The Express.
London, England, 1861-05-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 16.

Axone the numberbus Societies for the relief
of distress in this classic land of wealth and cha-
rity, there is one which from time to time only,
and then almost by stealth, drops its sorrows into
the ear of that ti uly catholic confessional—this pub-
lic press. It is not a Ragged School Society, nor
a Reformatory Society, nor a shoeblackSociety,nor
a tract Society, nor a church rate or church build-
ing Society, nor a Society for the defence of altar
screens and high candlesticks, nor an evangelical
Society, nor • missionary Society, nor a Society
fur the relief of poor bishops, nor • Society for
adding wings to episcopal poison. It is not a
Society panelists' by Convocation, paraded at May
meetings, or championed by tailitsast Archdeacons.
Vet it is eminently a Church Society, and every penny
it picks up 'nen stray Samaritans is honourably
and unostentatiously disbursed among the working
and suffering Levites of the Establishment. We
defy any human being—though he wore the son-
in-law of a bishop—to read without a thickening
in the throat the short and simple narratives which
occasionally find their way into print through the
modest agency of the Clerical Fund and Poor
Clew Relief Society. How these things look
through the medium of cassocks and lawn sleeves
the lay imagination is powerless to conceive. But
to our thinking, neither Groans Eucer, in these
exquisitely pathetic "Scenes of Clerical Life,"
nor Ilexes; in his story of the country Core, hes
presented anything more affecting than the true
tale of his own personal experiences which •
Country Curate sent some three weeks since to the
secretary of this Society. We leave to the
conscience of our clerical readers to deter-
mine whether his case can be safely pro-
nounced exceptional. Let us hope that in au
age of enthusiastic zeal for the increase of Bishop',
for the crectiim of churches, the preserva-
tion of " the fabric," and the promotion of sound
principles of private judgment in matters of faith
and architecture, that highly picturesque figure in
the poet's village landscape, the pauper curate,
may receive some consideration, if only from an
artistic regard to proportion.
The poignancy of this poor curate's letter
is not so la in what it reveals as in the
lifelong struggle which its very reticence be-
trays. Surely the most terrible stress of
poverty is not thu poverty that begins and ends
in rage, not the poverty of hooseless, penniless
vagrants, for whom beggary has all the zest
of a profession ; is it not rather the genteel,
respectable, respensible poverty, bound to
keep up appearances and to set an example
of smiling contentnieut with that social order which
it helps to hoW together in the capacity of a moral
and spiritual police Is it not the poverty which
accepts with a chastened gratitude the admonitions
to unworldliness and self deuial which fall at
fitting seasons from episcopal lips? Is it not the
poverty of a curate, " nearly sixty years of age,"
whose income is " not very much shove 901. •
" year," who, "to eke out his income," and to escape
debt, is " compelled to have recourse to charity"t
The Country Curate, whose letter we are taking as
a texts is in solo charge of his parish, " the
Rector being non-resident." Although he has not
a large family (and in this particular, at least, his
case is perhaps exceptional among country curates),
" it is only," he says, " by tasking ingenuity and
" economy to the utmost that we can get along
" with anything like comfort and keep up ap-
" pearances." With an income of not very much
above NO. per year, though " not a very large
" family," anything like comfort seems a very
calm end moderate phrase. Here is a gentleman
of liberal education, obliged to wear a black coat
and a white neckcloth daily, and to he looked up
to by 'his parishioners as the highest product of
civilization, who cannot belong to a book club,
cannot call in a doctor in clue of illness, cannot
drink a drop of wine, or even beer, for his stomach's
sake, walnut ask • friend to stay with him, cannot
give Ills wife and children • change of air, "on ae-
" count of the expense." Nor does he complain
angrily or bitterly of these obscure privations.
"Of course," ho writes, "we have to live spa-
" rings. 1 have even had to give up malt
" liquor entirely--although, from advancing
" years, and not very robust health at any time,
" I shisuW have been glad of it. I feel the want
"of it, but I cannot afford to pay for it. There-
" fore, Igo without." And this is not the wont.
The Socii ty provides clothes as gifts to the poor
clergy, The Country Curate testifies to the fact
how aeeeptublu thesis gifts of clothes must be.
For years he confesses to have been in the habit of
buying secoud-hand clothes into:mite in some dis-
tant town. He has " dreaded the thought of
" being accidentally discovered" by his neigh-
bours and parishioners in the act of buying a
second-hand hat or pair of shoes. His own case
is only one of many. He knows other unbolt,-
ticed clergymen quite as badly off as himself ; bet
the dread of publicity is so great among them
that their next-door neighbours have no sus- •
pirion of their wants and struggles. The
parishioners would lose respect for the beet of
curette if they ►new him to wear • second-hand hat
and some unknown layman's cast-off shoes. So the
Curate endures, in silence and secrcay, the aching
shame of all these petty degradations. The Romanist
will refuse to pity a married clergy, and will point
with derision to the unexplained physiological
fatality which makes poor curates predestined
fathers of large families. Churchmen in high
places and well to do may declare these miseries
to be the fruits of unblessed extra-parochial seal.
li rat the comio,,n sense and sound feeling of the
put lie will mule r aceept celibacy with all its vices
as the alternative of pauperism with all its he-