Tux PARISH PRIEST.—In the parish which I know perhaps better
than any other, a large and populous parish in Derbyshire, no one could recollect having heard of it possessing a decent clergyman. The last but one was a vulgar and confirmed sot. The last came a respectable youth, well married, but, soon fell into dissipated habits, seduced a young woman of fine person and some property, who, in consequence, was abandoried by her connexions, mar- ried a low wretch who squandered her money, and finally died of absolute star-
vation. The clergyman's wife, heretofore a respectable woman, wounded beyond endurance by this circumstance, took to drinking: all domestic har- mony was destroyed : the Vicar began to drink too. A young family of children grew up amid all these evil and unfortunate influences: the parents finally separated ; and as the pastor fell into years, he fell into deeper vice and degradation. I well remember him. I remember seeing him upheld, in a state of utter intoxication over a grave, by two men, while he vainly strove to repeat the Burial Service,—saying, " there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the sun"—till they led him away, and closed the grave. I remember well his small, light person, his thin but ruddy countenance, and his singular ap- pearance as he used to trot at a quick pace up to the church, or down the vil- lage street back again,—for at that time be performed duty at three churches, each of which was three miles distant from the other. On one occasion, in winter, wishing to make great haste, he put on his skates and took the canal in his way; but it was not well frozen beneath the bridges, and the ice let him in. He hurried home, and changed his clothes, but left his sermon in his wet pocket, and arrived only to dismiss his long-expecting congregation. The old man, notwithstanding his vices, had much good-nature and no pride. He accepted every invitation to dinner at the weddings of his humblest parishioners, for his own dinners were, like those of the miser Elwes, generally cold boiled
eggs and pancakes, which he carried in his pockets and as he went along. His hearers were many. of them colliers; and in their cabins he has sometimes got so drunk that he has fallen asleep, and they have put him to bed with a slice of bacon in one hand, and one of bread in the other. I remember him meeting a labourer in the fields one Sundays as he returned from church, and seeing that the man had been nutting instead of to prayer, he said, " Ah,
! you should not go a nutting on Sunday !—Have you got a few for
me, William?" When he administered the Sacrament to the sick, he advised them not to take much of the wine, lest it should increase their fever; but added charitably, he would drink it for them, and it would do as well. In short, ha was not without redeeming qualities ; but he is dead ; or rather, was kicked out of the world by a horse, when he was in a state of intoxication. Another came in his stead; and such another ! I see him now in fancy—he is still the incumbent, or incumbrance of the parish, and may be seen by any one who lists—a hard-faced, vulgar-looking fellow, whom at a glance you know to have a heart like a pebble, a head full of stupid mischief, and a gripe like iron. i think it was Alderman Waithman who said in Parliament, that of all tyran- nies, none are so odious as the tyranny of a parish priest. And this fellow is a tyrant to perfection. To the poor lie speedily showed himself a fierce and arbitrary dictator ; they must abide his pleasure as to the times of marrying, burying, and baptism; and be extorted from them the uttermost farthing. It is a coal district ; and the coal had been got in the surrounding country, but bad been left under the houses to prevent injury to them. This he claimed and sold. In getting the coal, he threw down a part of several houses, cracked and undermined others, and would. probably have thrown down the church, for the workmen were actually beginning to undermine it, when the churchwardens interfered. He bought farms, and borrowed money to pay for them ; and when compelled to pay part of the interest, he persuaded the attorney to give him a memorandum of the receipt without a stamp, and then laid an information against him in the Exchequer. He got a commission to prove wills, and charged the poor ignorant people double, till some one more experienced informed the proctor, and got his occupation taken away. He was to be found at public-houses, and in the lowest company, till the very family who got him the living, absented themselves from the church ; yet, with a very common kind of inconsistency, when the people complained, and asked if he could not be removed; this very family declined acting in it, alleging—it would be a great scandal for a clergyman to be dismissed from his living ! At length some unwise guardians, who had lent him the money of their orphan wards on his bare note, and the strength of his clerical character, have put him in prison ; and the longer he lies, the greater the blessing to the people. The following is part of the report of the Insolvent Debtors' Court when he applied to be dis- charged:—" The Rev. Gentleman's debts set forth in his schedule amounted to 8,945/. 8s. 9d. It appeared that he had exercised certain lay vocations; specu- lated somewhat in laud ; dabbled a little in twist-lace machinery ; worked a colliery; and now and then enjoyed a bit of horse-dealing. The insolvent's income was 2461. per annum, and his out-goings 5001. a-year." Such is the ecclesiastical history of this one parish; such would be that of thousands were they related ; and all this is the natural result of the absurd and iniquitous system of state and individual patronage.—Howitt's History of Priestcraft.
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