CHAP. XXVII.

33

IN the morning Mr. Stanley, Sir John Belfield and I took a walk to call on our valuable rector. On our return home, amidst that, sort of desultory conversation which a walk often.produces,"Since we left the parsonage, sir," said I, addressing myself to Mr. Stanley, "I have been thinking how little justice has been done to the clerical character in those popular works of imagination which are intended to exhibit a picture of liv ing manners. There are, indeed, a very few happy exceptions. Yet I cannot but regret that so many fair occasions have been lost of advancing the interests of religion

VOL. II.

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religion by personifying her amiable graces in the character of her ministers. I allude not to the attack of the open infidel, nor the sly insinuation of the concealed sceptic, nor do I advert to the broad assault of the enemy of good government, who, falling foul of every established institution, would naturally be expected to show little favour to the ministers of the church. But I advert to those less prejudiced and less hostile writers, who having as I would hope, no political nor moral motive for undermining the order,. would rather desire to be considered as among its: Friends and advocates."

"I understand you,... replied Mr. Stanley, "I believe that this is often done not from any disrespect to the sacred function, nor from any wish to depreciate an order which even .common sense and common prudence, without the intervention of religion, tell us cannot be set in too respectable a fight, I believe it commonly arises

from

from a different cause. The writer himself having but a low idea of the requirements of Christianity, is consequently neither able nor willing to affix a very elevated standard for the character of its ministers. Some of these writers, however, describe a clergyman, in general terms, as a paragon of piety, but they seldom make him act up to the description with which he sets out. He is represented, in the gross, as adorned with all the attributes of perfection, but when, he comes to be drawn out in detail he is found to exhibit little of that superiority which had been ascribed to him in the lump. You are told how religious. he is, but when you come to hear him converse, you are not always quite cer tain whether he professes the religion of the Shaster or the Bible. You hear of his moral excellence, but you find him adopting the maxims of the world, and living in the pursuits of ordinary men. In short, you will find, that he has little of the clergyman, except the name."

"A sensible little work of fiction," replied I, "lately fell in my way. Among its characters was that of a grave divine. From the strain of panegyric bestowed on him, I expected to have met with a rival to the fathers of the primitive church. He is presented as a model, and, indeed, he counsels, he exhorts, he reproves, he instructs, but he goes to a masque

rade.

"This assimilation of general piety," said Mr. Stanley, "with occasional conformity to the practice of the gay world, I should fear would produce two ill effects. It will lower the professional standard to the young reader while he is perusing the ideal character, and the comparison will dispose him to accuse of forbidding strictness the pious clergyman of real life. After having been entertained with the mixture of religion and laxity in the imaginary divine whom he has been following from the serious lecture to the scene of revelry, will he not be naturally disposed to

accuse

accuse of moroseness the existing divine who blends no such contradictions?

"But the evil of which I more particularly complain," continued he, "because it exists in works universally read, and written, indeed, with a life and spirit which make them both admired and remembered, is found in the ingenious and popular novels of the witty class. In some of these, even where the author intends to give a favourable representation of a clergyman, he more frequently exhibits him for the purpose of merriment than for that of instruction."

"I confess with shame," said Sir John, "that the spirit, fire, and knowledge of mankind, of the writers to whom you allude, have made me too generally indulgent to their gross pictures of life, and to the loose morals of their good men."

"Good men!" said Mr. Stanley. "After reading some of those works in the early part of my life, I amused myself with the idea that I should like to inter