" Then he
recapitulated all those arguments against our mode of dispensing
church patronage with which the reader is already familiar if he
has attended to the Senator's earlier words as given in this
chronicle. "In other lines of business there is, even here in
England, some attempt made to get the man best suited for the work
he has to do. If any one wants a domestic servant he sets about the
work of getting a proper person in a very determined manner indeed.
But for the care,--or, as you call it, the cure,--of his soul, he
has to put up with the man who has bought the right to minister to
his wants; or with him whose father wants a means of living for his
younger son,--the elder being destined to swallow all the family
property; or with him who has become sick of drinking his wine in
an Oxford college;--or with him, again, who has pleaded his cause
successfully with a bishop's daughter." It is not often that the
British public is angered by abuse of the Church, and this part of
the lecture was allowed to pass without strong marks of
disapprobation.
"I have been at some trouble," he continued, "to learn the very
complex rules by which your army is now regulated, and those by
which it was regulated a very short time since. Unhappily for me I
have found it in a state of transition, and nothing is so difficult
to a stranger's comprehension as a transition state of affairs.
Pages:
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798