CHAPTER XXXII 



THE HUNTING PARSON 



A strong prejudice undoubtedly exists in some 

 circles against the parson who takes his amuse- 

 ment and relaxation from an arduous vocation by 

 hunting a day or two in the week. Nor is this 

 prejudice confined to a narrow puritanical school — 

 copies of Luther in the pasteboard style — lean anti- 

 everythings, as Oliver Wendell Holmes has so fitly 

 called them. Men otherwise broad-minded and 

 charitable enough, who will cheer the parson when 

 he makes his century at cricket, who will ask him 

 to lawn-tennis parties, who will join with him in a 

 mild pool or a mild rubber at their own houses, 

 will tell you gravely when they hear of a parson 

 distinguishing himself in the hunting field, that 

 " it is not clerical." Why it is not clerical, I for 

 the life of me cannot imagine. For my own part 

 I see no difference between one sport or recreation 

 and another. If it is not clerical to hunt, neither 

 is it clerical to shoot or to play cricket, or to play 

 lawn tennis or any other game, hunting only 

 differing from these sports and pastimes inasmuch 

 as it calls forth in more marked manner nerve, 

 decision, and self-reliance. This being the case, 

 I should say that it is the sport of all others which 

 a parson should affect, especially if his lot be cast 



