The Squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too
much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that
he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent
donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his
pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just after
he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation, but the
embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence
for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca,
indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact
to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the
one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore,
whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired
into his study, and absented himself from morning service.
In his delightful _Life of Oliver Goldsmith_, Mr Foster takes care to
touch our hearts by introducing his hero's excuse for not entering
the priesthood. He did not feel himself good enough. Thy Vicar of
Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and
Dr Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss
Jemima's fears are realised. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness
of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were
occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough--I don't say
for a priest, but even for one of the congregation--"days in which,
(said the Squire in his own blunt way,) as I have never in my life met
a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the
family pew. He shan't be growling out hypocritical responses from my
poor grandmother's prayer-book." So the Squire and his demon staid at
home. But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over;
and, on this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it
may be presumed that the Squire had reasoned or fretted himself into
a proper state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forth from the
porch of his hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his
household. The second service was (as is commonly the case, in rural
districts) more numerously attended than the first one; and it was our
Parson's wont to devote to this service his most effective discourse.
Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology
nor the archæological learning that distinguish the rising generation
of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be
called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice
formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a
congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite
in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the
details in the church were purely gothic or not: crockets and finials,
round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had
never troubled his head. But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which
is perhaps of equal importance with those subtler mysteries--he knew
how to fill his church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and
at evening service the church overflowed.
Parson Dale, too, may be considered, now-a-days, to hold but a mean
idea of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been
known to dispute on its exact bearing with the State--whether it
was incorporated with the State, or above the State--whether it was
antecedent to the Papacy, or formed from the Papacy, &c., &c. According
to his favourite maxim, _Quieta non movere_, (not to disturb things
that are quiet), I have no doubt that he would have thought that the
less discussion is provoked upon such matters, the better for both
church and laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of
the ancient custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of
the powers of the priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for
all this, Parson Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a
minister of the gospel--to advise--to deter--to persuade--to reprove.
And it was for the evening service that he prepared those sermons,
which may be called, "sermons that preach _at_ you." He preferred the
evening for that salutary discipline, not only because the congregation
was more numerous, but also because, being a shrewd man in his own
innocent way, he knew that people bear better to be preached at after
dinner than before; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart
when the stomach is at peace. There was a genial kindness in Parson
Dale's way of preaching at you. It was done in so imperceptible
fatherly a manner, that you never felt offended. He did it, too, with
so much art that nobody but your own guilty self knew that you were
the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor: he
preached at the Squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr Bullock the
churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman, and Scrub the
hedger. As for Mr Stirn, he had preached at _him_ more often than at
any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the sense to know
it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's
sermons, something of that boldness of illustration which would have
been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which is found in
the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now
and then, to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion
from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of
his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had
an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to
the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to knowledge--but
to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes his references
to sources not within the ordinary reading of his congregation would
spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's leisure on his hands, to
ask the Parson for farther explanation, and so be lured on to a little
solid or graceful instruction under a safe guide.
Now on the present occasion, the Parson, who had always his eye and
heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realisation
of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of
discontent was already at work amongst the peasants, and that
magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural
benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach
between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud
between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great
Political Sermon--a sermon that should extract from the roots of social
truths a healing virtue for the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the
breast of his parish of Hazeldean:
And thus ran--
_The Political Sermon of Parson Dale._