TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER. 473 



commenced farming himself, rated the person for allowing himself to be 

 so cheated as he was, and actually pointed out, how he might do himself 



justice, j^H gj jiulvf ?ov loams/fa s^inm t nij3rn sill nt t o/3 v^iolo arfj 



Now, Sir, had one of your common purveyors of clerical misconduct 

 happened to come in contact with this gentleman farmer, he might have 

 heard from him, how unlike an apostle Parson so and so had demeaned 

 himself; and down then would the Information to be relied upon have 

 gone in your paper, under the head of " Clerical Rapacity," " More 

 Tithe Pigs" or some such expressive and ingenuous advertisement of 

 parsonic wickedness. 



I have not here detailed a case forming an exception to the very 

 general treatment parsons experience from their liberal and Christianity- 

 requiring tithe-debtors. Receive this instance, Sir, "from a most respect- 

 able correspondent" which, without boasting, I really am, as a sample, in 

 his immediate neighbourhood, of what he knows to be general anti- 

 parsonism in other parishes. On this subject suffer yourself to be in- 

 structed, for once, against your will. I know all about these matters; 

 while you know, or write as if you knew, nothing about them. Be for 

 once convinced, against your wishes, that in all country squabbling 

 about tithes, (I know nothing of the London clergy) the parsons are the 

 considerate and self-denying gentlemen, the tithe-payers, the unreason- 

 able and bullying knaves. 



Should your zealous informants have detected, any where, one in- 

 stance to the contrary, which I don't believe they can ; pray do me the 

 justice I have a right to expect from one of your intellectual calibre, 

 and let this one opposite instance avail no farther than, by the rules of 

 evidence, it ought to avail against my direct and well-informed testi- 

 mony to the general truth. 



And now, Sir, supposing the consequence of this general galling 

 treatment of the parochial clergy to be, in some instances, a sourness and 

 want of cordiality, indicating a not entire good will of the parson to his 

 tithe-payers ; would any literate man, with your high pretensions to 

 candour and free-hearted manliness, visit the weakness harshly on a 

 fellow-creature ? But I forget : I am writing to one, who professes to 

 expect apostolical spirituality from clergymen ! and I must therefore 

 make some concession to the weakness of judgment, and slight know- 

 ledge of human nature, from which alone, if such professions be sincere, 

 such unreasonable expectations could arise. As, though, you seem 

 pretty well read in the Bible, it is fair to interrogate you thus: From 

 what you collect of the character of St. Paul, do you think that, had a 

 provision for his maintenance been set apart by the laws, he would 

 tamely have put up with the gross injustice of individual attempts to 

 deprive him of it ? Do you not rather suppose his natural manliness 

 would at first have induced him to resent such conduct, in mere self-de- 

 fence; and that, when his indignation, on his own account, had passed 

 ofFj as, it soon would, he could still have persisted in maintaining his 

 rights, if only for the sake of discouraging thievish selfishness in others ? 

 Give yourself but a fair chance of correcting your unphilosophical pre- 

 judices respecting the required spirituality of parsons, and this hint for a 

 true estimate of the apostolic spirit, which you are for ever mis-quoting, 

 will work a thorough change in your sentiments on the subject. 

 uoY .sub 8BW terfw IM . Believe me, Sir, 



*irfj JrremJimcJ rRrro-i odt 1o r Your obedient servant, t ! trmfw Hrw 

 October, 1832. A RADICAL PARSON. 



