much like the real shepherd as Old Leisure feeliug his apricots 

 on a sunuy wall resembles the modern country parson. The 

 different aspects which the same place may assume convey the 

 lesson of the two aspects presented by clerical life. In spring 

 or summer a prettily built parsonage, with fields sloping down 

 to a bright stream, approached through cool lanes redolent with 

 wild flowers, and resonant with the song of birds, is attractive 

 enough. When the sun shines it is a pleasure to feel that you 

 are six miles from the railway station ; even the village street 

 looks so quaint and picturesque and its inmates so cheery that 

 it seems impossible for the clergyman ever to desire to exchange 

 any extra-parochial thoughts. Visit the same place in the 

 winter after floundering through lanes ankle-deep in mud, with 

 a leaden sky overhead, and a north-east wind chilling to the 

 bone or driving a sleety rain into your face. The only signs or 

 sounds of life in the deserted drijiping village street are the 

 beery steam which issues from the public-house, the wail of 

 some half-fed child, or the shrill scold of an angry wife ; 

 the stream has made an ague-exhaling lake within a few 

 feet of the windows of the parsonage, and it cuts the 

 inmates off from their nearest neighbours by a flood which 

 runs knee-high across the road. Outsiders are far too ready to 

 forget that there are two sides to clerical life in the country, 

 both in its material and in its spiritual aspect. Many men feel 

 capable, when the sun shines, of a burst of momentary 

 enthusiasm ; but they shrink from the constant discharge of 

 duty which often consists in a monotonous round of wearisome 

 details. 



All the temporal advantages of the clerical profession are, at 

 least in the midland counties, entirely removed. The clergy feel 

 the pinch of poverty, not, perhaps, in its acutest form of actual 

 hunger, but in the loss of all those so-called luxuries which in 

 their position and surroundings are really necessaries. First 

 came inconvenience from delay and nncertainty in receipt of 

 income ; then the humiliating necessity of asking for credit ; then 

 the certainty that rents would not be paid ; then the pressure 

 of creditors and the refusal to give f ui-ther credit ; then the 

 expenditure of private capital and the mortgage of life insur- 

 ances ; then the application to friends. The house and its 

 surroundings are ill-adapted to a constantly narrowing income. 

 The outdoor establishment is reduced, the garden cannot bo 

 maintained, the horse and carriage are sold. The same process 

 is followed indoors. Servant after servant is discharged till not 

 one is left j then follows the careful husbanding of fuel, the 

 severest practice of domestic economy, even the disposal of 

 books, furniture, and apparel. Sons are withdrawn from school 

 or college, daughters are obliged to go out as governesses ; life 

 insurances are sold, pledged, or allowed to drop. Sometimes 



