following extract from a letter dated 1775:

"By his frugality and good management he keeps the wolf from the door,
as we say; and if he advances a little in the world it is owing more to
his own care than to anything else he has to rely upon. I don't find his
inclination in running after further preferment. He is settled among the
people that are happy among themselves, and lives in the greatest
unanimity and friendship with them; and, I believe, the minister and
people are exceedingly satisfied with each other: and indeed, how should
they be dissatisfied, when they have a person of so much worth and
probity for their pastor? A man who for his candour and meekness, his
sober, chaste, and virtuous conversation, his soundness in principle and
practice, is an ornament to his profession and an honour to the country
he is in; and bear with me if I say, the plainness of his dress, the
sanctity of his manners, the simplicity of his doctrine, and the
vehemence of his expression, have a sort of resemblance to the pure
practice of primitive Christianity."

The income of his chapelry was the munificent sum of L17 10 s. He reared
and educated a numerous family of twelve children. Every Sunday he
entertained those members of his congregation who came from a distance,
taught the village school, acted as scrivener and lawyer for the
district, farmed, and helped his neighbours in haymaking and
sheep-shearing, spun cloth, studied natural history, and, in spite of
all this, was throughout a devoted and earnest parish priest. He was
certainly entitled to his epithet "the Wonderful."

Goldsmith has given us a charming picture of an old-world parson in his
_Vicar of Wakefield_, and Fielding sketches a no less worthy cleric in
his portrait of the Rev. Abraham Adams in _his Joseph Andrews_. As a
companion picture he drew the character of the pig-keeping Parson
Trulliber, no scandalous cleric, though he cared more for his cows and
pigs than he did for his parishioners.

"Hawks should not peck out hawks' e'en," and parsons should not scoff at
their fellows; yet Crabbe was a little unkind in his description of
country parsons, though he could say little against the character of
his vicar.

"Our Priest was cheerful and in season gay;
His frequent visits seldom fail'd to please;
Easy himself, he sought his neighbour's ease.

* * * * *

Simple he was, and loved the simple truth,
Yet