For The Tonsured Priest,
And The Monastery, And The Nunnery, And The Mass, And The Virgin Mary,
Have Grown To Be A Very Great Power Indeed In English Lanes.
Between the
Roman missal and the chapel hymn-book, the country curate with his good
old-fashioned litany is ground very small indeed, and grows less and less
between these millstones till he approaches the vanishing-point.
The
Roman has the broad acres, his patrons have given him the land; the
chapel has the common people, and the farmers are banding together not to
pay tithes. So that his whole soul may well go forth in the apostrophe,
'Good Lord, deliver us!'
There is no man so feasted as the chapel pastor. His tall and yet rotund
body and his broad red face might easily be mistaken for the outward man
of a sturdy farmer, and he likes his pipe and glass. He dines every
Sunday, and at least once a week besides, at the house of one of his
stoutest upholders. It is said that at such a dinner, after a large
plateful of black currant pudding, finding there was still some juice
left, he lifted the plate to his mouth and carefully licked it all round;
the hostess hastened to offer a spoon, but he declined, thinking that was
much the best way to gather up the essence of the fruit. So simple were
his manners, he needed no spoon; and, indeed, if we look back, the
apostles managed without forks, and put their fingers in the dish.
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