ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



parish on a Sunday 'like a flying curate on Newmarket plain,' as he 

 himself relates, and scarcely missing any duty in seven and twenty years. 

 He would preach three times a day on Sunday, and take no solid food 

 until the evening, when he could ' eat like a trooper and sleep well upon 

 it.' This is truly an ' instance of perseverance and patient industry that 

 perhaps deserves to be recorded,' to use his own words ; so also does the 

 fact that at seventy years of age he was still at his post, and had never had 

 a day's illness. 279 



Amongst all these we may surely believe that there were always a few 

 who lived quiet uneventful lives of a more priestly type. We may fancy it 

 of one John Thomlinson, rector of Glenfield 1722-61, who spent much time 

 and money on the beautifying of his church, and left for himself an epitaph 

 which raises him above the level of his generation ; ' Canonice vixit sed 

 nequaquam perfecte ; ideo paenitenter abscessit. Misereatur Deus.' X8 We 

 know it as a certainty, without any stretch of imagination in John Bold, 

 curate of Stoney Stanton 1702-51. In the portrait of this humble saint 

 drawn by one of his successors there are many traits which remind us of the 

 Cure d'Ars. In the simplicity with which from the very first he set aside all 

 thought of preferment, and devoted himself to the service of a little country 

 parish at 30 a year, in the unobtrusive asceticism and piety of his daily 

 life, in the faithfulness with which he taught and visited his people, we 

 recognize one of those hidden saints who may be found here and there, even 

 in the most sordid and selfish ages of the world. Not many men even when 

 the standard of priestly life is high would be content to board for fifty years 

 at a farmhouse, with but a single private room to sleep in, and never a fireside 

 of their own ; to read and write and prepare their sermons by the common 

 hearth of the family all through the cold weather. 281 Yet this was the kind 

 of life John Bold was willing to live from the beginning of his ministry to 

 its end ; passing in and out amongst his people, always neat and always 

 cheerful ; known as the parish priest by his bands and the ' large decent 

 gown folded over and bound by a sash ' which he would never exchange for 

 any other habit ; a living illustration of his own deep conviction that 

 religion is indeed the most delightful of employments. 283 His people 

 required no sensational sermons or elaborate musical services to bring them 

 to church or show them their duty. 283 It was said that during the greater 

 part of his ministry there was no felonious act committed in Stoney Stanton, 

 and labouring men would leave the plough in the field on Saturday afternoon 

 to come and hear his weekly exposition of the Catechism. His later years 

 were a little troubled indeed by the talk of new lay preachers and un- 

 authorized prayer-meetings ; and he bequeathed a portion of his little 



179 Nichols, Leic. iii, 237. He served for many years Dalby, Gaddesby, and Keyham in this way. 



>sa Ibid, iv, 614. 



181 It may be that many curates of the period lived in no better style ; but this one turned necessity into 

 choice, and herein lies his claim to sanctity. For instance, his ordinary diet of one solid meal at midday, 

 with a little water or milk gruel at night and morning, was no doubt sufficient for health, but he was a true 

 ascetic in his quiet refusal to vary it ; we are told that he declined all invitations to dine with his well-to-do 

 parishioners, and any little delicacies sent him were given away at once to the poor. 



w * Religion the most Delightful Employment was the title he gave to a little book of devotion compiled in his 

 leisure moments. 



133 The services in his time were mattins and evensong on Sundays, holy days, Wednesdays, and 

 Fridays, all the year, and daily in Lent. Holy Communion was but four times a year. 



i 393 So 



