In a volume which I published three years ago1 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—

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.