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BETTERING THEMSELVES, and holding as she did, that no church
preferment should be obtained except by persons of good family and
position, qualified to keep up the dignity of the profession, she
was not a little gratified to hear, as she supposed, the same
sentiments from the mouth of such an illiterate person as, taking no
note of his somewhat remarkable utterance, she imagined Polwarth to
be. Therefore she proceeded to patronize him yet a little farther.
"I quite agree with you," she said graciously. "None but such as you
describe should presume to set foot within the sacred precincts of
the profession."
Polwarth did not much relish Mrs. Ramshorn's style, and was
considerably surprised at receiving such a hearty approval of a
proposed reformation in clerical things, reaching even to the
archiepiscopal, which he had put half-humorously, and yet in
thorough earnest, for the ear of Wingfold only. He was little enough
desirous of pursuing the conversation with Mrs. Ramshorn: Charity
herself does not require of a man to cast his precious things at the
feet of my lady Disdain; but he must reply.
"Yes," he said, "the great evil in the church has always been the
presence in it of persons unsuited for the work there required of
them. One very simple sifting rule would be, that no one should be
admitted to holy orders who had not first proved himself capable of
making a better living in some other calling."
"I cannot go with you so far as that--so few careers are opened to
gentlemen," rejoined Mrs. Ramshorn. "Besides--take the bar, for
instance: the forensic style a man must there acquire would hardly
become the pulpit. But it would not be a bad rule that everyone, for
admission to holy orders, should be possessed of property sufficient
at least to live upon. With that for a foundation, his living would
begin at once to tell, and he would immediately occupy the superior
position every clergyman ought to have."
"What I was thinking of," said Polwarth, "was mainly the experience
in life he would gather by having to make his own living; that,
behind the counter or the plough, or in the workshop, he would come
to know men and their struggles and their thoughts--"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Ramshorn. "But I must be under some
misapprehension! It is not possible you can be speaking of the
CHURCH--of the clerical PROFESSION. The moment that is brought
within the reach of such people as you describe, that moment the
church sinks to the level of the catholic priesthood."
"Say rather, to the level of Jeremy Taylor," returned Polwarth, "who
was the son of a barber; or of Tillotson, who was the son of a
clothier, or something of the sort, and certainly a fierce
dissenter. His enemies said the archbishop himself was never
baptized. By-the-way, he was not ordained till he was thirty--and
that bears on what I was just saying to Mr. Wingfold, that I would
have no one ordained till after forty, by which time he would know
whether he had any real call or only a temptation to the church,
from the base hope of an easy living."
By this time Mrs. Ramshorn had had more than enough of it. The man
was a leveller, a chartist, a positivist--a despiser of dignities!
"Mr.--, Mr.--, I don't know your name--you will oblige me by
uttering no more such vile slanders in my company. You are talking
about what you don't in the least understand. The man who does not
respect the religion of his native country is capable of--of--of
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