fail to detect
the coming wrath of God as about to descend upon the head of him who should be
nurtured under the shadow of such a letter as the foregoing?
    I have often thought that the Church of Rome does wisely in not allowing her
priests to marry. Certainly it is a matter of common observation in England that
the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. The explanation is very
simple, but is so often lost sight of that I may perhaps be pardoned for giving
it here.
    The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be
done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for this
business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his raison d'être.
If his parishioners feel that he does this they approve of him, for they look
upon him as their own contribution towards what they deem a holy life. This is
why the clergyman is so often called a vicar - he being the person whose
vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge. But
his home is his castle as much as that of any other Englishman and with him as
with others unnatural tension in public is followed by exhaustion when tension
is no longer necessary. His children are the most defenceless things he can
reach, and it is on them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve his mind.
    A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairly in
the face. It is his profession to support one side; it is impossible, therefore,
for him to make an unbiased examination of the other.
    We forget that every clergyman with a living or curacy is as much a paid
advocate as the barrister who is trying to persuade a jury to acquit a prisoner.
We should listen to him with the same suspense of judgement, the same full
consideration of the arguments of the opposing counsel, as a judge does when he
is trying a case. Unless we know these and can state them in a way that our
opponents would admit to be a fair representation of their views we have no
right to claim that we have formed an opinion at all. The misfortune is that by
the law of the land one side only can be heard.
    Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the general rule. When they
came to Battersby they had every desire to fulfill the duties of their position,
and to devote themselves to the honour and glory of God. But it was Theobald's
duty to see the honour and glory of God through the eyes of a church which had