Laying his hand on the little book he would declare that he found
grace in the Bible, but in the church only greed. Once and only once
he had appealed to a parson. He was hungry, naked, and bleeding, but
the great double-chinned, red-faced man had looked on him as if he
were a rat, and, without hearing his story, had him driven off by a
grand-looking servant, who cracked a whip over his head and swore at
him.
In Hugh Bronte's eyes the parsons got their livings for political
services, and not for learning or goodness. Enormous sums were paid
them to do work that they did not do. They rarely visited their
parishes, and their duties were performed by hungry and ill-paid
curates. When they did return occasionally to their livings they were
heard of at banquets, where they ate and drank too freely, and at
other resorts, where they gambled recklessly. They were seen riding
over the country after foxes and hounds, and sitting in judgment on
the men whose grain they had trampled down, and sending them to penal
servitude for trapping hares in their own gardens. They were said to
be ignorant, but they were known to be irreligious, immoral,
arrogant, and cruel. They acted as the ministers of the gentry,
before whom they were very humble, and they utterly despised the
people who paid for their luxuries, and supported their own priests
besides.
They gave the sanction of the church to violence, craft, and crime in
high places, and they were as far removed as men could be, in origin,
position, and practices, from the apostles of the New Testament. And
yet, he added, they claimed, in the most haughty manner, that they and
they alone were the successors of the apostles, although they showed
no signs of apostolic spirituality or apostolic service.
Hugh Bronte declared that he could not submit to the Protestant
parson, who despised him because he was poor, and could not aid in his
promotion, nor could he yield obedience to the Catholic priest, who
demanded utter subjection and prostration of both body and mind, and
enforced his church's claims by a stout stick. With these views it is
not to be wondered at that Hugh Bronte did not belong to any church.
To us, now, his statements appear exaggerated and too sweeping, but it
must be remembered that he spoke of the Irish clergy in the closing
decades of the last century. He expressed himself fiercely regarding
the parsons, and in return they dubbed him "atheist."
His second negative assertion was: