"What do you mean, sir!"
That was enough; a torrent of impromptu eloquence is let loose.
"I will remove Dagon there, I say; that idol, that heathenish idol, that
remains as I may say a beam, a very beam, not a beam of the sun, nor a
beam of the moon, nor a beam of the balance, neither a house beam, nor a
weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, an exceeding great beam!"
It was the same method employed long after by Mr. Chadband in his moving
address to little Joe.
"My young friend, you are to us a pearl, a diamond, you are to us a
jewel. And why, my young friend?"
"I don't know," replied Joe, "I don't know nothink."
This gave Mr. Chadband his opportunity for continued speech. "My young
friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem, a
jewel. For what are you? Are you a beast of the field? No! Are you a
fish of the river? No! You are a human boy! Oh, glorious to be a human
boy! And why glorious, my young friend?"
Marvelous, to taciturn folk, is this flow of language. The little rill
becomes a torrent, and soon there are waters to swim in. It seems to
savor of the supernatural, being of the nature of creation out of
nothing. And yet like many other wonderful things, it is easy when one
knows how to do it.
The churchmen of those days joined with the wits in laughter which
greeted the tinkers and the bakers who turned to prophesying on their
own account. But now and then one of the zealous independents could give
as keen a thrust as any which were received. It would be hard to find
more delicate satire than in the description of Parson Two Tongues of
the town of Fair Speech, who was much esteemed by his distinguished
parishioners, My Lord Time-Server, Mr. Facing Both-Ways, and Mr.
Anything. The parson was a man of good family, though his grandfather
had been a waterman, and had thus learned the art of looking one way and
rowing another. It is his parishioner Mr. Bye-Ends who propounds the
question of ministerial ethics. "Suppose a minister, a worthy man,
possessed of but a small benefice, has in his eye a greater, more fat
and plump by far; he has also now an opportunity of getting it, yet so
as being more studious, by preaching more zealously, and because the
temper of the people requires it, by altering some of his principles,
for my part I see no reason but a man may do this (provided he has a
call), aye, and a great deal more besides, and be an honest man." As for
changing his principles to suit the times, Mr. Bye-Ends argues that it
shows that the minister "is of a self-sacrificing temper."
The argument for conformity is put so plausibly that it is calculated to
deceive the very elect; and then as if by mere inadvertence we are
allowed a glimpse of the seamy side. It is evident that the wits were
not all banished from the conventicles.
* * * * *
To those who are acquainted only with the pale and interesting
tea-drinking parsons of nineteenth-century English fiction, there is
something surprising in the clergymen one meets in the pages of
Fielding. They are all in such rude health! There is not a suggestion of
nervous prostration nor of minister's sore throat. Not one of them seems
to be in need of a vacation; perhaps because they are out of doors all
the time. Their professional duties were doubtless done, but they are
not obtruded on the reader's attention.
The odious Chaplain Thwackum is chiefly remembered for his argument with
the free-thinker Square. Square having asserted that honor might exist
independently of religion, Thwackum refutes him in a manner most
satisfactory. "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion,
and not only the Christian religion but the Protestant religion, and not
only the Protestant religion but the religion of the Church of England;
and when I mention honor I mean that mode of divine grace which is
dependent on that religion."
"Thwackum," says the Gentle Reader, "was, after all, an unworldly man.
He was content to remain a mere hanger-on of the church when he was
capable of thoughts which were really in great demand. I have been
looking over a huge controversial volume by an author of that day, and I
found nothing but Thwackum argument expanded and illustrated. The author
was made a bishop for it."
As for Parson Trulliber, the Falstaff of divines, the less said about
him the better. The curate Barnabas is a more pleasing character, though
hardly an example of spirituality. He reminds one of the good parson
who, in his desire for moderation, prayed that the Lord might lead his
people "in the safe middle path between right and wrong."
When Joseph Andrews confessed his sins to him, Barnabas was divided
between his eagerness to do his professional duty to the sinner, and the
desire to prepare the punch for the company downstairs, a work in which
he particularly excelled.
"Barnabas asked him if he forgave his enemies 'as a Christian ought.'
"Joseph desired to know what that forgiveness was.
"'That is,' answered Barnabas, 'to forgive them--as--it is to forgive
them as--in short, to forgive them as a Christian.'
"Joseph replied 'He forgave them as much as he could.'
"'Well! Well!' said Barnabas, 'that will do!' He then demanded of him if
he had any more sins unrepented of, and if he had, to repent of them as
fast as he could; ... for some company was waiting below in the parlor
where the ingredients for punch were all in readiness, for that no one
could squeeze the oranges till he came."
Barnabas would have been shocked at the demands of the Methodists for
immediate repentance, but on this occasion he was led into almost equal
urgency.
But Fielding more than atones for all the rest by the creation of Parson
Adams. Dear, delightful Parson Adams! to know him is to love him! In him
the Church of England appears a little out at the elbows, but in good
heart. With the appetite of a ploughman, and "a fist rather less than
the knuckle of an ox," he represents the true church militant. He has a
pipe in his mouth, and a short great coat which half conceals his
cassock, which he had "torn some ten years ago in passing over a stile."
But however uncanonical his attire, his heart is in the right place.
What a different world Parson Adams lived in from that of George Eliot's
Amos Barton, bewildered with thoughts which he could not express. "'Mr.
Barton,' said his rural parishioner, 'can preach as good a sermon as
need be when he writes it down, but when he tries to preach without book
he rambles about, and every now and then flounders like a sheep as has
cast itself and can't get on its legs.'"
One cannot imagine Parson Adams floundering about, under any
circumstances. There is a sturdy strength and directness about all he
says and does. His simplicity is endearing but never savors of weakness.
He sets great store by his manuscript sermons, for which he seeks a
publisher. The curate Barnabas throws cold water on his plans. The age,
he says, is so wicked that nobody reads sermons;
"'Would you think it, Mr. Adams, I intended to print a volume of
sermons, myself, and they had the approbation of three bishops, but what
do you think the bookseller offered me?'
"'Twelve guineas,' cried Adams.
"'Nay,' answered Barnabas, 'the dog refused me a concordance in
exchange.... To be concise with you, three bishops said they were the
best sermons that were ever writ; but indeed there are a pretty moderate
number printed already, and they are not all sold yet.'"
The theology of Parson Adams was genially human. "'Can anything,' he
said, 'be more derogatory to the honor of God than for men to imagine
that the all-wise Being will hereafter say to the good and virtuous,
Notwithstanding the purity of thy life, notwithstanding the constant
rule of virtue and goodness in which thou walkedst upon earth; still, as
thou didst not believe everything in the true orthodox manner, thy want
of faith shall condemn thee? Or, on the other side, can any doctrine be
more pernicious in society than the persuasion that it will be a good
plea for a villain at the last day,--"Lord, it is true I never obeyed
any of Thy commandments; yet punish me not, for I believe in them
all?"'"
This was not sound doctrine in the opinion of the itinerant bookseller.
"'I am afraid,' he said, 'that you will find a backwardness in the trade
to engage in a book which the clergy would be certain to cry down.'"
The good parson had the clerical weakness for reading sermons in season
and out of season. At a festive gathering there was a call for speeches,
to which it was objected that no one was prepared for an address;
"'Unless,' turning to Adams, 'you have a sermon about you.'
"'Sir,' said Adams, 'I never travel without one, for fear of what might
happen.'"
Like other clergymen, he dabbled occasionally in politics. "'On all
proper seasons, such as at the approach of an election, I throw a
suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear
is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen, my
neighbors.'"
At one time he actively labored for the election of young Sir Thomas
Booby, who had lately returned from his travels. He was elected, "'and
a fine Parliament man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour
long, and I have been told very fine ones; but he could never persuade
Parliament to be of his opinion.'"
Estimable, eloquent Sir Thomas Booby! How many orators have found the
same result following their speeches of an hour long!
To the returned traveler who had engaged in a controversy with him,
Parson Adams gave expression to his literary faith.
"'Master of mine, perhaps I have traveled a great deal further than you,
without the assistance of a ship. Do you imagine sailing by different
cities or countries is traveling. I can go further in an afternoon than
you in a twelve-month. What, I suppose you have seen the pillars of
Hercules and perhaps the walls of Carthage?... You have sailed among the
Cyclades and passed the famous straits which took their name from the
unfortunate Helle, so sweetly described by Apollonius Rhodius; you have
passed the very spot where Daedalus fell into the sea; you have doubtless
traversed the Euxine, and called at Colchis to see if there was another
golden fleece.'
"'Not I, truly,' said the gentleman. 'I never touched at any of these
places.'
"'But I have been in all these,' replied Adams.
"'Then you have been in the Indies, for there are no such places, I'll
be sworn, either in the West Indies or in the Levant.'
"'Pray, where is the Levant?' quoth Adams.
"'Oho! You're a pretty traveler and not to know the Levant. You must not
tip me for a traveler, it won't go here.'
"'Since thou art so dull as to misunderstand me,' quoth Adams, 'I will
inform thee. The traveling I mean is in books, the only kind of
traveling by which any knowledge is acquired.'"
"There is a great deal to be said in defense of that opinion," says the
Gentle Reader.
* * * * *
To turn from Parson Adams to the Vicar of Wakefield is to experience a
change of spiritual climate. Parson Adams was a good man, and so was Dr.
Primrose; otherwise they were quite different. Was piety ever made more
attractive to restless, over-driven people than in the person of the
dear, non-resistant vicar. Here was a man who might be reviled and
persecuted,--but he never could be hurried.
The Gentle Reader rejoices in the peace of the opening chapters. "The
year was spent in moral and rural amusements. We had no revolutions to
fear, no fatigues to undergo, all our adventures were by the fireside,
and all our migrations were from the blue bed to the brown." And
good-natured Mrs. Primrose, absorbed in making pickles and gooseberry
wine, and with her ability to read any English book without much
spelling, was an ideal minister's wife, before the days of missionary
societies and general information. It was only her frivolous daughters
who were brought into society, where there was talk of "pictures, taste,
Shakespeare, and the musical glasses." These subjects not then being
supposed to have any esoteric, religious significance, which it was the
duty of the minister's wife to discover and disseminate, she busied
herself with her domestic concerns without any haunting sense that she
was neglecting the weightier matters. The vicar's favorite sermons were
in praise of matrimony, and he preached out of a happy experience.
This peaceful scene bears the same relation to the trials that
afterwards befell the good man that the prologue to the Book of Job does
to the main part of it. Satan has his will with Job, so also it happened
with Dr. Primrose. His banker absconds to Amsterdam, his daughter elopes
with the wicked young squire who has the father thrown into prison,
where he hears of the death of his wretched daughter who has been cast
off by her betrayer. Troubles came thick and fast; yet did not the vicar
hurry, nor for a moment change the even tenor of his way. It was the
middle of the eighteenth century, when piety was not treated as an
elemental force. It did not lift up its voice and cry out against
injustice. The church was the patient Griselda married to the state, and
the clergyman was a teacher of resignation.
Upon learning of his daughter's abduction, Dr. Primrose calls for his
Bible and his staff, but he does not indulge in any haste unbecoming a
clergyman. He finds time in his leisurely pursuit to discourse most
judiciously and at considerable length on the royal prerogative. He
remembers his duty to the landed gentry, and on his return from his
unsuccessful quest remains several days to enjoy the squire's
hospitality.
Was ever poetical justice done with more placidity and completeness than
in the prison scene? The vicar, feeling that he is about to die,
proceeds to address his fellow wretches. He falls naturally into an old
sermon on the evils of free-thinking philosophy, that being the line of
the least resistance. The discourse being finished, it is without
surprise and yet with real pleasure that we learn that he does not die;
nor is his son, who was about to be hanged, hanged at all; on the
contrary, he appears not long after handsomely dressed in regimentals,
and makes a modest and distant bow to Miss Wilmot, the heiress. That
young lady had just arrived and was to be married next day to the wicked
young squire, but on learning that young gentleman's perfidy, "'Oh
goodness!' cried the lovely girl, 'how I have been deceived.'" The
vicar's son being on the spot in his handsome regimentals, they are
engaged in the presence of the company, and her affluent fortune is
assured to this hitherto impecunious youth. And the daughter Olivia at
the same time appears, it happening that she was not dead after all,
and that she has papers to show that she is the lawful wife of the young
squire. And the banker who ran away with the vicar's property has been
captured and the money restored. In the mean time--for happy accidents
never come singly--the wretch who was in the act of carrying off the
younger daughter Sophy has been foiled by the opportune arrival of Mr.
Burchell. And best of all, Mr. Burchell proves not to be Mr. Burchell at
all, but the celebrated Sir William Thornhill, who is loyal to the
constitution and a friend of the king. The Vicar is so far restored that
he leaves the jail and partakes of a bountiful repast, at which the
company is "as merry as affluence and innocence could make them."
Affluence as the providential, though sometimes long delayed, reward of
innocence was a favorite thesis of eighteenth-century piety.
"It may sound very absurd," says the Gentle Reader, "to those who insist
that all the happenings should be realistic; but the Vicar of Wakefield
is a very real character, nevertheless; and he is the kind of a person
for whom you would expect things to come out right in the end."