should know well, not only how many shillings there are in a pound, but
how many shillings also there are in a clerical pound,--for in these
matters there is a difference. Five hundred a year is much more in the
hands of a country parson than it is in the hands of a country
gentleman who is not a parson,--all which the efficient archdeacon
understands and has at his fingers’ ends to the last shilling of the
calculation. He should understand, too, after what fashion his brother
rectors and vicars live around him,--should know something of their
habits, something also of their means, and should have an eye open to
their welfare, their pursuits, and their amusements. Of all these things
the really stirring archdeacon does in fact know very much.
The archdeacon is, in fact, a bishop in little, and as such is often
much more of a bishop in fact than is the bishop himself. To define,--or
rather to make intelligible by any definition,--an archdeacon’s power
and duties, would be very difficult; as also it is very difficult, or I
may say impossible, to do so with reference to a bishop’s functions. The
archdeacon holds a court, and makes visitations. These visitations may
be made pretty much at his pleasure. He must, I believe, make them once
in three years, but may make them every year if he thinks fit. He
inquires as to the administration of the services, seeing that the
canons are maintained, but has no power to alter aught; and as there
seems to be much difficulty in knowing when and by what the canons are
maintained, and when and by what they are not maintained, we may imagine
that the inquiries of a discreet archdeacon into the practices of a
respectable and efficient parson will not be too close or searching in
this matter of the canons. It is, however, easier to see whether the
windows of a church are in repair, and whether the roof keeps out the
rain, than it is to be intelligibly and efficiently explicit on the
subject of canons, and, therefore, the outward structure of the parish
church gives very safe employment to an archdeacon. The little
difficulty as to church rates which sometimes follows upon an order for
repairs is not uncongenial to the archdeacon’s mind. It hinges upon
politics, and upon a vexed political question in which the archdeacon,
as a strong local Conservative, has hitherto had his victories. There
remain so very few subjects which are still grateful to him in the same
way, that church rates, with all their little impediments and embargoes,
naturally present themselves to him as pleasant matters. And then the
archdeacons receive reports from the churchwardens, if churchwardens
have anything to report,--any scandal of which to tell, or evil
practices on the parson’s side of which complaint has unfortunately
become necessary according to the judgment of those churchwardens! By
the word “scandal” let not the uninitiated reader be led to think that
undignified tittle-tattle with his neighbour’s churchwardens is the duty
or the employment of an archdeacon. Open moral misconduct in a
clergyman’s life is supposed to be matter of justifiable public
scandal--the scandal arising with the clerical sinner, and not with
those who tell of the sin--and, as such, is, by the constitution of our
Church, an especial subject for the care of our archdeacons, and indeed,
under them, of our churchwardens. But in such matters archdeacons are
liberal, and much prefer to wink an eye than to see too much. We may
imagine that a churchwarden, misunderstanding his mission with regard to
scandal, and taking upon himself too promptly the duty of watching the
moral conduct of his parson, would not receive much comfort from a
visiting archdeacon. No one knows better than an archdeacon--no one
knows so well as an archdeacon--that it is needless and absurd to look
for a St. Paul in every parsonage. He would, indeed, be very little at
his own ease with a local St. Paul, much preferring a comfortable
rector, who can take his glass of wine after dinner and talk pleasantly
of old college days. St. Pauls, however, do not trouble him; nor is he
troubled much by the scandals of his clerical neighbours; but he must be
troubled sorely, I should think, by the increasing number and increasing
influence around him of those “literate” clergymen who--from want of
better, as we must in sorrow confess,--are flocking to us from
Islington, Birkenhead, and such like fountains of pastoral care. The man
who won’t drink his glass of wine, and talk of his college, and put off
for a few happy hours the sacred stiffnesses of the profession and
become simply an English gentleman,--he is the clergyman whom in his
heart the archdeacon does not love.
Thus the archdeacon is a bishop in little as regards his own
archdeaconry, which may probably comprise half a diocese; and as an
energetic financial secretary at the Treasury may, under an
uninstructed Chancellor of the Exchequer, have much more to do with the
finances of the country than the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, so
may an energetic archdeacon have a much stronger influence on his
clerical district than the bishop who is over him. He is the bishop’s
eye, or should be so, and may not improbably become the bishop’s hand.
But the archdeacon, in spite of all his power and authority, though he
be so great among his brother parsons, is hardly in the way to better
promotion. High promotion in the Church now comes from political
influence or from the friendship of Ministers,--from those things,
combined of course with high clerical attainments--and an archdeacon is
not often in the way to obtain political influence or the friendship of
Ministers. As deans live in towns, so do archdeacons live in the
country; and like other country gentlemen they are always in opposition.
And then they are men who have been made what they are by the bishops,
and, therefore, are known well in their dioceses, but are not much known
beyond them. They culminate in their own local dignity, and, knowing
that they do so, they make the most of it. An archdeacon who is potent
with his bishop, and who is popular with his clergymen, who works hard
and can do so without undue meddling, who has a pleasant parish of his
own and is not troubled by ambitious or indifferent curates, who can
live on good terms with the squires around him, understanding how far it
is expedient that he should be restricted by his coat, and how for he
may go in discarding hyper-clerical constraint, is master of a position
in which he need not envy the success of any professional gentleman in
the kingdom. But he is not on the direct road to higher things, and will
probably die in his rectory, an archdeacon to the last.
If an archdeacon be ambitious of moving in higher clerical matters than
his archdeaconry affords him, he generally looks to gratify that desire
by sitting in Convocation. This method of doing something more than
routine duty is easier and less likely to fail than the other method of
publishing a volume of sermons. Sermons are not read now as they were
some thirty or forty years since, and Convocation has lately held its
head a little up, obtaining recognition in the newspapers, and
appearing to do something. An archdeacon is just the man to believe that
Convocation can do much; and this faith on his part is evidence of a
moral freshness and a real earnestness which adds a charm to his normal
character. Who can bring himself to believe that a bishop believes in
Convocation--a bishop, that is, who takes his seat in the House of
Lords, talks to other peers, and knows what is going on in the
well-instructed blasé London world? Such a one cannot but see, cannot
but know, that Convocation is a clerical toy, a mere debating society to
which belongs none of the vitality of power. But the archdeacon, fresh
from the country, believes in Convocation, and works there with some
real conviction that he is one of a clerical Parliament, and that he is
animated by true parliamentary life.
But it is in his own rectory that an archdeacon must ever shine with the
brightest light. I have said that he is a bishop in little, and I may
also say that he is the very chief among parsons; and as the country
parson--the country parson with pleasant parsonage, pleasanter wife, and
plenty of children--is the true and proper type of an English
clergyman, to which bishops, deans, canons, and curates are mere
adjuncts and necessary excrescences, so is the archdeacon the highest
type of the country parson. He is always married--an exception here or
there would but prove the rule--he generally has a large family; of
course he has a pleasant rectory. He must be an earnest working parish
clergyman, or he would hardly have been selected as an archdeacon. He is
necessarily--I may say certainly--a gentleman. Alas! that the day should
have gone by when the same might have been said of every clergyman
bearing orders in the Church of England. He is a man of the world, as I
have above explained, and as such it is not probable that he will be a
fanatic, though living examples may probably be adduced that fanaticism
can exist under an archdeacon’s hat. And he walks just a head taller
than other clergymen around him, receiving that pleasant attitude from
the modest authority which he carries. Of all attitudes it is the most
pleasant. He who stands high on a column can hardly talk pleasantly with
those who stand round his pedestal; and that haranguing with loud voice
from column top to column top is but a cold ceremonial conversation.
Who can imagine two archbishops slapping each other’s backs and being
jolly together? But an archdeacon is not raised by his dignity above a
capability for jovial intimacy, and yet he walks with his head
pleasantly raised above the heads of other parsons around him.
V.
THE PARSON OF THE PARISH.
The word parson is generally supposed to be a slang term for the rector,
vicar, or incumbent of a parish, and, in the present day, is not often
used without some intended touch of drollery,--unless by the rustics of
country parishes who still cling to the old word. But the rustics are in
the right, for of all terms by which clergymen of the Church of England
are known, there is none more honourable in its origin than that of
parson. By that word the parish clergyman is designated as the palpable
and visible personage of the church of his parish, making that by his
presence an intelligible reality which, without him, would be but an
invisible idea. Parsons were so called before rectors or vicars were
known, and in ages which had heard nothing of that abominable word
incumbent. A parson proper, indeed, was above a vicar,--who originally
was simply the curate of an impersonal parson, and acted as priest in a
parish as to which some abbey or chapter stood in the position of
parson. The title of rector itself is new-fangled in comparison with
that of parson, and has no special ecclesiastical significance. The
parson, properly so called, had not only the full charge of his parish,
but the full benefit derivable from the tithes; and then he came to
change his name and to be called politely a rector. The vicar was he who
had the full charge of his parish, as also he has at present,
vicariously at first for some abbey or chapter; and now, in these days,
vicariously for some lay improprietor,--but who had and has the benefit
only of the so-called small tithes; and then he also came to be called
the parson. Rectors and vicars at present hold their livings by tenures
which are equally firm, and they have done so now for more than four
hundred years. The rustics above mentioned would be much surprised if
told that their vicar was not a real parson. In speaking, therefore, of
the parson of the parish, let us be understood to mean the parish
clergyman, who has that full fruition of his living which is given by
freehold possession. There is a pleasant flavour of old crusted port
present to the palate of one’s imagination when mention is made of a
rector, which he misses perhaps in inquiring after the vicar, whose beer
may be better than his wine; and the rector cuts lustily from the
haunch, while the vicar is scientific with the shoulder. But we expect,
on the other hand, and are gratified in expecting, a kinder and more
genial flow of clerical wit from the vicar than the rector gives us; and
I have generally found the vicar’s armchair to be easier than that of
his elder brother. But here, in speaking of the English parson,--of the
priest who has full clerical command in his parish,--no distinction
between rector and vicar shall be made.
The parson of the parish is the proper type and most becoming form of
the English clergyman as the captain of his ship is of the English naval
officer. Admirals of the Red and Admirals of the Blue, and Commodores
with authority ashore, are very fine fellows, and may perhaps be greater
in their way than the captain can be in his; but for real naval
efficiency and authority the captain of the ship on his own quarter-deck
stands unequalled. And so it is with the parson of the parish in his
own glebe. He is pure parson and nothing else, and in the daily work of
his life, if he does that daily work diligently, he cannot but feel that
he is devoting himself to those duties which properly belong to him.
Whether a bishop in the House of Lords may so think of himself, or a
bishop speaking from a platform, or a bishop in the turmoils of
correspondence, or even a bishop dispensing his patronage, may be more
doubtful. And the easy dean may doubt whether such ease was intended for
him when he took upon himself to bear the arms of St. Paul. And the
fellow of a college, even though he be tutor as well as fellow, may feel
some qualms as to that word reverend with which he has caused the world
to address him. But the parson in his parish must know that he has got
himself into that place for which he has been expressly fitted by the
orders he has taken. The curate, who is always a curate, to whom it is
never given to exercise by his own right the highest clerical authority
in his parish, cannot be said to have fulfilled the mission of his
profession satisfactorily, let him have worked ever so nobly. He is as
the lieutenant who never rises to be a captain. But the parson requires
no further exaltation for clerical excellence. The higher he rises above
parsondom, the less will he be of a clergyman. He may become a peer of
Parliament, or the head of a chapter, or a local magistrate over other
clergymen, as is an archdeacon; but as simply parish parson, he fills
the most clerical office in his profession.
The parson of the parish in England, a few years since, was almost
necessarily a man who had been educated at Oxford or Cambridge. An
English parish might indeed have an Irishman from Trinity College,
Dublin; and, now and again, an outsider was admitted into the fold as a
shepherd. There was a small college in the north to fit northern
candidates for northern congregations, and the rule was not absolutely
absolute; but it prevailed so far that it was felt to be a rule. And
thence came an assurance, in which trust was put more or less by all
classes, that the parson of the parish was at least a gentleman. He was
a man who had lived on equal terms with the highest of the land in point
of birth, and hence arose a feeling that was very general in rural
parishes, and as salutary as it was general, that the occupant of the
parsonage was as good a man as the occupant of the squire’s house. It
would be interesting to us to trace when this feeling first became
common, knowing as we do know that for many years after the Reformation,
and down even to a comparatively late date, the rural clergyman was
anything but highly esteemed. We are told constantly that the parson
left the dining-room when the pudding came in, and that he by no means
did badly for himself in marrying the lady’s maid. We most of us know
the character of that eminent divine Dr. Tusher, who lived in the reign
of Queen Anne. Then came the halcyon days of British clergymen,--the
happy days of George III. and George IV., and the parson in his
parsonage was as good a gentleman as any squire in his mansion or
nobleman in his castle. There is, alas! a new order of things coming on
us which threatens us with some changes, not for the better, in this
respect. There are theological colleges here and there, and men and
women talk of “literates.” Who shall dare to say that it may not all be
for the best? Who will venture to prophesy that there shall be less
energetic teaching of God’s word under the new order of things than
under the old? But, as to the special man of whom we speak now, the
English parish parson, with whom we all love to be on familiar
terms,--that he will be an altered man, and as a man less attractive,
less urbane, less genial,--in one significant word, less of a
gentleman,--that such will be the result of theological colleges and the
institution of “literates,” no one who has thought of the subject will
have any doubt.
And in no capacity is a gentleman more required or more quickly
recognized than in that of a parson. Who has not seen a thrifty
household mistress holding almost unconsciously between her finger and
thumb a piece of silk or linen, and telling at once by the touch whether
the fabric be good? This is done with almost an instinct in the matter,
and habit has made perfect in the woman that which was born with her.
Exactly in the same way, only much more unconsciously, will the English
rustic take his new parson between his finger and thumb and find out
whether he be a gentleman. The rustic cannot tell by what law he judges,
but he knows the article, and the gentleman he will obey and respect,
in the gentleman he will believe. Such is his nature. While in the
other, who has not responded favourably to the touch of the rustic’s
finger, the rustic will not believe, nor by him will he be restrained,
if restraint be necessary. The rustic in this may show, perhaps, both
his ignorance and servility, as well as the skilled power of his
fingering,--but such is his nature.
But the adult parson of the parish in England,--the clergyman who has
reached, if I may so say, the full dominion of his quarter-deck,--is
still customarily a man from Oxford or from Cambridge, and it is of such
a one that we speak here. He has probably been the younger son of a
squire, or else his father has been a parson, as he is himself.
Throughout his whole life he has lived in close communion with rural
affairs, and has of them that exact knowledge which close communion only
will give. He knows accurately, from lessons which he has learned
unknowingly, the extent of the evil and the extent of the good which
exists around him, and he adapts himself to the one and to the other.
Against gross profligacy and loud sin he can inveigh boldly, and he can
make men and women to shake in their shoes by telling them of the
punishment which will follow such courses; but with the peccadilloes
dear to the rustic mind he knows how to make compromises, and can put up
with a little drunkenness, with occasional sabbath-breaking, with
ordinary oaths, and with church somnolence. He does not expect much of
poor human nature, and is thankful for moderate results. He is generally
a man imbued with strong prejudice, thinking ill of all countries and
all religions but his own; but in spite of his prejudices he is liberal,
and though he thinks ill of men, he would not punish them for the ill
that he thinks. He has something of bigotry in his heart, and would
probably be willing, if the times served his purpose, to make all men
members of the Church of England by Act of Parliament; but though he is
a bigot, he is not a fanatic, and as long as men will belong to his
Church, he is quite willing that the obligations of that Church shall
sit lightly upon them. He loves his religion and wages an honest fight
with the devil; but even with the devil he likes to deal courteously,
and is not averse to some occasional truces. He is quite in earnest,
but he dislikes zeal; and of all men whom he hates, the over-pious young
curate, who will never allow ginger to be hot in the mouth, is the man
whom he hates the most. He carries out his Bible teaching in preferring
the publican to the Pharisee, and can deal much more comfortably with an
occasional backslider than he can with any man who always walks, or
appears to walk, in the straight course.
It almost seems that something approaching to hypocrisy were a necessary
component part of the character of the English parish parson, and yet he
is a man always on the alert to be honest. It is his misfortune that he
must preach higher than his own practice, and that he is driven to
pretend to think that a stricter course of life is necessary than that
which he would desire to see followed out even in his own family. As the
mealman in the description of his flours can never go below “middlings,”
knowing that they who wish to get the cheapest article would never buy
it if it were actually ticketed as being of the worst quality, so is the
parson driven to ticket all his articles above their real value. He
cannot tell his people what amount of religion will really suffice for
them, knowing that he will never get from them all that he asks; and
thus he is compelled to have an inner life and an outer,--an inner life,
in which he squares his religious views with his real ideas as to that
which God requires from his creatures; and an outer life, in which he is
always demanding much in order that he may get little. From this it
results that a parish parson among his own friends differs much from the
parish parson among his parishioners, and that he is always, as it were,
winking at those who know him as a man, while he is most eager in his
exercitations among those who only know him as a clergyman.
The parish parson generally has a grievance, and is much attached to
it,--in which he is like all other men in all other walks of life. He
not uncommonly maintains a mild opposition to his bishop, upon whom he
is apt to look down as belonging to a new order of things, and whom he
regards, on account of this new order of things, as being not above half
a clergyman. As he rises in years and repute he becomes a rural dean,
and exercises some small authority out of his own parish, by which,
however, his character as a parish parson, pure and simple, is somewhat
damaged. He is great in the management of his curate, and arrives at
such perfection in his professional career that he inspires his clerk
with mingled awe and affection.
Such is the English parish parson, as he was almost always some fifty
years since, as he is still in many parishes, but as he will soon cease
to become. The homes of such men are among the pleasantest in the
country, just reaching in well-being and abundance that point at which
perfect comfort exists and magnificence has not yet begun to display
itself. And the men themselves have no superiors in their adaptability
to social happiness. How pleasantly they talk when the room is tiled,
and the outward world is shut out for the night! How they delight in the
modest pleasures of the table, sitting in unquestioned ease over a ruddy
fire, while the bottle stands ready to the grasp, but not to be grasped
too frequently or too quickly. Methinks the eye of no man beams so
kindly on me as I fill my glass for the third time after dinner as does
the eye of the parson of the parish.
VI.
THE TOWN INCUMBENT.