But if there be a living God, who
is doing all he can to save men, to make them pure and noble and high,
humble and loving and true, to make them live the life he cares to live
himself; if he has revealed and is revealing this to men, and needs for
his purpose the work of their fellow-men, who have already seen and
known this purpose, surely there is no nobler office than that of a
parson; for to him is committed the grand work of letting men see the
thoughts of God, and the work of God--in a word, of telling the story of
Jesus, so that men shall see how true it is for _now_, how
beautiful it is for _ever_; and recognize it as in fact _the_
story of God. Then a clergyman has simply to be more of a man than other
men; whereas if he be but a clergyman, he is less of a man than any
other man who does honestly the work he has to do, whether he be
farm-labourer, shoemaker, or shopkeeper. For such a work, a man may well
pine in a dungeon, or starve in a curacy; yea, for such a work, a man
will endure the burden of having to dispense the wealth of a bishopric
after a divine fashion."
"But your story?" I said at last, unwilling as I was to interrupt his
eloquence.
"Yes. This brings me back to it. Here was I starving for no high
principle, only for the common-place one of paying my debts; and paying
my debts out of the church's money too, for which, scanty as it was, I
gave wretched labour--reading prayers as neatly as I could, and
preaching sermons half evangelical, half scholastic, of the most unreal
and uninteresting sort; feeling all the time hypocritical, as I have
already said; and without the farthest prospect of deliverance.
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