"
"I think I could explain them all," said Mr. Surtees mildly.
"If you can do so satisfactorily, I shall be very glad to hear it,"
continued the Senator, who seemed in truth to be glad to hear no
one but himself. "A lad of one-and-twenty learns his lessons so
well that he has to be rewarded at his college, and a part of his
reward consists in his having a parish entrusted to him when he is
forty years old, to which he can maintain his right whether he be
in any way trained for such work or no. Is that true?"
"His collegiate education is the best training he can have," said
the rector.
"I came across a young fellow the other day," continued the
Senator, "in a very nice house, with 700 pounds a year, and learned
that he had inherited the living because he was his father's second
son. Some poor clergyman had been keeping it ready for him for the
last fifteen years and had to turn out as soon as this young spark
could be made a clergyman."
"It was his father's property," said the rector, "and the poor man
had had great kindness shown him for those fifteen years"
"Exactly;--his father's property! And this is what you call a cure
of souls! And another man had absolutely had his living bought for
him by his uncle, just as he might have bought him a farm. He
couldn't have bought him the command of a regiment or a small
judgeship.
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