“I think a country parson can really do a little good for his flock by just living among them and not putting on side,” I said. “One can help in various ways, material and other. I have been able, for instance, by a little timely financing to help a young couple to get married, and so have prevented an otherwise inevitable scandal.”
“But that sort of thing would be utterly impossible in a large industrial parish!”
“Of course it would. But this is a small country parish. It would have been impossible for me to do what I have said if I had not had some private means; though of course the young people paid me back by degrees. But isn’t it possible that the methods which seem best in the populous parish may not be equally suitable in a little community like this?”
Without really meaning to, I had got the better of him in mere logic. I saw that he was distressed by feeling that my logic, though unanswerable, was wrong. It is a feeling I know well myself and hate.
“I daresay I am only defending my own laziness and incapacity, to myself as well as to you,” I continued. “The fact is I don’t understand how to run these things. If you like, I shall be delighted if you inaugurate all the organisations you think necessary while I am away. Then perhaps you can teach me to keep them going when I return, if they seem to work well.”
“I’m afraid the time is too short,” he said regretfully.
“Well then, stop on as long as necessary—on the same terms, of course.”
His look of gratitude was very affecting. Yet I regretted my hospitality; for though he commanded my respect, he bored me terribly. I was not uneasy about his organisation, being confident that not even Paul and Apollos could stimulate my Sussex parishioners to a “combined effort.”
“I must ask the bishop about it,” Snape said.
“Do,” I said, cravenly sure that Parminter would rescue me from the full consequences of my impulse.