We were no doubt unlucky in the society which chequered the domestic sameness of our home; not that intercourse with archangels would have deterred us in all probability from joining in the general frenzy, but our course was perhaps accelerated by the want of a stronger counteracting influence than any which opposed our progress. The adjoining parishes were under the superintendence of two clergymen, both intimates at Glendruid. They frequently visited at our house, and were good men, but in no way calculated to control the spirit of insubordination which was in movement, nor stem the torrent of that voluble disaffection which was always ready to pour forth abuse upon every thing really valuable and of sound repute.
Mr. Hill, who lived within a mile of Glendruid, and had the parish adjoining ours, was a gentleman in education, descent, and manners. He was at once genteel, moral, and zealous in the performance of what he believed to be his duty; but he was a weak man, a tête bornée, a formalist. Though his age did not exceed forty years when I left home, he had a face so long-drawn that it looked as if the grand inquisitors had got hold of it, and put his features to the question. His countenance was solemn, but not from power or depth of mind, and presented the oddest mixture imaginable of gravity and imbecility. The physiognomy tallied exactly with the structure of his mind, which was a union of sounding sense, with the veriest impotence of reason which I have ever happened to witness.
Even at this distance of time, I can still fancy that I hear his long-winded harangues, and listen to his well-turned periods, unenlivened by a single ray of mental illumination, though uttered with grammatical accuracy, and the truest attention to accent and emphasis. Whether the conversation related to a mouse or a mammoth, the same laborious correctness of diction, the same flaccid sternness of expression, marked his dull observations on either the one or the other. If church matters were the subject of discussion, he would treat with equal gravity the divine right of tithes or the bleaching of a surplice; and seemed quite incapable of seeing any gradation of sin between an atheist and a dissenter from the rubric of our English Prayer-book. He would no more have altered the shape of his band, than he would have changed his creed, and would have been nearly as much shocked by seeing the pulpit of his church transplanted to the opposite side of the building, as to have encountered a denial of the thirty-nine articles.
From such a man little aid to a sinking cause was to be expected, and I well remember the uneasiness of my father whenever Mr. Hill entered the lists of theological controversy, from the unfortunate hand which he made of an argument. There was enough of importance, however, in the bearing of the man, to prevent his being summarily put down, though every topic of human inquiry withered into nothing in his nerveless grasp. In short, he was a pompous nonentity, who, like an empty cart, made more noise than a full one; and a rumbling succession of sounds supplied the place of sense, covering the deficiency of his faculties from the view of stupid people with whom he passed for an oracle. We of the new school resolved all the inflated emptiness of this good man into the absurdity of his profession, and, as is usual with the scoffing fraternity, visited on religion whatever lack of skill we discovered in her advocates.
Such was our clerical neighbour on one side, while on the other resided the Reverend Mr. Stockdale, a man in every way different from him already pourtrayed. Tall and muscular of frame, commanding in aspect, and powerful in understanding, but irritable of temper, Mr. Stockdale resented with vivacity the rapid inroads which a shallow but impetuous torrent of new fangled doctrines was daily making upon all the solid bulwarks of ancient authority. He was a person of strong intellect and great erudition; but the powers of his mind were precluded from assisting him in debate, through the impatience of his honest indignation; galled and provoked at the changes which he beheld working destruction all around, he was not calm enough to contend with a callow brood of upstarts, who offered perpetual resistance, in every word which they uttered, to that creed established in unmolested sway within his breast, during a ministry of thirty years. During this long lapse of time not a doubt had troubled his repose, not a single adversary till now, had ever disputed the grounds of his faith.
When this excellent man made his appearance occasionally at Painesville or Ferney, he was attacked on all sides with rude disregard of his sacred calling, and though primed and loaded with ammunition, a moderate dose of which would have frittered the puny opponents arrayed against him to atoms, yet unluckily it was not ready for the conflict. Long disuse had rusted over a fine piece of ordnance; the cannon missed fire, and not only required to be rubbed up, but to be set to a lower level, to make it available. Thus it unfortunately happened that a set of reasoning coxcombs, who owed their apparent triumph to pertness and audacity, often seemed for a time masters of the field; and, silenced by the presumption of these tyro combatants, the worthy pastor was frequently surprised into excitement of temper, and returned discomfited to his rectory-house, bewailing, as he regained the mountain fastness, the flood of infidelity which had burst upon the land, and his own incapacity to arrest its desolating progress.
The rebel crew were not slow to find out here again, that religion could not be of celestial origin, because Mr. Stockdale, pushed to extremity by the taunts of arrogance, was not endued with that unalterable coolness which the indifference of scepticism can assume at will. He could not always curb, as prudence dictated, the ebullitions of a holy zeal which lighted spontaneously into flame, when all that he possessed on earth, or desired in heaven, was assailed with wanton disrespect and indecency. He wore also a large cauliflower wig, a deep shovel hat, long waistcoat pockets descending to his knees, and leaned on a cane, with a head of battered gold. This costume served to sharpen our ridicule, and increase the vexation which awaited our friendly neighbour, whenever he quitted the protection of his upland dwelling.
At Glendruid I might ever behold the influence of piety in preserving the most beautiful equanimity of temper under the provocations which every hour produced; but I had been too well taught to give credit to any thing under the paternal roof. Parents in my day were held in contempt, as mere instruments by which being was conferred on another generation, and the opinion of a father or mother was so far from giving a bias to the conduct of their offspring, that their approval of any person, book, or sentiment, principle, or mode of action, was considered by us of the philosophic school as primâ facie evidence against whatever was so applauded.
The restricted society of our house received occasional addition likewise from the visits of two elderly ladies, who were first cousins of my father. The Misses Cresswell were frequent members of our family circle, and served to whet my genius as well as excite my spleen. They were women of real virtue and high principle, but doggedly tenacious. They thought together upon every matter of judgment, and would not give up an iota upon any one subject of debate. I hated, and used to take delight in stirring them to opposition, by an assault on some of their favourite tenets. They piqued themselves on their orthodoxy, and were what is called high church; so high, that I detested steeples for their sakes. They lived in the "Black North," and were but slenderly provided for, yet ever employed in doing good; and nothing distressed my parents so much as to see them ill-treated.