The Recreations of A Country Parson | Page 5

be very painful and discouraging to go to
preach to a large congregation, and to see it Sunday by Sunday growing
less, as people got discontented and dropped away.
But happily, those on whom I leant for guidance and advice, were more
hopeful than myself; and so I came away from my beautiful country
parish. You know, my friends, who have passed through the like, the
sorrow to look for the last time at each kind homely face: the sorrow to
turn away from the little church where you have often preached to very
small congregations: the sorrow to leave each tree you have planted,
and the evergreens whose growth you have watched, year by year.
Soon, you are in all the worry of what in Scotland we call a flitting: the
house and all its belongings are turned upside down. The kindness of
the people comes out with tenfold strength when they know how soon
you are to part. And some, to whom you had tried to do little favours,
and who had somewhat disappointed you by the slight sense of them
they had shown, now testify by their tears a hearty regard which you
never can forget.
The Sunday comes when you enter your old pulpit for the last time.
You had prepared your sermon in a room from which the carpet had
been removed, and amid a general confusion and noise of packing. The
church is crowded in a fashion never seen before. You go through the
service, I think, with a sense of being somewhat stunned and
bewildered. And in the closing sentences of your sermon, you say little
of yourself; but in a few words, very hard to speak, you thank your old
friends for their kindness to you through the years you have passed
together; and you give them your parting advice, in some sentence

which seems to contain the essence of all you meant to teach in all
these Sundays; and you say farewell, farewell.
You are happy, indeed, if after all, though quitting your country
parsonage, and turning over a new leaf in life, you have not to make a
change so entire as that from country to town generally is: if, like me,
you live in the most beautiful city in Britain: a city where country and
town are blended together: where there are green gardens, fields, and
trees: shady places into which you may turn from the glaring streets,
into verdure as cool and quiet as ever, and where your little children
can roll upon the grass, and string daisies as of old; streets, from every
opening in which you look out upon blue hills and blue sea. No doubt,
the work is very hard, and very constant; and each Sunday is a very
exciting and exhausting day. You will understand, my friend, when you
go to such a charge, what honour is due to those venerable men who
have faithfully and efficiently done the duty of the like for thirty or
forty years. You will look at them with much interest: you will receive
their kindly counsel with great respect. You will feel it somewhat
trying and nervous work to ascend your pulpit; and to address men and
women who in mental cultivation, and in things much more important,
are more than equal to yourself. And as you walk down; always alone,
to church each Sunday morning, you will very earnestly apply for
strength and wisdom beyond your own, in a certain Quarter where they
will never be sought in vain. Yet you will delight in all your duty: and
you will thank God you feel that were your work in life to choose again,
you would give yourself to the noblest task that can be undertaken by
mortal, with a resolute purpose firmer a thousand times than even the
enthusiastic preference of your early youth. The attention and sympathy
with which your congregation will listen to your sermons, will be a
constant encouragement and stimulus; and you will find friends so dear
and true, that yon. will hope never to part from them while life remains.
In such a life, indeed, these Essays, which never would have been
begun had my duty been always such, must be written in little snatches
of time: and perhaps a sharp critic could tell, from internal evidence,
which of them have been written in the country and which in the town.
I look up from the table at which I write: and the roses, honeysuckle,
and the fuchsias, of a year since, are far away: through the window I
discover lofty walls, whose colour inclines to black. Yet I have not

regretted the day, and I do not believe I ever will regret the day, when I
ceased to be a Country Parson.