possession of a benefice, and by quoting Swift shows us that, though in
possession of a benefice, the incumbent may be in possession of very
little benefit from his benefice. “In many places,” Swift says, as
quoted by Johnson, “the whole ecclesiastical dues are in lay hands, and
the incumbent lieth at the mercy of his patron.” The word, therefore, is
legitimately used in its ecclesiastical sense, and can apparently be
legitimately used in no other sense; but, nevertheless, it has no
pleasantly ecclesiastical flavour, and carries with itself none of that
acknowledged right to respect which is attached to other clerical
titles. To be named as a curate is almost better than to be named as an
incumbent; for the curate is supposed to be young, and is on his proper
road to higher church grades, whereas the incumbent is one who has
obtained his promotion, but who is, after all, only an--incumbent. Every
parish parson in the kingdom is no doubt an incumbent, but in ordinary
parlance we hardly apply the name to the country rector or to the vicar
blessed with a pleasant parsonage. The incumbent, as we generally
recognize him, is a clergyman who has obtained a town district, who has
a church of his own therein from whence he draws what income he may
make, chiefly by the letting of sittings, and is so called simply
because no other clerical title seems properly to belong to him. No
clerical aspirant would be an incumbent,--so to be called,--who could
become a parson proper.
The town incumbent, therefore, is rarely a man well to do in the world.
He is one who earns his bread hardly in the sweat of his brow, and too
often earns but very poor bread. It is not he who has married or who
will marry the bishop’s daughter. Indeed, before he becomes a town
incumbent he has generally put himself beyond such promotion as that by
marrying the girl of his heart without a penny. Had he not done so, and
thus become terribly in want of an income,--an income at once, though it
be a small income,--he would not have taken a district church, and have
submitted his neck to the yoke of town incumbency. He knows that in
doing so he is consenting to place himself in that branch of his
profession which is the least honoured, though not perhaps the least
honourable. He is subjecting himself to the heaviest clerical work with
but a small prospect of large clerical loaves or fine clerical fishes;
and he is prepared to live in a much lower social rank than that which
is enjoyed by his more fortunate brothers in the country. The country
parson is all but the squire’s equal,--is below the squire in parish
standing only as a younger brother is below his elder; but the town
incumbent is not equal to the town mayor, and in the estimation of many
of his fellow-townsmen is hardly superior to the town beadle. Indeed, he
is too often simply recognized as the professional gentleman who has
taken his family into the last built new house in Albert Terrace.
There, in Albert Terrace, he looks out upon a brickfield, and writes his
sermons with very little of that prestige which belongs to the genuine
British parson of the parish. His flock are his hearers, not his
parishioners. They sit under him, some because his district church of
St. Mary is the nearest to them, some because the sittings at St. Mary’s
are 5_s_. 6_d_. a year cheaper than they are at the next place of
worship,--for St. Mary’s is a place of worship rather than a church to
the minds of the townsmen,--and some because they prefer his preaching
to the preaching of another town incumbent. They sit under him, but they
are not his people jure divino, for him to deal with them concerning
their eternal welfare as he may please. He does not even know the name
of the man who lives next door to him in Albert Terrace; whereas the
true parson of the parish knows every detail as to every child born
within his domain. The one is simply the town incumbent of St. Mary’s as
another man may be an attorney, and a third an apothecary; whereas the
rural parson is the personage of his parish.
To the position of the town incumbent are attached none of those
half-barbarous but picturesque circumstances which still make the
position of our country parsons almost unintelligible to the inquiring
foreigner. One clergyman, with little or nothing to do in his parish,
has fifteen hundred a year and a beautiful house for doing that
little,--which after all is done by a curate; while his neighbour in the
next parish with four times the area and eight times the population,
receives one hundred and fifty pounds a year in lieu of the little
tithes! And yet neither does the one feel himself to have been unduly
favoured, nor does the other think himself to be injured! Such are the
more-than-half-barbarous, but still picturesque circumstances of our
rural parishes. But there is nothing either barbarous or picturesque
about the town incumbent. He has allotted to him a district, with such
or such a population,--a certain number of thousands over whom it must
be much beyond his power to achieve anything approaching to a pastoral
surveillance,--with a church in the middle of it, and an income which
will fluctuate as the seats in it may be full or empty. Here, in this
arrangement, all the principles of political economy are kept in view.
Here are supply and demand. Those who want him will come to him and pay
him,--as they do to the baker or the dentist. If they don’t think he
suits them, they will leave him,--as also in similar circumstances they
leave their baker and their dentist. If he can fill his church he will
live well and become sleek. If his gifts in preaching are small, or if
his piety be unrecognized and his labours disregarded, he will live
badly and his outward man will become rusty. Among town incumbents the
rusty greatly exceed the sleek in numbers.
The town incumbent of whom we are here speaking generally finds himself
located among the growing outskirts of a manufacturing town. Here he
sees the world increasing around him with wonderful rapidity, and sees
also much of the success of the world. The man who began his struggle in
life as a manufacturer, when he, the incumbent, also began his struggle,
soon rises from step to step, adding chimney to chimney, and buys his
villa residence and sets up his carriage. In his career, failure was, of
course, possible, but the road to success was open to him, and has been
quickly reached. This his neighbour, the clergyman, sees, and tells
himself, not without bitterness, that for him there is no such road. For
him there must always be poverty and hard work,--that worst of all
poverty which has to hide itself under a black coat, and work which is
not only ceaseless, but too often thankless and apparently without
adequate result! This must be his lot in life, he tells himself,--unless
he can preach himself into a reputation. If he can do that, if he can be
a M‘Neale or an English Ward Beecher, then, indeed, there will be a
career open to him. Then he will be sleek, and people will ask him to
dinner, and the wife of his bosom will hold up her head among other
dames, and his name will become familiar in the columns of newspapers.
This after all is what men want, town incumbents as well as others; and
so the town incumbent sets himself to work to make a reputation for
himself by pulpit eloquence. As he walks along the dull new streets of
his district he fills himself with this ambition, and declares to
himself that he will be great as a preacher. He will fill his seats, and
draw men to him,--or, if not men, at least women. He will denounce sins
with a loud voice and eager accents. And he will denounce not only sins,
but heresies also, and lax doctrines. By denouncing simply sin few
clerical aspirants have become noted among their neighbours, but the man
who will denounce his neighbours’ opinions as well as his sins will
become famous. And so the town incumbent settles himself to his desk and
goes to work.
It will be said, no doubt, that a monstrous accusation is here brought
against a body of men who are very eager in doing good works. It is not
meant as any accusation. No charge is intended to be made against town
incumbents, or against any clergyman, in the description here given.
They endeavour simply to succeed in their profession, as every man
blessed with activity will attempt to succeed in his profession if it be
one in which there is room for success. Given the church to fill, and
the incumbency to be made valuable by filling it, and it is simply human
nature that an energetic man shall endeavour to fill his church and make
his profession valuable. He cannot fill his church by visiting the poor.
He cannot earn for himself even a decent position in the district in
which he lives by a careful performance of ordinary clerical duties. If
he simply reads the services and officiates at the communion table, and
preaches drowsy sermons, he will starve on some 200_l._ a year, and
never get his head above water, either as regards money or reputation.
Of course he will do his best for himself, and of course he will teach
himself to believe that in doing so he is doing the best for the cause
which he really loves in his heart. He is not a bad man, or a hypocrite,
because he denounces heresies and lax doctrines in a loud voice, instead
of endeavouring to teach his people simply that they should not lie, or
get drunk, or steal. He is probably a very good man; but he is a good
man who would like to have 1,000_l._ a year and a name, instead of
200_l._ a year and no name at all.
But he probably fails. It is sad to say it, and sad to think of it, but
failure is the ordinary lot of man. A few among us do advance far enough
in the accomplishment of their aspirations to merit the reputation of
success, and they are heard of in the world; but the mass of men strive
for a while to do something, and then sink down into the common ruck,
finding the struggle to be too hard for them. They earn bread and live;
and at last, perhaps, are contented. So it is with the town incumbent.
He preaches for a while with all his force. He spends sleepless nights
in the composition of his sermons. He becomes bolder and bolder in his
denouncings. But it is of no avail. He has not the gift of pouring forth
either honey or liquid fire from his lips, and his energy is all wasted.
He throws himself in despair on the bosom of his wife, who alone has
believed in him, and declares that his people have adders’ ears and
hearts of stone. From that time forth, with saddened spirit and heart
all sick within him, he trudges on upon his daily round of duties, not
cursing the day, but reviling the day with an asperity purely clerical,
on which he became--a town incumbent.
But it is possible that he does not fail. There are, no doubt, town
incumbents who succeed in preaching themselves into fortunes and
reputations, and who become very sleek and very famous, who are able to
mount higher than their pulpits, on to platforms, and can then enjoy
the inestimable privilege of abusing their opponents without fear of
reply. But, of all clergymen, the successful town preacher seems to be
the farthest removed from those clerical excellences of charity and
good-will among men, and the farthest also from those special clerical
duties for which our clergy are most valued. They will preach;--yes, by
the hour together! Nine times a week we have heard of such a one
preaching, and have then known him to speak of himself as a martyr in
the service! But they will do nothing else.
For the unsuccessful town incumbent we all of us have sympathy. His work
is hard, his payment is small, and his lines have fallen to him in
unpleasant places. But for the successful town incumbent, for the
clergyman who fills his church with prayerful, tearful, excitable, but
at the same time remunerative ladies, few men can have any sympathy.
The position of the town incumbent is not, in truth, in unison with the
Church of England as established among us. The glory of the English
parson is that his position is ensured to him whether he satisfies those
whom he is called upon to serve, or whether he does not satisfy them.
Consequently he can be, and is, independent of his congregation. He will
wish of course to be on pleasant terms with them, but it will not be for
his pocket’s sake. And it seems that such independence as this is
essential to the position of a clergyman of the Church of England. It is
doubtless true that the number of rural rectors and vicars among us will
never be increased, whereas the number of town incumbents will continue
to increase from year to year. As the population grows, so will their
number grow. But it is to be hoped that the peculiar evils of their
position may be remedied by altered arrangements as to their income. If
this be not possible, or be not done, we shall hardly find that sons of
English gentlemen will continue to seek the Church as a profession.
VII.
THE COLLEGE FELLOW WHO HAS TAKEN ORDERS.
In speaking of a college fellow, a fellow of a college at Oxford or
Cambridge is the fellow of whom we intend to speak. There may, probably,
be other fellowships going in these prolific days, as there are other
universities, and degrees given by other academical bodies; but we will
claim, for the moment, to belong to the old school in such matters, and
will recognize as college fellows only those who are presented to us as
fellows by the two great sister universities.
When a man becomes a fellow various possessions and privileges are
conferred upon him, such as a certain income, a certain rank in his
college, a residence within his college, and a place at the high table
in hall; and among these privileges and possessions is the great
privilege--of a title to orders. In respect to some fellowships this
privilege may be enjoyed or neglected according to the will of the
individual fellow. In respect to others the fellow must avail himself of
it, and must become a clergyman, if not absolutely at once, then within
a short period of his election. And there is a third condition, such as
that which prevails at the greatest of all our colleges, namely,
Trinity, Cambridge, in accordance with which certain years of grace are
allowed, and a fellow may remain a fellow for a period of years without
taking orders. But, as we believe, at all these colleges a fellowship
confers a title to orders,--the right, that is, on the part of the
fellow to demand ordination from the bishop; and, as a rule, this
privilege is enjoyed. As we are dealing in these sketches with none but
clergymen, the fellow who has availed himself of this title is the
fellow whom we will keep in view.
All our readers will know what is meant by taking orders,--the process
by which a layman becomes a deacon or a priest under the bishop’s
hands; and most of them will understand that a title to orders is the
possession in prospect of such sacerdotal position as will justify a
bishop in turning a layman into a clergyman. Thus, for instance, a man
has a title to orders who can show that there is a living waiting for
his enjoyment and for his services. The offer of a curacy confers a
title, and this is the title by which the great body of aspirants to the
sacerdotal profession claim their right to admission. Such claimants the
bishop is bound to ordain, providing that they show themselves to be
fit;--but without a title, or recognized place of clerical duty ready
for the candidate as soon as he shall become a clergyman, no bishop will
ordain any one. And among other titles there is the title conferred by a
college fellowship. The fellow of a college goes before a bishop
demanding to be ordained simply because he is a fellow,--and the bishop
ordains him. It is a great privilege, for that man is Reverend from that
time forth for evermore. In all future ages he will be written down as
having been Reverend.
There can be no doubt that when this pleasant arrangement became a
portion of college law there was good reason for it. The colleges were
ecclesiastical bodies, generally if not entirely under ecclesiastical
governance, and a fellow not an ecclesiastic would have been very much
in the way at most of them. Men who were clergymen, and men who were
not, differed much more strongly then than they do now, both as to the
inner life of the man and the outward appearance of the man. And it was
then recognized as a part of the great Church system of the day, that in
many places ecclesiastics, who were of course unmarried, should live
together, passing their time in that state which was then considered to
be for them the most salutary and to others the most useful,--saying
prayers for the laity which the laity could hardly be got to say for
themselves, and maintaining by their continued presence at the
universities something of the result of their education, and some show
of learning and piety. In those days the fellows of our colleges were
monks of a favoured order,--especially favoured because they were, or
were presumed to be, especially learned. Looking at our Church, our
colleges, and our religion, as they then existed, we shall feel little
doubt as to the propriety of fellows having been clergymen in those
days. But now,--now that things are so much altered in our Church and in
our colleges and in our religion,--sometimes a doubt does creep upon us
as to the expediency of this title to orders which a fellowship conveys,
and the use which is made of this title.
In the Roman Catholic Church worship seems to have been ordained for the
gratification of God. The people were, and indeed are still, taught that
God and his saints like prayers and incense and church services, and
will reward those who are liberal in bestowing them. It is, therefore,
natural that in the Church of Rome there should be,--or, more natural
still, that there should have been when this idea was more prevalent in
Roman Catholic countries than it is now,--legions of priests whose
church administrations were performed with a view to their effect on the
Creator, and with no view to any effect on man. But in Protestant
countries worship is used, as we suppose, simply for the use of man. It
is the duty of the clergyman, as clergyman, to assist other men in
worshipping rather than to achieve anything by worship on his own part.
If such be the case,--and such appears to be at any rate the existing
theory of our own Protestant Church,--it is difficult to conceive how
any man can become a clergyman of the Church of England who has no
intention whatsoever of helping others to worship,--who has not before
him any prospect of performing the duties of a clergyman.
It will be said, doubtless, that the statement here made is wrong and
untrue, because the clerical fellow of a college has always before him
the prospect of succeeding to a college living, and does generally end
his days as the parson of a parish to which he has been presented by his
college in the regular order of good things accruing to him. It is quite
true that the clerical fellow does in this way become a real clergyman,
or a parson proper if I may so call him, in the latter half of his life,
when at forty or forty-five he begins to feel that he would like to have
something softer near to him than his gyp or laundrywoman, and bethinks
himself of some Eliza whom he has long half loved, but would never
before allow himself to love altogether,--because of his fellowship.
The fellow then drops his fellowship, and takes a living, and goes to
his parish and becomes a real clergyman. But the fact that he does so
offers only another and a stronger objection to his original ordination,
while it does not, in truth, at all invalidate that already stated. It
is true that the fellow becomes a clergyman at last; but who will
maintain that any man has fitly used a profession to which he has never
applied himself during those years of his life in which his energy was
the strongest, and which he embraced without any view to using it at
all? The fellow of a college is ordained in order that he may hold his
fellowship,--because in old days, when the fellowship was instituted,
fellows were supposed to live the life of monks. We do not think that
any existing fellow of a college at Oxford or Cambridge will declare
that he has undergone ordination with an express view to the living to
which he may succeed after ten or fifteen years.
And now we will venture to say a few words as to that stronger objection
to the practice of ordaining fellows which we maintain is to be found in
this practice of their succeeding to college livings by rotation. When
we employ a doctor or a lawyer or an architect, we select a man who
knows his profession, and who has proved that he knows it by his
practice. Young men entering these professions make their way upwards to
that reputation which will bring them practice by attaching themselves
to those who are older and more experienced, or by consenting to
practise for a while, as it were, experimentally, without much view to
income. And in the Church generally the same order of things prevails.
It is admitted on all hands within the church, by bishops, by
archdeacons, by all working parish clergymen,--by all men who have
interested themselves on the subject,--that the only fit education for a
parish parson is to be found in a parish curacy. As a man to be a good
bishop should have been a parish parson, so to be a good parson a man
should have been a curate. That we take to be good clergyman’s law; but
that law is infringed on every occasion on which a college living is
taken by a resident college fellow. A college fellow may, of course,
become a curate, and when such a one succeeds to his living all is
well. But the man who does so should have been ordained on the title of
his curacy, not on the title of his fellowship.
Does any man believe that that very pleasant fellow whom he has known at
college, and who has sparkled so brightly in common room, who has been
so energetic in the management of the college finances, and in the
reform of college abuses,--who has gradually succeeded during his
fifteen years of residence in putting off all those outward clerical
symbols which as a novice he found himself constrained to adopt, and who
during his annual visit to London has become a well-instructed man of
the world,--can any one, we say, believe that such a one at the age of
forty can be fit to go into a parish and undertake the cure of the
parochial souls? There are, we fancy, some who do so believe; but they
are those who think that nothing is necessary to make a parson but
orders and a living,--that the profession of a clergyman is unlike any
other trade or calling known, requiring for the due performance of its
duties no special fitness, no training, no skill, no practice, no
thought, and no preparation.
The Reverend Joseph Brown stands senior on the list of the fellows of
St. Lazarus, within the walls of which happy institution he has lived as
fellow and bursar for the last thirty years. No man understands better
than the Reverend Joseph Brown the proper temperature of port wine, or
the amount of service which a college servant should render. But at the
age of fifty-five he falls into unexpectedly tender relations with an
amiable female, and on that account he undertakes the pastoral care of
the souls of the parish of Eiderdown! What if Eiderdown got its doctor
in the same way, or its butcher? What if the ladies of Eiderdown were
bound to employ a milliner sent to them after some such fashion? But no
man or woman can conceive the possibility of any workman presuming to
attempt to earn his bread by his work after such a fashion as
this,--excepting always a clergyman. In the Church, because it is so
picturesque and well-beloved in its old-fashioned garments, we can put
up with anomalies which elsewhere would be unendurable. A bishop uses
his patronage as personal property, and college fellows become clergymen
and succeed to livings by right, as though in this business of the cure
of souls, and in this business only, there were no necessity for that
progress in skill and efficiency which all other callings demand! There
was a time when men became captains of ships and colonels of regiments
in much the same way; but the picturesque absurdities of the army and
navy were less endearing than those of the Church, and they therefore
have been made to succumb.