He was the kind of clergyman who is always described as a “good organiser.” In certain circles this is the highest praise that can be bestowed on a clergyman. I never quite understood what it meant, or what these people organised. I always vaguely associated it with having printed tickets for things, and lists of names.
He was very polite and agreeable, and even inclined to be deferential to me, I suppose regarding me as a man of comparative wealth, and possibly impressed by my position as a Justice of the Peace, a position that had been forced upon me, for which I was quite unfitted, and of which I certainly was not proud. I only supposed these were the reasons for his deference, because he had never heard of my historical researches, or of my reputation as a pigeon-fancier.
In spite of this, and without at all intending it, he made me feel that he was shocked.
The modest comfort of my habits shocked his ascetic instinct. He was shocked by my not saying grace before dinner, and bowed his head and crossed himself in silence before he took his soup. I knew this would upset Bates, who is an Evangelical of rather strong views. If I had only thought of it, I would have said some ordinary sort of grace myself, which Bates would not have minded nearly so much.
But it was worse when he began to question me about the “parochial organisation,” and discovered that there was no communicants’ guild, no G.F.S. (I had to think hard before I could remember what a G.F.S. was), no lads’ brigade, no mothers’ union—none of the things he thought there ought to be. I had never before realised the utter nakedness of my parish in the paraphernalia of organised soul-saving.
Poor Snape, who was a gentleman, was more embarrassed than myself.
“Is there much debt on the church?” he asked after a pause.
“Not a penny,” I said, brightening up, for the moderate debt that I had found I had myself paid off, and I thought our solvency at least was in our favour.
But it was not so. Snape looked more than ever depressed.
“I have always found that a debt is such a stimulus to the laity,” he said mournfully. “It unites them in organised efforts.”