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THE TRIALS
OF
A COUNTRY PARSON
BY
AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D.
AUTHOR OF
“ONE GENERATION OF A NORFOLK HOUSE,” “HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF
NORWICH,” &c., &c.
London
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXC
[Illustration]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
ARCADY:
FOR BETTER FOR WORSE.
_Fourth Edition. Cloth, 3s. 6d._
“A volume which is, to our minds, one of the most delightful ever
published in English.”--_Spectator._
The COMING of the FRIARS,
AND OTHER MEDIÆVAL SKETCHES.
_Fourth Edition. Cloth, 7s. 6d._
“The book is one to be read and enjoyed from its title-page to its
finish.”--_Morning Post._
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, E.C.
_Preface._
_In a volume which I published three years ago[1] I attempted to give a
faithful picture of the habits and ways of thinking, the superstitions,
prejudices and grounds for discontent, the grievances and the trials,
of the country folk among whom my lot was cast and among whom it was my
duty and my privilege to live as a country clergyman. I was surprised,
and not a little pained, to hear from many who read my book that the
impression produced upon them was exactly the reverse of that which
I had desired to convey. On returning to a country village after
long residence in a large town, I found things greatly changed, of
course; but I found that, though the country folk had not shared in
the general progress which had been going on in the condition of the
urban population, they still retained some of their sturdy virtues,
still had some love for their homes, still clung to some of their old
prejudices which reflected their attachment to their birthplace, and
that if they were inclined to surrender themselves to the leadership
of blatant demagogues, and to dwell upon some real or imagined wrongs
coarsely exaggerated by itinerant agitators with their living to get
by speechifying, it was not because there was no cause for discontent.
The rustics were right when they followed their instincts and these
told them that their lot might be easily--so very easily--made much
happier than it is, if philanthropists would only give themselves a
fair chance, set themselves patiently to study facts before committing
themselves to crude theories, try to make themselves really conversant
with the conditions which they vaguely desire to ameliorate, go to work
in the right way and learn to take things by the right handles._
_The circumstances under which I commenced residence in my country
parish were, unhappily, not conducive to my forming a favourable
judgment of my people. I was at starting brought face to face with the
worst side of their characters. They were and had for long been in
bad hands; they had surrendered themselves to the guidance of those
who had gone very far towards demoralizing them. I could not be blind
to the faults--the vices if you will--which were only too apparent.
I could not but grieve at the altered_ tone _which was observable in
their language and their manners, since the days when I had been a
country curate twenty years before. But while I lamented the noticeable
deterioration and the fact that the rustics were less cordial, less
courteous, less generous, less loving, and, therefore, less happy
than they had been, I gradually got to see that the surface may be
ruffled and yet the inner nature beneath that surface may have some
depths unaffected by the turmoil. The charity which hopeth all things
suggested that it was the time to work and wait. It was not long before
I learnt to feel something more than mere interest in my people. I
learnt to love them. I learnt_--
_To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill success; to sympathize, be proud
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice, and fears, and cares, and doubts,
Which all touch upon nobleness, despite
Their error, all tend upwardly though weak,
Like plants in mines which never see the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get at him._
_I was shocked when friendly critics told me I had drawn a melancholy
picture, and that to live in such a community, and with surroundings
such as I had described, must be depressing, almost degrading, for any
man of culture and refinement._
_The essays which follow in this volume were written as a kind
of protest against any such view of the case. I think the two
volumes--this and my former one--should in fairness be read each as the
complement of the other. In “Arcady” I have drawn, as best I could, the
picture of the life of the rustics around me. In this volume I have
sketched the life of a country parson trying to do his best to elevate
those among whom he has been called to exercise his ministry._
_I hold that any clergyman in a country parish who aims_ exclusively
_at being a Religious Teacher will miss his aim. He must be more, or
he will fail to be that. He must be a social power in his parish,
and he ought to try, at any rate, to be an intellectual force also.
It is because I am strongly convinced of this that I have brought so
much into prominence the daily intercourse which I have enjoyed with
my people on the footing of a mere friendly neighbour. I cannot think
that I have any right at all to lift the veil from those private
communings with penitents who are agonized by ghastly memories, with
poor weaklings torturing themselves with religious difficulties, or at
the bedside of the sick and dying. These seem to me to be most sacred
confidences which we are bound to conceal from others as if they had
been entrusted to us under a sacramental obligation of impenetrable
silence. We all have our share of miserable experiences of this kind.
We have no right to talk of them; they never can become common property
without some one alive or dead being betrayed. In the single instance
in which I may seem to have departed from this principle, it was the
expressed wish of the poor woman whose sad story I told that others
should learn the circumstances of the case which I made public._
_It may be thought, perhaps, that my surroundings have something
peculiar in them. But, No! they are of the ordinary type. For two
centuries or so East Anglia was indeed greatly cut off from union and
sympathy with the rest of England, and was a kingdom apart. The result
has been that there are certain characteristics which distinguish
the Norfolk character, and some of them are not pleasing. These are
survivals, and they present some difficulties to him who is not an East
Anglian born, when he is first brought face to face with them. But in
the main we are all pretty much alike, and let a man be placed where
he may, he will be sure to find something new in the situation, and
almost as sure to make some mistakes at starting. I do not believe that
a man of average ability, who is really in earnest in his desire to do
the best he can for his people, and who throws himself heartily into
his work, will find one place worse than another. Let him resolve to
find his joy in the performance of his duty according to his light,
and the joy will come. So far from repining at my own lot, I have
found it--I do find it--a very happy one; and if I have dwelt on the
country parson’s trials, I have done so in no petty and querulous
spirit as if I had anything to complain of which others had not--this I
should disdain to do--but rather as protesting that they press upon my
brethren equally as upon myself, and that, such as they are, some must
be, some need not be, some ought not to be._
_As for the worries and annoyances, the “trials” which are inseparable
from our position, it is the part of a wise man to make the best of
them, and to put as good a face upon them as he can. But with regard to
such matters as ought not to be and need not be, it behoves us all to
look about us to discover if possible some remedy for the remediable,
to find out the root and source of any evil which is a real evil, to
lift up our voices against an abuse which has grown or is growing
to be intolerable, and by no means to acquiesce in the continuance
of that which is obviously working to the serious prejudice of the
community. While every other class is crying out for Reform and getting
it by simply raising the cry, it is a reproach upon us clergy--and I
fear we deserve the reproach--that we are a great deal too ready to
submit to the continuance of scandals and abuses rather than face the
risks which_ any _change is likely to bring upon our order. In no
other profession is a man more certain to be regarded as a dangerous
character, wanting in loyalty and wanting in humility, who is even
suspected of a desire to improve upon the arrangements which have
existed since time was young, or of advocating measures which would
interfere with the order of procedure that was good enough for our
grandfathers, and therefore must be good enough for ourselves. It
really seems to be the belief of some among us that our Constitution
in Church or State never_ grew _at all, but_ chrystalized _into its
present form, and dropped from heaven in perfect panoply like Minerva
from the head of Jove. To point a finger at the texture of the awful_
peplos, _and to hint that it was woven in the looms of this world, is
to bring upon oneself the charge of impiety. And yet these men are
wrong. Organic bodies grow because they are alive; when they cease to
grow and are no longer capable of adapting themselves to the changes
that are going on around them, they die. Nothing can prolong their
life. If you cramp and fetter a living thing by swathing it round about
with iron bands that may force it to keep exactly the form it presented
a thousand years ago--then you will kill it. It is only a question of
time when your slaying process will prove successful. As for the other
method of “letting things slide,” that is, if possible, more foolish
than the other, and certainly more cowardly. What can be baser than
the craven whine, “It will last our time”? An institution which has
lasted through a long line of centuries, and which will_ only _last our
time, may be approaching dissolution from lack of inherent vitality,
but it may also be in peril because of the despairing supineness of its
pledged defenders_.
_I have lifted up my voice against one relic of the past which is
most certainly doomed because it has been allowed to exist a great
deal too long already; it is a_ survival _which I am deeply convinced
is answerable for much of the corruption that hurts us, much of the
offence taken and given, much of the laxity and very much of the
deplorable want of discipline existing among us_.
_The legal status of the beneficed clergy, in virtue of which they
are freeholders for life in their several benefices, does not quite
stand alone. The Parish Clerk, too, has a freehold in his benefice,
and, after formal admission to it, he may retain it without fear of
being turned out of it as long as the breath remains in his body. These
freeholds in an office have been swept away in every other department
of the public service, though they died hard and cost a good deal to
abolish. The buying and selling of “places” and reversions or next
presentations to them was as common in the State as in the Church not
so very long ago. The odious system was swept away for ever by the
simple expedient of making every public servant removable at pleasure
for negligence, misconduct, inefficiency, or even less. It is only
among the holders of ecclesiastical preferment that the old abomination
survives. Because it survives, other things survive too which ought
not to be tolerated. The first and foremost of these is the open sale
of the right to present a clerk in orders to a cure of souls. But
that is the least mischievous consequence of the present system being
retained. There are other consequences which are far more serious.
Among them is the almost entire want of movement and change, in the
lives of the country clergy; the absence of fresh interests and of
the invigorating stimulus of a new career, however humble, with new
associations to give a zest to the performance, it may be, of the
old duties, but discharged now among those who do not know all that
you have to say, and are not yet tired of the sound of your voice, or
at any rate thinking they would like to hear another. The rule in our
country parishes is that where a man is set down at first, there he
dies at last. Exchange of benefices is, I admit, more common than it
used to be, partly because the benefices themselves are less valuable
and less jealously kept in the patrons’ hands than they were; but even
now exchanges are not often made and are not “negotiated” without
some difficulty. To begin with, before two clergymen can change their
cures, however much they may themselves be agreed, it is necessary
that the consent of two patrons and two bishops should be obtained
as a preliminary; and this is not always to be got for the asking.
If a patron has bestowed preferment upon a clergyman with whose
ministrations he is contented and something more, he is not too willing
to part with him. If he has been so unfortunate as to have given the
living to the wrong man, there may be very good reasons why he should
not choose to be a party to such a transaction as would result in
passing on a clerical scamp or incompetent from one cure to another.
But in any case it by no means follows that, because I have presented
a parson to a cure of souls, I should therefore give him the next
presentation too, if he happens to be tired of his cure and anxious to
go elsewhere. The result is that, as a rule, a beneficed clergyman,
when once he finds himself, irremovable, in his cure, gives up all
thought of leaving it. It is “a certainty,” and gradually he gets to
look for nothing better; he goes through his duties as best he can,
however mournfully conscious that he has lost the old fire and force
and efficiency; he takes comfort in the thought that he has worked his
parish while he could, and that he is entitled to take it easily now;
and, indeed, in the eyes of those about him, he grows more and more
picturesque and venerable, just as the old church tower does--but it is
not safe to ring the bells up there when so much restoration is wanted._
_I have dealt with this subject in some detail in the Fourth Paper
in this volume. At the time it appeared, the public mind was much
occupied with and disturbed by certain political questions then in the
ascendant, and the essay fell dead, attracted little or no attention
and, in fact, was read by few. It often happens that a book proves an
utter failure by being published at the wrong time--a month too soon or
a month too late. The favour of the reading public is very capricious,
not always awarded to the most deserving, sometimes given with a kind
of fury of acclamation to a lucky literary adventurer whose reputation
“rushes up like the rocket and comes down like the stick.” Moreover
the essay laboured under one rather serious defect, which I have not
yet set myself to remedy by appending an almost necessary supplement.
For it may be asked, and it has indeed been objected, “If every
beneficed clergyman were to hold his appointment subject to removal,
ought not some provision to be made for his retirement in old age or
when physically or mentally unfit for the discharge of his sacred
functions?” Yes! By all means. But why only the_ beneficed _clergy?
Why not all who are admitted to the sacred office? Surely it would not
be difficult to elaborate a scheme whereby every officiating clergyman
should be compelled to make provision for his family, or for his own
retirement, by the simple expedient of stopping a certain percentage
of his income and investing it in his name--much in the same way that
the Clive fund is managed in India, or as the compulsory insurance of
railway servants is enforced by some of the great companies. Until
something of this sort is carried out, we shall continue to be pained
by those distressing appeals for clergymen’s families reduced to
beggary by the death of the bread-winner, which come to us all with
increasing frequency, and which, as matters now look, are not likely to
be fewer in the near future._
_This however, is only a part, and I venture to think not quite a
vital part, of the other question, which as a great national question
appears to me of much greater importance. That question may be put in
very few words. Is it for the advantage of the Church or the nation
that the incomes of the clergy should continue to be assured to them by
a different tenure from that which prevails in the case of all other
public servants--a tenure which in the latter case was proved to be
working prejudicially to the interests of the community at large, and
which it was found absolutely necessary to abolish?_
_It is easy to raise a cry against any one who dares to ask such a
question as this by denouncing him as an Erastian. But our clerical_
incomes _are one thing, our sacred functions and office are another.
All the Parliaments in the world can never admit me or any one else to
Holy Orders: but there is nothing to prevent a rich man from endowing
any church or chapel with an income to be enjoyed by the parson of that
church only under certain conditions or for a certain limited time.
People seem to think that it is of the very essence of an endowment
that the income derived from it should belong to the man who is once
admitted to enjoy it as long as he lives and chooses to draw the pay.
If by anything I have written, or could write, I could exercise any
influence in the direction of leading thoughtful men to give their
serious attention to this subject and to discuss it earnestly, I should
have very little doubt about the result, and I should feel that I had
not lived in vain._
_Very closely allied with this question is another which is forcing
itself upon us all with increasing urgency every month. When we begin
to ask ourselves and one another to whom do our Village Churches
belong? Who is bound to keep them from falling into ruin? Who has
the right to sell the lead off the roof, or the books in the ancient
Parish Library, or the bells in the steeple, or the very brasses in the
pavement?--and all these things have been done and nobody been called
to account--when, I say, we begin to ask these things and press for an
answer, we may well be dismayed by the suspicion of how anomalous our
position is. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings
has been doing good work for us; it deserves more support than it has
received, and needs many more subscribers before its influence can
be brought to bear upon the ignorance and Vandalism, and right down
rascality too, with which it so often finds itself in conflict. But
the work of this society_, as things are, _can never be anything but
palliative at the utmost. A local Philistine with a long purse and
no more conscience or sentiment than a gorilla, may do almost what
he pleases. It is dreadful to think what might be perpetrated in our
country churches with impunity, and what_ would be _perpetrated too, if
only the true state of the case were known. Here, too, there is need
for the reform of the law. Who_ do _the churches belong to? Who are
responsible for their protection from outrage and destruction? There
are some country parishes where with a very little manipulation the
inhabitants in Vestry assembled might be induced to vote anything; even
to the using superfluous seats for boarding up all the windows on the
north side to make themselves snug withal. What is to prevent their
doing it? Who is to bell the cat?_
_The Fifth Paper in this volume may not at first sight appear to have
anything to do with a Country Parson’s “trials”; and yet it has.
There are some people who are never tired of declaiming against the
uselessness of our Cathedral buildings. More than once I have been put
upon the defensive when railers have lifted up their voices especially
against the waste of space which might be turned to good account in our
own glorious East Anglian Cathedral. When they whose chief amusement in
life it is to find fault are on the look out for something to rail at,
they will never be without an excuse for indulging in their amiable
pastime. That there are many spaces which might, with great advantage,
be made available for worthy purposes in most of our cathedrals, must
be apparent to any one who thinks about the matter. The question is,
what are worthy purposes, and how may those vacant spaces be best
turned to account without sacrificing the dignity of those majestic
buildings and their surroundings, and without vulgarising them by
introducing associations out of harmony with the traditions that belong
to them and, the sentiment of reverence that they arouse? Who that has
seen the Cathedral Library at Ely, could doubt whether it is in the
right place or no? Or who that knows anything of what has been doing
of late among the Archives of Canterbury or Lincoln, can help wishing
that such work were doing elsewhere? But why should not our cathedrals
become the great storehouses for all our ancient muniments, in which
they might find the protection they deserve and the intelligent
supervision which might render them accessible to students of our
history?_
_Little need be said to justify the appearance of the Sixth Paper in a
volume which professes to treat of a Country Parson’s “trials.” I hope
I have made it appear that even such a trial as this is bearable--nay!
that it is one of those which may even become a very delightful trial
indeed to those who have some resources in themselves, and whose
occupations and tastes are such as to make them habitually regret that
the winter days are so short, and sometimes even half complain because
the summer sunshine brings such irresistible temptations to be idle._
_Is it true that we poor country parsons have our trials? Then do not
grudge us such comfort as we can find in being snowed up in Arcady._
_The last Essay in the volume may be taken as a hint that among
other trials which a Country Parson has to bear is the necessity of
acquiescing in certain unsatisfied yearnings. That sounds so very
heroic now that I have written it, that I am inclined to be rather
proud of my own resignation. All my life I have had a hankering to
pay a visit to the United States of America. There was a time when I
could have afforded the expense of such a trip, but I could not then
afford to give the time. Now with an annually decreasing income the_
way _is open, but the_ means _are not forthcoming. But as I think of
too many of my brethren who every day of their lives are sadly put to
it to keep the wolf from the door and find it difficult to provide
even the bare necessaries of life, not to speak of those comforts and
simple indulgences which it is so hard to miss when old age and its
infirmities have set in--the contrast between their lot and my own
comes home to me almost with a sense of self-reproach. Let them whose
sterner trials are so much more hard to bear than mine, forgive the
irony of one who grumbles that he is too poor to cross the Atlantic on
a new voyage of discovery--as though that were a serious deprivation
and a proof of his being only one step from indigence. Let them do him
the justice to believe that he himself is not insensible to the pathos
that lurks in the background of his own lament._
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON 1
II. THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON (_continued_) 49
III. THE CHURCH AND THE VILLAGES 97
IV. QUIS CUSTODIET 143
_Note_ 176
V. CATHEDRAL SPACE FOR NEGLECTED RECORDS 180
VI. SNOWED UP IN ARCADY 223
_Note_ 264
VII. WHY I WISH TO VISIT AMERICA 270
[_The first six essays have, in the main, appeared in the “Nineteenth
Century:” the seventh first saw the light in the “North American
Review.”_]
I.
_THE TRIALS OF A COUNTRY PARSON._
My friends from Babylon the great are very good to me in the
summer-time. They come in a delightful stream from their thousand
luxuries, their great social gatherings, their brilliant talk, and
their cheering and stimulating surroundings; they come from all the
excitement and the whirl of London or some other huge city where men
_live_, and they make their friendly sojourn with us here in the
wilderness even for a week at a time. They come in a generous and
self-denying spirit to console and condole with the man whom they
pity so gracefully--the poor country parson “relegated,” as Bishop
Stubbs is pleased to express it, “to the comparative uselessness of
literary (and clerical) retirement.” I observe that the first question
my good friends ask is invariably this: “What shall we do and where
shall we go--to-morrow?” It would be absurd to suppose that any man
in his senses comes to the wilderness to _stay_ there, or that there
could be anything to _do_ there. A man goes to a place to see, not
the place itself, but some other place. When you find yourself in the
wilderness you may use any spot in it as a point of departure, but as a
dwelling-place, a resting-place, never!
Moreover, I observe that, by the help of such means of locomotion as
we have at command, the days pass merrily enough with my visitors in
fine weather. But as sure as ever the rain comes, so surely do my
friends receive important letters calling them back, much to their
distress and disappointment. If the weather be _very_ bad--obstinately
bad--or if a horse falls lame and cannot be replaced, or some equally
crushing disaster keeps us all confined to the house and garden,
my visitors invariably receive a telegram which summons them home
instantly even at the cost of having to send for a fly to the nearest
market town. Sometimes, by a rare coincidence, a kindly being drops in
upon us even in the winter. He is always genial, cordial, and a great
refreshment, but he never stays a second night. We keep him warm, we
allow a liberal use of “the shameful,” we give him meat and drink of
the best, we flatter him, we coddle him, we talk and draw him out,
we “show him things,” but he never stays over that single night; and
when he goes, as he shakes our hands and wraps himself up in his rugs
and furs, I notice that he has a sort of _conflate_ expression upon
his countenance; his face is as a hybrid flower where two beauties
blend. One eye says plainly, “I _am_ a lucky dog, for I am going away
at last,” and the other eye, beaming with kindliness, sometimes with
affection, says just as plainly, “Poor old boy, how I do pity you!”
Well! this is a pitiful age; that is, it is an age very full of pity.
The ingenuity shown by some good people in finding out new objects of
commiseration is truly admirable. It is hardly to be expected that the
country parson should escape the general appetite for shedding tears
over real or supposed sufferers.
But it strikes some of us poor forlorn ones as not a little curious
that our grand town friends never by any chance seem to see what there
is in our lot that is really pathetic or trying. “How often do you give
it meat?” said a blushing, mild-eyed, lank-haired young worthy in my
hearing the other day. “Lawk! sir, that don’t have no meat,” answered
the laughing mother, as she hugged her tiny baby closer to her bosom.
“Never have meat? How dreadful!” Just so! But it is not only ludicrous,
it is annoying, to be pitied for the wrong thing; and though I am not
inclined to maintain the thesis that we, the soldiers of God’s army
of occupation, who are doing outpost duty, pass our lives in a whirl
of tumultuous and delicious joy, yet, if I am to be pitied, do let me
be pitied intelligently. I cannot expect to be envied, but surely it
is not such a very heavy calamity for a man never to catch a sight of
_Truth_ or _The World_, or to find that there is not such a thing as an
oyster-knife in his parish.
Moreover, side by side with pity, there is a large amount of much more
irritating and ignorant exaggeration of the good things we are supposed
to enjoy. We do not, I admit, hear quite so often as formerly about
“fat livings” and “valuable preferment,” nor about the “rectorial
mansion with a thousand a year”; but we hear a great deal more about
such fabulous lands of Goshen than we ought to hear. There is always a
disposition to represent our neighbours as better off than ourselves,
and whereas the salaried townsman knows that his income, whatever it
may be, is his net income which he may count upon as his spending
fund to use as _he_ pleases, when he hears of others as receiving or
entitled to receive so many pounds a year, he assumes that they do
receive it and that they may spend it as _they_ please. The townsman,
again, who moves among the multitude and every hour is reminded of that
multitude pressing, as all fluids do, “equally in all directions,”
hears, and sometimes he knows, that the clergy in the towns have
immense claims upon their time and are always on the move in the
streets and courts. They are always about, always _en évidence_. If a
man has only to minister to a paltry seven hundred, what _can_ he have
to do? He must be a drone.
Moreover, the aforesaid townsman has read all about those country
parsons. You can hardly take up a novel without finding a sleek rector
figuring in the volumes. These idealized rural clerics always remind
me of Mr. Whistler’s _Nocturnes_. The figures roll at you through
the mists that are gathering round them. The good people who try to
introduce us to these reverend characters very rarely venture upon a
firm and distinct outline. The truth is, that for the most part the
novelists never slept in a country parsonage in their lives, never knew
a country parson out of a book.
A year or two ago my friend X. was dining in a London mansion. “Who’s
that?” said a lady opposite, as she ducked her head in his direction
and looked at her partner. X. turned to speak to _his_ partner, but
could not help hearing the scarcely whispered dialogue: “A country
parson, did you say? Why, he’s tall!”
And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly freighted
All the air about the windows with elastic laughter sweet.
It was quite a surprise to that lady novelist that a country parson
could be tall! Many men are tall--policemen, for instance. But only
short men ought to be country parsons. Why! we shall hear of one of
them being good-looking next!
When any class of men feel themselves to be the butt of others, they
are apt to be a little cowed. They hold their peace and fret, and
if they resent their hard treatment and speak out, they rarely do
themselves justice. Very few men can come well out of a _snub_, and the
countryman who is not used to it never knows what to reply to offensive
language. Yet worms have been known to turn, not that I ever heard
they got any good by it; they can’t bite, and they can’t sting, but I
suppose it comforts them to deliver their own souls. Poor worms! Yes!
you may pity them.
* * * * *
But if the country parson has his trials, how may he hope to be
listened to when he desires to make it clear what they are? Where shall
he begin? Where shall he begin if not by pointing to that delicate
nerve-centre of draped humanity, exquisite in its sensitiveness,
knowing no rest in its perpetual giving out of force, for ever
hungering for renewal of its exhausted resources, feeling no pain in
its plethora and dreading no death save from inanition--to wit, the
Pocket? Touch a man’s pocket, and a shudder thrills through every fibre.
The country parson has a great deal to complain of at the hands of
those who will persist in talking of him as an exceptionally thriving
stipendiary. It is one thing to say that in all cases he gets more than
he deserves; it is quite another to put forth unblushingly that his
income is half as much again as in fact it is, and his outgoings only
what the outgoings of other men are. Logicians class the _suppressio
veri_ among sophisms; but would it not be better to call that artful
proceeding a fraud? “Drink fair, Betsy, whatever you do!” said Mrs.
Gamp on a memorable occasion. Yes, if it is only out of the teapot.
i. With regard to the income of the country parson, it may be laid
down as a fact not to be disputed, that hardly one per cent. of the
country clergy ever _touch_ the full amount which theoretically they
are entitled to receive. In the case of parishes where the land is much
subdivided, and where there are a number of small tithepayers, it would
be almost impossible for the clergyman personally to collect his dues;
he almost invariably employs an agent, who is not a likely man to do
his work for love. Even the agent can rarely get in all the small sums
that the small folk ought to pay. Even he has to submit to occasional
defalcations, and to consider whether it is worth while to press the
legal rights of his employer too far. Moreover, the small folk from
time immemorial have expected something in the shape of a tithe dinner
or a tithe tea, for which the diners or the tea-drinkers do not pay,
you may be sure; this constitutes a not inconsiderable abatement on the
sum-total of receipts which ought to come to hand at the tithe audit.
Taking one year with another, it may be accepted as a moderate estimate
that the cost of collecting his tithe, _plus_ bad debts in some shape
or other, amounts to six per cent., and he who gets within seven per
cent. of his clerical income gets more than most of us do. But the law
allows of no abatement in respect of this initial charge; and because
the law takes up this ground, the world at large assumes that the
nominal gross income of the benefice does come into the pockets of
the incumbent. The world at large is quite certain that nobody in his
senses makes a return of a _larger_ income than he enjoys, and if the
parson pays on £500, people assume that he does not get _less_ from his
living than that. The world at large does not know that the parson
is not asked to make a return. The surveyor makes up his books on the
tithe commutation table for the parish, and on that the parson is
assessed, whatever he may say.
ii. For be it known it is with the surveyor or rate-collector that
the parson’s first and most important concern lies. Whatever he may
receive from his cure, however numerous may be the defaulters among the
tithe-payers, however large the expense of collecting his dues, the
parson has _to pay rates_ on his gross income. The barrister and the
physician, the artist or the head of a government department, knows or
need know nothing about rates. He may live in a garret if he likes; he
may live in a boarding-house at so much a week; he may live in a flat
at a rent which covers all extraneous charges. I suppose we most of
us have known men of considerable fortune, men who live in chambers,
men who live in lodgings, men who live in college rooms, who never
_directly_ paid a rate in their lives. Our lamented H., who dropped
out recently, leaving £97,000 behind him, invested in first-class
securities, was one of these languidly prosperous men. “I do detetht
violent language on any thubject whatever,” he lisped out to me
once. “I hope I thall never thee that man again who thtormed at rate
collectorth tho. What _ith_ a rate collector? Doth he wear a uniform?”
But a country parson and all that he has in the world, _qua_ country
parson, is rateable to his very last farthing, and beyond it: the
fiction being that he is a landed proprietor, and as such in the
enjoyment of an income from real property. It is in vain that he pleads
that his nominal income is of all property the most unreal:--he is told
that he has a claim upon the land, and the land cannot run away. It is
in vain that he plaintively protests that he would gladly live in a
smaller house if he were allowed--he _does_ live in it, chained to it
like a dangerous dog to his kennel. It is in vain that he urges that
he cannot let his glebe, and may not cut down the trees upon it--that
he is compelled to keep his house in tenantable repair, and maintain
the fences as he found them. The impassive functionary expresses a
well-feigned regret and some guarded commiseration; but he has his
duty to perform, and the rates have to be paid--Poor rates, County
rates, School Board rates, and all the rest of them; and paid upon
that parson’s gross income--such an income as never comes, and which
everybody knows never could be collected.
You may say in your graceful way that a parson does not pay a bit more
than he ought to pay, and that he may be thankful if he be allowed to
live at all. That may be quite true--I don’t think it is, but it _may
be_--but there are some things that are not true, and one of them is,
that the gross income awarded to the country parson on paper gives
anything approaching to a fair notion of the amount of income that
comes to his hands. And if you are going to pity the country parson,
do begin at the right end, and consider how you would like to pay such
rates as he pays on _your_ gross income.
iii. But when the country parson’s rates have been duly paid, the next
thing that he is answerable for is the Land-tax. The mysteries of the
Land-tax are quite beyond me. If I could afford to give up three years
of my life to the uninterrupted study of the history and incidence of
the Land-tax, I think, by what people tell me, I might get to know
something about it, and be in a position to enlighten mankind upon this
abstruse subject; but as I really have not three years of my life to
spare, I must needs acquiesce in my hopeless ignorance even to the end.
Only this I do know, that, whereas the country parson is called upon
to pay sixpence in the pound for Income-tax, he is called upon to pay
nearly ninepence in the pound for Land-tax: at any rate, I know one
country parson who has to do so.
Let the Land-tax pass--it is beyond me. But how about the Income-tax?
As I have said above, in the case of all other professions except the
clerical, a man makes his return of income upon the _available_ income
which comes to him after deducting all fair and reasonable _office
expenses_. But for the crime of clericalism, the country parson is
debarred from making any such deductions as are permitted to other
human beings. Many of the “good livings” in East Anglia have two
churches, each of which must be served. A man cannot be in two places
at once; and the laws of nature and of the Church being in conflict,
the laws of the Church carry it over the laws of nature, and the
rector has to put in an appearance at his second church by deputy--in
other words, the poor man has to keep a curate. If he were a country
solicitor who was compelled to keep a clerk, he would deduct the salary
of the clerk from the profits of his business; but being only a country
parson, he can do nothing of the sort: he has to pay Income-tax all the
same on his gross returns. A curate is a luxury, as a riding horse is
a luxury; and the only wonder is that curates have not long ago been
included among those superfluous animals chargeable to the assessed
taxes.
iv. Perhaps the most irritating of all imposts that press upon
the country parson is that to which he has to submit because the
churchyard is technically part of his freehold. In many parts of
the country a fee is charged for burying the dead. In the diocese
of Norwich there are no burial fees. The right of burying his dead
in the churchyard is a right which may be claimed by any inhabitant
of the parish; the soil of the churchyard is said to belong to the
parishioners; the _surface of the soil_ belongs to the parson. This
being so, the parson is assessed in the books of the parish for the
assumed value of the herbage growing upon the soil, and on this
assumed value he is accordingly compelled to pay rates, Income-tax,
and Land-tax. Of course the parson could legally turn cattle or
donkeys into the churchyard to disport themselves among the graves;
but happily that man who should venture to do this nowadays would be
thought guilty of an outrage upon all decency. Who of us is there who
does not rejoice that this state of feeling has grown up among us?
But the result is that the churchyard, so far from being a source of
income to the parson, has become a source of expense to him in almost
all cases. Somebody has to keep the grass mown, and see that God’s acre
is not desecrated. Few of us grumble at that; and some who have large
resources pride themselves on keeping their churchyards as a lawn is
kept or a garden. But it surely is monstrous when everybody knows that
the churchyard, so far from bringing the parson any pecuniary benefit,
entails an annual expense upon him which is practically unavoidable--it
is monstrous, I say, that the parson should be assessed upon the value
of the crop which might be raised off dead men’s graves, and that he
should be taxed for showing an example of decency and right feeling to
those around him.
“Well! But why don’t you appeal?”
My excellent sir, do you suppose that nobody ever has appealed? Do you
suppose that very original idea of yours has never occurred to any one
else before? Or do you suppose that we the shepherds of Arcady, find
appealing against an assessment, made by our neighbours to relieve
themselves, before the magistrates at Quarter Sessions, is a process
peculiarly pleasurable and particularly profitable when the costs are
defrayed? We grumble or fret, we count it among our trials, but we
say, “After all, it is only about five shillings a-year. Anything for
a quiet life. Let it go!” So the wrong gets to be established as a
right. But it is none the less a wrong because it continues to exist,
or because in coin of the realm it amounts to a trifle. Was it Mr.
Midshipman Easy’s nurse who urged in excuse of her moral turpitude in
having an infant of her very own, “Please, ma’am, it was _such_ a
little one?”
The grievance of having to pay rates on the churchyard may be in one
sense a little one. But when it comes to being charged rates upon
the premiums you pay upon your insurance policies, some of them--the
insurance of his church and other buildings--being compulsory payments,
and upon the mortgage of your benefice effected in your predecessor’s
time--even the sneerer at a sentimental grievance could hardly call
such charges as these not worth making a fuss about. In many a needy
country parson’s household the rates make all the difference whether
his children can have butter to their bread or not.
* * * * *
It must be obvious to most people from what has been already said--and
much more might be said--that, unless a country parson have some
resources outside of any income derivable from his benefice, he must
needs be a very poor man. Our people know this better than any one
else, and it is often a very anxious question on the appointment of
a new incumbent whether he will live in the same style as that which
his predecessor maintained. Will he keep a carriage, or only a pony
chaise? Will he employ two men in the garden? Will he “put out his
washing?”[2] Will his house be a small local market for poultry and
butter and eggs? Will he farm the glebe or let it? How many servants
will he keep, and will the lady want a girl to train in the kitchen or
the nursery from time to time? Such questions as these are sometimes
very anxious ones in a remote country village where every pound
spent among the inhabitants serves to build up a _margin_ outside
the ordinary income of the wage-earners, and which helps the small
occupiers to tide over many a temporary embarrassment when money is
scarce, and small payments have to be met and cannot any longer be
deferred.
Let me, before going any further, deal with a question which I have had
suggested to me again and again by certain peculiar people with dearly
beloved theories of their own. It is often asked, Ought clergymen ever
to be rich men? Is not a rich clergyman out of place in a country
parsonage? Does not his wealth raise him too far above the level of
his people? Does it not make him sit loosely to his duties? Does not
the fact of a country parson being known to be a rich man tend _to
demoralize_ a parish?
Lest it should be supposed that the present writer is one of the
fortunate ones rolling in riches, and therefore in a manner bound to
stand up for his own class--let it be at once understood that the
present writer is a man of straw, one of those men to whom the month
of January is a month of deep anxiety, perplexity, and depression of
soul. Yet he would disdain to join the band of whining grumblers only
because one year after another he finds that he must content himself
with the corned beef and carrots, and cannot by hook or by crook afford
to indulge in some very desirable recreation or expense which the
majority of his acquaintance habitually regard as absolutely necessary
if existence is to be endured at all. No! I am very far indeed from
being a rich man; but this I am bound to testify in common fairness to
my wealthier brethren in the ministry of the Church of England, that if
any impartial person, with adequate knowledge of the facts, were asked
to point out the most devoted, zealous, unworldly, and practically
efficient country parsons in the diocese of Norwich--for let me speak
as I do know--he would without hesitation name first and foremost some
of the richest of the clergy in the eastern counties.
Do you desire that your son should begin his ministerial life under a
man of great ability, sound sense, courage, and religious earnestness,
a man who never spares himself and will not suffer his subordinates to
sink into slovenly frivolity and idleness, then make your approaches
to Lucullus, and you will have cause to thank God if the young fellow
serves his apprenticeship under a guide and teacher such as this.
He will learn no nonsense there, and see no masquerading, only an
undemonstrative but unflinching adherence to the path believed to be
the path of duty, and a manliness of self-surrender such as can only
arouse an enthusiasm of respect and esteem.
Does “our own correspondent” wish to see how a score of infamous hovels
can be changed into a score of model cottages which pay interest on the
cost of their erection, and which in half a dozen years have helped
perceptibly to raise the tone and tastes and habits of the population
till it really looks as if some barbarians could be civilized by a
_coup de main_?--let him pay a visit to the parish of our Reverend
Hercules, only one of whose many labours it has been to cleanse an
Augean stable. It will do him good to see the mighty shoulders of
that rugged philanthropist, him of the broad brow and the great heart
and the deep purse, always at work and always at home, about the very
last man in England to be suspected of belonging to the sickly sort of
puling visionaries.
Do you want to meet with a type of the saintly parish priest, one after
holy George Herbert’s heart, one with hardly a thought that does not
turn upon the service of the sanctuary or the duties that he owes to
his scattered flock? Come with me, and we will go together and look
at one of the most beautiful village churches in the land, on which
our devout Ambrose has spent his thousands only with deep gratitude
that he has been permitted to spend them so--and with never a word of
brag or publicity, never a paragraph foisted into the newspapers. And
as we pass out of that quiet churchyard, trim as a queen’s parterre,
I will show you the window of that little study which Ambrose has not
thought it right to enlarge, and if he be not there, be sure we shall
find him at his school or by the sick-bed of the poor, or inquiring
into some case of sorrow or sin where a kindly hand or a wise word may
peradventure solace the sad or go some way to raise the fallen.
What country parson among all the nine hundred and odd within this
unwieldy diocese has lived a simpler or more devoted life than our
Nestor--[Greek: γέρων ἱππηλάτα Νέστωρ]--he who for more than threescore
years and ten has gone in and out among his people, and doing his
pastoral work so naturally, so much as a matter of course, that no one
thinks of his being a rich man, except when those towering horses
of his stop at our lowly portals and have to be corkscrewed into our
diminutive stables?
And who knows not of thee, Euerges, treasurer and secretary and general
mainstay of every good work, the idol of thy people and their healer,
the terror of the impostor, and the true friend of all that deserve thy
helping hand and purse! or thee, too, Amomos, who after thirty years
of work as an evangelist in the city, spending there thyself and thy
substance all the while, hast now betaken thee to the poor villagers,
if haply some little good may yet be done among the lowly ones before
the night cometh when no man can work?