The Parish Clerk | Page 7

riddles and charades, Mild were his doctrines, and not one
discourse But gained in softness what it lost in force; Kind his opinions;
he would not receive An ill report, nor evil act believe.
* * * * *
Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best Proclaim his life t' have
been entirely--rest. The rich approved--of them in awe he stood; The
poor admired--they all believed him good; The old and serious of his
habits spoke; The frank and youthful loved his pleasant joke; Mothers
approved a safe contented guest, And daughters one who backed each
small request; In him his flock found nothing to condemn; Him
sectaries liked--he never troubled them; No trifles failed his yielding
mind to please, And all his passions sunk in early ease; Nor one so old
has left this world of sin More like the being that he entered in."
A somewhat caustic and sarcastic sketch, and perhaps a little ill-natured,
of a somewhat amiable cleric. Dr. Syntax is a good example of an
old-world parson, whose biographer thus describes his laborious life:
"Of Church preferment he had none; Nay, all his hope of that was gone;
He felt that he content must be With drudging-in a curacy. Indeed, on
ev'ry Sabbath-day, Through eight long miles he took his way, To
preach, to grumble, and to pray; To cheer the good, to warn the sinner,
And if he got it,--eat a dinner: To bury these, to christen those, And
marry such fond folks as chose To change the tenor of their life, And
risk the matrimonial strife. Thus were his weekly journeys made,
'Neath summer suns and wintry shade; And all his gains, it did appear,
Were only thirty pounds a-year."
And when the last event of his hard-working life was over--
"The village wept, the hamlets round Crowded the consecrated ground;
And waited there to see the end Of Pastor, Teacher, Father, Friend."
Who could write a better epitaph?
Doubtless the crying evil of what is called "the dead period" of the

Church's history was pluralism. It was no uncommon thing for a
clergyman to hold half a dozen benefices, in one of which he would
reside, and appoint curates with slender stipends to the rest, only
showing himself "when tithing time draws near."
When Bishop Stanley became Bishop of Norwich in 1837 there were
six hundred non-resident incumbents, a state of things which he did a
vast amount of work to remedy. Mr. Clitherow tells me of a friend who
was going to be married and who requested a neighbour to take his two
services for him during his brief honeymoon. The neighbour at first
hesitated, but at last consented, having six other services to take on the
one Sunday.
An old clergyman named Field lived at Cambridge and served three
country parishes--Hauxton, Newton, and Barnington. On Sunday
morning he used to ride to Hauxton, which he could see from the high
road to Newton. If there was a congregation, the clerk used to waggle
his hat on the top of a long pole kept in the church porch, and Field had
to turn down the road and take the service. If there was no congregation
he went on straight to Newton, where there was always a congregation,
as two old ladies were always present. Field used to turn his pony loose
in the churchyard, and as he entered the church began the Exhortation,
so that by the time he was robed he had progressed well through the
service. My informant, the Rev. M.J. Bacon, was curate at Newton, and
remembers well the old surplice turned up and shortened at the bottom,
where the old parson's spurs had frayed it.
It was this pluralism that led to much abuse, much neglect, and much
carelessness. However, enough has been said about the shepherd, and
we must return to his helper, the clerk, with whose biography and
history we are mainly concerned.

CHAPTER II
THE ANTIQUITY AND CONTINUITY OF THE OFFICE OF
CLERK

The office of parish clerk can claim considerable antiquity, and dates
back to the times of Augustine and King Ethelbert. Pope Gregory the
Great, in writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury with regard to the
order and constitution of the Church in new lands and under new
circumstances, laid down sundry regulations with regard to the clerk's
marriage and mode of life. King Ethelbert, by the advice of his
Witenagemote, introduced certain judicial decrees, which set down
what satisfaction should be given by those who stole anything
belonging to the church. The purloiner of a clerk's property was ordered
to restore threefold[2]. The canons of King Edgar, which may be
attributed to the wise counsel of St. Dunstan, ordered every clergyman
to attend the synod yearly and to bring his