Dr. Johnson tells us that an incumbent is he who is in present 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 5s. 6d. 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 200l. 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 1,000l. a year and a name, instead of 200l. 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.