The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-04-21
VILLAGE CLERGYMEN.

An extraordinary story is told in re-
cent letter from England to a clergyman
who supports his family upon a small
salary and what he can earn by his violin
playing for strolling dramatic companies
and other wandering bodies-circuses
probably and menageries. This is a ru-
raj clergyman, of course; and how many
of them in this country would do the
same thing. with the same result, if they
only could, More than once the Easy
Chair has pleaded their cluse, and been
almost willing to behold return of the
days when a clergyman was king of his
parish. The clerical has always been the
educated guild. The satisfaction in see
ing for how long period the highest Off
ces in England were in ecclesiastical hands
is due to the fact that that they were in
educated hands. Something of the old
social Difference is paid to the clergy
man, not because he is of spiritual, but
of cultivated, hierarchy. In the village
he is especially the scholar. He is, &c
otfciO, often a member of the school
committee, the leader of the lyceum
and the debating club, the director of
the library. He is at the call of every
body for the most various purposes. Is
it possible to think of the endless pros
ing and commonplace to which he must
needs listen, the outpourings of bores,
the flow of folly in every degree, when
his studies or his rest or his pleasure de-
mands him elsewhere, without the ut
most sympathy? The one man in the vii
who should be largely remunerated for
hard and various work is the clergyman.
But while men of other professions can
earn immense sums for their professional
services, the income of no clergyman is
comparable to that of men of the same
ability and pursuits. DR.. Hopkins, the
famous divine whom Mrs. Stowe makes
the hero of her Ministers Wooing,"
when he preached in Newport, after tie
Revolution, was supported by weekly
collection which amounted to about two
hundred dollars year, and he had the
use of small parsonage. One of the
richest members of the society, and
'communicant"subsc ''ninepence,"
or twelve and a half cents, for every
Sunday in the year, which, said the
patient doctor, was much less than sub
scribing nothing, because it diminished
the subscriptions of the poorer men.
The English incident of the clergy
mans eking out his support by playing
a fiddle in the orchestra, and perhaps,
upon occasion, for the dance, recalls the
humiliating condition of the chaplain
in old English country-houses, as it ap-
pears in Maaauiay and the old novels.
1t was good fortune if he could marry
the lady's maid or worse. But there
never was a time in our history when the
Clergyman held other than a respectable
| position. Often enough it is implied by
brutal or merely dull men that be is
pensioner upon the bounty of others
But no shoemaker or carpenter or
ditch digger OF lawyer or doctor or stock
broker or gold gambler or merchant
/ earns his money more legitimately or by
/ sincerer toll of brain and body. As he
| stands upon his real and not his perfume
| tory spiritual service in the world, the
essential dignity of his calling is enhanc-
ed. and the donation party becomes only
| n yeIl-meaning insult.
There are many remote villages in
this country where the story Of the
| English clergyman viii be heard with
amazement and little contempt for
county that would compel any pastor
/ to suoh strait Those quiet and CON-
| Portable little villages will probably
thank God that they are not as other
villages are, especially that particular
| English village But it was not that
spirit which the parable honors. 1t was
he who prayed for mercy to him a sinner
| who is commended to our love and sym
pathy. If it be a shabby thing that an
English village should compel a clergy
man to fiddle for living. is it cause of
praise that an American village should
permit its clergyman to scrimp and
squeeze to rub through the year, or be
forced into debt. or even to deny him.
self and his family education and score
of comforts, for the lack of few hun
dreds of dollars more of salaryl AS the
American community regards that Eng
lish sinner with lofty pity and contempt,
what if the voice OF truth should be
crying at the same moment, Thou art
the villagel-Harper's Magazias for
Nay.