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 unbiassed 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 judgment,
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 fulfil 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 lived three hundred years without finding
reason to change a single one of its opinions.

I should doubt whether he ever got as far as doubting the wisdom of his
Church upon any single matter. His scent for possible mischief was
tolerably keen; so was Christina's, and it is likely that if either of
them detected in him or herself the first faint symptoms of a want of
faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud, than signs of
self-will in Ernest were--and I should imagine more successfully. Yet
Theobald considered himself, and was generally considered to be, and
indeed perhaps was, an exceptionally truthful person; indeed he was
generally looked upon as an embodiment of all those virtues which make
the poor respectable and the rich resp