Scenes of Clerical Life

ction enhanced by an opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbours? We are poor pla

g them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be wrought without faith-witho

had been dining at Mr. Farquhar's, the secondary squire of the parish, and, stimulated by unwonted gravies and port-wine, had been delivering his opinion on affairs parochial and otherwise with considerable animation. And he was now returning home in the moonlight-a little chill, it is true, for he had just now no greatcoat compatible with clerical dignity, and a fur boa round one's neck, with a waterproof cape over one's shoulders, doesn't frighten away the cold from one's legs; but entirely unsuspicious, not only of Mr. Hackit's estimate of his oratorical powers, but also of the critical remarks passed on him by the Misses Farquhar as soon as the drawing-room door had closed behind him. Miss Julia had observed that she never heard any one sniff so frightfully as Mr. Barton did-she had a great mind to offer him her pocket-handkerchief; and Miss Arabella wondered why he always said he was going for to do a thing. He, excellent man! was meditating fresh pastoral

t in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular complexion-even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have been of a mongrel, indefinite kind-with features of no particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression is surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but inste

istinction, in strong contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's gros de Naples. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off her head, utterly heavy and hideous-for in those days even fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long arched neck, and mingling their b

m you have already surmised not to have the refined sensibilities for which you might have imagined Mrs. Barton's qualities to be destined by pre-established harmony. But I, for one, do not grudge Amos Barton this sweet wife. I have all my life had a sympathy for mongrel ungainly dogs, who are nobody's pets; and I would rather surprise one of them by a pat and a pleasant morsel, than meet the condescending advances of the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by my lady's chair. That, to be sure, is not the way of the world: if it happens to see a fellow of fine proportions and aristocratic mien, who makes no faux pas, and wins golden opinions from all sorts of men, it straightway picks out for him the loveliest of unmarried women, and says, There would be a p

he door behind him, a

orresponding greeting,

on't go to sleep! Can't

e-coloured dressing-gown, in which costume he was quietly filling his long pipe when his wife returned to the sitting-room. Maize is a colour that decidedly did not suit his complex

of stockings. She had something disagreeable to tell her husband, but

eance. But I don't think he's much smitten. I've a notion Ely's engaged to some one at a distance, and will astonish all th

y anything about the

Barton laughed-he had a way of laughing at criticisms that other people thought damaging-and thereby showed the remainder of a set of teeth which, like the remnants of the Old Guard, were few in number, and very much the worse f

t evil about others? I have had a note from the Countes

antelpiece, and gave it to her husband. We w

t seven-do. If not, I will be sulky with you till Sunday, when I shall be obliged to

ne Cze

it?' said Mrs. Barton.

nt. The Clerical Meeting

, to say he must have some money nex

on thoughtful. He puffed more r

ounds, for it is nearly two months till Lady-d

e and Mrs. Hackit have been so very kind to

thinking of about having service in the workhouse while the church is being enlarged. If he agrees to attend ser

his toes were peeping out, dear child! and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and shoes are the grea

ving been neatly covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers. Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which, before she left, had bec

the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of love that would care for husband and babes better than she could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round her bed-and angels might be glad of such an office they saw Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just, light her candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at the breakfast-table, busy cutting bread

parson' without charge; so there was a blazing fire in the sitting-room, and not without need, for the vicarage garden, as th

, the contingency indicated being the reverse of happy. Mr. Barton had not the gift of perfect accuracy in English orthography and syntax, which was unfortunate, as he was known not to be a Hebrew scholar, and not in the least suspected of being an accomplished Grecian. These lapses, in a man who had gone through the Eleusinian mysteries

moking, like the beasts that perish' (speaking, we may presume, in a remotely analogical sense); and in some of the alehouse corners the drink was flavoured by a dingy kind of infidelity, something like rinsings of Tom Paine in ditch-water. A certain amount of religious excitement created by the popular preaching of Mr. Parry, Amos's predecessor, had nearly died out, and the religious life of Shepperton was falling back towards low-water mark. Here, you perceive, was a terrible stronghold of Satan; and you may well pity the Rev. Amos Barton, who had to stand single-handed and summon it to surrender. We read, indeed, that the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of trumpets; but we nowhere hear that those trumpets were hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway-horn, which shows praiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled. He often missed the right note both in public and private exhortation, and got a little angry in consequence. For though Amos thought himself strong, he did not feel himself strong. Nature had given him th

ion, and Mr. Barton was not acting as paid chaplain of the Union, but as the pastor who had the cure of all souls in his parish, pauper as well as other. After the prayers he always addressed to them a short discourse on some subject suggested by the lesson for the day, striving if by this means some edifying

atronymic remaining a mystery to most persons. A fine philological sense discerns in this cognomen an indication that the pauper patriarch had once been considered pithy and sententious in his speech;

have once thrown her broth over the master's coat-tails, and who, in spite of nature's apparent safeguards against that contingency, had contributed to the perpetuation of the Fod

oung man afflicted with hydrocephalus, who rolled his head from side to side, and g

conscious of a stiff cravat; he set his dilapidated hat on with a knowing inclination towards the left ear; and when he was on field-work, he carted and uncarted the manure with a sort of flunkey grace, the ghost of that jaunty demeanour with which he used to usher in my lady's morning visitors. The flunkey nature was nowhere completely subdued but in his stomach, and he still divided society into gentry, gentry's flu

a network of wrinkles, as a coat of magic armour against the attacks of winters, warm or cold. The point on which Mrs. Brick was still sensitive-the

es that have so much vitality in the plenum of his own brain will comport themselves in vacuo-that is to say, in a brain that is neither geographical, chronological, nor exegetical. It is a flexible imagination that can take such a leap as that, and an adroit tongue that can adapt its speech to so unfamiliar a position. The Rev. Amos Barton had neither that flexible imagination, nor that adroit tongue. He talked of Israel and its sins, of chosen vessels, of the Paschal lamb, of blood as a medium of reconciliation; and he strove in this way to convey religious truth within reach of the Fodge and Fitchett mind. This very mornin

re there are able mathematicians, and butter is sold by the yard, is not apparently th

t. Mr. Fitchett, thoroughly roused now the instruction was at an end, obsequiously and gracefully advanced to help Mr. Barton in putting on his cape, while Mrs. Brick rubbed her withered forefinger round and round her little shoe-shaped snuff-box, vainly seeking for the fraction of a pinch. I can't help thinking that if Mr. Barton had shaken into that little box a small portion of Scotc

the parson might be intending to replenish her box, at

ll be in need of mercy then. You must remember that you may have t

ubsided from Mrs. Brick's eyes. The lid of her box went

rear. Mr. Spratt was a small-featured, small-statured man, with a remarkable power of language, mitigated by he

-to beg that you will administer a rebuke to this boy; he is

is nose by feeble sniffing. But no sooner had Mr. Spratt uttered his impeachment, t

to her offspring's nose. 'He's al'ys a-findin' faut wi' him, and a-poundin' him for nothin'. Let him goo an' eat h

exceptionable before the clergyman; but Mr. Barton, foreseeing that a prolongation

u set him the example of being saucy.' Then stooping down to Master

o-

ouldn't be beaten. But if you are naughty, God will be angry, as well as Mr.

as neither affirmative nor n

d will love you, and you will grow up to be a good man. Now

on, being aware that Miss Fodge had touched on a delicate subject in alluding to the roast goose, was determined to w

rage-garden was cloaked in white as he passed through the gate. Mrs. Bar

. What a terrible morning! Let me take y

reeable duties, without praise, on a snowy day, to attend to the very minor morals. So he showe

aid you would letter and number the books for the Lending Library. Patty a

took off his boots and put his feet into the slippers Mill

nd boy, had insisted on superseding Chubby in the guidance of a headless horse, of the red-wafered species, w

children must go awa

for our dinner. Now, Fred and Sophy and Dickey, help me to carry these

from the Clerical Book Society; thinking he would finish it and return it this afternoon, as he

experiences had commenced under the teaching of the Rev. Mr. Johns, of Gun Street Chapel, and had been consolidated at Cambridge under the influence of Mr. Simeon. John Newton and Thomas Scott were his doctrinal ideals; he would

vement was felt from the golden head to the miry toes of the Establishment; and so it came to pass that, in the district round Milby, the market-town close to Shepperton, the clergy had agreed to have a clerical meeting every month, wherein they would exercise their intellects by d

oad. And so a very little unwonted reading and unwonted discussion made him see that an Episcopalian Establishment was much more than unobjectionable, and on many other points he began to feel that he held opinions a little too far-sighted and profound to be crudely and suddenly communi

thither some day when he will be absent. And just now I am bent on introducing you to Mr. Br