list so crowded with eminent names as we can boast
in the sons we have reared and sent forth into the
world? How many statesmen, soldiers, sailors,
lawyers, physicians, authors, men of science, have
been the sons of us village pastors? Naturally:
for with us they receive careful education; they acquire
of necessity the simple tastes and disciplined habits
which lead to industry and perseverance; and, for
the most part, they carry with them throughout life
a purer moral code, a more systematic reverence for
things and thoughts religious, associated with their
earliest images of affection and respect, than can
be expected from the sons of laymen whose parents are
wholly temporal and worldly. Sir, I maintain
that this is a cogent argument, to be considered well
by the nation, not only in favour of a married clergy,—for,
on that score, a million of Roaches could not convert
public opinion in this country,—but in favour
of the Church, the Established Church, which has been
so fertile a nursery of illustrious laymen; and I
have often thought that one main and undetected cause
of the lower tone of morality, public and private,
of the greater corruption of manners, of the more
prevalent scorn of religion which we see, for instance,
in a country so civilized as France, is, that its
clergy can train no sons to carry into the contests
of earth the steadfast belief in accountability to
Heaven.”
“I thank you with a full heart,” said
Kenelm. “I shall ponder well over all
that you have so earnestly said. I am already
disposed to give up all lingering crotchets as to
a bachelor clergy; but, as a layman, I fear that I
shall never attain to the purified philanthropy of
Mr. Decimus Roach, and, if ever I do marry, it will
be very much for my personal satisfaction.”
Mr. Emlyn laughed good-humouredly, and, as they had
now reached the bridge, shook hands with Kenelm, and
walked homewards, along the brook-side and through
the burial-ground, with the alert step and the uplifted
head of a man who has joy in life and admits of no
fear in death.
FOR the next two weeks or so Kenelm and Lily met not
indeed so often as the reader might suppose, but still
frequently; five times at Mrs. Braefield’s,
once again at the vicarage, and twice when Kenelm had
called at Grasmere; and, being invited to stay to tea
at one of those visits, he stayed the whole evening.
Kenelm was more and more fascinated in proportion
as he saw more and more of a creature so exquisitely
strange to his experience. She was to him not
only a poem, but a poem in the Sibylline Books; enigmatical,
perplexing conjecture, and somehow or other mysteriously
blending its interest with visions of the future.
