary way.\n\n(ii) As the owners of land subject to the payment of tithes should\nbe represented, so should the ratepayers of the parish have their\nrepresentative upon the board of governors. And here I confess I\ncannot see that you could introduce any religious test whereby any one\nshould be disqualified by reason of his creed. I do not believe that\nin ordinary cases any real inconveniences would arise. That under no\ncircumstances conceivable evils should emerge is too much to hope\nfor; but whether or not, we must, I repeat, face the facts, and what\nreasonable man, who watches the signs of the times, will be sanguine\nenough to expect that, in our days, we have any chance of extorting\nfrom the Legislature anything in the shape of a conscience clause?\nBut, when I speak of ratepayers, I mean _bon\u00e2 fide_ payers of rates.\nI exclude from this category the compound householder: I by no means\nexclude unmarried women who pay their own rates and taxes, who are\noften among the most sagacious, high-minded, and exemplary inhabitants\nof a country parish, or of a town one too, for that matter. If any\nshould have a voice in the choice of a representative governor, clearly\nthey should.\n\n(iii) But, if the owners of the soil and the ratepayers should be\nrepresented, it would be more than unreasonable--it would be a\nmonstrous injustice--that the regular worshippers in the church\nshould be left without their representative governors. I am quite\naware that some people are ready with all sorts of difficulties and\nall sorts of objections when we come to deal with the qualification\nof church membership, and quite aware, too, that at this point one\nis sorely tempted to do that which I protested against above--viz.,\ngo into details; but I resist the temptation, simply expressing my\nconviction that there _can_ be and there is no real and insuperable\ndifficulty in defining what is meant by \u201cregular worshippers,\u201d and that\nsuch difficulty would vanish at once if we were really in earnest in\ngrappling with it. I am not hinting at a compromise. Here as elsewhere\nwhat we want is--common sense!\n\n(iv) Again, I conceive that on any board of governors there should be\na representative appointed by the bishop of the diocese, and that he\nshould be a resident in the archdeaconry in which the benefice was\nsituated. In every board of directors, be it of a railway or bank or\ninsurance company, it is held to be essential to effectiveness that\none or more of such directors should have some pretension to technical\nor professional knowledge of the business carried on. Is it too much\nto ask that at least one _expert_ should be found upon every body of\nchurch governors? Such a representative would, if discreet and able,\nbe always listened to with respectful attention; if inclined to be\ndomineering or impracticable, he would assuredly be outvoted when it\ncame to a contest. He would be a voice, but he would be no more.\n\n(v) It is conceivable, nay it is probable, that in addition to these\nrepresentative governors it might in some cases be advisable that\nother members should be added to the governing body. Thus it might\nbe contended by the present patrons of benefices, whether lay or\nclerical, that they should be represented, and I can see no particular\nobjection to such a claim being allowed. It is also conceivable and\nprobable that, after due consideration and discussion, it might be\nthought advisable to group two or more benefices together and vest\ntheir funds in the same body of governors. Indeed, in many country\ndistricts, where the endowments are very small and the population very\nsparse, it might prove extremely difficult and sometimes extremely\nundesirable to have a board of governors for each of these tiny\nunits, let alone the absurd waste of power which in such cases would\nbe inevitable. But, such as I have sketched it out, such in the main\nwould be the constitution of the governing body of every benefice in\nthe country, and to that governing body the freehold of that benefice\nand its appurtenances, together with the patronage thereof, should be\nhanded over.\n\n(vi) With regard to the qualification of those eligible for a seat\nupon the governing body, I am not prepared to discuss that question\nat the present stage. This, however, I know--viz., that there is only\none subject of the Queen who is now disqualified from presenting\na clergyman to any benefice in England. A Jew or a Mormonite, a\nMohammedan or a Parsee, Mr. Bradlaugh or Mr. Congreve, may be, and\nfor ought I know is, patron of the richest or the poorest living in\nEngland; but if any of these worthy persons should suddenly become\ninfluenced by Cardinal Manning and be received as a member of the\nChurch of Rome, then and then only would he become incapable by law\nfrom exercising his patronage--then and then only would it pass out of\nhis hands. If we have come to this pass, that in anything like a large\nmajority of cases Churchmen should find themselves outvoted by Jews,\nTurks, infidels, and heretics in the governing bodies, would it not be\npretty clear that something was wrong?\n\nBut would the functions of the governing body be confined to the\nmanagement of the estate of a benefice and to the appointing and,\nwhere necessary, to the dismissal of the incumbent? Yes. It seems to\nme that the functions of a governing body should go no further. That\nwas a golden rule which Lord Palmerston laid down for the governing\nbodies of our endowed schools, and which these bodies have generally\nhad the wisdom to carry out in practice--\u201cGet the best man you can\nfind and--get out of his way!\u201d It should be no part of the duties of\nthe governing body to interfere with what may be called the internal\naffairs of the church and the ministrations of the parson. These\nshould be matters of arrangement between the congregation and their\nminister. Let the powers and the duties of churchwardens be defined\nas clearly as may be--let the number of the churchwardens be increased\nif you will, or let the old _sidesman_ be revived; but let it be\nclearly understood that the parish is one thing and the congregation\nis another. Let it be understood that the rector of the _parish_ as\na parish officer should be accountable to the governors in so far\nas they are trustees for the _parish_ reserve fund; but in matters\nwith which only the congregation worshipping habitually in the church\nare concerned, let no outsider have any _locus standi_. If in his\nadministrations a clergyman insists on doing or leaving undone certain\npractices which are hateful to the congregation to which he ministers;\nif between priest and people things should come to a deadlock; by all\nmeans let it be allowable, as it ought to be, for the people to demand\nredress, and let them ask for that redress with authority and a claim\nto have their grievances considered. In such cases there would be no\nneed of rushing into the law courts, no spiteful resort to costly\nlegislation to crush or ruin a foolish, obstinate, and ignorantly\nconscientious clergyman. The congregation--speaking through their\nrepresentatives, the churchwardens, sidesmen, or whatever other name\nyou might choose to call them by--would lay their complaint before the\nbishop first, and as an ultimate resort would go to the governing body,\nand claim that their parson should be dismissed, on grounds which\nshould be, of course, properly formulated.\n\nAnd this brings us to another matter--viz., the prominence (I do not\nsay pre-eminence) to be given to the congregational element in any\nreadjustment of church regimen at the present time. It is idle to\ntalk as if the Church were co-extensive with the nation, or as if the\ninhabitants of a parish were all worshippers in the church fabric. If\na man now does not like the ritual or the doctrine offered to him in\nhis parish church, he leaves it, and goes where he finds what he wants.\nIt will always be so. There was a good deal of nonconformity in the\nApostolic times, and there will be nonconformity as long as men love to\nhave things their own way. If an apostle were to find himself rector of\nany parish in England, with an angel to play the organ, and a multitude\nof the heavenly host to chant the psalms and \u201crender\u201d the anthems,\nwould Jannes and Jambres be satisfied? On the other hand, though it is\nimpossible but that offences should arise (which means that offence\nshould be _taken_), it is our duty and our interest to minimise the\noccasion of offence; and it is clearly neither right nor politic that\nany man should occupy such a position as that he may, if he please,\ngo very far towards making himself a \u201clord over God\u2019s heritage,\u201d\nand by adopting such a course not only lessen his own influence, but\ncommit a serious wrong to the assembly of worshippers to whom, after\nall, it must be remembered, he is appointed to minister, not to be an\nirresponsible dictator.\n\nWherever there is a \u201ccongregation of faithful men\u201d regularly\nworshipping together in any church, the very sign and evidence of\nlife among them is that there is a great deal of mere _business_ to\nbe got through. There are large sums of money raised for various\npurposes, there are organizations great and small to be looked to,\nthere are meetings to be held, arrangements of very different kinds to\nbe made, and work of all sorts to be done. It _must_ be done, and it\ncan _only_ be done by the incumbent in conjunction and co-operation\nwith the congregation; as long as the two work together all goes\non smoothly, if they are at variance friction ensues. It would be\npreposterous that all the money collected by and through the voluntary\ncontributions and the voluntary exertions of the congregation should\nbe handed over to an outside body such as the governing body we have\nbeen dealing with above. Indeed, such a proposal scarcely deserves to\nbe seriously considered; the congregation as a congregation must in\nall reason be allowed to manage its own affairs. But, inasmuch as no\ninstitution in the world can hope to flourish if its manager prove\nhimself incompetent, quarrelsome, and fractious, and when it becomes\napparent that the well-being of the institution is being sacrificed\nonly to keep the wrong man in the wrong place, then you get rid of that\nwrong man, sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow. So should it be\nwith our churches. To give the congregations the appointment of their\nparsons or to arm them with a veto would be to follow a course which\nall our experience warns us against, and to which--I cannot explain\nwhy--all our national habits of thought, convictions, and prejudices\nare opposed. But, under any circumstances, cases might occur where a\nreluctant congregation might find itself saddled with a minister who,\nafter a fair trial, should prove himself altogether unsuited to deal\nwith the peculiar conditions, social, financial, or religious--which\npresented themselves; and where such cases did occur the congregation\nin its own interests--to go no further--ought to have the opportunity\nof making its wishes or its objections known. As to graver matters,\nwhere a parson\u2019s moral character was in question, I do not think\nit worth while to deal with them. As to the proposal of setting up\nparochial councils in our country villages, I find it very hard to\nbelieve that this can have ever been put forward seriously by any sane\nman of the world. Surely, surely it can only be the clumsy joke of a\ndreamer which suggests that we should establish village parliaments\nfor the discussion of matters of ritual and theology among the\nrepresentatives of a population which sometimes counts by tens, usually\nby a few hundreds, and very rarely by thousands. In the single diocese\nof Norwich there are actually one hundred and two parishes in each of\nwhich the population is less than a hundred, including the last baby.\nThink of a parochial council in the parish of Bittering Parva, where I\nwas once told \u201cthere are _between_ fourteen and fifteen inhabitants!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am quite aware that the questions which still remain to be dealt with\nin considering any comprehensive measure of what is known as Church\nReform are many and difficult, and some of them are of the highest\nimportance. They will come on for discussion, we may be sure, and abler\nmen than I am, and men better qualified to handle such questions, will\ndoubtless engage in them.\n\nIn the hands of such men I would gladly leave the serious and difficult\nproblems which are calling so loudly for solution. The power of\ndismissal of a parson from his cure, for other than moral offences,\nat once brings us face to face with the question, \u201cHow are we to\nprovide for aged and broken-down clergy in their time of need?\u201d It also\nsuggests the question, \u201cIn what relations will the governing body stand\nto the congregation on the one side and the bishop on the other?\u201d The\nthrowing open the benefices to what is sure to be stigmatized as _open\ncompetition_ will be distasteful to some, but will result in changes\nwhich I am convinced will be, on the whole, of immense benefit to\nclergy and people, and especially they will tend towards the promotion\nof the best men to the most valuable cures. Yet here too, when we come\nto details, it will be necessary to open our eyes to some difficulties,\nfrom which, however, we need not shrink, nor will they, I believe, be\nfound so insuperable as may be imagined.\n\nThe training, too, of the younger clergy during their term of\n_apprenticeship_, if I may use the expression, and the general\nsupervision and periodical inspection of the benefices which has\nnow become the emptiest of forms, will assuredly be called for by\nall who desire a coherent scheme for the readjustment of matters\necclesiastical. It is hardly to be expected that we should be allowed\nto go on much longer in the rambling way we do.\n\nIf it were only the supremacy of this or that form of doctrine or\nworship, however dear to us, however sacred, that was at stake, I for\none would not willingly embark in the conflict that is before us, or\nstep out from the limits of the humble sphere in which I find myself.\nI would hold my peace except among my people, and try my best to till\nthe little plot in the heritage of God which His good providence has\nassigned to me for my daily work. But there is much more at stake\nthan any merely sectarian view of the case would have us believe. It\nis no mere fight between religious factions and sects and creeds. The\nquestion now is whether or not that machinery whereby the schooling\nof our moral sentiments has been carried on for ages shall be cast\nfrom us as a thing of nought, while we surrender ourselves to the\nprivate-venture teachers to provide a new machinery by-and-by. Are we\nto have no functionaries whose remonstrances any one need attend to? Is\nthere to be no voice speaking with the semblance of authority, bidding\nthe people do the right and avoid the evil? Is there to be no national\nworship, no national religion, and of course no national creed? How\nlong can Christian ethics be supposed to last?\n\nFor ages the vessel of the State has gone on its way riding through a\nthousand storms, and buffeted by a million billows; its rudder has been\nat times unskilfully handled; at times the course has been set with\nevil consequences; at times the steersmen have been rash or blind. But\nshall we now, in an outbreak of passion or panic, unship that rudder\nand cut ourselves adrift, with never a helm to trust to, in the open\nsea?\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n_QUIS CUSTODIET?_\n\n\nThere are very few Societies started in our time which have done so\nmuch with such slender resources and with so very little adventitious\naid as the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.\n\nIt was only the other day, so to speak, that a handful of men, whose\nhearts were in the right place, banded themselves together to raise the\nvoice of warning against a fashion which had become a rage, and which\nwas threatening to make a clean sweep of all that was most venerable,\nmost precious, most unapproachably inimitable in the architectural\nremains of our country.\n\nUndeterred by the clamour of incompetent impostors, undismayed by the\nridicule of people of importance, undiscouraged by the difficulties\nwhich must be expected by all gallant crusaders, the little band went\nforth--a real Salvation Army without drums and without any flourish of\ntrumpets--to save what remained from the devastation that had been\ngoing on, not despising the day of small things. They were an audacious\nband; they proclaimed that the taste and the sentiment of the world had\ngot into an utterly vicious groove--that the taste and the sentiment\nof the world needed to be corrected, set aright--educated in fact--and\nthat they were going to educate it whether the world liked being\neducated or not.\n\nAstonishing presumption! \u201cWho are ye?\u201d said the perplexed world,--\u201cwho\nare ye; the apostles of a new toryism, ye that preach the keeping up\nof the old, which time and tide, the storms and the elements, have\npronounced to be moribund? Who are ye that would watch over the homes\nof the bats and the owls in this our age of advance, with the works of\nthe men of mind rising up to heaven to rebuke you? Ruin-mongers that\nye be, prating about the loveliness of mild decay, while we live in\nthe days of carving by machinery, and ashlar smoothed to the likeness\nof the loveliest stucco by the help of the modern stone plough, and\nwindows that no age ever saw the like of till now, and the smuggest of\npulpits and the slipperiest of tiles, and the tallest of walls built\nof, if not daubed with, the most untempered of mortar? Who are ye? Are\nye to be your brothers\u2019 keepers?\u201d\n\nWell! all this was very terrible, especially that last thrust! But\neven that last thrust seemed to read very like a leaf from the book of\nthe first murderer; seemed, too, as if some modern confederates of Cain\nwere afflicted with that same irritable temperament, that same jealousy\nof being called to account for their misdeeds, which would even go the\nlength of justifying the slaughter of Abel if it should be made to\nappear that the dead could not be restored to life again.\n\nBut the new Reformers, whatever they may have thought, were content to\nhold their peace. They went peeping and prying about and protesting;\nthey exposed the gross ignorance of an adventurer here; they issued a\nserious warning to a well-meaning gentleman there; they did as other\napostles have done before now--they were instant in season and out of\nseason; they reproved, rebuked, exhorted; and almost before they knew\nwhere they were, they discovered that they had many more supporters\nthan at first they had suspected, that the world had been waiting for\nthem this long time back, and that they had started upon their mission\nnot a day too soon.\n\nAs soon as people begin to succeed in any mission, they are pretty\nsure to get into bad odour by the excesses of their more impassioned\nsupporters. Then follow disclaimers, explanations, recriminations,\nand they are comforted by the reminder that \u201cwhen fools fall out wise\nmen get their due.\u201d When this point has been reached, the other side\nbegins to take heart, and mis-statement is apt to be accepted as the\nexplanation of over-statement, just as now it is beginning to be\nbelieved that _Antirestoration_ is a full and sufficient summing up of\nwhat is meant by the word _Protection_, and that doing nothing is all\nthat this Society aims at.\n\nIf there are some crazy fanatics who have injured the cause which they\nhave at heart by advocating in a furious way that all we have to do\nwith an ancient building is to let it alone, and leave it to fall down,\nrather than do anything to preserve it, I for one hereby declare that\nI hold such fanatics to be heathen men and heretics of the worst kind.\nI look upon such people much as I look upon those peculiar people who\ndenounce the whole medical profession as interferers with the laws of\nProvidence, and who forbid the members of their sect from ever setting\na broken bone or taking a prescription when sickness or infirmity\nhas attacked them. To talk of letting an ancient building take its\nchance, and doing nothing to prolong its life, is to my mind to talk\npestiferous nonsense with which I have no manner of sympathy. But\nunhappily there has been another view which has been put forward in a\nvery specious and ingenious and captivating manner by another set of\npeople, and which unhappily has met with immense favour at the hands of\nthe moneyed public, and which seems to me to find its exact parallel\nin the proposal of a certain unfortunate lady who suffered martyrdom\nfor her faith, or at any rate her profession, some years ago. That\npoor lady proclaimed to the world that she was so profoundly versed in\nall the virtues of certain mysterious herbs and salves and potions and\nmixtures, that she was prepared to guarantee the perfect restoration of\nyouth and loveliness to the most aged and most battered of her sex; in\nfact, she asserted that she had discovered the grand secret of making\nthem \u201cbeautiful for ever.\u201d She was, I take it, the high priestess and\nprophetess of _restoration_.\n\nNow between the criminal and indolent neglect of those who would sit\ndown with folded hands and never stretch out a finger to avert the\ndeath of the stricken, and the pretentious puffery of quacks who assure\nus that they have discovered the secret of rejuvenescence, there is a\nwhole world of difference, and between the stupid do-nothingism of the\none and the rash do-everythingism of the other there is--there must\nbe--a middle course. This is what we have to complain of, that when\nwell-meaning people have set themselves to \u201crestore\u201d a church (for I\nshall keep myself to that branch of the subject for the present), some\nof us have found the greatest difficulty in learning _what_ they were\ngoing to restore.\n\nWhen these good and well-meaning people take it into their heads that\nan ancient ecclesiastical building is to be replaced by a modern\nstructure in which \u201call the characteristic features of the original\nare to be reproduced and for the most part retained,\u201d we ask ourselves\nwith wide-open eyes of amazement and perplexity what is going to be\nreproduced? There is a sumptuous Norman doorway, there are abundant\nindications of the existences of a Norman church having existed on\nthis spot--there are clear proofs that the Norman pillars have been\nrecklessly cut away here to make room for a splendid thirteenth-century\ntomb, that the north aisle is an addition raised up at the sacrifice of\nthe original north wall--that a chapel of no great artistic merit was\nadded at another time, that the pitch of the roof was altered when the\nclerestory was added, that the chancel was rebuilt, flimsily, faultily,\nfantastically, just before the final rupture with Rome,--and yet that\nthe remains of the superb sedilia which the seventeenth-century mob\nsmashed to pieces were evidently removed from the earlier chancel\nby the fifteenth-century architects. There are signs, in fact, of\nthe church never having been left undisturbed--that from generation\nto generation the rude forefathers of the hamlet were always doing\nsomething to their church, taking a pride in adding to or altering\nit, according to their notions. They never thought of _reproducing_\nanything, but rightly or wrongly they were always aiming at _improving_\neverything. You are going to restore, are you? _What_ are you going\nto restore? The Norman, the Early English, the Decorated, or the\nPerpendicular church? What are the characteristic features of the\noriginal? What is your notion of the original which you pretend to\nbe about to restore? The problem that presents itself becomes more\ndifficult, more complex, the longer you look at it--the problem,\nnamely, _what_ you are going to restore.\n\nIf my dear old grandmother should wish to be made \u201cbeautiful for\never\u201d--_i.e._ to be restored--what condition of former loveliness\nshall we call back? There are some who paid homage to her beauty at\neighteen, some who loved her at thirty, and some who almost adored her\nat threescore years and ten. Look at her portraits! Which shall we\ntake? Nay! I love her as she is, say I, with the smile that plays about\nher venerable lips and the soft light in the gentle eyes. I love every\nfurrow on her broad brow and would not have the thin grey hairs turned\nto masses of auburn. I would keep her for ever if I might, but I would\nno more dream of restoring her to what she was before I was born than I\nwould replace her by something that she is not and never was.\n\nNow up and down this land of England there are, say, 5,000 churches\nthat at this moment stand upon the same foundations that they stood\nupon 500 years ago, some few of them standing in the main as they were\nleft eight centuries ago. If for 5,000 any one should suggest not\n5,000, but 10,000, I should find no fault with the correction.\n\nIf we could go back in imagination to the condition of these churches\nas they were left when the Reformation began, it may safely be affirmed\nthat there was not at that time, there never had been, and there is\nnever likely to be again, anything in the world that could at all\ncompare with our English churches. There never has been an area of\nanything like equal extent so immeasurably rich in works of art such\nas were then to be found within the four seas. The prodigious and\nincalculable wealth stored up in the churches of this country in the\nshape of sculpture, glass, needlework, sepulchral monuments in marble,\nalabaster, and metal--the jewelled shrines, the precious MSS. and their\nbindings, the frescoes and carved work, the vestments and exquisite\nvessels in silver and gold, and all the quaint and dainty and splendid\nproductions of an exuberant artistic appetite and an artistic passion\nfor display which were to be found not only in the great religious\nhouses, but dispersed about more or less in every parish church in\nEngland, constituted such an enormous aggregate of precious forms of\nbeauty as fairly baffles the imagination when we attempt to conceive\nit. There are the lists of the _church goods_--_i.e._ of the contents\nof churches--by the thousand, not only in the sixteenth century but in\nthe fourteenth: there they are for any one to read; and, considering\nthe smallness of the area and the poverty of the people, I say again\nthat the history of the world has nothing to show which can for one\nmoment be compared with our English churches as they were to be found\nwhen the spoilers were let loose upon them.[5] Well! We all know that\na clean sweep was made of the _contents_ of those churches. The locusts\ndevoured all. But the _fabrics_ remained--the fabrics have remained\ndown to our own time--they are as it were the glorious framework of the\nreligious life of the past. There is no need for me to dwell upon the\nclaim which these survivals of a frightful conflagration have upon us\nfor safe custody. I presume we all acknowledge that claim, and the only\nquestion is how best to exhibit our loyalty. But when we have got so\nfar we are suddenly met by a wholly unexpected and anomalous difficulty\nbefore we can make a single step in advance.\n\nNow I am free to confess that hardly a day of my life passes in which\nI am not oppressed by the conviction that there are few men of my\nage within the four seas who are as deplorably ignorant of things in\ngeneral as I feel myself to be;--but there is one branch of ignorance,\nif I may use the expression, which I am convinced that the enormous\nmajority of my most gifted acquaintances are sharing with myself--I\nreally do not know to whom these thousands of churches belong.\n\nThere was a time when the church belonged to the parish as a sort of\ncorporation, and when by virtue of their proprietary right in their\nchurch the parishioners were bound to keep the fabric in tenantable\nrepair. But when that obligation was removed by the abolition of Church\nrates (so far as I can understand the matter), the church practically\nceased to belong to any one. Tell the most devoted church people in my\nparish that because they are church people therefore they are bound to\nkeep the fabric in repair, and they would to a man become conscientious\nnonconformists in twenty-four hours. Tell my most conscientious\nnonconformists that next Monday there is to be a meeting in the vestry\nand an opportunity of badgering the parson, and not a man of them but\nwould claim his right to be there:--because, under circumstances which\nare favourable to his own interests and inclinations, every inhabitant\nof a certain geographical area protests that he is a shareholder in his\nparish church. It is true that on a memorable occasion I was presented\nwith the key of my church, and was directed to lock myself in and ring\nthe bell, and then was solemnly informed that I had taken possession\nof my freehold. I daresay it was quite true, only I am quite certain\nnobody did believe it at the time and nobody does believe it now. From\nthat day to this I never have been able to understand to whom my church\ndoes belong.\n\nNow as long as it is only a question of letting things drift the\nquestion of ownership never troubles anybody. I am in the habit of\ntelling my people that if the Church of our parish were to be swallowed\nup by an earthquake some fine morning, there would be only one man who\nwould be a gainer by the catastrophe, and that man would be the rector.\nFor his benefice would at once become a sinecure, and there would be\nnothing to prevent his removing to the metropolis and living there\nduring some months of the year, and living in the Riviera during the\nother months, and leaving his people to shift for themselves--nothing\nto prevent this except those trifling considerations of duty and\nconscience which of course need not be taken into account. But when\nit comes to a question of _preventing_ the church from tumbling down,\nor when it comes to a question of pulling it about--when it comes to\n_restoring_ it--then practically the ownership is surrendered to the\nparson in the frankest and the freest and the most generous way by the\nwhole body of the parishioners. Then the parson is allowed to be the\nonly responsible owner of the fabric. It is remembered that he rang the\nbell when he came into his freehold: therefore it must be his; and if\nhe does not take the whole burden of collecting the money and seeing\nthe work through and making himself personally responsible for the\ncost, in nine cases out of ten it will not be done at all.\n\nNow I am not the man to speak with disrespect of my brethren of the\nclergy. I do not believe that in any country or in any age there was\never a body of men so heartily and loyally trying to do their duty, and\nso generously sacrificing themselves to what they believe to be their\nduty, as the clergy of the Church of England are at this moment. But,\nwhether it is their misfortune or their fault--and we are none of us\nfaultless, not even the parsons--I am bound to express my belief that\nninety-nine out of every hundred of the clergy of the Church of England\nknow no more about the technical history of their churches than they\nknow about law--in fact, as a body, the clergy know as little about the\nhistory of Church Architecture as lawyers know about Theology, and I\ncould not put the case more strongly than that.\n\nUnhappily, however, the parallel between the amiable weakness of the\ntwo professions and their relative attitude towards the two sciences\nin which each of them delights to dabble may be carried out only too\nclosely. For it is painfully observable in both cases that the members\nof the two professions are profoundly convinced--the lawyers that a\nknowledge of theology, the divines that a knowledge of architecture,\ncomes to them severally by a kind of legal or clerical instinct. If a\nlawyer chooses to plunge into scientific theology, and to write a book\non the two Decalogues, or give us his _obiter dicta_ on the errors of\nthe Greek Church, though nobody is much the wiser nobody is much the\nworse, except the man who reads the pamphlet or the volume. But when it\nhas been decided that a church requires a thorough overhauling, then\nthe resigning the absolute control over and disposal of the sacred\nbuilding to the parson to be dealt with as he in his wisdom or his\nignorance may judge to be best becomes a very much more serious matter.\n\nIt would be easy to look at that matter from the ludicrous point of\nview, but it is a great deal too serious for handling as though it\nwere anything to laugh at. Unhappily, we most of us know a great deal\ntoo much about it. The parson in some cases jauntily determines to be\nhis own architect, and the village bricklayer highly approves of his\ndecision, and assures him in strict confidence that architects are a\npack of thieves, just as, in fact, jockeys are. The builder begins to\n\u201cclear away,\u201d then the parson gets frightened. Then he thinks he\u2019d\nbetter have an architect--\u201conly a consulting architect you know!\u201d Then\nthe bricklayer recommends his nephew brought up at the board school who\nhas \u201cdone a deal of measurement and that like,\u201d and then.... No! no! we\nreally cannot follow it out to the bitter end. But in many cases where\nthe good man, distrusting his own power, does call in the help of one\nsupposed to be an expert, the process and the result are hardly less\ndeplorable. There is nothing to prevent the most ignorant pretender\nfrom starting as an architect to-morrow morning; nothing to prevent\nhis touting up and down the country for orders, though he is no more\nqualified to advise and report upon an ancient building than he is to\nconstruct the Channel tunnel. And we all know this very significant\nfact, that there never was a church that ever was reported upon by\none of these solemn and aspiring young gentlemen without antecedents\nand without any misgivings, which was not at once pronounced to be in\na most dangerous condition from weathercock to pavement. The roof is\nalways in a most hopeless condition, the walls are frightfully out of\nthe perpendicular and have been so for many generations, the bells\njiggle alarmingly in their frames, the jackdaws have been pecking\naway at the mortar of the tower, fifty rectors lie buried in the\nchancel, and a hole was dug for every one of them, and all these holes\nimperatively demand to be filled up with concrete. But mercifully, most\nmercifully and providentially, a professional gentleman has been called\nin at the critical moment, exactly in the very nick of time, and now\nthe dear old church may be saved, saved for our children\u2019s children by\nbeing promptly restored. Thereupon the worthy parson--he, too, glad of\na job--sets to work and the thing is done.\n\nBut _what_ is done? The men that started this Society, this union for\nthe protection of the noble structures that are a proud inheritance\ncome down to us from our ancestors, they answered with an indignant\nprotest: \u201cAn immense and irreparable wrong is done, and the state\nof things which makes it perfectly easy for a wrong like this to be\nrepeated every week is a shameful national scandal, which we will\nnot cease from lifting up our voices against till some means shall\nhave been devised for preventing the periodical recurrence of these\nabominable mutilations, these cruel obliterations, these fraudulent\nsubstitutions up and down the land of new lamps for old ones.\u201d\n\nAt starting this was all that our pioneers ventured to proclaim. I\nhave often heard people object, \u201cThese gentlemen are so vague, they\ndon\u2019t know what they would be at!\u201d Now, I know that with some folk it\nis quite sufficient to condemn any men or any opinions to pronounce\nthem _vague_. Why! Since the beginning of the world no great forward\nmovement, no great social religious or political reform, has ever\nachieved its object and gone on its victorious course conquering and to\nconquer which did not pass through its early stage of vagueness--that\nstage when the leaders were profoundly conscious of the existence of\nan evil or an injustice or a falsehood which needed to be swept away,\nthough they did not yet see what the proper manner of setting to work\nwas, or where the broom was to be found to do the sweeping with.\n\nOh ye merciful heavens! save us from cut-and-dried schemes, at least at\nstarting! All honour to the men, say I, who did not pledge us all to\na scheme, to a paper constitution, but who had the courage to say no\nmore than this: \u201cHere in the body politic there is a horrible mischief\nat work; the symptoms are very bad, very alarming. Do let us see if\nsome remedy cannot be found. Do help us to see our way out of our\nperplexity.\u201d\n\nEleven years have now gone by since the Society for the Protection of\nAncient Buildings was founded, and I venture to think that the time\nhas come when we must pass out of this stage whose characteristic is\nsaid to be vagueness of statement and uncertainty in the plan of\noperations, and when it behoves some one to speak out and propose\nthat we should take a step in advance. I have no right to compromise\nmy betters by pledging them to any crude proposition, or any course\nwhich may seem to myself to be the right one. But, as a mere private\nperson, I hereby declare it to be my strong opinion that no time ought\nto be lost in settling the very important question to whom the churches\nof England do belong, and who have the right of defacing, degrading,\ndebasing the temples of God in the land, turning them into blotchy\ncaricatures, or into lying mummies smalmed over with tawdry pigments,\nlike the ghastly thing in Mr. Long\u2019s picture in the Academy this year,\nwith an effeminate young pretender in the foreground making a languid\noration over the disguised remains of the dead.\n\nThere are some things (and they are the most precious of all things)\nwhich no man has any moral right to treat as his own. They are the\nthings which came to us from an immemorial past, and which belong to\nour children\u2019s children as much as to ourselves. In the county of\nNorfolk we have one aged oak that has stood where it stands now for at\nleast a thousand years. Under its shadow twenty generations of a noble\nrace have passed their childhood and early youth, left it with a fond\nregret when the call came to them to engage in the battle of life, and\nreturned at last to find it still there, hale and vigorous as it was\ncenturies before the earliest of their ancestors settled in the land\nwhere its mighty roots are anchored. The story of that race is full of\nromance not untinged by pathos. If that oak were a talking oak, what\nmoving tales it could tell! If \u2019Arry \u2019Opkins of \u2019Ounslow should cast\nhis fishy eyes upon that monster vegetable, his first impulse would be\nto carve upon its gnarled bark his own hideous name or at least those\ntwo unhappy initials which he cannot pronounce. His next would be to\nsuggest that the tree should be trimmed up--restored in fact. I should\nnot like to be the man to make that proposition. And why? Because I\nthink the noble gentleman who calls that oak his heirloom looks upon it\nas a sacred trust which he holds from his forefathers, and holds for\nhis posterity too--a trust which it would be dishonour to neglect, to\nmutilate, or to destroy.\n\nBut within a pistol-shot of that venerable and magnificent tree stands\nthe little village church. There lie the bones of twenty generations of\nDe Greys; there they were baptized, wedded, buried. There they knelt\nin worship, lifted up their voices in prayer and praise; from father\nto son they bowed their heads at the altar, gazed at the effigies of\ntheir ancestors--sometimes bitterly lamenting that the times were\nevil and poverty had come upon them, sometimes silently resolving that\nthey would carve out for themselves a career--sometimes returning to\nthank God who had enabled them so fully to perform their vow--sometimes\nglad at the sound of their own marriage bells, sometimes sad when the\ntolling of those bells announced that another generation had passed\naway. There stands that little church. The old Norman tower was\nstanding as it stands to-day when, at the beginning of the fourteenth\ncentury, the first De Grey came to Merton; and I have not a doubt that\nif a self-styled professional gentleman, young enough and presumptuous\nenough and ignorant enough, were to appear upon the scene, he would\nsolemnly and emphatically advise that Merton Church should at the\nearliest possible moment be restored. The horrible thought is that\nunder quite conceivable circumstances the thing might be done with very\nlittle difficulty and before you knew where you were.\n\nThink of the feelings of that old oak then!\n\nI know I shall be told that a tree is one thing and a church is\nanother, that the one you cannot restore but you can restore the other.\nYou can restore neither; you can murder both if you are a heartless\nassassin. Was it in the 1851 Exhibition that they built up the bark of\na giant of the Californian forests and told us it was a restoration of\na wonder of the world that had reared up its lofty top to heaven even\nfrom the days of the Pharaohs? A restoration! Nay! a colossal fraud.\nBut such a fraud as is perpetrated in our midst every month, and which,\nwhen men have committed, they are actually proud of.\n\nI am often asked, When was this or that church built? And my answer\nis ready at hand. It was not built at all! It grew! For every church\nin the land that has a real history is a living organism. Do you tell\nme that yonder doorway is of the twelfth century; that yonder tower\nmay have stood where it does when the Conqueror came to sweep away\n\u201cpot-bellied Saxondom;\u201d that the chancel was rebuilt in the time of\nthe Edwards--the rood screen crowded into a place never meant for\nit during the Wars of the Roses, the pulpit supplied by a village\ncarpenter in the sixteenth century, the carvings of the roof destroyed\nin the seventeenth, the royal arms supplied in the eighteenth, and\ntherefore that nothing but a clean sweep is to be made of it all, as\na preliminary to building it all up from the ground in the nineteenth\ncentury? Do you call that restoration? You assure me that you will\nfaithfully and religiously copy the old. Why that is exactly what you\ncan\u2019t do! You can\u2019t copy the marks of the axe on early Norman masonry.\nYou can\u2019t copy Roman brickwork; you daren\u2019t copy Saxon windows that\nlet the light in through oiled canvas in the days when sacredness, and\nmystery, and a holy fear were somehow associated with the presence of\ndimness and darkness and gloom. You can\u2019t restore ancient glass: the\nvery secret of its transcendent glories lies in the imperfection of\nthe material employed. Nay, you can\u2019t even copy a thirteenth-century\nmoulding or capital: you can\u2019t reproduce the carvings you are going\nto remove--you have no eye for the delicate and simple curves: your\nchisels are so highly tempered that they are your masters, not your\nservants: they run away with you when you set to work and insist on\nturning out sharply cut cusps, all of the same size, all of them\nsmitten with the blight of sameness, all of them straddling, shallow,\nsprawling, vulgar, meaningless; melancholy witnesses against you that\nyou have lost touch with the living past. You can make the loveliest\ndrawings of all that is left, but the craftsmen are gone. There\u2019s where\nyou fail; you say this and that ought to be done, and this or that\nis what I mean; but when you expect your ideas carried out then you\nutterly fail.\n\nI know it is often said that the men of bygone times--say of the\nfifteenth century--were at least as great restorers as we are. If\nit were true, that would not excuse us. But is it true? Why, so far\nfrom it, it is exactly because the architects of the fourteenth\nand fifteenth centuries did _not_ aim at restoring that our modern\nvisionaries so often ask to be allowed to destroy their work and\nto reproduce what they destroyed. I am no great admirer of those\nperpendicular gentlemen, with their ugly flattened arches and their\nhuge gaping west windows and their trickery and their pretence and\ntheir insincere display, but they did know their own minds. They did\nretain some architectural traditions, and they had some architectural\ninstincts. But what have we to represent even their instincts? Have our\ncraftsmen anything in the shape of historic enthusiasm? or any sympathy\nwith the religious feeling or ritual of the past? Emphatically, No!\nHave they the old spirit of humility and reverence, of generous regard\nfor their masters, teachers, and pastors in religion or in art? Have\nwe among us the self-distrust which kept in check the hankering of\nour forefathers to alter or improve? Or have we only the fidgetty and\nutterly reckless impatience of belonging to the majority of dismal\nbeings, who never make a great hit and leave no monument behind them\nexcept of the things they destroyed?\n\nA few weeks ago I was engaged in examining the muniments of the Diocese\nof Ely, and I came upon an agreement drawn up in strictly legal form\nbetween the Prior of the convent of Ely on the one part and Thomas\nPeynton, master mason of Ely, on the other part--the convent agreeing\nto allow Peynton an annuity for life of twelve marks of lawful money of\nEngland--_i.e._ \u00a38 sterling--without board and lodging, and a suit of\nclothes such as gentlemen wore, he to do such masonry and stone-cutting\nas the Sacrist of the convent should lay upon him, and further to teach\nthree apprentices, to be nominated, fed, and boarded at the cost of the\nconvent, which in return was to benefit by all the profits of their\nlabour. If the convent should at any time send their master mason to\nwork at any of their outlying possessions, then and only then was the\ngood man to receive an allowance for his maintenance. If his health\nbroke down or he became incapacitated by old age, he was to receive a\npension of six marks a year, and his clothes, but nothing more. Who\nhas not stood before some of our cathedrals and found himself asking,\n\u201cHow was this temple piled up to heaven? How could men build it in\nthose rude old times.\u201d How? Because in those rude old times, as we are\npleased to call them, there were men like simple old Thomas Peynton\nof Ely, who, having food and raiment, were therewith content; men who\nlived for the joy and glory of their work and did not regard their art\nas a means of livelihood, so much as an end to live for; men _who_ were\nso stupid, so far astray, that to sacrifice the joy of living for a\nmountain of coin seemed to them _propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_.\n\nYou will be able to restore the churches which these men built when you\ncan revive among the humblest workmen the spirit which animated the\nbenighted, deluded, Quixotic enthusiasts of the days gone by, and not\ntill then.\n\nMeanwhile, we do know how to build better houses to live\nin--immeasurably grander hotels, magnificent clubhouses, and sumptuous\nrestaurants. Our bridges and our railway stations, our barracks and our\nshops, are structures of which we have a right to be proud; but as for\nour churches, let us be humble, let us forbear from meddling with what\nwe do not understand. Let us pause before we set ourselves to restore,\nlet us be thankful if we are permitted to preserve.\n\nBut preserve? How are we going to begin? As a preliminary, as a _sine\nqu\u00e2 non_, what is wanted is to stop all unlicensed meddling with all\nancient buildings throughout the land. This can only be done by making\nit quite plain to whom those buildings belong. The ownership of the\nHouses of God must no longer be left, as it is, an open question. It is\nabsolutely necessary that the present anomalous condition of affairs\nshould be got rid of, and without delay, and I see only one way out of\nthe difficulty. The old churches are a heritage belonging to the nation\nat large, and now, more than ever before, it is true that the public at\nlarge have a claim to be heard before these venerable monuments of past\nmagnificence should be dealt with as if they were the private property\nof individuals, or of a handful of worthy people inhabiting a minute\ngeographical area. There are cases not a few where the whole population\nof a parish could be completely accommodated in a single aisle of\nthe village church. In one case that I forbear from naming lest some\nincompetent and restless aspirant for notoriety should fly upon the\nspoil and tear it limb from limb--one case of a certain parish where\nthe population is under 200 all told--where there still exists one of\nthe most magnificent churches in England, capable of accommodating\nat least 1,200 worshippers on the floor, and that church untouched\nby profane hands for centuries, its very vastness has frightened the\nmost audacious adventurers, and it still stands in its majesty as the\nwonder and pride of the county in which it is situated.\n\nTo restore it according to the notions only too much in vogue would\nabsorb a considerable fortune; to preserve it for future generations,\nunmutilated, undefaced, and in a condition to defy the elements for\ncenturies, would require a few hundreds; and yet it would probably be\neasier to find a Cr\u0153sus who to gratify his own vanity or whim would\nbe ready to lavish thousands upon that glorious structure and turn it\ninto a gaudy exhibition for nineteenth-century sightseers to come and\nstare at; easier to find that than to find the hundreds for putting\nthe church into substantial repair. Yet I for one am inclined to think\nthat to do the last is a duty, to do the first would probably end in\ncommitting an outrage. When we contemplate such churches as this (and\nit is by no means a solitary instance), what forces itself upon some of\nus is that they need first and foremost to be protected before we begin\nto speak even of repairing them. We talk with pride of our National\nChurch. Is it not time that we should begin to talk of our _National\nChurches_, and time to ask ourselves whether the ecclesiastical\nbuildings of this country should not be vested in some body of trustees\nor guardians or commissioners who should be responsible at least for\ntheir preservation? Is it not time that we should all be protected\nfrom the random experiments of \u2019prentice hands and the rioting of\narchitectural buffoonery?\n\nAll honour to the generous enthusiasm which has urged so many\nlarge-hearted men and women in our time to make sacrifices of their\nsubstance, not only ungrudgingly but joyfully and thankfully, to make\nthe Houses of God in the land incomparably more splendid and attractive\nthan they were. But even enthusiasm, the purest and noblest and\nloftiest enthusiasm, if misdirected and uninstructed, has often proved,\nand will prove again, a very dangerous passion. Before now there have\nbeen violent outbreaks of enthusiastic iconoclasm when the frenzy of\ndestroyers has been in the ascendant and when those who would fain\npreserve the monuments of the past have been persecuted to the death.\nIs there enthusiasm abroad--enthusiasm to strengthen the things which\nremain that are ready to die? By all means let it have scope; give it\nopportunity of action; let it have vent, but beware how you allow it to\nburst forth into wild excesses; let it be at least kept under control.\nBuild your new churches as sumptuously as you please. Ours is the age\nof brick and iron, of mechanical contrivances, of comfort and warmth\nand light. Put all these into your new temples as lavishly as you\nwill, and then peradventure the Church architecture of our own time may\ntake a new departure; but for the old Houses of God in the land, aim at\npreserving them and do not aim at more!\n\nLet it be enacted that, whosoever he may be, parson or clerk, warden\nor sidesman, architect or bricklayer, man or woman, who shall be\nconvicted of driving a nail into a rood-screen or removing a sepulchral\nslab, of digging up the bones of the dead to make a hole for a heating\napparatus, bricking up an ancient doorway or hacking out an aperture\nfor a new organ or scraping off the ancient plaster from walls that\nwere plastered five hundred years ago--any one, I say, who shall do any\nof these acts, even with the very best motives, if he have committed\nsuch an offence without the license of a duly constituted authority,\nshall be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanour and sent to prison without\nthe option of paying a fine. Would you do less in the case of a student\nat the National Gallery who should presume to restore Gainsborough\u2019s\n\u201cParish Clerk\u201d or Francia\u2019s \u201cEntombment\u201d?\n\nHaving made unlicensed meddling with our churches penal, the next thing\nto be done is to carry out a survey of our churches, and to obtain an\nexhaustive report upon the condition of all the ancient ecclesiastical\nbuildings in the country which up to this moment have escaped the\nravages of the prevailing epidemic. I am afraid the list of such\nfavoured edifices would stagger and horrify us all by its smallness.\n\nThe report to be drawn up and published of such a survey as I have\nventured to propose would set out to the world an authoritative\npresentment of the actual condition of each church visited, drawn\nup by duly qualified and certificated professional men according to\ninstructions laid down for them. The reports should include accurate\nground-plans made according to one uniform scale, elaborate copies of\nmouldings, window-tracery, doorways, capitals, roofs--not merely pretty\nlittle sketches suitable for the readers of the _Graphic_, but working\ndrawings, the results of careful measurement; and to this should be\nadded lists of monumental brasses, fonts, remains of mural paintings\nor ancient glass, a complete register, in fact, of whatever remains\nthe churches contained of ancient work in wood or stone or metal at\nthe time the building was examined and reported on. Of course I shall\nbe met by the objection that the expense of such a survey would be\nenormous, and that any such scheme is therefore for that one reason\nimpracticable. I am not prepared to go into the estimates. But of this\nI feel very certain, that, so far from the cost of such a survey and\nsuch a publication of reports as those contemplated deserving to be\ncalled enormous, it would be much more truly described as insignificant.\n\nThe great bulk of the ancient churches which have not been violently\ntampered with during the last thirty years or so belong to two classes:\nthe very small ones, which have seemed not worth meddling with, and\nthe very large ones which have frightened even the restorers. The cost\nof drawing up reports upon the small churches would be very trifling\nand would bring down the average expense considerably, and as to the\ntime required for carrying out such a survey, it need not, I believe,\noccupy more than three years, though I dare say it might profitably be\nspread over five. As to any other difficulty standing in the way, it\nis ridiculous to suggest it. A preliminary survey of all the churches\nin England was actually begun under the sanction of the Arch\u00e6ological\nInstitute thirty years ago, and a brief report upon the condition of\nevery church in seven counties was published, and may be purchased\nnow for a song. Each church was personally visited by some competent\nantiquary or architect, and a slight but instructive notice of every\nedifice was supplied. The survey of the county of Suffolk alone dealt\nwith no less than 541 ecclesiastical buildings of one sort or another.\nWill it be said that what was so effectively carried out on a small\nscale by private enterprise thirty years ago could not be done on a\nlarge scale now, or that there is less need to do it now than there was\nin the past generation?\n\nAnd consider the collateral advantages that would ensue. Consider\nthe immense gain of keeping a band of young architects out of\nmischief for five years; of inducing them during that time to confine\nthemselves to the severe study of an important branch of their art; of\ncompelling them to become acquainted with the history of its growth and\ndevelopment, and familiarizing them with the minutest detail of Gothic\narchitecture, not in books but _in situ_; and above all of giving them\na direct interest in keeping up and preserving some hundreds of ancient\nbuildings which, as things are now, they have actually a pecuniary\ninterest in tempting people to pull down.\n\nBut, desirable as it would be--nay, necessary though it be--that some\nsuch undertaking as this should be carried through, the other question\nmust come first. Again and again we find ourselves driven back upon\nthat when we attempt to stem the current of vandalism that may happen\nto be setting in this direction or in that. The ownership of our\necclesiastical edifices must be placed upon a different footing from\nthat which we have acquiesced in too long. Sooner or later this must\ncome; the sooner it comes the better for the interests we have at heart.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt this point prudence suggests that I should pause. The time has not\ncome for putting forward more than an outline of a proposal which\nis sure to be denounced as revolutionary. It will be a great point\ngained if we can find acceptance for the principle advocated. We all\ndo dearly love our own old ways of looking at things; we all do cling\ntenaciously to the prejudices which we inherited or which were stamped\nupon our minds in the nursery; we all do honestly detest being worried\ninto changes which interfere with our habits of thought and action and\ncompel us to enter upon some new course. Yet if it be once brought\nhome to us that a great national heritage is being rapidly sacrificed,\nallowed to perish, or, worse, being wantonly destroyed for lack of\nthat small measure of protection which life and property have a right\nto expect in every civilized community, I believe that the sense of\na common danger will unite men in a generous forgetfulness of their\nfavourite maxims and a shame at their own supineness, and awaken them\nto see the necessity for concerted action; and then the thing that\nneeds doing will be done.\n\nThere was a time in our history when the cry of \u201cthe Church in danger\u201d\nprovoked a strange frenzy among the people. The panic did not last very\nlong, and not much came of it. But if another cry should be raised by\ngentle and simple and men of all creeds and parties, the cry of \u201cthe\nchurches in danger!\u201d I do not think little or nothing would come of\n_that_. That would be not the mere expression of a passing sentiment,\nbut it would be a call to action; and when that cry does come to be\nraised, the public at large will not be satisfied with anything less\nthan drastic measures, because the nation will have been roused to a\nconsciousness of the value of their heritage; and when a great people\nbegins to assert itself, it is not often that it is content with\ndemanding only what it is morally justified in claiming.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNOTE.\n\nThe following appeared in _The Pall Mall Gazette_ of August 15, 1889.\nIf a more dreadful comment upon the above essay can be produced, I have\nnot yet met with it:--\n\n  DISESTABLISHMENT BY DEMOLITION.\n\n  Mr. Thackeray Turner, the secretary of the Society for the\n  Protection of Ancient Buildings, requests us to publish the\n  following appeal for an ancient church which is in imminent danger\n  of destruction:--\n\n  The parish of Sotterley, in the county of Suffolk, lies about\n  five miles from the town of Beccles, and is one of those _close_\n  parishes which they who live in the _opens_ are wont to look upon\n  with a suspicion of envy. It is the property of a single owner;\n  not a field or meadow, not a yard of ground by the roadside, not\n  a stake in the hedgerow, not a brick or a gate is to be seen in\n  Sotterley that is not part and parcel of the possessions of the\n  squire and lord of the manor. The estate was for some 400 years\n  held by a family named Playters, which was counted among the great\n  Suffolk houses, and which came to grief at last, partly by taking\n  the wrong side in the troublesome times, and partly by the profuse\n  hospitality which the overgrown size of Sotterley Hall tempted its\n  owners to indulge in. But for four centuries they lived here, and\n  here generation after generation they died and were laid in their\n  graves. In the little church which in life they loved, their bones\n  rest now, and there are their monuments in brass and marble. The\n  walls are studded with their effigies.\n\n  Moreover, these Playters--and indeed their predecessors the\n  Sotterleys--spent money and pains upon the sacred building. There\n  to this day stands the fourteenth-century screen in wonderfully\n  good preservation, four at least of the figures in its panels still\n  retaining a great deal of the old brilliancy of colour, though at\n  least 500 years have passed since they were first set up in the\n  position they now occupy. There, too, _in situ_ may be seen many of\n  the old oak benches with their handsome \u201cpoppy-heads,\u201d doubtless\n  carved by Sotterley craftsmen, and carved out of the oaks that were\n  growing in Sotterley wood before the Wars of the Roses had begun.\n  The same roof, which might be easily repaired at an insignificant\n  cost, covers the chancel which covered it before people had dreamed\n  of a Tudor king, the panels but little injured, and of the bosses\n  not one missing.\n\n  A man may visit fifty churches in East Anglia, and not meet with\n  one so entirely adapted to the needs of the small population who\n  delude themselves with the preposterous belief that they have a\n  right to worship there.\n\n  Moreover, Sotterley Church stands in a churchyard of unusually\n  large dimensions. It must cover at least an acre of ground, and\n  not half of this space shows the smallest sign of interments\n  having been made in it during the present century. But, unhappily,\n  Sotterley Church and churchyard lie in the middle of Sotterley\n  Park--not that it was always so, for the park has come to the\n  church, not the church to the park--and people will insist in going\n  to church, even farmers and farm labourers will, and worshipping\n  the Most High where their forefathers worshipped before them. The\n  Hall of the Playters was pulled down during the last century, and\n  the new hall--an ugly white-brick mansion of no pretension--was set\n  up much nearer to the ancient church; and when Sotterley people\n  died nothing could prevent their relatives from carrying their dead\n  to the old graveyard and laying them where they themselves hoped to\n  lie some day. But was not this a little too bad, to have a funeral\n  procession of tearful clodhoppers passing through your park gates\n  and under your very windows, asking no leave, but taking it in\n  quite a brutal fashion?\n\n  Therefore, about ten years ago, a vestry meeting, or something\n  of the sort, was held in Sotterley. The landlord\u2019s pleasure was\n  signified, certain formalities were gone through, the tenantry,\n  small and great, were told that it was desirable that Sotterley\n  churchyard should be closed, and, the legal document being duly\n  drawn up, an order was obtained from the Privy Council, and the\n  churchyard was closed accordingly. Outside the park gates, in a\n  place where four ways meet, a square patch of ground, scrubby\n  and soppy, has been fenced off by a mean and ill-kept hedge,\n  and in the middle of it stares rather than stands, a forbidding\n  protuberance, an octagonal construction of cheap Sotterley bricks,\n  covered with cheap Sotterley tiles, looking like a ginger beer\n  stall in a cricket ground where there is no play going on. This\n  thing is called a chapel, I believe, and here the Sotterley people\n  must needs bring their dead. Will they all be brought here? High\n  and low--rich and poor one with another? Well, to get rid of the\n  funerals passing through the park was one point scored; but it was\n  but a beginning. On Easter Monday last a meeting of the parish in\n  vestry assembled was held as usual in Sotterley church. I am told\n  that the parishioners, knowing what was coming, very discreetly\n  kept away, all except the unhappy parson, who was bound to be\n  there, the landlord and one, two, or three others, who, it is\n  suspected, were told to be there. Forthwith a resolution drawn up\n  beforehand was proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously--for the\n  parson had nothing to do but to \u201cput it to the meeting\u201d--to the\n  effect that it was desirable to pull down or shut up the church of\n  Sotterley, and build another somewhere else. I am told that this\n  resolution has been actually forwarded to the Bishop of Norwich and\n  that a faculty has been actually applied for to close or destroy\n  a church which has been standing in its present site for the best\n  part of a thousand years, and that it only remains for the Bishop\n  to give his assent to this iniquitous proposition, and one more\n  of those monstrous outrages will have become an accomplished fact\n  which we English submit to with just a little snarling after they\n  have been committed, and which we allow to be perpetrated under our\n  eyes without ever lifting a finger to prevent. Whether the Bishop\n  of Norwich is the man to connive at so shameful a job as this, and\n  to give his episcopal sanction to the proposed desecration, is a\n  question that is a humiliating one to ask, for is it less than\n  infamous that such things are so possible that we begin to inquire\n  about their probability?\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n_CATHEDRAL SPACE FOR NEGLECTED RECORDS._\n\n\nThe most delightful place of resort on the face of the globe is to be\nfound within a bow-shot of Temple Bar. Not on the south side of Fleet\nStreet, whatever enthusiastic gentlemen of the law may say, nor on\nthe west, nor on the east, for there too there is little to attract\nus except in the shop windows, and there is noise and turmoil and the\nroar of a restless multitude bewildering and disturbing us whether\nwe move or halt on our way. No! my happy valley lies to the north\nof the great thoroughfare; its courts and halls and corridors, its\nrestful solitudes, its mines of gold that are waiting to be worked, its\nstorehouses of precious things that are practically inexhaustible, all\nare to be found in a favoured region that lies between Chancery and\nFetter Lanes.\n\n\u201cRecord Office, Fetter Lane!\u201d I said to the driver of a Hansom some\nmonths ago. \u201cDo you mean _Chancery_ Lane, sir?\u201d asked the voice\nthrough the hole over my head. \u201cNo, I mean Fetter Lane.\u201d The man\nactually did not know the situation of the earthly Paradise.\n\n    Pone me pigris ubi nulla vicis\n    Arbor \u00e6stiva recreatur aura,\n\nI murmured to myself--I could not waste my Horace upon Cabby.\n\nI am in the habit of assuring my lowly congregation upon Sundays that\nfor all their talk about heaven they would find themselves very much\nout of place there without some previous preparation for that desirable\nabode. The same warning is equally true when applied to other blissful\nresting-places besides the celestial mansions. You must have a taste\nfor them; you must have qualified yourself to enjoy them and to mix\nwith the company you find there. Surely Valhalla could only have\nsuited the few. But this place of resort of which I am thinking is a\npleasure-house whose resources are actually limitless, however well\nyou may have learnt to use your opportunities. \u201cLife piled on life\nwere all too little\u201d to get even so much knowledge of this prodigious\nand enormous accumulation of treasures as to be able to answer with\ncertainty what may be found there and what not. For eight-and-forty\nyears there has appeared annually a _Report of the Deputy Keeper of\nthe Public Records_, presenting us with an elaborate summary of work\ncarried on by the functionaries employed in examining our national\narchives; and so far are we from getting to the end of the work of\nmen cataloguing and calendaring that it may reasonably be estimated\nanother fifty years will be required to complete this vast preliminary\nlabour; and when that time comes it will be necessary to begin again at\nsummarizing and supplying indices to the reports issued. What next will\nfollow it is difficult to conjecture or imagine.\n\nThe forty-eighth Report, issued in 1887, happens to be lying at my\nelbow as I write, and there, ready for consultation, I find a brief\ncalendar of the Patent Rolls of the seventh year of Edward the First,\ndrawn up by one of the many accomplished archivists of the Office.\nIt fills 216 closely printed pages. It summarizes at least 3,000\ndocuments, some of them of considerable length; they all belong to\na single class, and they are all concerned with the life of our\nforefathers--yours and mine, my estimable reader--during the single\nyear ending the 20th of November, 1279. Six centuries ago. Think of\nthat! Yet this collection is but one among thousands. The third Report,\nissued in 1842, first drew attention to the existence of a huge mass\nof ancient letters of the reigns of King John, Henry the Third, and\nEdward the First, the most modern of them, observe, coming down no\nnearer to our own time than the year 1307 A.D. \u201cThis important mass,\u201d\nwe are told, \u201cappears to contain 1,942 bundles, each containing on\nthe average about 200 documents, or about 388,400 on the whole.\u201d\nScared by such figures as these, the imagination, a trifle jaded,\nrefuses to dwell upon 913 Papal Bulls of various dates, or to take the\ntrouble to speculate upon the probable bulk of seven or eight thousand\ndocuments which reveal unknown secrets about the ancient forests and\ntheir boundaries. But we are fairly aghast at the news that there\nare hundreds of rolls averaging 200 feet in length, and at least one\nextending to the enormous dimensions of 800 feet, written within and\nwithout with lamentation and mourning and woe. There could be no eating\nsuch a roll as that!\n\nThe documents deposited in the Record Office, and which, as we have\nseen, are likely to have taken a hundred years to catalogue before they\nbecome readily accessible to students and explorers, count by millions.\nThey are of all sorts, conditions, and classes, but they may be roughly\ndescribed as concerned with the civil and political history of the\nnation; that is, they deal with the development of our institutions,\nwith the government of our sovereigns through their ministers, with\nthe changes in our laws and their administration, with the complex\nquestions of the tenure of land and the changes in its ownership, with\nthe rise and growth of our commerce, with our wars by land and by sea,\nwith a hundred other matters which never can cease to have a profound\nand undying interest for the citizens of a great empire. Let us, for\nconvenience\u2019 sake, call the Record Office the storehouse of authorities\non England\u2019s _constitutional_ history.\n\nThis vast _tabularium_, as the Romans called their Public Record\nOffice, is situated, as I have said, within a bow-shot of Temple Bar,\nand to the northeast of that vanished structure. About double the\nsame distance on the south-west there exists another huge depository\nof records, which may be said to be a great storehouse of authorities\nconcerned with our _family_ history. The wills which are stored in\nSomerset House, though beginning at a date centuries later than the\nearly records in Fetter Lane, go back quite far enough to make the\nreading of the great mass of them not always easy for the uninitiated.\nThey, too, probably count by millions, and I have known one gentleman\nwho estimated the number which he himself had looked at and examined\nwith more or less attention at not less than a hundred thousand. This\ncollection is more easily accessible to students than the other,\ninasmuch as here we are dealing with a single class of documents,\nwhich present no difficulties of arrangement, and which have been\ncarefully preserved and habitually consulted for generations, and\nare as a rule bound up in big volumes of transcripts, or offices\ncopies, made for the most part within a short time of the original\nwills having been proved before the accredited officials. So far as\nthey go the wills in Somerset House contain to a very great extent\nthe _genealogical_ history of England. It is necessary to guard this\nstatement by qualifying words, for the wills in Somerset House are the\nwills of men and women who died in the southern province only.\n\nIf we lengthen our radius, keeping to Temple Bar as our centre and\nsweeping a circle say of five miles in diameter, we shall include\nwithin this circumference a vast collection of records of a very\nmiscellaneous character. There are the muniments of the City of London;\nthere is an unknown mass of curious \u201cevidences\u201d in the secret chambers\nof the London companies; there are the mysterious and probably very\nlarge stores of recondite lore hidden away somewhere in the great\nInns of Court, and perhaps in forgotten garrets of some of the minor\ndependencies of those august institutions. There are the sessional\nrecords of the county of Middlesex, which a very moderate estimate\nhas assured us contain more than half a million documents; and,\nin addition to all these, there are probably many other important\ncollections subsidiary to these larger ones, the very existence of\nwhich is unknown and unsuspected except by some few reticent creatures,\nwho with the grip of the miser cling secretively to the hoarded\ntreasures that they cannot spend and will not let any one else look\nat. It must be evident to any one who reflects upon the measureless\nbulk--the mere bulk--of these various assemblages of ancient documents\nto be found within the metropolitan area alone, that any heroic policy\nwhich should contemplate gathering them all under a single roof, and\nunifying them in a centralized national _tabularium_, is inpracticable.\nA Public Record Office which should not only be a monster warehouse\nfor the safe custody of our ancient muniments, but should be a\nlibrary of reference open to all duly qualified persons desirous of\npursuing historical research among our unprinted sources, would be\na building that would more than fill Trafalgar Square. Obviously\nsuch a collection, to be practically accessible, would require to be\nmethodized, arranged, catalogued, and to some extent indexed. An army\nof trained officials would be needed to deal with the materials under\ntheir hands. It would take a lifetime to set the house in order. The\nvery geography of such a world would require a guide-book as perplexing\nas a Bradshaw.\n\nThe magnificent collection now at the Record Office is, as has been\nseen, only in course of being examined and calendared. Even after\nfifty years of unremitting labour bestowed upon it we have a very\nimperfect knowledge of what it contains; and this, be it remembered,\nthough no department of the public service can compare with this in\nthe ability, industry, enthusiasm, and profound learning which have\nbeen for generations the characteristic of the officials, one and\nall, high and low. From the days of that cross-grained, combative,\nand overwhelmingly learned miracle of erudition William Prynne down\nto our own day there has been a kind of apostolical succession among\nthe keepers of the national archives and their coadjutors. The Record\nOffice almost deserves to have a dictionary of biography of its own.\nTo widen the field of labour here would be to destroy all hope of its\never being brought into order. Centralization of our muniments has\nwell-nigh reached its utmost limits in the unwieldy proportions of\nthe collection now under the charge of the Deputy Keeper. To extend\nthose limits and to bring together additional millions of MSS. from\ndistant depositories would be to convert the great _tabulariumn_ into a\ncolossal _c\u00e6meterium_, in which they would be not so much preserved as\nburied for all time.\n\nLet it be conceded, then, that, as far as the Record Office is\nconcerned, it will be best to leave well alone. The custodians of our\narchives in Fetter Lane have quite enough to occupy their time for\nmany a long day. They are not the men to need urging or to embarrass\nby loading them with new accessions of work which they can never hope\nto get through. On the other hand, the muniments of such bodies as the\ngreat Inns, the chartered companies, or the Corporation of London can\nhardly--at any rate hardly _yet_--be looked upon and dealt with as\npublic property. These corporations very naturally cling to their own\npossessions; they are jealous of throwing open their muniments to be\nscrutinized and peeped into by prying eyes by no means always looking\nwith a kindly or benevolent gaze. Why should the benchers of the Middle\nTemple, for instance, lay out their early charters to be copied by\nevery chance grievance-monger, to be printed with appropriate comments\nin the columns of the _Wapping Watchman_, and enriched by learned notes\nand illustrations full of love and sweetness? Why should the ancient\nGuild of the Girdlers court publicity when there is a host of Grub\nStreet ragamuffins only too glad to make merchandise of their \u201cCurious\nRevelations\u201d and to ferret out inconvenient scraps of information to be\nused for the destruction of the things that are? \u201cConfound that shabby\nold Dryasdust!\u201d we might hear the warden growl out to his brethren of\nthe craft. \u201cIf the fellow goes on like that we shall have to ask him to\ndinner, give him a bad one, and protest we could not afford a better in\nthe lamentable condition of our finances.\u201d No! Diligent explorers and\nomnivorous antiquaries like my friend Mr. Cadaverous must be patient\nand submissive. \u201cThe rights of property, sir--the rights of property\nmust be respected. Make your approaches in a spirit of courtesy and\nwith becoming respect for the august body to which we belong, and you\nmay find us gracious and condescending; but come to us as a footpad\ngrabbing at our fobs, and you may find the consequences disastrous.\nWe have been known to give pence to beggars, but to submit to be\nplundered--never!\u201d\n\nThere is, however, one class of documents to be found within the\narea that I have been dealing with which may fairly be regarded as\npublic property in a different sense from that in which the civic and\ncorporate muniments can be considered such. I refer to the registers\nand churchwardens\u2019 books, which constitute an important collection of\nrecords from which a great deal of our parochial and family history\nmay be gleaned. I know how contemptuously some good folks affect to\ntreat pedigree-hunting and genealogy. I know how much ridicule has\nbeen heaped upon the pompous pettiness of beadles and vestrymen. Mr.\nBumble in a Punch and Judy show or in a Christmas pantomime is always\ngreeted with a welcome of convulsive merriment. And yet somehow we all\ndo feel some sly hankering to know how they managed it in the parochial\ncouncils, say, two or three hundred years ago; and few men are so\nindifferent as some dull men pretend to be about the mere bare births,\ndeaths, and marriages of their forefathers. It may be very profitless,\nvery silly, but so is playing at chess, and smoking, and many another\nharmless diversion. And is that all?\n\nI am not going to enter into the question of what larger and wider\nfields of enquiry the humbler by-paths of research may help us to\npass through without going helplessly astray; but this is certain,\nthat there never has been a civilized nation since nations grew into\norganized life--never has been, never will be--in which something like\na passion for finding out the smaller secrets of the past has not been\nstrong, and in some minds absorbing. Be that as it may, there are, it\nmay be estimated, some hundreds of volumes scattered about in all sorts\nof odd places, in the custody of all sorts of odd people, within the\nmetropolitan area which contain the entries of the three most important\nevents in the lives of millions of people who have been born, wedded,\nand died within five miles of Temple Bar during the last three\ncenturies and a half. These volumes are being consulted every week.\nCopies of the entries made in them are produced as evidence in courts\nof justice every month, and vast sums of money change hands every year\non the testimony which those books afford, and almost upon that alone.\nOn that testimony again and again the title to large estates, the right\nto seats in the House of Lords, the legitimacy of son or daughter, has\ndepended. Fiction and fact have vied with each other in emphasizing\nthe romantic incidents that our parish registers have chronicled or\nconcealed. All the existing parish registers within the metropolitan\narea, from the year 1538 (when parish registers first began to be\nkept in England) to the beginning of the present century, and all the\nchurchwardens\u2019 books besides, might easily be kept in a single room of\nSomerset House, and be easily supplied with perfect personal indices in\nfive years.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne more class of ancient records remains to be dealt with before\nwe leave London and its purlieus. Nothing has yet been said of that\nimmense mass of precious muniments which constitute the apparatus\nfrom which the _ecclesiastical_ history of England may be compiled;\nthat is, the history of the part which the Church has played in the\npolitical, religious, and, I may add, the moral and intellectual\ntraining and education of the nation.\n\nThere are within little more than a mile of our old friend Temple Bar\nthree great depositories of ecclesiastical records of inestimable\nvalue and of unknown richness--one at the Archiepiscopal Palace of\nLambeth, one at St. Paul\u2019s, one in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.\n(1) The collection of MSS. at Lambeth was very ably catalogued nearly\neighty years ago, and is readily accessible to all who are desirous\nand competent to make an intelligent use of the treasures it contains.\n(2) The archives of St. Paul\u2019s comprehend not only the muniments of\nthe great Metropolitan Chapter, but those also of the bishopric of\nLondon. The Chapter records have been examined and reported upon by\nthe present Deputy Keeper in the _Ninth Report of the Historic MSS.\nCommission_. Of course Mr. Lyte has done his work in a masterly way,\nand to the wonder and despair of smaller men who have tried their\n\u2019prentice hands at such employment; but he warns us that \u201cthe greater\npart of the collection _has never yet been examined for literary or\nhistorical purposes_;\u201d and so far from this important assemblage of\noriginal documents being accessible to research, Mr. Lyte, when he\nbegan his examination, found it stowed away in boxes \u201cin an octagonal\nchamber above the Dean\u2019s vestry,\u201d and one box full of ancient documents\nhad been discovered by the Bishop of Oxford \u201cin a loft over the Chapter\nHouse.\u201d The extent, interest, and importance of the capitular records\nto historical students is in the present condition of our knowledge\nquite incalculable.\n\nBut the archives of the _diocese_ of London are also said to be kept\nin St. Paul\u2019s. Thirty years ago, when I was very young at this kind\nof work, I obtained permission to make a search among the muniments\nof the Bishop of London for certain small fragments of information\nwhich, in the glorious hopefulness of youth, I was bent on discovering.\nDuring three short December days I was privileged to climb to a certain\nchamber in a certain tower of St. Paul\u2019s, and there to immure myself\nfor five or six hours at a time. There is a region where beings who\nsucceed in retaining their personality must needs be the sport of the\nvortices that whirl and eddy through the \u201cvast inform,\u201d where \u201cChaos\numpire sits\u201d and \u201cnext him high arbiter Chance governs all.\u201d But in\nsuch a region none may hope to find anything that he can carry away.\nI emerged from that three-days\u2019 audacious voyage of discovery with my\nintellect only a little disordered and my constitution only a trifle\nshattered, and I survive to speak of that bewildering and horrible\nexperience as men speak of their confused recollection of an escape\nfrom drowning. From that day to this I have never met with a human\nbeing who had ever been bold enough to search among the archives of the\nbishopric of London or who could tell me anything about them, good or\nbad.\n\n(3) Somewhere--somewhere--within the precincts of the great Abbey of\nWestminster there are said to be imprisoned in grim and forbidding\nseclusion unknown multitudes of witnesses, voiceless, tongueless,\nforgotten, whose testimony, if it could be extorted, would strangely\nand powerfully affect our views upon hundreds of incidents and\nmovements, hundreds of crimes and errors and sacrifices and grand\nendeavours that now are very imperfectly understood, often wholly\nmisrepresented, and some of them passed out of remembrance. Let us take\nan example.\n\nWe have all of us heard of the _Star Chamber_. Pray may I ask my\naccomplished readers if they know anything about the Stars? Nay! Be\nnot rash with thy lips. The name Star Chamber has not the remotest\nconnection with astronomy. The name carries us back to a time when\nthe children of Israel were swarming in England and when they were\nthe great bankers or money-lenders--almost the only bankers and\nmoney-lenders--within the four seas. Impecunious scoundrels up and\ndown the land mortgaged their lands or pawned their valuables, and\nthe Jews advanced them money upon their securities. The promises to\npay, the agreements to surrender property on non-payment, the bonds,\nthe bills, the orders of court, and the documentary evidence bearing\nupon all these transactions between the creditors and the debtors, the\nborrowers and the lenders, were drawn up in the Hebrew language, and\nthe records of these multifarious transactions between the Jews and the\nChristians, dating back to an unknown antiquity (possibly to a time\nvery little after the Conquest) and _ending_ about the year 1290, when\nall Jews were banished from England with unspeakable acts of cruelty\nand wrong--these records, I say, are to be found in the archives of\nWestminster Abbey. These Hebrew records are believed to count by\nthousands, and are known by the name of _stars_ among the few who even\nknow that there are such things in existence. As to the exact meaning\nor derivation of the word, I dare not venture upon an explanation of\nit; nor as to the correct spelling of it am I qualified to express an\nopinion. It is sufficient for me that the court in which these suits\nbetween the Jews and their victims, or their defrauders, were tried\nand decided was in ancient times called the _Star_ Chamber, because\nthe records of the proceedings which were there adjudicated upon were\npopularly known as _stars_. Perhaps not six men in Britain have ever\nlooked _intelligently_ at this mass of Hebrew MSS. I believe only one\nman living--Mr. Davies--has devoted any time to the study of them. And\nyet with this immense and unique apparatus absolutely untouched, with\nthis virgin soil that has been neglected and unknown for six centuries,\nliterary empirics have more than once set themselves to write the\nhistory of the Jews to the Middle Ages, \u201cresorting to their imagination\nfor their facts\u201d when the facts were there at their elbows if they had\nonly known it. The history of the Jews in England down to the time of\ntheir expulsion by Edward the First remains to be written, because the\nmaterials for that history have remained to the present hour unread.\n\nTake another instance. There have been many very interesting books\nprinted about Westminster Abbey; about the sovereigns that were\ncrowned there, about sovereigns that were buried there, about\ndramatic incidents that occurred within the glorious church, about\nits architecture, about its school, about its single bishop and its\nmany illustrious deans. The magnificent and venerable institution is\nso spangled with golden memories that the dryest handbook must needs\nprove attractive to the dullest of readers. The whole place in its\nevery stone and nook and corner is wrapped in an atmosphere of romance\nand wonder and mystery; but anything that deserves to be called by so\ngrand a name as a History of Westminster Abbey, or anything approaching\nto it, can no more be said to exist than can the History of Carthage\nor Damascus. There may be, there is, some excuse for our ignorance in\nthe one case, but in the other case there is none. There, within the\nvery walls where the history was a-making through the ages, in the very\nhandwriting of the men whose lives were passed within the precincts\nand who were actors in the drama of which they left their fragments of\nnotes or scraps of illustrations or briefest mementoes, there, huddled\ntogether in bunks and trunks and sacks and boxes--no one can tell you\nexactly where--there is such a wealth of materials that when it comes\nto be methodized and utilized, digested and studied, as it _must_ be\nsome day, the result will inevitably be to make the men of the future\nlook with larger, other eyes than ours upon the action of those forces\nand the character of those movements, and the statesmanship of those\nleaders and commanders of the people which have worked together in\nthe evolution of a great nation from its inchoate condition of a mere\ngathering of peoples. Nevertheless, for any facilities that exist for\nstudying the records of Westminster Abbey they might almost as well\nbe kept in glass cases in the moon as be where they are. Am I, then,\ngoing to propose...? My good sir, I am going to propose nothing,\nnothing at any rate with regard to the London records, lay or clerical.\nOnly this I venture to remark, that before we have taken stock of\nour metropolitan muniments and got them into order, before we have\nprovided suitable receptacles for them and put them under the charge of\nqualified custodians, we shall be wiser if we learn a little modesty in\ntalking about other people and other places, and what they ought to do\nand what ought to be done for them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnce upon a time there was a grizzly monster who sat himself down in\nthe neighbourhood of the ancient city of Thebes. He was a ravenous\nmonster with an insatiable appetite, and he demanded for his meals\nlarge supplies of Theban youths and maidens. The monster conducted\nhimself in a very exacting and insolent manner, and somehow he\ncontrived to make the unhappy Thebans acquiesce in his bold assumption\nthat the gods had created Thebes and all that belonged to it for no\nother purpose under heaven than for the support and glorification of\nhis own unwieldy self, growing daily more corpulent, voracious, and\noverbearing. At last one fine day the monster in a sportive humour\nasked the Thebans a riddle, and a sagacious gentleman guessed the\nriddle. The answer was \u201cMan.\u201d It was a very curious conundrum, and\nwhen the answer came it brought with it an important and startling\nsuggestion. \u201cYe burghers of Thebes,\u201d one cried, \u201clook to it! Man\nwas _not_ created for the monster! That be far from us! Monsters\nperadventure there must be--some beneficent, some malign, some to be\nproud of, some to loathe. But be they what they may, let it be ours\nto proclaim, Not man for the monsters, but monsters for the behoof of\nman!\u201d That wholly novel and unexpected resolution, having been carried\nunanimously and by acclamation, wrought quite a revolution among the\nTheban folk. I am sorry to say its effect upon the voracious creature\naforesaid was disastrous. They say he did not wait to perish of famine,\nbut died violently of a ruptured heart.\n\nThere is among us a school of pundits, who live and always have lived\nwithin the sound of Bow Bells, whose Dagon and Baal and Moloch and\nJuggernaut combined is London, whose Gospel is \u201cBlessed are they whom\nthe great city vouchsafes to devour.\u201d Outside the five-miles circle,\nor the ten-miles circle, these men think there are indeed certain\ninsignificant atoms, minute, nebulous, meteoric, held in solution\nin that impalpable medium which for convenience has been called by\nidealists the realm of England, but that these purposeless particles\nhave no sort of cohesion, and their continuance even as atoms can only\nbe assured in so far as they are destined to become integral portions\nof that vast pleroma the all-embracing and all-devouring London. No!\nLet it be proclaimed upon the housetops, let the protest go forth\nand awake the echoes, \u201cEngland does not exist for London, but London\nfor England!\u201d Let men ponder that profound and pregnant utterance of\nthe greatest of our historians--\u201cFrom the beginning of its political\nimportance London acts constantly as the pulse, sometimes as the brain,\n_never perhaps in its whole history as the heart of England_.\u201d Is that\nso? Then let us beware how we give our monster more than its due and\nmore than it can manage, lest it develop into a hydrocephalous monster\nwith a pulse that beats but feebly by reason of its life\u2019s blood being\nscantily supplied.\n\nIndeed, it is easy to exaggerate the value and importance even of\nthe metropolitan archives. To begin with, the records of the City of\nLondon will be found of little or no use for investigating the history\nof English agriculture. What will they teach us about the complex\nquestions of land tenure, the life of the peasantry, the relations\nbetween the lords and the tenants of the soil, about the condition\nof the people, high and low, about those local courts and franchises\nand customs, and disciplinary and formative machinery, which \u201cthrough\noppression prepared the way for order and by routine educated men for\nthe dominion of law\u201d? You must go a long way out of London to get\nanything like a grasp of the constitution of a county palatine, and to\nunderstand the working, if I may use the expression, of such forms of\nlocal government as were once active in the manor, the honour, or the\nhundred. You must study such matters not only in the rolls and charters\nthat survive, but you must study them too in the geographical areas\nwith which they are concerned. What! gather together all the parish\nregisters, and all the wills and all the sessional papers within the\nfour seas and toss them all together into a vast heap \u201csomewhere\u201d in\nLondon! What for? That a score or two of cockney dryasdusts may have\nthe opportunity of getting at them by a short ride outside a \u201cpenny\nbus\u201d? Why, you might just as well propose that all the parish churches\nshould be carted away bodily and set up \u201csomewhere\u201d in battle array as\na kind of ecclesiastical wall round the metropolis, in order to give\nadequate facilities of study to the Institute of British Architects in\nConduit Street.\n\nThe fact is that within the last few years more has been done in the\nway of arranging, cataloguing, and providing for the safe custody\nof ancient documents in the provinces than has been even attempted\n(outside the Record Office) by London and the Londoners. We poor\ncreatures in the wilds, _we_ don\u2019t go whining for subsidies from the\nGovernment, _we_ don\u2019t clamour for grants from the national exchequer;\nand there are some of us that can give a very much better account\nof our muniments than you Londoners can give of yours. Thirty years\nago the corporation of Norwich had a catalogue of its records drawn\nup by a local antiquary, which for convenience of reference and the\nintimate and wide knowledge it displays could bear comparison with any\nsimilar undertaking then existing in the country. The records of the\nborough of Ipswich, says Mr. J. Cordy Jeaffreson, \u201care at present so\nperfectly arranged that with the help of the new catalogue and index\n... the custodian can produce without difficulty any charter, roll,\nor paper account that it may be needful to examine.\u201d The records of\nthe corporation of Leicester, says the same learned antiquary, \u201cwill\nendure comparison with the muniments of any provincial borough in Great\nBritain.\u201d The magnificent enthusiasm of two citizens of that same\nborough has brought this immense assemblage of MSS. into a condition\nwhich may well arouse envy and ought to stimulate rivalry; while the\nexample set by the mayor and corporation in making their treasures\naccessible to all comers proves that enthusiasm is contagious.\n\nThese instances are taken at random; there is no need to multiply\nthem. It is well known to experts, and to some who are much less than\nexperts, that the condition of our corporation records throughout the\nland is very far more satisfactory than was suspected a few years ago,\nand that every year more and more attention is being bestowed upon\nthem, more vigilance displayed in their preservation, and more zeal and\nearnestness exhibited in the patient study of their contents. Every\nyear the number of intelligent explorers of our municipal and other\nlocal archives is steadily increasing, which means that every year the\nstudy of our history is being more laboriously pursued by specialists.\nFor the rest, the whole field is felt to be too vast to travel through\nin the present state of our knowledge. But just as great laws and\ngreat generalizations in physical science have been made, and could\nonly have been made, by the devotion of students concentrating their\nattention upon a single branch of physiology, chemistry, or astronomy,\nand registering the conclusions--that is, the certainties--which\ntheir several researches have arrived at, so must it be with history;\nthere, too, research must be carried on by men who will be content to\nlabour in a limited area and to deal with problems which cease to be\ninsignificant when their bearing upon larger questions is recognized\nand the results of one man\u2019s toil are affiliated to those of another\u2019s.\n\nBut if this be so, if indeed the history of England of the future will\nbe the outcome of what may be called the experimental and departmental\nmethod of research, it is obvious that the examination of the enormous\nbody of evidence now at our command must be carried on by _local\ninquiries_. Only so can slight hints and faint clues be apprehended,\nthe local customs and dialects understood, and the very names of places\nand persons detected in their various disguises. But what we have\nfound ourselves led to suspect when we were dealing with the various\ncollections of records now dispersed in the great hiding-places of\nLondon--namely, that sooner or later we shall have to group those\nrecords in departmental archives--this we are irresistibly compelled to\nbelieve we shall sooner or later have to do with the large masses of\nhistoric MSS. which are scattered broadcast over the island from Land\u2019s\nEnd to John o\u2019 Groat\u2019s House.\n\nIn the smaller world of London--yes, Mr. Gigadibs, the _smaller_\nworld--observe, it is a concession to your stubborn prejudices to call\nit a world at all, but if a world I protest that the qualifying epithet\nmust be resorted to--in the smaller world of London we have seen that\nthe existing collections of records may be roughly associated in\ncertain groups or classes according as they are regarded as belonging\nto the evidences bearing upon (1) the history of the monarchy and the\ndevelopment of the constitution; (2) the history of English law and all\nthat concerns such matters as procedure, judicature, and the like; (3)\nthe history of the City of London--of its great guilds, its customs,\nprivileges, and commerce; (4) personal and family history, and (5)\nlastly, ecclesiastical history, including in that the history of the\nreligious houses. In the wider area we should have to make a similar\nclassification, but in doing so we should have to add one class of\ndocuments very inadequately represented in the London collections; I\nmean those which supply an apparatus for studying the history of the\nland.\n\nAnd here we are face to face with a serious difficulty. The evidences,\nwhich until the present century were so intimately associated with a\nlanded estate that they passed with the estate as an almost necessary\nproof that possession had been conveyed, had in the lapse of ages\ngrown in many instances to an aggregate of documents whose bulk was\nprodigious and its mere stowage embarrassing. Where the capital\nmansion of an extensive property was proportionate to the acreage it\nwas easy to set apart one room as a muniment-room, in which thousands\nof charters, court rolls, bailiffs\u2019 accounts, and other records were\ndeposited and sometimes arranged with great care and precision;\nbut where a great estate was broken up, or there was no longer any\nimportant residence upon it, the evidences often found their way\ninto very strange depositories. The family solicitor had to find a\nhome for them, and to do so was often extremely inconvenient; or the\ncapital mansion became a farm-house, and the evidences were packed\nin boxes and sent up to the garrets under the roof, in some cases\nwere bundled into the hayloft. By the legislation which simplified\nthe conveyance of land and rendered it no longer necessary to go back\nto the beginning of time in order to prove a title, the ancient\n\u201cevidences\u201d became at once valueless for all practical purposes. They\nbecame not only useless but odious lumber, and a process of quietly\ngetting rid of them set in and has been steadily carried on to the\npresent moment. The rolls of manor courts and courts leet, which give\nan insight into the daily life of our forefathers, and which may still\nbe met with in large numbers, dating back to the days of Henry the\nThird, were destroyed by tens of thousands. Documents which could\nhave thrown light upon some of the most interesting problems which\nare now being worked at by the profoundest jurists and the most acute\nstudents of constitutional history have perished in unknown multitudes.\nOthers which contained invaluable illustrations of local customs--of\ntyrannous overstraining of feudal authority on the one hand or of\ncrafty evasions of feudal services on the other, of the rapacity of\nlords and stewards of manors here and of successful appropriations of\nstrips of land or rights of commonage or pasture there--vanished from\nthe face of the earth, none would tell how. The extent to which this\ndestruction of ancient muniments has been carried on cannot yet be even\napproximately estimated. Nevertheless much remains. The interest which\nsuch writers as Mr. Seebohm, Mr. Maitland, Mr. Thorold Rogers, and\nothers have aroused in the many important inquiries which they have\nseverally pursued is increasing day by day, and there can be no doubt\nthat a desire to become better acquainted with the contents of those\ndocuments which still survive and may still be rescued and preserved is\nspreading rapidly and widely. But \u201cwhere are they to be kept when we\nhave got them?\u201d is the question that presses. It is more than can be\nexpected of the civic authorities that they should charge the rates of\nthe town with providing house room for collections of MSS. which are\nbut remotely concerned with the history of the boroughs themselves.\nThe local museums as a rule are overcrowded and can barely keep their\nheads above water. The boxes and bundles of rolls and parchments in the\nlawyers\u2019 offices are provokingly in the way; the country houses are\nchanging hands week by week, and Philistines prefer dressing-rooms to\nmuniment rooms. Will no one suggest a way out of our difficulties?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have passed very lightly over the condition of affairs at Westminster\nAbbey and St. Paul\u2019s, and that for more reasons than one, the chief\nreason, but by no means the only one, being that I know nothing about\nthe Abbey muniments or of those of the bishopric of London, and\nnobody seems able to tell me anything. I have not even alluded to the\narchdeaconries of the diocese of London.\n\nThose lofty souls whose habit it is to dogmatize most airily when they\ndeclaim most ignorantly, are never more jocose than when they take a\nturn at the archdeacons and their visitations. Well, it is very funny\nto think of there being any grotesque survivals of such an institution\nas an archdeacon\u2019s court still existing among us. What a droll prelate\nBishop Remigius must have been that he actually divided his overgrown\nand unwieldy diocese of Lincoln into seven archdeaconries about twelve\nyears after the Conquest! How very odd that the successors of those\nseven functionaries have been going on merrily archdeaconizing down\nto the present day! How did they amuse themselves all this long time?\nHow did they keep up their little game? \u201cExercising archidiaconal\nfunctions, of course.\u201d And of course we are expected to receive that\nnovel explanation with shouts of laughter. Well, but wouldn\u2019t you\nlike to know how they really _did_ employ themselves? Suppose you\nwere by chance to hear that the action of the archdeacons\u2019 courts had\n_something_ to do with the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers and many\nhundreds of their friends to New England, say, in the seventeenth\ncentury; something perhaps to do with the death of Arch-bishop Laud\nand the twenty years\u2019 imprisonment of Bishop Wren. Wouldn\u2019t you like\nto know something about it all? What have become of the records of the\narchdeaconries? I know where a few of them are: but where the great\nmass of them are to be found I know not, and it would take a great deal\nof trouble to discover. Those that I know of are in closets in lawyers\u2019\noffices. A blessing on those lawyers, say I, for they have at any rate\npreserved some fragments of ancient evidences which but for them would\nhave gone to make _glue_ long ago. But if you want to find out what the\necclesiastical discipline exercised by the archdeacons upon gentle and\nsimple in the old days was like, you will have to fish up the records\nof the archdeacons\u2019 courts out of their hiding-places, and you will\nfind them to contain some very, very funny items of information, almost\nas droll as the buffoonery of those lofty souls.\n\nIf we are ever to arrive at clearer and truer views of the history\nof the slow growth of certain moral, religious, and even political\nconvictions among the great body of the people--by the help of, or in\ndespite of, the inquisitorial, coercive, and repressive machinery of\nthe local ecclesiastical courts, which for centuries were exercising\na real and terrible power within a ride of every man\u2019s door through\nthe length and breadth of the land--we certainly must not neglect\nthat large body of evidence which is to be found in the records of\nthe archdeacons\u2019 courts. But it is obvious that such records must be\nunified, must be made accessible to students, which means, in other\nwords, that they must be collected into diocesan or provincial archives.\n\nSo with the parochial registers, churchwardens\u2019 books, the wills and\nother MSS. which are more or less concerned with the private and\nfamily life of our ancestors. We have a right to know what our fathers\nthought and believed, and how they got to break away from this or that\nsuperstition, arrived at this or that new truth, were delivered from\nthis or that thraldom, rebelled against this or that wrong, suffered\nfor their errors as if they were crimes, learnt to reverence even\ndoubt when it dawned upon them that doubters could be earnest, noble,\nand loving, learnt to see that Christian charity could be tolerant\neven of mistakes; how their horizon widened as their vision became\nstronger; how as knowledge grew from more to more the old bonds and\nshackles that cramped the spirit of man became more and more strained\neven to bursting; how the old fetters bit into the flesh of some, the\nold chains wore out the hearts and brains of others; how they spoke\nto their children in their last hours; what messages they sent to\nfriends and kindred when the end was drawing very near; what their\nhope and trust was as they _looked beyond_ the veil. Yes, we have a\nright to know these things if they are to be known. You may sneer at\nthe follies of pedigree hunters if you will, and deride the harmless\nmadness of genealogists; but I do not envy the man who would not give\ntwo straws to find out whether his grandfather\u2019s grandfather was a hero\nor a blackleg, whether he lived the life of a successful pickpocket, or\ndied the death of a martyr for his honest convictions. And if any one\nis so little acquainted with the curiosities of parish registers, or\nthe contents of parish chests, or the strange secrets often revealed\nor alluded to in the wills of provincial probate courts, as to suppose\nthat these \u201crags of time\u201d are wholly wanting in any elements of pathos\nand romance, he certainly has a great deal to learn, and he knows very\nlittle indeed about the contents of documents which he so tranquilly\nassumes to be \u201cbarren all.\u201d\n\nFrom what has been said thus far I hope it will be clear that I am as\nlittle inclined to advocate the removal of the municipal records from\ntheir proper homes, the muniment rooms of the provincial boroughs,\nas I am to propose that the archives of London should be transferred\nfrom the Guildhall to any other repository. What is wanted is not\ncentralization but classification. Already it has been found advisable\nto remove the natural history collections from the British Museum and\nto find a home for them in Kensington. The time may come, and may\nnot be far distant, when a further step will have to be taken in the\ndirection of relieving the congested storehouses at Bloomsbury of some\nother assemblage of precious objects. In London we find ourselves\nmore and more driven to specialize our collections, if only to save\nourselves from bewilderment.\n\nBut as to any great collections of historical documents, except only\nthat at the Record Office, they do not exist; they have still to\nbe made. Meanwhile one large class of records--the ecclesiastical,\nparochial, and testamentary records--may be said to be in great danger\nof gradually but certainly perishing, partly from mere disuse, partly\nfrom the want of any adequate provision for their safe keeping, partly\nfrom the actual uncertainty that attaches to their ownership. One and\nall they are national records, the preservation of which ought to be\nassured to the nation by very different precautions from any which now\nare provided. Whom do the parish registers belong to? What guarantee\nhave we that X or Y or Z may not sell \u201chis\u201d registers to the highest\nbidder? In point of fact, parish registers have been bought and sold\nagain and again. Who are the owners of such a splendid collection of\nhistoric MSS. as is to be found in the archives of St. Lawrence\u2019s\nChurch, Reading? What is to prevent the churchwardens from selling them\nto a \u201ccollector\u201d and appropriating the proceeds towards the expense of\na new organ? Where are the records of Barchester now that the Venerable\nArchdeacon Grantley has ceased to edify us with his eloquent charges?\nIn how many instances is there to be found anything remotely resembling\na catalogue of such archidiaconal records? How many living men have\never consulted such as there are or would know where to look for them?\n\nLet me not be misunderstood. I have received so much kindness,\nhospitality, and cordial assistance at the hands of so many who have\nlaid open their muniments to my inspection, I have found and made among\nthese gentlemen such warm friends that I can only think of them and\nspeak of them with gratitude and esteem. But who knows better than\nthe most learned and most entirely loyal among the custodians of our\necclesiastical and parochial muniments that the state of things as they\nare is not the state of things that ought to be?\n\nAnd yet there can surely be no insuperable difficulty in grouping\ntogether our ecclesiastical, testamentary, and parochial muniments,\nforming them into one homogeneous collection, and bringing them\ntogether into a single provincial record office, taking the\ngeographical limits of the diocese as the area within which the several\naggregates of ancient documents shall be deposited.\n\nFew men can pay a visit to any of our cathedrals, especially those\nwithin whose precincts there are still to be found any considerable\nremains of the old conventual buildings, without being struck by what\nseems to be the _waste of room_ in the church itself and its outlying\ndependencies. Not to speak of the side chapels, which some would have\na sentimental objection to utilizing--though I know instances where\nthey are mere store places for workmen\u2019s tools and lumber--consider the\nimmense areas at our disposal in many a transept, triforium, or chapter\nhouse. Consider how comparatively small a chamber suffices, for the\nmost part, to contain all the existing records of a cathedral chapter\nor of the bishop of a see. Consider how all the parochial registers\neven of a large diocese from 1538 to 1800 could easily stand upon a\ndozen shelves of ten feet long, and all the wills of two or three\ncounties from the earliest times to the beginning of this century could\nbe accommodated without difficulty in many a drawing-room. Consider\nall these things and more that I forbear from dwelling on, and it will\nbe abundantly clear that the difficulty of providing accommodation for\none group of historic MSS. at any rate will be found insignificant\nif we set ourselves seriously to deal with it. Within the precincts\nof our cathedrals there is ample space and verge enough for any such\nrequirements as this group of records may be supposed to make upon us.\n\nBut assuming that such an assemblage, such a grouping, of historic\nMSS. were determined on, and that the housing of it were found to be\neasy and practicable, would it not be necessary that a duly qualified\ncustodian should be appointed to take the oversight of the collection\nand to act as the provincial or diocesan keeper of the records? Of\ncourse it would; and this is exactly what is very urgently needed.\nI am told that a letter from Mr. Charles Mason, which appeared in\n_The Times_ not so very long ago, and which gave an account of his\nexperience in trying to institute a search among the diocesan records\nof Llandaff, \u201cproduced quite a sensation in some quarters.\u201d I think\nit must be among those who have had very little experience indeed of\nsimilar adventures. The truth is that it is the exception rather than\nthe rule to find among the present responsible keepers of parochial\ntestamentary or episcopal records a gentleman who even professes to be\nable to decipher the more ancient and precious MSS. which he has under\nhis charge. The registrar of a diocese, of an archdeaconry, or of a\nprerogative court, the parson of a parish, or the churchwarden, each\nand all have something else to do than spend the precious hours upon\nporing over their muniments.\n\nSuch men as Dr. Bensley of Norwich are few and far between. Gentlemen\nwhose duties involve many hours a day of arduous and exhausting labour\ncan only devote their leisure moments to research, and when they\ndo so they are in danger of getting something less than thanks as\ntheir reward. The chivalrous and splendid enthusiasm of the late Mr.\nWickenden at Lincoln, of Dr. Sheppard at Canterbury, of Canon Raine at\nYork, has laid us under profound obligation, but in each and all of\nthese instances the labour of long years has been a labour of love, and\nthe very permission to engage and continue in it has been conceded as\na privilege conferred upon the toiler. Or again, when the fascination\nwhich \u201cmusty parchments\u201d exercise over some minds has irresistibly\nimpelled such generous students as Archdeacon Chapman of Ely, the\nlate Canon Swainson of Chichester, or Mr. Symonds of Norwich, to make\nsacrifices of time and money in the preservation or deciphering or\ncalendaring the precious documents to which their position as members\nof the chapter gave them free access, they have found some portion of\ntheir recompense in the wonder and astonishment of the Philistines that\nany human being could undertake and carry on so much _without being\npaid for it_.\n\nA registrar is a functionary whose duty it is to keep a register of\nwhat _is_ going on from day to day. I suspect it is very seldom part of\nhis duty to find out what people were doing or recording long before\nhe was born. At any rate it is no part of his duty to find that out\nfor you, or to teach you where and how to look for what you want to\ndiscover. So with the parson of a parish. For the most part he is\npossessed by a conviction that if he loses his registers something\ndreadful will happen to him; and accordingly when he goes away for a\nholiday he leaves his cook in charge, with a solemn warning that she\nis to let no one see \u201cthe books\u201d except in her presence and under her\neye; and a very awful eye it sometimes is. But who of us has not been\nkindly and frankly told by a genial brother that if we want such or\nsuch an entry copied we must come and copy it ourselves, for that our\ngood-natured correspondent cannot make out the old writing?\n\nAs to the churchwardens, assuming that they are to be looked upon as\nresponsible for the custody of the parochial evidences, to talk of\nthem as keepers of ancient MSS. is a little too ridiculous. It is true\nthat there are in my vestry two dilapidated parish chests, which once\npresumably were full of wills and deeds and conveyances and evidences,\nwhich if they were now forthcoming, might considerably disturb the\nequanimity of some personages here and there; but those old chests are\nused as coal-bins now, and have been so used from times to which the\nmemory of man doth not extend. I could tell some odd stories of my\nexperience as a dryasdust in days when I employed my leisure hours in\npeeping into the dens and caves of the earth.\n\nAssuredly if we resolve upon collecting together any group of historic\nMSS. and making them available for students engaged in original\nresearch, it will be necessary to put them under the custody of a\ntrained _archiviste_, as the French call such a functionary, and give\nhim a recognized position as provincial keeper of the records. Such an\nofficial, with one or two subordinates under him, should be required to\ngive their time exclusively to the work marked out for them. Let that\nwork be organized in the same way and on the same lines as those laid\ndown in the great London _tabularium_. Let there be the same system\nadopted of arranging, indexing, and calendaring. Let there be issued\nperiodically reports addressed to the central authorities, let the\narchives be open to students and inquirers without fee or any payment.\nIf any one wishes to have a document transcribed or a search made\nwhich, if he knew how to set about it, he might carry on himself, let\nhim pay for his \u201coffice copy\u201d or his search at a reasonable charge. As\nfor the details of such an arrangement let them settle themselves, as\nthey surely will; in the meantime let us trust to the golden principle\n\u201cSolvitur ambulando.\u201d\n\nCan it be doubted that into such provincial depositories there would\nflow, in the natural course of things, a stream of contributions from\nthe possessors of documents illustrative of county and provincial\nhistory, for which their owners have no room in their houses, which\nthey know not how to make use of and are half inclined to burn? Nay,\nit will probably come to pass that collections of great historic\nimportance will be committed for safe custody to such provincial\narchives on the understanding that they shall in due time be examined,\narranged, and reported on, and thus the work now carried on by the\nHistoric Manuscripts Commission will be continued in a much more\nexhaustive way than is now attempted by the Commissioners, who\nnecessarily spend much of their time and much of the public money in\nitinerating, and whose work can only be by-work and subordinated to\ntheir daily duties and the regular business of their lives. I have\nknown two instances of cartloads of MSS. of great antiquity, and\ncomprehending almost certainly large numbers of charters, letters,\nrolls, and the like of estimable value and interest, deliberately\ndestroyed, and in one of these instances destroyed with some difficulty\nand at some expense, only because they were \u201cin the way.\u201d What I know,\nothers doubtless may find parallels for. Would such a catastrophe have\nhappened if there had been any recognized depository for records of\nthis kind, which, by the very fact of their being guarded with care and\nintelligence and treated with respect, men had learnt to look upon as\nhaving an intrinsic value?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt will be noticed that in the foregoing pages I have said very little\nabout any objections that may be urged or difficulties that may be\nsuggested in carrying out a measure of this character. No! I must leave\nthat delightful duty to others. I offer a suggestion. The draughting\nof a _scheme_ must come by-and-by. As to difficulties, sentimental,\nprofessional, or financial, we are sure to hear of them. Was there\never a proposal for any sort of reform that had not to run the gauntlet\nof those clamorous people who love nothing better, and are good for\nnothing better, than bawling out, \u201cThere\u2019s a lion in the way!\u201d? There\nis no need to suggest difficulties to these people; to do so would\nbe only to intrude into their domain. But this I am more and more\nconvinced of, namely, that there are no difficulties in carrying out\nsuch a suggestion as is here brought forward which will not disappear\nif they are faced with a desire to overcome them, and I am even more\nconvinced that a feeling is growing up in our midst against allowing\nthe present condition of affairs to continue. It is quite sufficiently\nscandalous that we have submitted to it so long.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n_SNOWED UP IN ARCADY._\n\n\nNo truer saying was ever uttered than that \u201cone half the world does not\nknow how the other half lives.\u201d And yet I am continually contradicted\nby wiseacres of the streets and squares when I meekly but firmly\nmaintain that it is actually possible to live a happy, intelligent,\nuseful, and _progressive_ life in an out-of-the-way country\nparish--\u201cfar from the madding crowd\u201d--and literally (as I happen to\nknow at this moment) three miles from a lemon. \u201cDon\u2019t tell me!\u201d says\none of my agnostic friends who knows everything, as agnostics always\ndo, and who is absolutely certain, as agnostics always are, that they\nknow all about _you_--\u201cdon\u2019t tell me! You may make the best of it as\nyou do, and you put a good face upon it, which I dare say is all right;\nbut to try and make me believe you _like_ being buried alive is more\nthan you can do. Stuff, man! You might as well try and persuade me you\nlike being snowed up!\u201d\n\nNow it so happened that, a few days after my bouncing and aggressive\nfriend had delivered himself of this delicate little protest against\nany and every assertion I might venture to make in the conversation\nwhich had arisen between us, I was awaked at the usual hour of 7 a.m.\nby Jemima knocking at the door; and when Mr. Bob had growled his usual\ngrowl, and I had declared myself to be awake in a surly monosyllable,\nJemima cried aloud, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s awful snow, sir--drifts emendjous!\u201d\nI drew the curtains open, pulled up the blinds, and lo! there was\nsnow indeed. Not on the trees--that was well, at any rate--but all\nthe air was full of snow. Not coming down from the clouds, but\ndriving across the fields in billows of white dust--piling itself\nup against every obstacle--pollard, stump or gatepost, hedgerow, or\nwall, or farmstead--rolling, eddying, scudding along before the cruel\nnorth-easter, that was lashing the earth with his freezing scourge of\nbitterness. At about the distance of a pistol-shot from my window the\nhigh road runs straight as a ruler between low banks and thin hedges,\nand we can see it for half a mile or so till some rising ground blocks\nthe view. This morning _there was no road_!--only a long broad stripe\nof snow that seemed a trifle higher than the ploughed lands that lay\nto the northward, and which were almost swept bare by the gale. To the\nsouthward there were huge drifts packed up against every little copse\nor plantation, and far as the eye could see not a human creature or\nsheep or head of cattle to lessen the impression of utter desolation.\n\nBy the time we got down to breakfast the wind had lulled, and fresh\nsnow was falling. That was, at any rate, an improvement upon the\naccursed north-easter. But it was plain that there were to be no\n_ante-jentacular_ or _post-prandial peregrinations_, as Jeremy Bentham\nused to phrase it, for us this day. \u201cMy dear,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m afraid\nwe are really snowed up!\u201d Now, what do you suppose was the reply I\nreceived from her Royal Highness the Lady Shepherd? Neither more nor\nless than this--\u201cWhat a jolly day we will have! We needn\u2019t go out, need\nwe?\u201d\n\nNathan, the wise youth--agnostic, as he calls himself, which is only\nGreek for _ignoramus_--would have sneered at the Lady Shepherd\u2019s\nchuckle, and she--she would have chuckled at his sneer. But as he was\nnot there we only laughed, and somewhat gleefully set ourselves to map\nout the next fifteen hours with plans of operation that would have\nrequired at least fifty hours to execute.\n\n\u201cThe only thing that can be said for your pitiful life,\u201d said Nathan\nto us once, \u201cis that you have no interruptions. But there is not much\nin that, where there\u2019s nothing to interrupt.\u201d Nathan, the wise youth,\nis a type of his class. He\u2019s so delicate in his little _innuendos_,\nso sympathetically candid, so tender to \u201cthe things you call your\nfeelings, you know.\u201d Do these people always wear hob-nailed boots,\nprepared at any moment for a wrestling match, where kicking is part of\nthe game? \u201cNo interruptions!\u201d Oh, Lady Shepherd, think of that! \u201cNo\ninterruptions!\u201d\n\nYou observe that our day begins at eight. When we came first to Arcady\nwe said we would breakfast at half-past eight. We tried the plan for a\nmonth. It was a dead failure. Jemima never kept true to the minutes. We\nfound ourselves slipping into nine o\u2019clock; that meant ruin. It must\neither be eight o\u2019clock, or the financial bottom of the establishment\nwould inevitably drop out. So eight o\u2019clock it is and shall be.\n\nAt eight o\u2019clock, accordingly, on this particular morning we went down\nas usual to the library--and, I am bound to say, we were just a little\ndepressed, because we had made up our minds that no postman in England\ncould bring us our bag this morning. To our immense surprise and joy,\nthere were the letters and papers lying on the table as if it were\nMidsummer Day. The man had left the road, tramped along the fields\nwhich the howling wind had made passable. There were nine letters. When\nI see what these country postmen go through, the pluck and endurance\nthey exhibit, the downright suffering (_i.e._, it would be to you and\nme) which they take all as a part of the day\u2019s work, and how they go\non at it, and retire at last, after years of stubborn jog-trotting,\nto enjoy a pension of ten shillings a week and the repose of acute\nrheumatism consequent upon sudden cessation from physical exertion, I\nfind myself frequently exclaiming with the poet,--\n\n  \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u1f70 \u03ba\u2019 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n  Many the wonderful things that be, but the wonder of wonders is--Man!\n\nNow it will be a surprise, perhaps a very great surprise, to some of my\ngenuine town friends, to learn that even a country parson--who after\nall is a man and a brother--gets pretty much the same sort of letters\nthat other people do. He gets offers to assign to him shares in gold\nmines; offers of three dozen and four, positively all that is left, of\nthat transcendental sherry; offers to make him a life governor of the\nnew college for criminals; invitations to be a steward at a public\ndinner of the Society for Diminishing Felony; above all, he gets some\nvery elegant letters from gentlemen in very high positions in society\noffering to lend him money. I do verily believe these scoundrels, who\ninvariably write a good hand on crested paper and express themselves\nin a style which is above all praise, are in league with one of my\nbanker\u2019s clerks. How else does it happen that, as sure as ever my\naccount is very low and that I am in mortal terror lest my last cheque\nshould be returned dishonoured, so sure am I to hear from one of these\ndiabolical tempters? There\u2019s one scarlet Mephistopheles who _must_ know\nall about my financial position. How else could he have thought of\nsending me two of his gilt-edged seductions in a single week just when\nmy banking account was overdrawn? It is absurd to pretend that he keeps\na _medium_.\n\nMoreover, proof sheets come by post even in this wilderness, and they\nhave to be corrected, too; and real letters that are not begging\nletters come, some kind and comforting, some stern and uncompromising,\nsome with the oddest inquiries and criticisms. Sometimes, too,\nanonymous letters come. What a queer state of mind a man must have got\nhimself into before he can sit down to write an anonymous letter! Does\nany man in his senses ever _read_ an anonymous letter of four pages?\nIf he does, the _writer_ gets no fun out of it. I am inclined to think\nthat the practice of writing anonymous letters is dying out now that\nthe schoolmaster is abroad; and yet, they tell me, insanity is not\ndecreasing. Then, too, there are the newspapers. I could live without\nbutter--I shouldn\u2019t like it, but I could submit to it; or without eggs,\nthough I dislike snow pancakes; or without sugar--and there are some\nsolids and some liquids that are insipid without that; but there is\none thing I could not do without--I could not do without the _Times_.\nWe have tried again and again to economize by having a penny paper,\nbut it has always ended in the same way. As _entremets_ they are all\ndelightful, but for a square meal give me the _Times_. Without it \u201cthe\nappetite is distracted by the variety of objects, and tantalized by the\nrestlessness of perpetual solicitation,\u201d till, when the day is done,\nthe mind wearies under \u201ca feeling of satiety without satisfaction, and\nof repletion without sustenance.\u201d\n\nOn this particular morning we had adjourned from the library to the\nbreakfast-room, and were opening our letters in high spirits, spite[6]\nof Nathan the wise, and notwithstanding the bitter wind and the snow,\nwhen a hideous sound startled us. There, under the window, the snow\nsteadily falling, drawn up in single file, were four human creatures,\ntwo males and two females, arrayed in outlandish attire, and every one\nof them playing hideously out of tune. It was a German band!\n\nA more lugubrious spectacle than is presented by a German band, droning\nforth \u201cHerz, mein Herz\u201d in front of your window in a snowstorm it\nwould be difficult to imagine. We suffer much from German bands, but\nwe have only ourselves to thank. I love music, and I am possessed\nby the delusion that it is my duty to encourage the practice of\ninstrumental execution. Five or six years ago there was a band of\neight or nine performers who perambulated Norfolk, and they came to me\nat least once a month. Whenever they appeared I went out to them and\ngave them a shilling, airing my small modicum of German periodically,\nand receiving flattering compliments upon my pronunciation, which\ngratified me exceedingly. These people disappeared at last, but they\nwere succeeded by another band, and a very inferior one, and I took\nbut little notice of them. There were seven of these performers, a\ncornet and two clarionets being prominent--very. However, they got\ntheir shilling, and vanished. Three days after their departure came\nanother band: this time there were only four. I thought that rather\nshabby, but I was busy, did not take much notice of them, and again\ngave them a shilling. The cornet player was really quite respectable.\nNext day came four more, and there was no cornet, only the abominable\nclarionet. It was insufferable. I said I really must restrict myself\nto sixpence, and that was fourpence more than they were worth. Two\ndays after their departure came a single solitary performer; he had a\npan-pipe fastened under his chin, a peal of bells on his head, which\nhe caused to tinkle by his nods, a pair of cymbals attached to his\nelbows, a big drum which he beat by the help of a crank that he worked\nwith one of his feet, and a powerful concertina which he played with\nhis hands. He led off with a dolorous chorale in a minor key. It was\nreally more than flesh and blood could bear. \u201cSend him away, Jemima.\nSend him away!--instantly! Tell him I am _sehr krank_. Send him away!\u201d\nThe fellow smiled with unctuous complacency. But when he got only\ntwopence, his face fell. \u201cAch, nein! You plaize, ze professor, he geeve\none sheeling to ze band--I am ze band. He geeve ze band only twopence.\nHe do not understand I am ze band! You plaise tell him I am ze band!\u201d\n\u201cNo! You\u2019re to go away. Master\u2019s sore and kranky!\u201d Ze band loitered\nfor half a minute; then it took itself to pieces and went its way. But\nthe fellow\u2019s hint about the shilling was significant, and led to an\ninvestigation. Then it turned out that the band of seven or eight which\nwas going its rounds that year, split itself up when it came into my\nneighbourhood, and, in view of my shilling, presented itself in two\ndetachments, each of which reckoned on my shilling, and several times\ncarried it off. Now I give one penny for each performer, and only when\nthere is a cornet do I send out coffee to the instrumentalists.\n\nIt was, however, not in flesh and blood to withhold the shilling\nfrom the players of that quartette on that bitter morning. It was\nheart-rending to think of their having at the peril of their lives\nstaggered through three miles of snowdrifts. It was inhuman to send\nthem away without coffee. And they had it accordingly. Poor things!\npoor things! Where were they going? They were going back to the \u201cRed\nLion,\u201d a stone\u2019s throw off, where they had slept the night before,\nand where they meant to spend this night in delighting the hearts\nof the rustics by waltzes and polkas, and gathering not such a bad\nharvest for the nonce. \u201cLor, sir!\u201d said Mr. Style, \u201cto hear that there\ntrombone a _sole_ing \u2018Rule Britannia\u2019! That made you feel he was a real\nmusician--that it did!\u201d\n\nSo you see we began the day with a band of music. That does not sound\nso bad. But the band being dismissed, we finish our breakfast and\nretire to the library.\n\nWe do not go empty-handed. Each of us carries a plate piled up high\nwith bread cut up for the birds that are waiting to be fed. A space\nunder the window is swept clear from snow, and there the birds are,\nready for their breakfast. Sparrows by the score, robins that will\nhardly wait till the window is opened, chaffinches and tomtits,\ndunnocks, blackbirds and thrushes, linnets and--jackdaws, yes! and,\nwatching very warily for a chance, a dozen or so of rooks in the trees\nin yonder plantation, very much excited, very restless, very shy, but\nready to come down and gobble up the morsels if we keep ourselves out\nof sight. As to the robins, there is no _mauvaise honte_ about them;\nthey will almost fly on to the plate. Sometimes I send a shower of\nmorsels quite over the robins, and they greatly enjoy the fun. One\nsaucy little fellow last week laughed out loud at me. \u201cLaughed?\u201d Yes,\nlaughed! I\u2019ve known a robin laugh convulsively. But then it was not\nunder a street lamp.\n\nIt is one of the laws of this palace that we do not begin real work\nbefore half-past nine. And before that time arrives there is usually\na good half-hour for reading aloud by the Lady Shepherd. What is\nthe Shepherd doing meanwhile? He is not going to tell you anything\nmore than this, that he is devoting himself during that half-hour to\npreventing the ravages of moths and bookworms. You people who suppose\nwe poor country folk must be horribly dull and depressed may as well\nunderstand that this library in which I am sitting is an apartment that\nfor a country parsonage may be regarded as palatial. Pray haven\u2019t I a\nright to have one good room in my house? One thing I know, and that\nis that I am rated as if I lived in a house of \u00a3430 a year, and if I\nmust pay rates on that amount I may as well have something to show for\nit. Also I would have you to know that the walls of this library are\nlined with books from floor to ceiling. Then there are flowers all\nabout--grown on the premises, mind you--none of your bought blossoms\nstuck on to a bit of stick with a bit of wire, but live flowers that\nturn and look at you--at any rate, they certainly do turn and look out\nat the window if you give them a chance. Moreover, they are not under\nthe dominion of a morose stipendiary, for the sufficient reason that\nthe head gardener is the Lady Shepherd, and the under gardener only\ncomes three times a week, and Jabez has his hands full, and Ishmael is\nno servant of ours, but the servant of the maids in the kitchen; and\nwhen you\u2019re snowed up Ishmael must give his life to the solemn duties\nof a stoker and filler of coal-scuttles, and to shovelling away the\nsnow, and to running errands. There is no doubt about the seriousness\nof that boy. He is oppressed by the sense of his responsibility, and\nconvinced that he occupies the position of the divine being in Plato\u2019s\n_The\u0153tetus_. As long as \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd kept his hand upon the world it went\nround all right; when he took it off, the world straightway spun round\nthe wrong way. That being Ishmael\u2019s view, he is naturally grave. When\nthe maids shriek at him he exhibits a terror-stricken alacrity, but\nwhen I tell him to do this or that, he looks at me with a cunning\nexpression as if he would say, \u201cDo you really mean that? Well, you must\ntake the consequences.\u201d Then he glides off. From Ishmael not much is to\nbe expected in the greenhouse. But when half-past nine strikes I roll\nmy table into position and set to work, my head gardener puts on her\napron and gathers up her skirts, and starts forth with her basket on\nher arm, equipped for _her_ day\u2019s work.\n\nNow, if a man has four good hours in the morning which he may call his\nown, it\u2019s a great deal more than most men have, and there\u2019s no saying\nwhat may be done in such hours as these. But if you allow morning\ncallers to disturb you, then it\u2019s--I was going to say a bad word!\n\nI had just settled myself to work in earnest when Jemima\u2019s head\nappeared. \u201cPlease, sir, Tinker George wants to see you.\u201d \u201cTell your\nmistress.\u201d And I thought no more about it, but went on with what I was\ndoing. If Tinker George had been one of my parishioners I should have\njumped up and heard him patiently, but Tinker George does not belong to\nme, but to the next parish, and as his usual object in coming to see\nme is to show me his poetry, I passed him on this time, knowing very\ncertainly that he would not be the worse for my not seeing him. An hour\nlater I got up to warm myself. \u201cMay I speak?\u201d said the Lady Shepherd.\n\u201cI let Tinker George go away, but I\u2019m afraid you\u2019ll be sorry I did.\nI think you would have liked to see him.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter?\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s\nbeen writing to the dear Queen\u201d (the Lady Shepherd always speaks of\n\u201cthe _dear_ Queen\u201d) \u201cand he came to show you the letter, and to ask\nwhat address he should put on it.\u201d\n\nTinker--George--writing to--the--Queen! What _did_ the man want? He\nwanted to be allowed to keep a dog without paying tax for it. George\ngoes about with a wheel, and he calls for broken pots and pans.\nSometimes he finds the boys extremely annoying, they will persist\nin turning his wheel when his back is turned and he has gone into a\nhouse for orders. Now, you see, if he had a dog of spirit and ferocity\nchained to his wheel, George might leave that wheel in charge of that\ndog; but then a dog is an expensive luxury when there is the initial\noutlay of seven shillings and sixpence for the tax. So he wrote to the\nQueen, and he put it into the post, and I never saw it. This was just\none of those things which cause a man lifelong regret, all the more\npoignant because so vain. The Lady Shepherd is the most passionately\nloyal person in England, and she firmly believes that there will come a\nholograph reply from her Majesty in the course of a few days addressed\nto Tinker George, promptly and graciously granting him his very\nreasonable request. \u201cI\u2019ve promised Tinker George,\u201d she added, \u201cto give\nhim a sovereign for the letter when it comes, and it shall have a box\nall to itself among my autographs.\u201d\n\nBe pleased to observe that it was only just noon, and two events of\nsome interest had happened already, though we were snowed up. But at\nthis point I must needs inform you who _we_ are. In the first place\nthere are the Shepherd and the Lady Shepherd; in the second place there\nare the Shepherd\u2019s dogs. No shepherd can live without dogs--it would\nnot be safe. No _man_ ever pulled another man out of the snow: it is\nperfectly well known that men don\u2019t know how to do it. Till lately we\nhad three of these protectors. But--_eheu fugaces!_--we have only two\nnow; one a blue Skye, silky, surly, and exceptionally stubborn; and a\nbig colley, to whom his master is the Almighty and the All-wise. I do\nnot wish to claim more for my friends than is due to them. Ours are\nonly average dogs; but they _are_ average dogs. And if any one will\nhave the hardihood to assert that he holds the average man to be equal\nto the average dog in morals, manners, and intelligence, I will not\ncondescend to argue with that purblind personage. I will only say that\nhe knows no more about dogs than I do about moles, and I never kept a\ntame mole.\n\nNothing perplexes some of my friends more than to hear that I do not\nbelong to a single London club. Not belong to a club? One man was\nstruck dumb at the intelligence; he looked at me gravely--suspicion\nin every wrinkle of his face, perplexity in the very buttons of his\nwaistcoat. He was working out the problem mentally. I saw into his\nbrain. I almost heard him say to himself, \u201cNot belong to a club?\nHolloa! Ever been had up for larceny? Been a bankrupt? Wonder why they\nall blackballed him?--give it up!\u201d He evidently wanted to ask what it\nmeant--there must be something wrong which he did not like to pry into:\na skeleton in the cupboard, in fact.\n\n\u201cI said a _London_ club!\u201d I added, to relieve his embarrassment.\n\u201cOf course I do belong to a club _here_--the Arcadian Club. It\u2019s a\nvery select club, too, and we can introduce strangers, which is an\nadvantage, as you may perhaps yourself have felt if you have ever been\nkept for ten minutes stamping on the door-mat of the Athen\u00e6um with\nthe porter watching you while that arch boy was sauntering about,\npretending to carry your card to your friend upstairs. We are rational\nbeings in our club, and I\u2019ll introduce you at once--Colonel Culpepper,\nToby! Colonel Culpepper, Mr. Bob.\u201d Neither Toby nor Mr. Bob took the\nleast notice of the gallant colonel, who seemed rather shy himself.\n\u201cThey\u2019re dangerous dogs are colleys, so I\u2019m told. In London it does\nnot so much matter, because, you see, they must go about with a muzzle.\nAnd this is really all the club you belong to?\u201d\n\nYes. This and no other; the peculiarities of our club being that false\nwitness, lying, and slandering were never so much as known among the\nmembers. There is a house dinner every day, music every evening, no\nsneering, no spite, no gossip, no entrance fee, no annual subscription,\nno blackballing, no gambling, no betting, and no dry champagne or\ndry anything. Show me a club like that, my dear colonel, and I\u2019ll\njoin it to-morrow, whether in Pall Mall or in the planet Jupiter. At\nthe present moment I know of only one such club, and it is here--the\nArcadian Club! Enjoy its privileges while you may, and be grateful.\n\nSeriously, I defy any club in England or anywhere else to produce\nme fifty per cent. of its members so entirely courteous, cordial,\nand clubbable--so graceful, intelligent, and generous--such thorough\ngentlemen, and so entirely guiltless of talking nonsense, as our\nfriends Toby and Mr. Bob. Of course there are the infirmities which all\nflesh is heir to, and jealousy is one of these. But put the case that\nyou should say to a little _man_, \u201cYou may sleep inside that door on a\ncushion by the fire,\u201d and say to a big _man_, \u201cYou\u2019re to sleep outside\nthat same door on the mat!\u201d and put the case that each of those _men_\nknew he was a member of the same club to which the fire, the cushion,\nand the mat belonged:--and pray what _modus vivendi_ could be found\nbetween the big _man_ and the little _man_ on this side the grave?\n\nBut to return. The snow had ceased falling, but in the bleak distance\nas far as the eye could see, the road was blocked by ugly-looking\ndrifts, in which a man on horseback might very easily be buried and\nflounder hopelessly till he sank exhausted never to rise again. There\nwas nothing stirring except the birds, looking fluffy, cold, and\nstarving. So I turned my chair to my table again and resumed my task.\n\nHark! Actually a ring at the front-door bell. The dogs growled and\nsniffed, but there was no fierce barking. Confound these tramps! That\ntrombone has gone back to the \u201cRed Lion,\u201d and the rogues are oozing\nout to practise upon our weakness. \u201cThat\u2019s not a tramp,\u201d said the Lady\nShepherd. \u201cToby didn\u2019t bark.\u201d She was right, as she always is. For\nToby has quite an unerring discernment of the proximity of a tramp.\nHis gift in this line is inexplicable. How the great Darwin would have\ndelighted to observe that dog! If it was not a tramp, who could it be?\n\u201cI believe it\u2019s Polus!\u201d said the Lady Shepherd. \u201cOnly Polus could have\nthe ferocity to come here in defiance of the snowdrifts.\u201d Right again.\nIt _was_ Polus. She had given him the name because he was eager to get\ninto the County Council.--Poor man! He only got three votes.--There\nwas no reference to the young gentleman in the _Gorgias_ who bore that\nname--only a desire to indicate that he was the man who _went to the\nPoll_.\n\nIt was hardly more than noon; we were snowed up, and yet already we\nhad had music; poetry as represented by Tinker George; a flood of\nliterature; and now there was discussion imminent on the profoundest\nquestions of politics, philosophy, and law.\n\nEnter Polus! What in the world had brought him hither this dreadful\nday? What had he been doing? whither was he going? Should we put him to\nbed? To send for a doctor was out of the question. But we could soon\nget him a mustard poultice and a hot bath. Polus laughed the hearty\nlaugh of rude health and youth. \u201cYou, dear old people, you forget I\u2019m\nonly thirty-five. I\u2019ve had a pleasant walk from Tegea--greased my boots\nwell--only rolled over twice. I\u2019ve come for a talk. Dear me! dear me!\nDidn\u2019t I see a moth there on the curtains? Curious that they should\ncome out in such numbers when you\u2019re snowed up! May I help you to get\nrid of the pests?\u201d\n\nThe man had come to show his defiance of the laws of nature and\nordinary prudence. In fact, he had come for mere _cussedness_! Also\nhe had come for a conference. What was the subject to be this time?\n\u201cAnything but the education question,\u201d said I; \u201cwe must draw the line\nsomewhere. Woman\u2019s rights, Man\u2019s wrongs. Agricultural depression. The\nPeople\u2019s Palace. The Feudal System. The Bacon-Shakespeare--anything you\nplease in reason--but Education! No! Not for worlds.\u201d It was not long\nbefore the cat jumped out of the bag. Polus was bent on floating a most\nmagnificent new International League. His ideas were a trifle mixed,\nbut so are those of many men in our times. Polus makes the mistake of\n_bottling_ his grand schemes and laying them down, as it were, when\nthey ought to be kept _on draught_. The result is that there\u2019s always\na superabundance of froth--or shall we call it foam?--that we have to\nplunge into before we can taste of that pleasant draught; and when\nyou have drunk about half your fill, there\u2019s a wholly unnecessary\nand somewhat disagreeable sediment at the bottom, which interferes\nwith your enjoyment. Thus the new League was to be so comprehensive a\nLeague, for effecting so many desirable objects, that it was difficult\nto discover what the main object was--or, in fact, if the main object\ndid not resolve itself into an assemblage of objects, each of which was\nstruggling with the rest for prominence and supremacy.\n\nOn this occasion Polus had the effrontery to begin by assuring me that\nI was in honour and conscience bound to join the League, for the idea\nof it had been first suggested to him by a pregnant and suggestive\nsaying of mine some months before. \u201cWhat! when you were so hot for\nthe abolition of the punishment by death?\u201d Oh dear no. He\u2019d changed\nhis mind about that long ago. \u201cWas it when you were advocating the\ndesirability of the labourers having the cows and the landlords keeping\nthe land?\u201d \u201cNo, no! I\u2019ve improved greatly upon that. Haven\u2019t you heard?\nI\u2019m for letting the landlord keep the cows, but giving the labourers\nthe calves only; that appears to me the equitable adjustment of a\ncomplex question.\u201d I thought a little, and Polus gave me time. What was\nit? What could it have been that we had been talking about? Enfantin\u2019s\nhullucinations and the dual priesthood (_couple-pr\u00eatre_)? Fourrier\u2019s\nPhalanstery? It must have been an _obiter dictum_ which dropped from\nme as he laid down the law about Proudhon. I shook my head. \u201cDon\u2019t you\nremember? Entails!\u201d\n\nThen it appeared that the great League was to be started for the\nabolition of everything in the shape of entails. In our last conference\nI had let fall the remark that for every acre of land tied up in strict\nentail there was a thousand pounds sterling tied up in much stricter\nentail. If you are going to deal with the one, why not with the other?\nPolus was putting on his hat when I gave him that parting dig, and I\nthought I had silenced him for ever. So far from it, I had but sown a\nnew seed in his soul, and now he came to show me the baby.\n\nPolus meanwhile had plunged into the heaving billows of statistics.\nHe had discovered, to his own satisfaction, that 500 millions of\nthe National Debt was strictly entailed; that 217 millions belonged\nprospectively to babes unborn; that the British people were paying\n\u201cenormous taxes, sir!\u201d not only for the sins and extravagances of their\nforefathers, but for enriching of their hypothetical progeny. That it\nwas a state of things altogether outrageous, irrational, monstrous, and\na great many other epithets. Would I join the League? Of course I\u2019d\njoin a league for the extinction of nasal catarrh or the annihilation\nof stupidity--gladly, but upon conditions. I must first know how the\nthing is to be effected. Your object may be heroic, but the means for\ncarrying out this glorious reform? the machinery, my dear Polus? Let me\nhear more about _that_. A new _voyage en Icarie_ implies that you are\ngoing to embark upon some safe vessel. By the way, how did Cabet get to\nhis enchanting island?\n\nHereupon ensued an elaborate monologue, admirably expressed, closely\nreasoned, carrying not so much conviction as demonstration along\nwith it. Granting the premises, the conclusion was inevitable. It\nwas as good as Bishop Blougram. The scheme was this: Property--even\nin the funds--is a fact. There is no denying that. Therefore face\nthe facts first, and deal with them as such. Timid reformers go\nonly halfway towards building up the ideal social fabric. They say\nmeekly, nationalize the land. The true reformer says, abolish all\npermanent financial obligations. But hardships would ensue upon any\nsudden and violent extinction of _private_ debts. Prudence suggests\nthat you should begin by a gradual extinction of _public_ debts--in\nother words, the National Debt. The living holders of stock shall be\nfairly dealt with, and during their lifetime they shall enjoy their\nabominable dividends wrenched from the pockets of the people. As they\ndrop off--and the sooner they go the better--their several claims upon\nthe tax-payer shall perish with them. None shall succeed to their\nprivileges of robbing the teeming millions. All stock standing in\nthe name of trustees shall be transferred to the names of the present\nbeneficiaries, and shall be extinguished by the death of the several\nholders. All powers of bequest in regard of such stock shall be taken\naway. In the case of infants--and there are 147,623 of such cases--who\nare only prospective owners of stock--being _only_ prospective owners,\nand therefore having never actually tasted the joys of unrighteous\npossession--they shall continue to be prospective owners, and never be\nallowed to become anything else. They will have nothing to complain of;\nyou take from them nothing that they ever had. All that will happen to\nthem will be that they will be saved from cherishing delusive hopes,\nsuch as should never have been aroused in them. The scales will drop\nfrom their eyes; they will no longer be the victims of treacherous\nphantasms. The sooner they learn their glorious lesson the better. They\nwill speedily rise to a true conception of the dignity of citizenship,\nand grow to the stature of a loftier humanity, whose destiny who shall\nforeshadow? \u201cNow, my dear Doctor,\u201d said Polus, pausing for a moment\nin his harangue, \u201cI ask you as a Christian and a philosopher, is not\nours a magnificent League, and is not the vision that opens before us\nsublime?\u201d\n\n\u201cPlace aux dames! Place aux dames!\u201d I answered. \u201cAsk the Lady\nShepherd. Let her speak.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is a curious physiological fact that I have been puzzled by for\nseveral years past, and which I am only half able to explain or account\nfor, that _flashing_ eyes have almost disappeared from off the face of\nthe earth. You may see many sorts of eyes--eyes of various shades of\ncolour and various shapes--eyes that glitter, that gleam, that sparkle,\nthat shine, that stare, that blink; even eyes that are guilty of the\nvulgarity of winking; but eyes that flash with the fire and flame of\nwrath, and scorn, and scorching indignation--such as once or twice\nI have cowered and trembled under when I was young--such eyes have\npassed away; the passion in them has been absorbed in something, it may\nbe better or it may be worse--absorbed in utter tenderness. The last\ntime I saw eyes flash was when a certain college don came to pay his\nrespects to a certain little lady--she _was_ a little lady then--a week\nafter she was married. The old blunderer boasted that he had been on\nLord Powis\u2019s committee on a certain memorable occasion. \u201cAh, my dear\nmadam, you are too young to know anything about that, and your husband\nof course was an undergraduate. But----\u201d The man almost jumped from\nhis chair; he turned pale as an oyster. The little lady sprang up a\npillar of flame. \u201cDo you mean, sir, that you voted against the Prince\nConsort? You will oblige me by not referring to the subject.\u201d I rang\nthe bell again and again; I called for buckets of water--the whole room\nseemed to be, the whole house seemed likely to be on fire.\n\nAh! there were real live Tories (spelt with a capital T) then. We\nwere blue _or_ yellow, not a pale green made up by smudging the two\ntogether. We didn\u2019t stand upon legs that were not a pair. None of\nyour Conservative Liberals or Liberal Conservatives going about hat\nin hand and timidly asking, \u201cWhat will you be good enough to wish to\nhave conserved?\u201d It was \u201cChurch and Queen, sir, or salt and water. No\nshilly-shallying.\u201d Hesitate, and nothing remained for you but pistols\nfor two in the back yard. Argument? Nay! We dealt with that as Uncle\nSammy\u2019s second wife did, and everyone knows that\n\n    She with the heel of assertion\n    Stampt all his arguments down!\n\nIf I could have looked forward in those days, what a monster would my\nfuture self have appeared!\n\n_Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSomething in the look of the Lady Shepherd\u2019s, eyes this snowy morning\nreminded me of the old terrible flash; but it all passed, and only\nmerriment shone out. \u201cSublime, my good Polus? How can a vision be\nsublime? A visionary is at best a dreamer, and a vision is a sham. A\nsublime sham is a contradiction in terms. Why don\u2019t you try and talk\nsense sometimes?\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re not a bit better than that chit of a girl\nwith a mop on her head that came gabbling here last week. But it\u2019s like\nyou men--you\u2019ve no more common sense than this trowel! Visions indeed!\n\n      I gladly live amid the real,\n      And I seek a worthier ideal.\n    Courage, brothers; God is overhead!\n\nAh! you may laugh. But it\u2019s all on my side.\u201d\n\nAway she swept, basket and trowel and all. Stop to listen to that\ngibberish--not she!\n\nWhen her Royal Highness came back to us [in these moods she is the\nPrincess, in her gentler and more pastoral moods she is the Lady\nShepherd] she found us deep in another part of the discussion. The\nbusiness of the Great International League having extinguished the\nNational Debt by a very simple process, the next stall in the Augean\nstable of existing abomination, as he expressed it, must be dealt\nwith. \u201cSuppose we change the metaphor, my dear Polus, and say the\nnext plank in your platform must be pulled up.\u201d \u201cPulled up? Quite the\ncontrary. Fixed, firmly fixed, nailed down!\u201d \u201cBe it so! Let us look at\nthe plank. A stall in the stable of abominations suggests dirty work,\nyou know!\u201d\n\nThe next great problem which the Great International League sets before\nitself to solve is this: the National Debt being annihilated, how is\nthe accumulation of property to be prevented in the future? I observed\nthat at this point Polus was not so inclined for the monologue form of\ndiscussion as before. It was not the Socratic speaking _ex cathedr\u00e2_,\nas in the _Laws_; there was a quite unusual glad-of-a-hint attitude, as\nin the _Lysis_ or the _Meno_.\n\n\u201cCome,\u201d I said, \u201cI see through you; you haven\u2019t thought it out, and\nyou want me to give you a hint. Which is it to be? Am I to serve as\nwhetstone, or do you come in trouble and pain crying out for \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd\n\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd?\u201d He threw up his hands: \u201cSpeak, and I will listen.\u201d Then said\nI, \u201cO Polus, you\u2019re just the man I want. Everybody knows I am a dull\nold dog, slow of thought and slow of speech as a country bumpkin must\nbe; feeling after my words, and as often as not choosing the wrong\nones. But I have been excogitating of late a theory which will supply\nyour next plank to perfection, and in fact would make your fortune\nas a politician, if indeed the Great League will allow you to have\nany property, even in your brains. Forty years ago--for there were\n_thinkers_, my dear Polus, in the waste places of the earth even before\nyou were born--I came across quite a \u201csublime\u201d scheme of some French\nfinancier, propounded, I think, during the Great Revolution, for which\nthe world was not yet ready. The man was before his age, and his own\ngeneration pooh-poohed him. I quite forget his name. I quite forget\nthe title of his book if he ever wrote one; and I shall be very much\nobliged to you if you can find out something about the great man, for\na great man he was. When I heard of this scheme I was little more than\na lad, and now, after much cogitation, I cannot honestly tell you how\nmuch of the plan is his and how much my own. But I\u2019ll give him all the\ncredit for it.\u201d\n\nThe scheme was a scheme for automatically adjusting all incomes and\nreducing them to something like equilibrium--that is, the operation of\nthe process set in motion would tend in that direction. All incomes,\nno matter from what sources derived, were to be fixed according to an\nalgebraic formula, and the formula was this:\n\n  \u00b70001 (x - m)\u00b2 = The income tax levied upon each citizen.\n\n  Here x=the actual income earned by the citizen;\n\n  m=1,000 pounds sterling, or an equivalent in francs or dollars, if\n    you prefer it.\n\nWhen x=m, then of course there could be nothing to pay; which is only\nanother way of saying that a man with \u00a31,000 a year was free from all\ntaxation.\n\nWhen x was greater than m, then taxation upon the income in excess of\n\u00a31,000 came into operation with rather alarming rapidity: until when\na man was convicted of having in any single year made \u00a310,000 his\ntaxation amounted to \u00a38,100 for that year, and if he were ever found\nguilty of having made an income of \u00a312,000 the State claimed the whole\nin obedience to this great and beneficent law.\n\nBut what happens in the case of those who have an income below the\n\u00a31,000 a year--that is, when x is less than m?\n\nIn this case the grandeur and sagacity, not to speak of the paternal\ncharacter of the scheme, become apparent. The moment a man begins to\nearn more than the normal \u00a31,000 a year, that moment he begins to pay\nhis beautifully adjusted quota of taxation to the State; but the moment\nthat his income falls below the \u00a31,000, that moment the State begins to\npay him. Of course you will not forget that _minus_ into _minus_ gives\n_plus_, therefore the square of the _minus_ quantity represented by\nx-m, where m is greater than x, offers no difficulty. The two poles\nof this perfect sphere, if I may so speak, this financial orb--_teres\natque rotundus_--are reached, first when x=0, last when x = \u00a311,000.\nIn the first case the State comes to the help of the pauper who has\nearned or can earn nothing, and gives him a ten-thousandth part of a\nhypothetical million, which amounts to exactly \u00a3100 a year; in the\nother case the State deprives the bloated plutocrat of a ten-thousandth\npart of the same million, and relieves the dangerous citizen of ten\nthousand out of the eleven, saying to him, \u201cCitizen, be grateful that\nyou still have your thousand, and beware how you persist in piling up\nriches, for the State knows how to gather them.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, my dear Polus, next time you come, do bring me tidings of my\nFrenchman, and do work the thing out on paper, for I never was much\nof a mathematician, and now my decimals are scandalously vague!\u201d So\nPolus went his way with a dainty rosebud in a dainty paper box for Mrs.\nPolus, and a saucy message from the Lady Shepherd. \u201cTell her, with\nmy love, I\u2019m very sorry her husband\u2019s such a goose!\u201d We watched him\nfloundering through the snowdrifts; and I verily believe he was working\nout my problem with his stick, \u00b70001 (x-m)\u00b2.\n\nI don\u2019t think that man went away much impressed with the darkness\nand desolation of our Arcadian life. Nay, I\u2019m inclined to think the\nother side had something to say, and I\u2019m afraid this is what it said:\n\u201cOh yes, it\u2019s all very fine--intellectual intercourse, and so on.\nFreshens you up? Glad to see people? Of course I am. But I _did_ hope\nwe were going to have a long day together, and there! it\u2019s all broken\ninto. It\u2019s always the way. How was I to do my autographs with him\nextinguishing my \u00a31,000 in the funds all the while?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere I may as well explain that the Shepherd and his lady are the\nobjects of some wonder and perplexity to their great friends on the one\nhand and their little friends on the other. The first pronounce them to\nbe poor as rats; the second declare that they are rolling in riches.\nThis conflict of opinion is easily accounted for. When the great and\nnoble Asnapper comes to smile at us he has to take pot-luck. Come when\nhe may, there is all due provision--\n\n        Ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa\n    Corruget nares, ne non et cantharus et lanx\n    Ostendat tibi te.\n\nBut the forks are all electro-plate, and the dishes are all of the\nwillow pattern. When meek little Mr. Crumb brings Mrs. Crumb and two of\nthe eight daughters to enjoy one hearty meal at afternoon tea, he is\nawe-struck by the sight of the books and the splendour of half a dozen\ngood engravings hanging upon the walls. As the old grey pony trots home\nin high spirits--for Jabez has a standing order always to give that\npoor little beast a double feed of corn--Mr. Crumb remarks to Mrs.\nCrumb, \u201cThose people must be extremely affluent. I wonder he does not\nrestore his church!\u201d\n\nThe great and noble Asnapper, on the contrary, observes, \u201cAll the\nsigns of deep poverty, my dear. Keeps his pluck up, though. Quite out\nof character with the general appearance of the establishment to have\nthose books and collections and what not. I suppose some uncle left him\nthe things. Cooking? I forgot to notice that; but the point of one\u2019s\nknife went all sorts of ways, and the earthenware was most irritating.\nEccentric people. The Lady Shepherd, as they call her, has actually\ngot near a thousand autographs. Why in the world doesn\u2019t she send\nthem up to Sotheby\u2019s and buy some new stair carpets?\u201d Ah! why indeed?\nBecause such as she and the Shepherd have a way of their own which is\nnot exactly your way, my noble Asnapper; because they have made their\nchoice, and they do not repent it. Some things they have, and take\ndelight in them; some things they have not, and they do without them.\n\nBut not even in Arcady is it all cakes and ale. Thank God we have our\nduties as well as our enjoyments; pursuits and tastes we have, and the\nserious blessed duties which call us from excess in self-indulgence.\nWhen the roads are blocked for man and beast we chuckle because there\ncan be no obligation to trudge down to the school a mile and a half\noff, or to go and pay that wedding call upon the little bride who was\nmarried last week, or to inquire about the health of Mrs. Thingoe on\nthe common, whose twins are ten days old.\n\nBut snow or no snow, as long as old Biddy lives, one of us positively\nmust go and look after \u201cthe old lady.\u201d Every man, woman, and\nchild in the parish calls her \u201cthe old lady,\u201d and a real old lady\nshe is. Biddy was ninety-three last November. She persists she\u2019s\nninety-four--\u201cleastways _in_ my ninety-four. That Register only said\nwhen I was christened, you know, and who\u2019s a-going to say how long I\nwas born before I was christened?\u201d\n\nBiddy has been married three times, and she avers that she wouldn\u2019t\nmind marrying again if she could get another partner equal to her\nsecond. Every one of her husbands had had one or more wives before he\nwedded Biddy. We make out that Biddy and her three spouses committed\nan aggregate of twelve acts of matrimony. If you think that old Biddy\nis a feeble old dotard, drivelling and maundering, you never made a\ngreater mistake in your life. She is as bright as a star of the first\nmagnitude, and as shrewd as the canniest Scotchman that ever carried a\npack. She is almost the only genuine child of Arcady I ever knew who\nhas a keen sense of humour, and is always on the look-out for a joke.\nShe is quite the only one in whom I have noticed any tender pity for\nthe fallen, not because of the consequences that followed the lapse,\nbut simply and only because it was a fall. Biddy lives by herself in a\nhouse very little bigger than an enlarged dog-kennel, and much smaller\nthan an average cow-house. Till she was eighty-three she went about the\ncountry with a donkey and cart, hawking; since then she has managed to\nexist, and pay her rent too, on eighteen pence a week and a stone of\nflour. She is always neat and clean, and more than cheerful. She has\nbeen knitting socks for me for eight years past, and I am provided with\nsufficient hosiery now to last me even to the age of the patriarchs.\nOf course we demoralise old Biddy; her little home is hardly 100 yards\noff the parsonage, and every now and then the old lady comes to tea\nin the kitchen. One of the servants goes to fetch her, and another\ntakes her home; and, as I have said, most days one of us goes to sit\nwith her, and I make it a rule never to leave her without making her\nlaugh. You may think what you like, but I hold that innocent merriment\nkeeps people healthy in mind and body, improves the digestion, clears\nthe intellect, brightens the conscience, prepares the soul for\nadoration--for is not gaiety the anticipation of that which in the\nspiritual world will be known as fulness of joy?\n\nOn this day of snow I found Biddy sitting before the fire, half\nexpecting me and half doubting whether I could get there. \u201c\u2018Cause, you\nknow, you ain\u2019t as young as you was when you came here first.\u201d \u201cIs\nany one, Biddy?\u201d She looked up in her sly way. \u201cDash it, I ain\u2019t!\u201d\nBy her side on the little table was a Book of Common Prayer in very\nlarge print, and her spectacles on it. \u201cI\u2019ve begun to read that book\nthrough,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019ve got as far as where it\u2019s turned down,\nbut there\u2019s some on it as I\u2019ve got to be very particular with. That\nthere slanting print, that\u2019s hard, that is; that ain\u2019t so easy as the\nrest on it. But I\u2019m going to read it all through for all that. You see\nI\u2019ve _done_ it all before, and some of it comes easy.\u201d \u201cWell, Biddy,\nyou ought to know the marriage service by this time.\u201d \u201cAnd so I do,\u201d\nsaid Biddy, grinning. \u201cBut I never had no churchings, and I don\u2019t\nhold wi\u2019 that there _Combination_. Dash it! I never did like cussing\nand swearing!\u201d[7] It turned out that Biddy had set herself the task of\nreading the Prayer Book through, _rubrics and all_. Very funny, wasn\u2019t\nit? Pray, my reverend brethren of the clergy, have you all of you set\nyourselves the same task and carried it out?\n\nA little later the Lady Shepherd dropped in to look at Biddy. She found\nthe old woman chuckling over some very mild pleasantry of mine, which\nshe repeated in her own odd way. Suddenly she stopped. \u201cOur doctor\nwon\u2019t live to ninety-four!\u201d \u201cOh, Biddy, that\u2019s more than you can tell.\nOne thing is quite certain; if he does, you won\u2019t be here to see him.\u201d\n\u201cWhy sha\u2019n\u2019t I?\u201d answers Biddy. \u201cHe\u2019s nigh upon threescore, ain\u2019t he?\nand I\u2019m in my ninety-four. You can\u2019t tell, neither, as I shan\u2019t be\nhere. The Lord knows.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDear old Biddy! Who _does_ know anything? It seems to me that we can\nnone of us know anything about anything but the past. I hardly know\nwhether we are most ignorant of the things that shall be or the things\nthat are. Old Biddy is the last of the old-world folk that fascinated\nme so much with their legends and traditions and reminiscences when\nfirst I settled among them--it seems but yesterday. Old Biddy has told\nme all she has to tell, the gossip and the experiences of days that\nwere not as our days. With her will pass away all that is left of a\ngeneration that was the generation of our fathers. If I leave her with\na smile upon the wrinkled old face there is more often a shade of\nsadness that passes over my own. Other faces rise up before me; other\nvoices seem to sound; the touch of the vanished hand--gone--gone! As\nI turn homeward with bowed head in the grey twilight, and muse upon\nthose ten years that have rushed by so peacefully, and yet which have\nremorselessly levied their tribute and left me beggared of some who\nwere dearer than all the jewels of the mine--\n\n    The farm-smokes, sweetest sight on earth,\n      Slow through the winter air a-shrinking,\n    Seem kind o\u2019 sad, and round the hearth\n      Of empty places set me thinking.\n\nThat, however, is not because Arcady is Arcady, but because life is\nlife.\n\nSuch as we have long ago found the secret of contentment, and something\nmore. Shall I tell you what that secret is? Will you promise to take\nit as the rule of your own life if I do? Here it is, then, wrapped\nup in a very short and pithy aphorism--\u201cThe man who does not like the\nplace he _has to live in_ is a fool.\u201d Ponder it well, you people who\nare never tired of prescribing \u201ca change\u201d as absolutely necessary to\nendurable existence. Banished to the sweetest village in England, how\ndazed and forlorn you\u2019d be! _We_ could accommodate ourselves to your\nlife as easily as we could put on a new suit of clothes. _You_ could\nnever accommodate yourselves to ours. You would mope and pine. Your\nonly solace would be in droning forth a new version of the _Tristia_,\nwhich would not be half as melodious as Ovid\u2019s.\n\nThis poor Shepherd and his Lady Shepherd will never see the Alps\nagain--never take a boat on Lugano\u2019s lake in the summer evening, never\nsee Rome or Florence, never again stand before the Sistine Madonna,\nhearing their hearts beat. Ravenna will remain for them unvisited, and\nMunich will be welcome to keep its acres of splashes, which Britain\u2019s\nyoung men and maidens are told with some insistence are genuine works\nof Rubens, every one of them. These are joys of the past. But if you\nassume that two old fogies like us _must_ be longing for a change,\nfidgeting and hankering after it, and that we _must_ be getting rusty,\ndull, and morose for lack of it, that we are eating our hearts out with\na querulous whimpering, instead of brimming over with thankfulness all\nday and every day--then you do us grievous wrong. What, sir! Do you\ntake us for a couple of babies floundering in a tub, and puling for a\ncake of Pears\u2019 Soap? Arcady or Athens is much the same to us. Where our\nhome must be, there are our hearts.\n\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\nTHE AUTOMATIC ADJUSTMENT OF INCOMES.\n\n\nThis--the great financial measure of the future--can hardly be expected\nto commend itself to the philosophic economists of the present day.\nIt is the penalty which every man who is before his time must expect\nto pay for his excessive sagacity, that his contemporaries neglect\nor deride him. Accordingly the very name of the French thinker who\nsuggested this beautiful scheme for ensuring Liberty, Equality, and\nFraternity has been forgotten and--will it be believed?--the number of\nthose who have ever taken the trouble to work out his formula is quite\ndisgracefully small.\n\n\nThe _Formula_ of the great unknown stands thus:--\n\n  \u00b70001 (x - m)\u00b2 = The amount which the state deals with in all incomes\n                    above \u00a3100 a year.[8]\n\n        Here x = the income. m = \u00a31,000.\n\nIn working out this Formula, the _Rule_ may be stated as follows:--\n\n  1. From the number of pounds of income (x) deduct 1,000.\n\n  2. Multiply the remainder into itself, _i.e._, _square_ it.\n\n  3. Divide the product by 10,000.\n\nThe result will give--\n\n  (i) The amount paid _by_ the State to the owners of income _under_\n        \u00a31,000 a year.\n\n  (ii) The amount paid _to_ the State by owners of income _above_\n        \u00a31,000 a year.\n\nExamples:--\n\n  (_a_) Income of \u00a3200 a year; _i.e._, x = 200.\n\n    200 - 1,000 = -800.\n    -800 squared; [_i.e._,-800 multiplied by -800] = 640,000.\n\nResult of 640,000/10,000 = 64.\n\nConsolation income to all possessors of \u00a3200 a year ... \u00a364.\n\n(_b_) Income of \u00a3500 a year; _i.e._, x = 500.\n\n    500 - 1,000 = -500.\n    -500 squared; [_i.e._,-500 multiplied by -500] = 250,000.\n\nResult of 250,000/10,000 = 25.\n\nConsolation income to all possessors of \u00a3500 a year ... \u00a325.\n\n(_c_) Income of \u00a3900 a year; _i.e._, x = 900.\n\n    900 - 1,000 = -100.\n    -100 squared; [_i.e._, -100 multiplied by -100] = 10,000.\n\nResult of 10,000/10,000 = 1.\n\nConsolation income to all possessors of \u00a3900 a year ... \u00a31.\n\n(_d_) Income of \u00a31,000 a year; _i.e._, x = 1,000.\n\n    1,000 - 1,000 = 0.\n    0 multiplied by 0 = 0.\n\nConsolation income to all possessors of \u00a31,000 a year ... 0.\n\n(_e_) Income of \u00a32,000 a year; _i.e._, x = 2,000.\n\n    2,000 - 1,000 = 1,000.\n    1,000 squared [_i.e._, 1,000 multiplied by 1,000] = 1,000,000.\n\nResult of 1,000,000/10,000 = 100.\n\n_Income tax paid by_ all possessors of \u00a32,000 a year ... \u00a3100.\n\nReduced to a tabulated form it becomes evident that the consolation\npaid by the State to all owners of income below \u00a31,000 will decrease\nas the incomes increase; until, when a prosperous gentleman attains\nto \u00a31,000 a year, the consolation will disappear, and instead of\n_receiving_ anything he will begin to _pay_ tax upon his income, such\ntax becoming greater and greater as his income grows--until, if he be\nso rash as to attain an income of \u00a311,000 a year, he will pay \u00a310,000\na year income tax, and if he does not take this warning and rises to\n\u00a312,000 a year the State will not only claim all his \u00a312,000 but demand\n\u00a3100 a year more.\n\nThat is to say,\n\nA.\n\nIncomes of\n\n   \u00a3200 will receive from the State the Consolation of \u00a364\n    300              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d          49\n    400              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d          36\n    500              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d          25\n    600              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d          16\n    700              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d           9\n    800              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d           4\n    900              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d           1\n  1,000              \u201d           \u201d           \u201d         Nil\n\nB.\n\nIncomes of\n\n  \u00a32,000 will pay to the State a Tax of  \u00a3100\n   3,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d        400\n   4,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d        900\n   5,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      1,600\n   6,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      2,500\n   7,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      3,600\n   8,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      4,900\n   9,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      6,400\n  10,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d      8,100\n  11,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d     10,000\n  12,000       \u201d        \u201d        \u201d     12,100\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe richest man in the community will thus be he who has an income of\n\u00a36,000 a year; on this he will have to pay \u00a32,500 income tax, leaving\nhim with an available balance of \u00a33,500 a year to spend! Now was not\nthis anonymous Frenchman a man of real genius? And is he not a signal\nexample of the truth that\n\n    \u201cThe world knows nothing of its greatest men\u201d?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe assumptions on which this lofty attempt to reconstruct the social\nfabric are based are obvious. They are these:--\n\n  I. That the earners of daily or weekly wages are not owners of\n      property, nor can they be classed among the possessors of a\n      secure annual income. _De minimis non curat lex._\n\n  II. That it is to the advantage of the community to _increase_\n      the number of small capitalists, and to assist them\n      with State aid--though in a diminishing ratio as their\n      property or incomes increase, and they need less and less\n      encouragement.\n\n  III. That it is equally for the advantage of the community\n      to _decrease_ the number of large capitalists and to\n      discourage the accumulation of wealth in few hands; and\n      therefore it is necessary to fix a limit of wealth which\n      men shall not be permitted to exceed.\n\n\nOh! ye Astors and Vanderbilts! Ye Rothschilds and Barings! Ye kings\nof railroads and bacon and nitre! Aye! and such as thou citizen\nLabouchere--thou of the morbidly sensitive conscience. Tremble, for\nyour day is coming! The age of hap-hazard and empirical finance\nis passing--the age of scientific and philosophic readjustment is\nabout to dawn. There are those whose mission it will be to set all\nthings straight, and to bring peace on earth and goodwill to men by\nthe exquisitely simple machinery of Fiscal Reform. When that time\ncomes Mammon\u2019s Kingdom will sink to be a mere tributary to the great\npantisocracy of the future. Hoarding and accumulating will pass away\nand die--brought to an end by the phlebotomy of the scientists.\nMoney-grubbing will be an incident in the historic romances of that\nhappy time, and the tutored youth, young men and maidens, will smile at\nthe darkness and fumbling stupidity of those untaught generations who\nonly chattered of a golden age, with never a dream that a better age\nthan that would come with the revolving years--to wit, the age of--\n\n    \u00b70001 (x-m)\u00b2.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n_WHY I WISH TO VISIT AMERICA._\n\n\nMany more years than I like to acknowledge, have passed away since a\nday when my father caught me slinking out of his library with Mrs.\nTrollope\u2019s \u201cTravels in the United States\u201d under my arm. He laughed at\nmy absurd precocity, for I was little more than a child, and as he\ntook the book away from me, he said, \u201cMy boy, that is not a book for\nyou to read. It is not even true. You shall go to America yourself one\nday, when you\u2019re a man, and you\u2019ll know better than to write that kind\nof stuff.\u201d It was a great hope that was stirred by that promise that\nI should go to America myself some day. I used to think about it, and\nwonder when I might look forward to being a man, and how it could be\nmanaged, and who would help me, and whether I should settle there and\nown a slave. A hundred times I have dreamt of Boston, and of Richmond,\nfor somehow I never thought of New York, and there was no Chicago then,\nand no San Francisco. Perhaps, too, the United States might collapse\nbefore I ever grew to be a man, and that was a prospect that made my\nheart sick to think of. I have been told, indeed, that one night I\nawoke with a cry, and was heard to exclaim, \u201cPray, God, keep America\ntill I\u2019ve been and seen it!\u201d\n\nAnd yet I never have seen America, and I am afraid I never shall see it\nnow, though my youthful prayer has been answered, and America has been\nkept and seems in small danger of collapsing yet awhile. I have read\na great many books about America since those days; but I am bound to\nsay they have not made me much in love with the writers, and I am also\nbound to say that they have given me very, very little information upon\nexactly those points that I most wished to inquire into. Of late years\nI have altogether given up this kind of literature. I believe the last\ntime I looked into any one of these so-called \u201cTravels,\u201d or \u201cTours,\u201d or\n\u201cReminiscences,\u201d was when Mr. Anthony Trollope\u2019s volumes appeared, and\nI could not get through them. Somehow my father\u2019s words on the mother\u2019s\nbook seemed to apply to the son\u2019s, and spite of myself his voice seemed\nto be saying to me, \u201cIt is not even true!\u201d\n\nBut though I have ceased to read books about America, the strong\ndesire to see the New World has never faded; nay, it has increased\nin intensity as the years have gone on, and what was at first but a\nvague hankering after something merely visionary, has gradually become\na definite longing to see and know an attainable reality. My friends\nlaugh at me and assure me I should be very much disappointed; that I\nshould not like it; that no man ought to go to the States after thirty;\nthat at Cincinnati there are only hogs to see, and at Chicago only\nmonstrous corn warehouses, at New York only monster hotels, and at\nBoston--oh, dear! such arrogant prigs; finally, that it would be quite\nimpossible for me to continue wearing a white cravat over there, for\nthe washing of my linen would simply ruin me. I hold my peace, but I\nam not convinced, and I still wish to visit America. And why is this\nwish so strong in me? I will try to answer that question as briefly\nas I can, but I must needs answer it in a disorderly kind of way, and\ngive my reasons as they occur to me, without any attempt at systematic\narrangement.\n\nFirst and foremost, let it be understood that I wish to visit America\nbecause I am so very ignorant about the real life of a great nation\nthat has sprung into magnificent maturity in a single century. History\nhas nothing like a parallel to produce, which can for a moment\nbe compared with the growth of this nationality. I use that word\nadvisedly. As to the mere progress in wealth and numbers, that does\nnot impress me much. From anything I have heard or read, it does not\nseem to me inconceivable that a horde of Chinamen, urged on by avarice\nand selfishness, might have done quite as much as has been done in\nthe United States in the same time, if John Chinaman had happened to\nget the start; but if they had done so, they would, I am convinced,\nhave remained a horde of Chinamen still. There would have been no new\nnation; there would have been nothing like the sublime patriotism that,\nto my mind, characterizes the great American nation; none of that\nincomparable chivalry that animated a whole people during the war of\nsecession; none of that proud sensitiveness that surprises cosmopolitan\nphilosophers when they hear Americans speak of \u201cthe flag.\u201d This is\nwhat I should like to look into, like to ask about, like to study on\nthe spot, namely, What is the amazing cohesive force so infinitely\npotent to bind together into one corporate, living nationality, atoms\nso dissimilar as the population that makes up the great American\npeople; which, as I understand it does, seems to give a new focus to\nwhatever old love of home warms the breast of German, or Dane, or\nSwiss, or Englishman; which makes them, one and all, forget their old\ncountry and their father\u2019s house, and lose all desire to return; which,\nextinguishing the old love of fatherland, replaces it by a new love,\na passion for the glory of the present, with its boundless hopes and\nambitions, and an almost haughty contempt for traditions; this exulting\nconfidence in a great destiny which disdains the lessons of experience,\nand does not ask from them guidance or instruction or warning? Am I\nwrong? or is it not the fact that Americans have incomparably more\nfaith in the _solvitur ambulando_ principle than in any other, and\nthat, whenever it is a question between looking back to see what others\nhave done, and looking forward regardless of all precedent, they always\nprefer striking out a new line rather than following another\u2019s lead?\nAbove all men upon earth, Americans are self-reliant, self-asserting.\nYet, was there ever a people so much at unity with itself? Selfishness\nnever seems to diminish the intense national pride; the fierce war of\nparties in politics never seems to affect patriotism. A whisper of\ndisrespect to \u201cour country,\u201d or the semblance of a sneer at it, and\nwoe to you! Is not this so? I should like to see the working of this\nmysterious and, to my mind, awful force, a force that acts upon the\nnew-comer with exceeding rapidity. How soon does the immigrant feel\nits operation? By what processes does it exercise its prodigious sway?\nHow is it that the Dutchman, who has spent all his life in Java, looks\nto lay his bones with his father\u2019s at Amsterdam or the Hague; that\nour own Australian colonists, when they have \u201cmade their pile,\u201d come\nback to us and call England still their home; that the Frenchman is\nalways a Frenchman, with an astonishing faculty of producing a bad copy\nof French fashions wherever he settles, and no power of assimilating\nhimself to the manners and customs of the people among whom he\nsojourns; but that, when people go to America, it is only a question of\ntime when they will become Americans--become absorbed, that is, into a\nnew nationality? These are questions I should like to ask on the spot,\nand, if possible, test the truth of the answers suggested.\n\nAs there are these problems that present themselves in what I may call\nthe national life of America, so there are others in the political life\nof the American people that I have never been fortunate enough to find\ndiscussed adequately.\n\nWe in England have been spending fifty years in timidly feeling our\nway toward giving our masses a voice in the election of members of\nParliament. We are on the eve of a great change, when something very\nlike manhood suffrage will be ushered in among us. It is undeniable\nthat among the upper and middle classes there is a feeling of great\nuneasiness at the prospect, amounting in some quarters to absolute\nterror and despair, of what may be coming in the not very distant\nfuture. Yet America has prospered in spite of universal suffrage, and,\nas far as I know, seems to be by no means afraid of it. One hears,\nindeed, of numbers of dainty people, who are sometimes spoken of as\n\u201cthe upper classes\u201d in American society, affecting to hold aloof from\npolitical life and taking no part in the strife of parties. It may\nbe so; but do not these citizens of the great commonwealth who give\nthemselves such airs--these \u1f04\u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, as somebody calls them,\nwho, like naughty children, won\u2019t play because they can\u2019t always be on\nthe in side--constitute a very insignificant number? The fact remains\nthat the enormous majority of Americans are not only earnest and, if I\nam rightly informed, passionate politicians, but they go to the polls\nin shoals. That fact alone strikes some of us here with wonder; and\nthe wonder increases upon us enormously when we are assured that this\ndeep interest in political questions appears to be wholly distinct\nfrom the political excitement that intermittently rouses the masses in\nEurope to outbreaks of frenzied hate against established institutions.\nIn France men get wild with panic lest the _ouvriers_ should turn upon\nthe _bourgeoisie_. In Germany the socialists have their own ends in\nview, and do not disguise them. In Ireland the wretched peasantry avow\ntheir designs to confiscate the land. The war of politics with us is\neminently selfish, and in proportion as it is carried on with more and\nmore passion the less there seems to be of real patriotism. On our\nside of the Atlantic it is becoming increasingly apparent that the\ncharacteristic of our political warfare may be described as\n\n    Each man lusting for all that is not his own.\n\nMr. Lowell has summed it all up in one of those stinging antitheses\nthat are so stinging they can hardly be true, when, speaking from the\nAmerican point of view, he says:\n\n    Their people\u2019s turned to mob--our mob\u2019s turned people.\n\nHow is it that in America the masses can be disciplined so readily to\ntake their side, and to engage so heartily in the fray, moving together\nas mysteriously as the swallows that with scarce audible twitterings\ngather in thousands, plume their wings for flight, seem to hesitate\nfor a brief hour, and the next are gone? We, indeed, have of late been\naping some American practices, and trying our hands at the caucus,\nand the three hundred, and what not. I suspect it is a very feeble\nimitation, and I suspect that one of my American friends was right\nwhen he said with a laugh: \u201cYour fellows don\u2019t know their business;\nthey don\u2019t understand what they are talking about. They\u2019re first-rate\nat turning out steel pens and such small ware, but they\u2019d better leave\nour political machinery alone. You\u2019re too crowded up in your little\nisland to find room for one of our big fly-wheels!\u201d But how is all this\nenthusiasm for politics kept up with comparatively so little appeal to\nthe lowest selfishness? and how are these immense numbers manipulated,\nthe vast armies handled as skilfully as if they were soldiers on\nparade? It is all inexplicable to large numbers of wiseacres in\nEngland, who will persist in talking of petty \u201cmotives\u201d and \u201creason\u201d as\nif _they_ were the prime factors in every social problem.\n\nAnd this leads me to touch upon another matter, on which I feel myself\nprofoundly ignorant, and which I am sure that others here are quite\nas ignorant about as I am. We are told that in America there is a\nrecognized profession of politics, just as here there is a medical\nprofession or a legal profession, or, if this is putting the case too\nstrongly, just as here there is the profession of journalism. How in\nthe world do the members of this profession get along? A new President\nis elected, and we are told that all the old officials are turned\nout. Where do they go? What becomes of them? What is the effect upon\nthe executive? With us the patronage of the government, at any rate\nin the civil service, has been reduced to a minimum. Our executive is\nto a very great extent, indeed, independent of the government of the\nday. \u201cMen may come and men may go,\u201d but permanent secretaries \u201cgo on\nfor ever.\u201d So do commissioners and their clerks, and the thousands of\nstipendiaries to whom it matters not one straw whether the Radicals\nare in or the Tories. With us, when a man has gained an appointment by\npassing a good examination at eighteen or nineteen years old, it is his\nown fault if he ever loses it. Practically, there is no getting rid\nof him as long as he can do his work; he is as safe as a judge, and\nirremovable. But in America, we hear, every four years they shuffle the\ncards, and away they go! What results from this? Am I wrongly informed?\nor is there more absolute patronage, patronage _pur et simple_, in\nthe hands of the President of the United States than in any other\nhands on the face of the earth? Assuming that it is so, what, I ask,\nmust be the effect upon the moral sentiments of the people at large,\ninevitably brought day by day and hour by hour into relations with a\nclass of eager office-seekers, hungry, alert, jealous, disappointed,\nunprincipled, or vindictive, according to their success or failure, in\ngetting what they consider their due. Do the \u201couts\u201d accept the logic of\nfacts without demur, and forthwith betake themselves to other callings?\n\nThat in every change in the chief magistracy of a nation every\nstipendiary of the executive, from the postman to the judge of the\nsupreme court, should get his dismissal, and the Democrat clerk in\nthe custom-house who was behindhand with his work on Monday evening\nshould leave his arrears to be made up by his Republican successor on\nTuesday morning; that when President A enters upon his office, a new\ngame should be begun, and the pieces be all set up again, regardless\nof the position in which the knights or the pawns were when President\nB was checkmated,--all this seems to us, from our point of view, not\nonly difficult to understand, but difficult to imagine. Surely, theory\nand fact in this matter must differ very widely. Am I only exposing my\nignorance?\n\nI have used the terms \u201cupper and middle classes\u201d on a previous page.\nWhen I have asked Americans what the subtle barriers are that in\nAmerican society separate class from class, they have replied more\nthan once, \u201cIn America there are no classes! We have no differences\nof rank with us.\u201d Strange! And yet we hear of colonels and generals\nand senators often enough, and I am much mistaken if such titles are\nat all less esteemed on that side of the water than on this. Be it as\nit may, however, rank and title may be shadows, but class differences\nare substantial things. With us the titular aristocracy constitute a\nclass, an inner circle, that at one time united in itself shadow and\nsubstance, and now tends to become less exclusive and less influential,\nhowever loudly some may complain that\n\n                              ... in these British islands\n    \u2019Tis the substance that wanes ever, \u2019tis the symbol that exceeds.\n\nWe love rank, because we have a lingering suspicion that it somehow\nsymbolizes wealth, or power, or brilliant intellectual gifts, or great\npublic services, that have forced their possessors into the front\nrank at some time or other, and received their due recognition in\nthe shape of titular distinction conferred either recently or in days\ngone by. But if a title is found to be dissociated from any nobleness\nof character, and is unsupported by brain power or purse power, it\nwill not save a man from humiliating snubs, or give him the _entr\u00e9e_\nto the drawing-rooms of the upper classes. For we have more than one\nupper class among us, as other nations have had and will continue to\nhave while the world lasts. In that social world where Mrs. Grundy\nbears sway, our titular aristocracy undoubtedly are the acknowledged\nleaders, and to them great homage is paid. But it is not only because\na man is an earl, or a lady is a duchess, that the one or the other is\nsurrounded by a little court, approached with deference and treated\nwith studied respect, but because both the one and the other are rich\nenough to \u201csupport the title,\u201d as we say. Yes, it is true that in some\nsense or other\n\n    Our nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk blackly\n    In presence of the social law, as most ignoble men.\n\nYou may protest that society in England is under the dominion of a\nplutocracy, then. Yes! and No! Yes! in so far as it is true and always\nmust be true, that no man or woman can live on familiar terms, and\nkeep up the habitual intercourse with the leisure classes, without a\ncertain amount of money. No! in so far as it is also true that money\nalone, however abundant it may be, will never, among us, give any one\nan introduction to what we call society. I have heard of cases, and I\nknow of one, where a millionaire from our colonies took a palace in\nLondon, and lived _en prince_; was visited by no one, failed to get\ninto any but a third-rate club, found no one to entertain and but few\npeople to speak to; and finally has gone back from whence he came,\nastonished, disappointed, and soured. They tell me that wealth in\nAmerica will gain admission to any society for any one. I have been\nrepeatedly assured by intelligent Americans that this is so; yet I\ncannot understand that it should be so. I can quite understand that,\nwhatever a man\u2019s rank, or gifts, or prospects may be, he would find it\nvery painful to mix with the upper ten thousand if he could not afford\nto pay for cab-hire, or keep up his subscription at the club, every day\nfinding it hard to get his dinner, and every night perplexed _de lodice\nparanda_; but I can no more understand how a mere expenditure of cash\ncould get X, Y, or Z into the best society, than I can understand how\na payment of, say \u00a310,000, would get an average cricketer into the\nAll-England eleven, or a second-rate oar into the University crew. The\nCorporation of London is a plutocracy; but society, while accepting his\nlavish hospitality, treats even the Lord Mayor of London _de haut en\nbas_. The Lady Mayoress receives ambassadors with condescension; next\nyear some young _attach\u00e9_ stares at Mrs. Tomkins, and wonders where he\nhas met that woman.\n\nWho are the upper classes in America? It is nonsense to say there are\nnone. Not to speak of those states in pre-Christian times that tended\nmore or less to become dominated over by an oligarchy, Athens was at\nleast as pure a republic as America is; her people were as proud, as\nself-asserting, as audaciously enterprising, as ambitious, as shrewd\nin commercial ventures, as greedy for money, and as lavish in spending\nit, as the Americans are; yet the \u201cfirst families\u201d among the Athenians\nwere as haughty as Spaniards, as exclusive as the old French noblesse,\nand bragged of their ancestry as absurdly as Scotchmen do. If a\nloud-voiced, bawling demagogue came to the front by sheer force of will\nand impudence, his political opponents never allowed the populace to\nforget that he was brought up in a tan-yard. Demosthenes gives point to\nhis most withering sarcasms against \u00c6schines by reminding his audience\nthat he was the son of a school-mistress, and had to scrub the ink off\nthe desks at which his mother taught the dirty little urchins; and who\nthat has read the \u201cClouds\u201d can forget Strepsiades\u2019s doleful lamentation\nover his fatal mistake in marrying a fine lady with a pedigree, and\nbegetting a son who did not take after his father? There must be an\naristocracy in America who stand upon their birth rather than their\nmere wealth, yet how little we hear of them. What recognition do they\nreceive? How is it they so seldom come to be leaders? How is it that\nHyperbolus seems to push aside Cimon, and Cleon is quite too much for\nAlcibiades?\n\nIt used to be said that no two Englishmen could be found to maintain\na conversation together for five minutes without one asking the other\nwhat he thought of the weather. It is true still; but there is another\nquestion that of late years has become the stock question when two\npeople meet one another, and that is, \u201cWhen are you going away?\u201d If\na man replies boldly that he is not going away at all, he is looked\nupon as the very impersonation of eccentricity. \u201cNot going away!\nWhy, what are you going to do?\u201d This \u201cgoing away\u201d means leaving our\ncountry-houses when the flowers are in their splendour and all nature\nbids us stay where we are, and starting off for Norway or Switzerland\nto spend our money among strange people, drink bad wine, get in late\nfor _table-d\u2019h\u00f4te_ when we are faint and weary, or find ourselves five\nflights of stairs from our pocket handkerchief in a towering edifice\nwithout a lift. But go where we will, we are sure to find ourselves not\ntwo chairs away from American tourists; they are everywhere. Sir James\nRoss used to say that if ever he reached the North Pole he would be\nsure to find a Scotchman sitting upon it. I don\u2019t know what has become\nof all the Scotchmen; they and the gypsies have grown rarer since I\nwas a boy; but you can never escape from Americans. Of course there\nare Americans and Americans; they differ from one another as much as\nany other people do, as much and no more; but this is true of all the\ntransatlantic tourists, they are abundantly supplied with money, and\nthey do not grudge spending it; in fact, if we were to judge by the\nAmericans we meet with in Europe, we should be forced to the conclusion\nthat all Americans are rich, even very rich. But when I have asked them\nhow clergymen and doctors and lawyers and elderly people with strictly\nlimited incomes live in the United States,--such people as among us\nlive in comfort with a couple of female servants, or even keep a pony\nchaise,--I have found my tourist acquaintances very much amused at\nmy supposing that in America _helps_ could be got to stay in such a\nhousehold. \u201cAre there, then, no small people in America?\u201d I have asked.\nThe answer has been more often than not, \u201cIf there are, we don\u2019t know\nthem.\u201d\n\nIt is obvious that quiet, domestic people of small means are not to be\nmet with among tourists at luxurious hotels, and equally obvious that\nsuch people are hard to get at by travellers who are themselves birds\nof passage. When a householder is living very near the wind, he does\nnot like to expose his small economies and humble ways to a stranger;\nand because he is living a quiet, unostentatious life, he has little\nto offer to those whose occupation is seeing sights. But any man or\nwoman who wishes to gain some insight into our domestic life may\neasily obtain it if he will but take the trouble to read our works of\nfiction. Our novelists come from the middle classes, not from the rich\nor leisure classes, and they speak as they do know. They tell us all\nabout the habits and sentiments and ways of talking among clergymen and\ndoctors and farmers and millers and clerks and shopkeepers in England;\nthey show us the good and the bad side with equal impartiality; and\nno more faithful delineations have ever been made of the inner and\nouter life of the lowest struggling classes than are to be found in\nEnglish literature. But if we want to get an insight into the _morale_\nof such people in America, we do not know where to look for it. Such\na character as Kitty Ellison in Mr. Howell\u2019s \u201cChance Aquaintance,\u201d\nwhose heart is with Uncle Jack and his anxieties and troubles while\nshe is enjoying all the gaieties and luxuries that wealth can bestow,\nis a rarity in America; and, moreover, all the people one meets with\nin Mr. Howell\u2019s stories are away from home. In the \u201cBiglow Papers\u201d\none does now and then get a hint that there are shrewd farmers and\nhard-headed country folk somewhere in the States, who do not wander\nvery far, but one never gets to know them. That exquisite story of\nMr. Stockton\u2019s, \u201cRudder Grange,\u201d as far as I know, occupies a unique\nposition in American literature, and has for many of us lifted the veil\nfrom a whole world of little people across the Atlantic, of whose very\nexistence some on our side the water had almost begun to entertain\ndoubts. Yet we are in the habit of thinking that it is precisely among\nthese people that we must look for the real heart of a great nation,\nand that the pulse of every great nation is to be felt among them, if\nat all.\n\nBut of all subjects of inquiry that a thoughtful Englishman could set\nhimself to work at, the most instructive, the most suggestive, would\nbe the effect of perfect equality between the various religious bodies\nupon the philosophic speculations, religious sentiments, and ethical\nconvictions of the American people. In England there is one Church\nby law established, and they who separate from the communion of that\nChurch are all classed together as dissenters. That there should be\nanywhere on the face of the earth a condition of society where there\ncan be no such thing as a dissenter, is a thought extremely difficult\nfor some good folks here to grasp. But much harder is the other notion,\nwhich I presume is familiar enough to Americans, that there should be\nanywhere no sects. No dissenters, because no predominant or paramount\nChristian organization that rejoices in the \u201cmost-favoured-nation\u201d\nclause. No sects, because no church recognized as _the_ Church from\nwhich the other religious bodies have cut themselves off. That there\nshould be no bigotry and exclusiveness, no _odium theologicum_, no\nfierce rivalry, no proselytizing, in America, as everywhere else,\nis inconceivable. Theological disputants will cease to wrangle when\nlawyers learn to love one another as brethren and doctors differ\nwithout asperity; but among us the situation is extremely embarrassing\nas between the Church--for with us it is _the_ Church--and the\nnon-conformist, that is, with those who will not subscribe to our\nChurch doctrine, accept our formularies, or conform to our liturgy.\nHere we have a standard by which we try all other Christian bodies, and\nwe pronounce them more or less orthodox or denounce them as absolutely\nunorthodox, in proportion as they approach or depart from this standard\nwhich is tacitly accepted among us as the established standard. If\nthere were no Church of England by law established, I believe that a\nvast number of people would find themselves quite dazed, quite lost.\nTo them it would be practically pretty much as if we were all to awake\nsome fine morning to find that the Home Secretary had shut up Greenwich\nobservatory and run away with the key, having previously taken measures\nto stop all the great clocks in the land. We should all of us be going\nby our own watches.\n\nYet somehow in America every man goes by his own watch; and if nobody\nis right, nobody else is likely to consider himself hopelessly wrong.\nHere the social position of the clergy of the established Church is\nsomething quite peculiar. There is no need to dwell upon the fact,\nbut that it is a fact there can be no doubt. The result is, that the\nattitude of the clergy[9] toward all the religious teachers has always\nbeen exclusive; there has never been any cordiality, and very little\nco\u00f6peration. I do not say this is not deplorable; I am concerned\nwith facts only. A supercilious tone is so habitually natural to the\nclergyman when speaking or dealing with the dissenting minister, and a\ntone of soreness, jealousy, and suspicion on the part of the minister\ntowards the clergyman seems to us so inseparable from their relations\none to the other, that we in England can hardly bring ourselves to\nbelieve that the Episcopalian and the Independent, the Wesleyan and\nthe Primitive Methodist, could meet on absolutely equal terms, just as\nofficers of two regiments in the same army can meet at mess and fight\nvaliantly side by side against the common foe. Every now and then we\nget one of those necessary evils, the religious newspapers, sent us\nby kind friends from America, or we catch a glimpse of an American\nbishop or Episcopalian popular preacher. Was it only a dream, or have I\nreally, actually, in the flesh, once met with an American archdeacon?\nBut from these exalted personages and their organs surprisingly little\nis to be learned; and I observe that an ecclesiastic, let him come\nfrom where he may, is a shy creature, ready enough to listen, but not\nto talk. He puts himself on the defensive, and is so very much afraid\nof committing himself, that you are apt to retire into your interior,\ntoo; just as I have observed two snails meeting on their evening walk;\none at the approach of his brother shuts himself up in his shell, and\nthe other tickles at him with his horns for a little while, but ends by\naccepting the situation, and shutting himself up also. Result, to all\nappearance, nothing but two unoccupied snail-shells, inhabitants having\nretired from publicity.\n\nI cannot believe that even in America the priests of the Roman Church\nwould ever assume any other than a haughty bearing toward all other\nChristian teachers. Theirs is either _the_ Church, or it is nothing.\nBut how do all the rest behave to one another? Are they all, in point\nof fact, merely ministers of their respective congregations? How about\nproselytizing? It is comparatively easy to draw up a constitution that\nshall keep up a certain amount of discipline among the officers of any\nforce; but it is quite another thing to keep control over the rank\nand file when they are all volunteers. Such a regiment as that famous\none of Artemus Ward\u2019s, \u201ccomposed exclusively of commanders-in-chief,\u201d\nwould hardly be found a successful organization in the church militant.\nAre the clergy of all denominations held by all denominations in equal\nesteem? Do they \u201clove as brethren,\u201d or do they \u201cbite and devour one\nanother?\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese are some of the questions I find myself continually asking when\nI turn my thoughts toward the magnificent country and the great nation\non the other side of the ocean. I do not believe a man could get any\nanswer to them, satisfactory to his own mind, except by personal\nobservation. He must for a time live among living men, and see them\nat their daily tasks, to understand their life even a very little. It\nis too much the habit of travellers to take their theories with them.\nI, for my part, have none. If I ever carry out the wish of my life, I\nshall start as a naturalist does who goes to make collections--with\nempty cases, notebooks, and apparatus--not too ready to generalize, but\nvery anxious to learn. The probability is, I shall never go at all.\nBut others more fortunate than I may, perhaps, be able to enlighten my\ndarkness and inform my ignorance, and it may happen that the hints I\nhave thrown out may be suggestive to them.\n\nAs to the big cities, with their colossal warehouses and enormous\ntrade, their gigantic hotels and prodigious growth, they possess for\nme no attraction. There is something dreadful to my mind in losing\nmy personality in a surging multitude and being absorbed in a crowd.\nTo find myself unable to hear my own voice because steam-hammers are\npounding all round me, and iron wheels are keeping up a ceaseless din,\nannihilating articulate speech--that seems to me horrible. I shrink\nfrom these things. I should be found creeping into out-of-the-way\nplaces, prying into schools and colleges and universities, begging\nthat nobody would notice me, while I might be permitted to notice\neverybody. Sometimes I should put very impertinent questions about the\nwonderful endowments that I hear Americans believe in firmly, just when\nwe are beginning to lose our faith in their value. Sometimes I should\neven venture to inquire about the war--_the_ war--the one war that\nreflected only imperishable glory upon both sides--the one civil war\nin the world\u2019s history that ended with the grandest of all triumphs,\nfreedom to the oppressed, without one single act of vengeance inflicted\nupon the beaten side. Sometimes--but I am in danger of treading upon\nperilous ground, in danger of saying too much, in danger of making some\none growl out suspiciously, \u201cWhen you do come, if ever you do, you\u2019d\nbetter keep out of my way!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA few days ago, I was turning over an old volume of \u201cPunch,\u201d when I\nwas attracted by a cartoon that may be familiar to some of my readers.\nA mighty coal-heaver, his day\u2019s work done, is leaning against one\nof the many posts to be found in the region of the Seven Dials, his\nhands in his pockets, his lips pipeless, his eyes staring at vacancy.\nBy him stands an exquisitely dressed clergyman, tall, slim, gentle,\nrefined, who has blandly laid his extended hand upon the other\u2019s brawny\nshoulder. Says the clergyman, \u201cMy friend, I want to go to Exeter Hall.\u201d\nSays the coal-heaver, \u201cThen why the dooce don\u2019t you go?\u201d Was it that\nthe good man did not know his way? or was he suffering from a little\ntightness in the chest?\n\n\nUNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] \u201cArcady, for Better for Worse.\u201d\n\n[2] This is a matter of very great importance in hundreds of country\nparishes, where the washing of the rectory frequently suffices to\nmaintain a whole family.\n\n[3] A genuine Norfolk man never aspirates a _t_ when followed by an\n_r_. It is always _trew_ for through, _troat_ for throat, _tree_ for\nthree, &c.\n\n[4] I do not forget Crabbe--that sweet and gentle versifier. But the\nromantic element is wholly wanting in him. Very probably Sir Wilfrid\nLawson would vehemently protest that Crabbe deserves to be reckoned\namong the greatest of the great. Was not his first poem entitled\n_Inebriety_? When a child I used to be told that Bloomfield\u2019s _Farmer\u2019s\nBoy_ was equal to Spenser, but I concluded that Spenser must be very\ndull, and conceived a horror of the _Faery Queen_ in consequence.\n\n[5] The lists of \u201cchurch goods\u201d--_i.e._ of the contents of our\nchurches--during the reign of Edward the Sixth, are to be found in the\nRecord Office. Many of them have been printed _in extenso_; they make\nup in the aggregate a large mass of documents, and some account of them\nmay be found in the seventh and ninth reports of the Deputy Keeper of\nthe Public Records. Among the miscellaneous books of the Exchequer\nis a visitation book of the Archdeacon of Norwich for the year 1368,\nwhich contains a very minute account of the contents of every church in\nthe archdeaconry, including service books, vestments, sacred vessels,\nbanners, processional crosses, ornaments, &c., all set down in detail,\nthe names of the donors being frequently given, and sometimes the value\nof the more precious articles being stated. Some years ago I stumbled\nupon an inventory of the contents of the Collegiate Church of St.\nMary, Warwick, drawn up in 1467, extending over five folio pages. It\nseemed to me, on a cursory inspection, to be a document of great value\nas illustrative of this subject. I know not whether it has ever been\nprinted; if not, perhaps Warwickshire antiquaries may be glad to be\nreferred to it--_Miscell. Books of the Exchequer_, Q.R. No. 30. The\ninventory begins at fol. cci.\n\n[6] Why _will_ not the printers\u2019 readers let me use this word? I _do_\nuse it every day of my life in talk; why may I not write it and print\nit? It is very short, and it is perfectly harmless. I am afraid it must\nmean something bad in Finnish or some other strange tongue, for the\n_reader_ always draws my attention to it.\n\n[7] Fact! Old Biddy\u2019s habit of _dashing it_ is so confirmed that\nthere\u2019s no hope of her outgrowing it.\n\n[8] Inasmuch as the _general reader_ has a strong objection to the\nuse of Decimals, it will be a comfort to him to be assured that\n_multiplying_ by \u00b70001 is the same thing as _dividing_ by 10,000; and\nso \u00b70001 (x - m)\u00b2 is only another way of writing ((x - m)\u00b2)/10,000\n\n[9] It has been only of late years that any Christian ministers other\nthan those ordained by the bishops of the Church of England have been\ncalled \u201cclergymen\u201d among us. The nonconformists were always called\n\u201cministers\u201d or \u201cpreachers.\u201d I find myself driven to use the words\n\u201cclergy\u201d and \u201cminister\u201d in the old way, to avoid conveying a wrong\nimpression to my readers.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nPunctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant\npreference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced\nquotation marks retained.\n\nAmbiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of\ninconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.\n\nSpelling and punctuation in dialect has not been changed.\n\nPage 166: Transcriber added closing double-quotation mark to \u2018in those\nrude old times.\u201d How?\u2019 but it may belong after the \u2018How?\u2019 or in some\nother place.\n\nPages 252-253: In the formulas and explanations of them, the variables\nx and m were printed in italics. For readability, that is not indicated\nhere.\n\nPages 264-269: In the formulas and explanations of them, the variables\nx and m were printed in boldface. For readability, that is not\nindicated here.","title":"The Trials of a Country Parson","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":72653}