ce
of the new Ritualistic developement, the processions, and the surplices.
Mrs. C., whose forte is education, declines any longer to induce mothers
to send their children to "such" a master. The curates shudder as Mrs.
D. laments their frequent absence from the Penny Bank, not that they can
do any good there, but "we are always glad of the presence and sympathy
of our clergy." The curates promise amendment of life. The vicar engages
to look out for another schoolmaster, and be more diligent in his
attentions to Muck Lane. A surreptitious supply of extra tickets to the
ultra-Protestant appeases for the moment her wrath against the choir
surplices. But the occasional screw of the monthly meeting is as nothing
to the daily pressure applied by the individual District Visitor. At the
bottom of every alley the vicar runs up against a parochial censor. The
"five minutes' conversation" which the District Visitor expects as the
reward of her benevolence becomes a perpetual trickle of advice,
remonstrance, and even reproof. A strong-minded parson of course soon
makes himself master of his District Visitors, but the ordinary vicar
generally feels that his District Visitors are masters of him. The harm
that comes of this feminine despotism is the feminine impress it leaves
on the whole aspect of the parish. Manly preaching disappears before the
disappointed faces the preacher encounters on Monday. A policy of
expedients and evasions takes the place of any straightforward attempt
to meet or denounce local evils. The vicar's time and energy are
frittered away on a thousand little jealousies and envyings, his temper
is tried in humouring one person and conciliating another, he learns to
be cautious and reserved and diplomatic, to drop hints and suggestions,
to become in a word the first District Visitor of his parish. He flies
to his wife for protection, and finds in her the most effective buffer
against parochial collisions. Greek meets Greek when the vicar's wife
meets the District Visitor. But the vicar himself sinks into a parochial
nobody, a being as sacred and as powerless as the Lama of Thibet.

It was hardly to be expected that the progress of religion and
charitable feeling should fail to raise up formidable rivals to the
District Visitor. To the more ecclesiastical mind she is hardly
ecclesiastical enough for the prominent part she claims in the parochial
system. Her lace and Parisian bonnet are an abomination. She has a tri