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"THIS Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!" I hear one of my
readers exclaim. "How much more edifying it would have been if you had
made him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice! You might have put
into his mouth the most beautiful things--quite as good as reading a
sermon."

Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist
to represent things as they never have been and never will be. Then,
of course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my own
liking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman and
put my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions. But it
happens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any such
arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things
as they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is doubtless
defective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection
faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely
as I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box,
narrating my experience on oath.

Sixty years ago--it is a long time, so no wonder things have
changed--all clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason to
believe that the number of zealous clergymen was small, and it is
probable that if one among the small minority had owned the livings
of Broxton and Hayslope in the year 1799, you would have liked him no
better than you like Mr. Irwine. Ten to one, you would have thought him
a tasteless, indiscreet, methodistical man. It is so very rarely that
facts hit that nice medium required by our own enlightened opinions and
refined taste! Perhaps you will say, "Do improve the facts a little,
then; make them more accordant with those correct views which it is our
privilege to possess. The world is not just what we like; do touch it
up with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed
entangled affair. Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions act
unexceptionably. Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrong
side, and your virtuous ones on the right. Then we shall see at a glance
whom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve. Then we shall be able
to admire, without the slightest disturbance of our prepossessions: we
shall hate and despise with that true ruminant relish which belongs to
undoubting confidence."

But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishioner
who