eart of a priest,--since dominion in this world has found itself
capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to
come. We do believe,--the majority among us does so,--that if we live
and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment,
and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be
men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding
this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be
human,--cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed
us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces,
and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and
idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the
luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but
the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who
acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson
whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in
which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord,
perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son
with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen and
purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his parish
or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach him will
come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he begins
to tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish
combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having
fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country.
But to the parson himself,--to the honest, hardworking, conscientious
priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in
the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the
souls of men,--this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though
the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world
has been broken to pieces in the same way often;--but extreme Chaos
does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that
Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers
are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What
utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity
contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these
Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a
zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must