Old Country Life

by S. Baring-Gould

As pastor to his Flocke, ye way that they shoulde go."

Not less effaced than the name is all tradition of the man whose monument proclaims his virtues. Now, I take it, for this very reason the tombstone bears true testimony. If it had told lies, every one would have known about it, and related this fact to their children; would have told anecdotes of the parson who was so unworthy, but concerning whose virtues his stone made such boast. That our old country parsons were not, as a rule, a disreputable, drinking, neglectful set of men I believe, because so few traditions of their misconduct remain.

There was a clever, pleasant book published at the beginning of this century, entitled, The Velvet Cushion. It was written by the Rev. J. W. Cunningham, Vicar of Harrow. The seventh edition, from which I quote, appeared in 1815. This book professes to tell the experiences of a pulpit cushion from pre-Reformation days to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Here is what the Cushion says—"Sir, you will be anxious, I am sure, to hear the history of some of your predecessors in the living; and it is my intention to gratify you. I think it right, however, to observe, that of a large proportion of them no very interesting records remain. Mankind are much alike, and a little country village is not likely to call out their peculiarities. Some few were mere profligates, whose memory I do not wish to perpetuate."—But it is precisely these, and only these, that the less charitable memory of man does perpetuate.—"Many of them were persons of decent, cold, correct manners, varying slightly, perhaps, in the measure of their zeal, their doctrinal exactness, their benevolence, their industry, their talents—but, in general, of that neutral class which rarely affords materials for history, or subjects of instruction. They were men of that species who are too apt to spring up in the bosom of old and prosperous establishments, whose highest praise is, that they do no harm."

No one can accuse this description as being coloured too high. It is, if I may judge by early recollections, applicable to those who occupied the parsonages twenty and thirty years later.

In my own parish in which I was reared, Romaine, one of the most brilliant luminaries of the evangelical revival, acted as curate for a while, but not the smallest trace of any tradition of his goodness, his eloquence, his zeal did I discover among the villagers. At the very time that Romaine was in this parish, there was a curate in an adjoining one who was over-fond of the bottle, and was picked up out of the ditch on more than one occasion. Neither his name nor his delinquencies are forgotten to this day.

I take it that the state in which the parish registers have been kept are a fair test as to what sort of parsons there were. Now certainly they were very neglectfully kept at the Restoration and for a short while afterwards. That is not to be wondered at. During the Commonwealth they had been taken from the parsons and committed to lay-registrars in the several parishes, who certainly kept them badly, and at the Restoration they were not at once and always reclaimed, but continued to be kept by the clerk, who stepped into the place of the registrar appointed by the Commonwealth. But in the much-maligned Hanoverian period they were carefully kept by the clergy, and as a rule neatly entered. If such an indication be worth anything, it shows that the country parsons did take pains to discharge at least one of their duties. He that is faithful in a small matter, is faithful also, we may conclude, in that which is great.

I presume that Dr. Syntax may be regarded as typical of the class, and Combe says of him—

"Of Church-preferment he had none;

Nay, all his hope of that was gone: