It is hard nowadays the supply of academical idlers. for a college to find men to take the college livings. "And oh, the heavy change," the collapse of agriculture in corngrowing, and the consequent fall in rental of glebe lands, and in tithe, have all but extinguished the old fashioned broadcloth Rector. Thirdly, recent legislation has all but extinguished the criminous clerk, and made it comparatively easy to stir up the mere idler. Are the people grateful? I doubt it. They grumbled at the old style, and they grumble at the new style; but they made more out of the old style. A few years ago I happened to be in Wales, and, meeting a fruit-seller with a cart bearing the name of Llanbeth, I got into conversation with him, and casually enquired whether my old friend, the Rev. J. Jones, sometime Rector of Llanbeth, was still living. No he was dead, and Reverend Williams reigned in his stead. I expressed sorrow. cr "Fery different gentleman now," said the fruit man, disparagingly: "I am parish clerk, and I know: fery different gentlemen eferywhere. Yes, sure." And the wretch leered hideously. "Well, I will tell you," he continued unasked, “they are men that have failed at the Institushun (meaning the Training College, then at Carnarvon); that iss what they are." "After all," I suggested, "they are better men now?" Well, I will tell you they are more men of the world that iss what they are." But, at least," I pleaded, "they don't drink?" "No-a, indeed; because they can't afford it: "Thou shalt not escape calumny," said Hamlet. "Did a day's work?" "Yes: because he is a man of the world." And even "Didn't get drunk?" "No: can't afford it." the wise and (comparatively) virtuous Inspector, when he meets in school the man of the world, who in general demeanour compares unfavourably with the schoolmaster, remembers easy-going old Broadcloth with a sigh, and hopes the new broom will sweep clean. CHAPTER XI MILLER'S "A merrier man Within the limit of becoming mirth I never spent an hour's talk withal." -Love's Labour Lost. It was not in Norfolk that I met the Rev. Joseph Miller, Hon. Canon of his Cathedral, Rural Dean, and formerly Fellow and Tutor of some College in Oxford. Having at one time or another inspected schools in ten different counties I may leave the venue uncertain. It is merely for convenience that I record the visit here. At the time when I made his acquaintance, he had acquired some notoriety in clerical circles in a singular way. In those days I know not whether the rule is altered the Bampton Lecturer at Oxford was appointed by a committee: there was a list of subjects to which the lecturer was confined, and any one who felt a call to the University pulpit sent in his application, specifying the particular subject upon which he was moved to dis course. Miller proposed to give a course of lectures on "THE FAILURE OF MOSES." I suppose he sent in a syllabus with his application: but possibly the syllabus which he showed me was made merely for his own use. The argument, briefly stated, was that in spite of the divine and miraculous assistance which it enjoyed; in spite of the purity and simplicity of its doctrines, the Mosaic system had never up to the time of the Captivity spread over even the little country of Palestine. Assuming the correctness of the popular chronology, there was an interval of 881 years between the Exodus and the Captivity, and at no time during that period was the country as a whole free from gross idolatry. But after the return from the Captivity idolatry seems to have disappeared in the course of years; at least there is no mention of it in the Gospels. To what was this change due? Clearly to the introduction from the East of the doctrine of a future life, with future rewards and punishments. Moses and his followers (said the Canon) promised temporal prosperity to the righteous, and in the end ruin. to the ungodly. This was not the common experience, and the people, seeming to gain little by virtue in this world, and having no hope for another, tried other forms of worship, which combined pleasure with religion. Solomon, who was strong enough to enforce uniformity, became the founder of the doctrines of Religious Equality and Concurrent Endowment, and applied them to his own household. Then came the schism, and things became worse. Miller's description of Jeroboam as the first Home Ruler, the parent of Free Churches, would have convulsed the undergraduate gallery. The lectures would have set Oxford in an uproar between the Torpids and the Eights, and when published in the following year would have filled the Guardian and the Spectator with correspondence. They would eventually have attracted the attention of Convocation, and odium theologicum would have blossomed into a gravamen, or even an articulus cleri. But it was not to be. The committee chose another man, and an informal message was sent to Miller to the effect that the success or failure of Moses was not among the Bampton list of subjects. Moreover, his theory was opposed to Article VII. One Divinity Professor privately complained to Miller's Bishop that he should have a Rural Dean holding such views "directly contravening the Articles." "Let us see the Article," said the wary Bishop; and he opened a Prayer Book : "Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises." "It seems to me, Professor, that the Article is satisfied. The Rural Dean will not be heard." "But, my dear Lord, he may preach the same doctrines from his own pulpit." The Bishop picked up Liddell and Scott, and turned to his favourite passage in that work : ὀρθρο-φοιτο-συκοφαντο-δικο-ταλαίπωροι τρόποι: "There is a branch of that Society in the Diocese, and I shall receive prompt intimation of any breach of Article VII." The Professor "retired hurt," as cricketers would put it; and his score was 0. Miller told me the whole story, and probably improved it a little. Who (except the present chronicler) does not |