with a finer cruelty
than their modern successors, and they could, after all that, make
the blithest songs, sing the merriest melodies, and quaff the oldest
port with an air of jocund conscientiousness, making one slyly like
them, however much inclined to dispute the correctness of their
theology. And the parsons of the past were also a blithesome set of
individuals. They were perhaps rougher than those mild and refined
gentlemen who preach now-a-days; but they were straightforward,
thorough, absolutely English, well educated, and stronger in the
brain than many of them. In each Episcopalian, Catholic, and
Dissenting community there are new some most erudite, most useful
men; but if we take the great multitude of them, and compare their
circumstances--their facilities for education, the varied channels
of usefulness they have--with those of their predecessors, it will
be found that the latter were the cleverer, often the wiser, and
always the merrier men. Plainness, erudition, blithesomeness, were
their characteristics. Aye, look at our modern men given up largely
to threnody-chiming and to polishing off tea and muffin with elderly
females, and compare them, say, for instance, with--

The poet Praed's immortal Vicar,
Who wisely wore the cleric gown,
Sound in theology and liquor;
Quite human, though a true divine,
His fellow-men he would not libel;
He gave his friends good honest wine,
And drew his doctrine from the Bible.

Institute a comparison, and then you will say that whilst modern men
may be very aesthetic and neatly dressed, the ancient apostolic
successors, though less refined, had much more metal in them, were
more kindly, genial; and told their followers to live well, to eat
well, and to mind none of the hair-splitting neological folly which
is now cracking up Christendom. In old times the Lord did not "call"
so many parsons from one church to another as it is said He does
now; in the days which have passed the bulk of subordinate parsons
did not feel a sort of conscientious hankering every three years for
an "enlarged sphere of usefulness," where the salary was
proportionately increased. We have known multitudes of parsons, in
our time, who have been "called" to places where their salaries were
increased; we know of but few who have gravitated to a church where
the salary was less than the one left. "Business" enters largely
into the conceptions of clergymen. As a rule, no teachers of
religion, except C