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COUNTRY PARSONS 828
peated heedlessly and culpably by many who ought to
know better.
CoUNTRY PAliSONS IN GENERAL
A day or two ago I read one of those journalistic
effusions which show our countrymen at their very worst.
It was a long, laboured sneer at country parsons, badly
written, dull, and untrue. To sneer at a whole class of
men is to break the ninth commandment. Ther.e is no
class, no section or group of men and women, who can
be collectively condemned with any shadow of justice,
and I do not envy the editor and the writer their feelings
about this calumny, if ever they come to a right mind.
The pitiful fact is, that this stuff is supposed to attract
purchasers of the periodical. If it does actually do so,
then one more nail is being driven into the coffin of the
British character ; and it means that our sense of humour
is dying too, for no literary garbage is so dull as a badly
written calumny. If it does not attract, then I am sorry
for the editor who hoped that it would. There are one or
two facts about country parsons which the public ought
to know but are very slow to learn: (1) A decided
majority of the eminent men mentioned in the Dictionary
of National Biography were brought up in clerical homes,
mostly sons of country parsons. (2) Any headmaster of
a school like Haileybury or Marlborough, up till lately
frequented by parsons' sons, knows that u a class those
boys were the backbone of the school. (8) Any exception
is noted, as it is always a surprise. People don't expect
it. Why not ! Because past experience has taught
them to expect the contrary. (4) There is a fine tribute
paid by the eminent historian Lecky, in his book on
European Morals, to the work of country parsons, and
especially of their wives. The passage occurs among
chapters written with conspicuous reserve of feeling and
showing a strong anti-ecclesiastical bias ; thus the strength
of the words is all the more arresting when they are taken
with their context, Doubtless there are slackers in that