My dear," said Mr. Stevens, "here is an invitation from the Rev. Mr. Ingleby, requesting us and our visitors to take tea at the rectory to-morrow evening, when he will introduce us to the Rev. Mr. Guion; and as we have no engagement, I presume I may send an answer in the affirmative."
"Most certainly," said Mrs. Stevens; "to meet Mr. Ingleby and Mr. Guion together will be a great treat; they are both men of superior intelligence and piety, and of great conversational powers."
"I do not know Mr. Guion," I remarked, "but I have a very high opinion of Mr. Ingleby; he breathes a fine catholic spirit, and preaches the gospel with great simplicity, purity, and power."
"I think," said Mr. Stevens, "I know a few who excel our venerable friend in some separate ministerial qualifications and attainments; but in that rare union of excellencies which meet in him, he stands, in my opinion, unrivalled. He has a voice which is clear and powerful, his action is natural, he commands attention, and he always rewards it; for, by an extraordinary aptness of manner, he compels his hearers to believe that he is addressing them individually. And I have often been astonished by the extraordinary fertility of his mind; for while he is perpetually exhibiting the same truths, the modes of their exhibition are perpetually varying; his arguments, if they are not always new, yet they are always put in a new form; and his figures of illustration, which are beautifully chaste, have, if I may use such an expression, the freshness and fragrance of novelty upon them."
"But, after all," said Mrs. Stevens, "much as I admire him when he is in the pulpit, it is in the parlour and in the walks of private life that he unconsciously unfolds the entire of his real character. He appears more amiable and lovely in the undress of social intimacy, than when attired in the costume of his order. In my opinion, he approaches nearer the perfect and upright man of the Bible than any clergyman I know."
I had heard much of Mr. Ingleby since I had been a visitor at Fairmount, and I now looked forward with great pleasure to the prospect of being more fully acquainted with him. I shall here introduce some particulars of his history, much of which I afterwards learned.
On his leaving college, where he was greatly beloved by those who were admitted into his intimacy, Mr. Ingleby went into Yorkshire, and took the curacy of a country parish; and there he exhibited in faint miniature the fine character which, in after-life, he more clearly and broadly developed. To this spiritual cure he was much attached; and it is probable that he would have continued in it, but he married a niece of the gentleman who had the living of Broadhurst in his gift, and who presented it to him on the day of his marriage. To this living he was inducted in the year 1796; and though he subsequently had several offers of preferment, yet he declined them, preferring contentment and the affectionate regards of the attached and devoted people amongst whom he laboured, to the greater honours and emoluments which were held out to him. When he commenced his ministerial labours, he found the church in a most dilapidated condition; its steeple had fallen; its walls were rent in several parts, and overgrown with rank vegetation; the rain oozed through its roof; the grass had grown high on every walk which led to its antique doors; and though the face of the clock was partly visible, the clock itself had long ceased to tell the hours. Almost the whole parish was living in a state of absolute ignorance and moral barbarism. His heart sunk within him as he surveyed the moral waste which he was appointed to cultivate; but recollecting that he was not appointed to labour in his own strength, he resolved to consecrate his life to its improvement. Having formed this resolution, no offer, however flattering, could for a moment shake it. The first thing he attempted was, not to raise the tithes, which he knew would inflame the prejudices of the people against him, but to get the church repaired. He called a meeting of the parishioners, stated his wish, and urged them, in such a mild and persuasive manner, to comply with it, that the utmost degree of unanimity prevailed; and they retired congratulating each other on the residence of a clergyman amongst them who seemed to manifest a concern for their spiritual welfare. Though the parsonage house was, if possible, in a more dilapidated state than the church, yet he prudently declined alluding to it, which gave a few of the leading men such a high idea of his disinterestedness, that they called another meeting, and resolved that the house and the church should be repaired at the same time. When the church, thoroughly repaired, was reopened for divine worship, there was such a concourse of attendants that it was not large enough to contain them. The clerk, who had grown old in the service, having repeated the Amen within its walls for nearly half a century, said to his rector, while he was assisting him in putting on his sacred vestments, "There is a main lot of people come, Sir, to see our beautiful church; one should almost think that the dead had got leave to come out of their graves to see it."
