And perhaps you see this man honoured and loved by all around you, as they too see and know him to be what he is. You move about in the parish, and you are quite sure to hear allusions to the Vicar. And as a rule, perhaps, they are all friendly, all loyal, all grateful. You find yourself, in short, under no appreciable present temptation, being (as of course you are) a true man yourself, to do anything but identify yourself very gladly with him.
YET EVEN HE IS NOT PERFECT.
But then, even in this bright supposed case—a case of which the Church of England contains hundreds of practical examples, thank God—appreciable temptations in the other direction, the wrong, unhappy, fatal direction, may very conceivably creep upon you with time. Your admirable Incumbent is all the while a mortal man, and as such, most certainly (he himself above all men knows and owns it), he is not perfect, not quite equal to himself in every way. Perhaps he has come to be not perfect in physical health, and thus he is obliged, to his own grief, to do less in this or that branch of activity than some of his people think he ought to do; and then you are tolerably sure to hear some not very just and generous complaints in the parish. Perhaps domestic sorrow, or domestic straits and care, may have come in to becloud his spirit and to make his energies for a season flag. Perhaps among his many gifts you may find some gift a little lacking; he may be manifestly less strong in the committee, or in the labours of arrangement generally, than in the pulpit or the class; or it may be just the other way. And you, my dear friend, may be (or may think yourself to be) somewhat strong where he is somewhat weak; an opportunity for many subtle temptations. The days and weeks go on; and if you let "the little rift" of criticism widen, and do not continually take it to your Lord to be examined and mended, other feelings—not born from above—may steal in between you and this good man, your elder and leader in Christ. Petty dislikes and impatience may rise in your heart about some trifling point of manner, some momentary failure of sympathy, some oblivion of arrangement or engagement due to a sore stress of work, some very small matter of Church order, or Christian dialect; or who can tell what?
GRAVE POSSIBLE TEMPTATIONS TO DISLOYALTY.
But also it is just possible that I am writing for some reader who finds himself in more grave and pressing difficulties than these. My most honoured brethren the Incumbents, if any of them should cast their eyes over these chapters, written by a Curate mainly for Curates, will not blame me for saying that there are cases, sad and sorrowful, where the Curate cannot honestly think with perfect happiness of his leader's work and influence. Perhaps that Incumbent has "run well," nobly well, but (as it was of old with some primitive saints) something or someone "hindered him." [Gal. v. 7.] Perhaps he has lost first love and zeal, and sunk, he knows not how, into an indolent clericalism, or anticlericalism, of thought and habit. Perhaps he has suffered care, disappointment, parochial conflicts, to sour his spirit, or at least to take his heart away from his people. Perhaps he has felt the sad influence of controversial battles, and the love and richness of the old Gospel has somewhat faded out of his life, and conversation, and sermons; I do not refer to faithful care over distinctive and world-offending truth, but to the controversial spirit, which is altogether another thing. Perhaps he has somewhat lost command over temper; perhaps he has not yet found in our Lord's great fulness the open secret by which He supplies patience to His servants, even when they are sorely vexed by man. And just possibly difficulty between Curate and Vicar threatens to arise from some side-quarter; from those who stand around the Vicar, who inevitably see him often and intimately, who are active and important under-workers in his field, and who may themselves be not quite fully "governed by the Spirit and Word of God."
BEWARE OF THE GROWTH OF A CURATE'S PARTY.
I have put a good many supposed cases. How much I should rejoice if I could know that not one reader of this page could find any of my "peradventures" the least in point within his experience. But I must emphasize one of them which is hardly a peradventure at all; namely that the Curate is practically certain, sooner or later, to find temptations presented to his loyalty by the conversation of parishioners. There is not one parish in all England where everybody is pleased with the Incumbent; pleased always and about everything. And if the given Vicar or Rector employs a Curate, and if that Curate is you, it will be a moral miracle if you never hear of such discontents. You will hear of them, very probably, in ways which will offer you, however faintly, an opportunity of acting towards your chief a little as Absalom acted towards David when he expressed certain pious wishes that he were made judge in the land in his father's place [2 Sam. xv. 1-6.]. I do not for a moment mean that you are, or ever will be, a man of treacherous purposes; the Lord forbid. But if you do not watch, and are not in some measure forewarned, you may easily be betrayed unawares, quite unawares, into speech or into action which will practically be treacherous to the man who is over you in Christ, and so toward Christ's work and cause in the parish where you serve. Do you not know the possibilities to which I refer? Have they not crossed either your own path or that of some Curate-friend of yours? Is there no such thing as an intimacy formed by the Curate in some house where the Incumbent is not liked, and is that intimacy never used by the Curate not for the noblest ends? Is there no weak listening to parochial gossip on the Curate's part? Is there never any allowance by the younger man of a growth around him, in ways which he could stop summarily, if he tried, of a certain unwholesome sort of preference and popularity? Is it not sometimes known that a Curate condescends so low as to concur with criticisms or sarcasms on his chief, or even to volunteer them? Alas for the parish where there is a "Curate's party," small or more extensive. Happy the parish where no chance is given in that direction by either Incumbent or Curate. Happy the Curate who is so truly loyal and dutiful, it may be even under difficulties, that he makes it quite unmistakable that, if a party is to gather, it must gather around some one else.
HOW TO REPRESS IT.
Some cases happily in point are present to my own mind. I once knew of a parish in which the truly devoted Vicar was, however, not popular; he had sadly felt the weight of depression and disappointment, and this had had a weakening reflex influence on his ministry. He was joined by a Curate, a man in the prime of youth and vigour, well qualified to attract confidence and affection, and particularly gifted as a preacher. Very soon many parishioners showed a preference for the young man's ministrations in public, and for his company in private; it was a golden opportunity for the almost spontaneous formation of a Curate's party. By the grace of God, the young Clergyman was enabled both to see the position at once and, by most decisive and manly speech and act, in the right quarters, to show, without a chance of mistake, that he considered his work as altogether identical with his Vicar's, never to be carried on for an hour outside a faithful subordination. Another instance may be given. Some years ago it was my duty to explain at a meeting the objects and work of the Divinity Hall with which I am connected. Quite incidentally, while describing our course of teaching, I mentioned my earnest desire always to caution my student-friends against giving the slightest encouragement to the rise of Curates' parties.
*AN EXAMPLE.