| | | | There are few beings whose existence has been so little | studied, and the process of whose development remains so | mysterious to the outer world, as the stipendiary curate. | Here and there, indeed, one hears a passing expression of | wonder how the hero of a hundred street-fights has | crystallized into the staid figure in cassock and biretta, or a | groan of astonished impatience when the well-known face | that one has plucked so often across the table in the schools | looks down upon its baffled persecutors from the serene | heights of the pulpit. But life is too short for the solution of | every outlying mystery, and, as a general rule, our curiosity | stops short at the vestry-door. And yet, historically, | ecclesiastically, or socially, the stipendiary curate is really | worth a few moments' investigation. Historically, there is | this special interest about him, that he is peculiarly the | product of our own day; whatever ground for pride or | humility there may be in the thought, it is certain that his | very existence in its present shape is entirely owing to the | ecclesiastical activity and legislation of the last few years. | We say in its present shape, because the name itself is, as | every reader knows, as old as the Prayer-book, but the | curate of the Prayer-book is a being of very different rank | and dignity from the curate of the Clergy List. He may be | rector or vicar or incumbent ~~ | anyone, in short, with a | distinct cure of souls; | anyone save a bishop, or the clerical | assistant who has usurped and wholly monopolized this | largest and most generic of all clerical names. Neither | Prayer-book now law, indeed, seems to have conceived the | possibility of a clergyman's existence who was merely the | paid and temporary assistant of another clergyman in the | charge of his cure. Perhaps the

"lecturers"

whom | the Puritan party before the Great Rebellion attempted to | establish as a preaching order in the Church supply the | earliest precedent for his existence ~~ so far, at least, as his | license to preach is concerned; but they were generally | suppressed as interlopers by their opponents, nor do the | Puritans themselves seem to have regarded them as | assistants in their parochial charge. Baxter never dreamt of | aid in the pastoral ministrations of his model parish of | Kidder-minster. The

"young Levite"

meets us | frequently in the literature of the seventeenth century, but | with Pope of Swift it is still the nobleman's chaplain or the | squire's dependent, never the rector's. It is to the | non-residence of the next age that we owe the curate, as to the | non-residence of former generations we owe the vicar and | the minor canon; the curate arose to occupy the parsonage | and discharge the duties of the absent pluralist, as the vicar | stood in the place of the lay or monastic rector, and the | minor canon in that of the idle prebendary. But if he owes | his birth to the system of pluralities, he owes his present | shape to their abolition. No sooner had the old reason for | his existence passed away than a new reason was found in | the increase of clerical duties which resulted from the | growth of population and the pressure of religious opinion, | and in the increase of religious services which was required | by the law. In this last stage of his historic progress the | curate entered on a wholly new form of existence. From a | person holding the modified cure of souls which passed to | him from an imbecile or non-resident incumbent, he faded | into the mere shadow and assistant of a resident incumbent, | without any separate cure or ecclesiastical personality | whatever. It is to this recent appearance, this birth out of | due time, that the curate owes the want of respect or | appreciation of his position at the hands of the public, and | the singular denial of all right and protection to him at the | hands of the law. It is one of the standing difficulties in a | parish to secure their proper position for the assistant-clergy; | and even in more critical circles it is amusing to see | how often the complaint against preaching resolves itself | into a grow at being

"put off with a sermon from the | curate."

But his legal position is a far more serious | hardship. Legally, the curate is nothing more than a

| "help"

supplied by the bishop to any incumbent | needing it, on terms with which ~~ save in the matter of the | stipend ~~ the

"help"

has nothing to do. | Theoretically, this position has a certain dignity and | independence; but the boast of being

"the bishop's | curate and not the rector's"

covers in fact a complete | absence of rights with regard to either. The bishop can | dismiss him without reason given, and with no redress for | the dismissal save in a wholly illusory appeal; while a | quarrel with the rector simply brings to light the necessity | that one of the two must leave the parish, and the discovery | that the curate is the moveable factor in the problem. It is to | the same circumstance of his having appeared so late on the | ecclesiastical stage that the curate owes his singular | constitutional position. The constitutional law of the | Church knows nothing of him; he has no vote for the | Convocation that professes to represent his class, nor has | anyone found time | as yet to listen to his cry for | enfranchisement. His position is, indeed, so peculiar that, if | Professor Rogers is about to raise again the question of the | right of the clergy to sit in Parliament, we commend to him | the stipendiary curate as his strongest argument. He is, we | suppose, the only person who cannot possibly sit in either | Parliament or Convocation. He is a clergyman, and as such | is ineligible for the House of Commons; he is not a | beneficed clergyman, and so is ineligible for the Lower | House of Convocation. | But if the historical progress of the curate produces these | very odd results, his social and ecclesiastical progress | produces, in himself, a result odder still. There is no doubt | that the world wonders a little more at him than it wonders | at the beneficed parson. Not that the beneficed parson does | not present the same strange contrast of a life which is at | once common and peculiar ~~ which, like that of the Jew | of the middle ages, lies just outside the ordinary social | circle and yet is always edging on to it ~~ but that in the | curate the contrast takes its most glaring form. As a rule, he | is far more distinct in his statements of priestly dignity and | a far better croquet-player than his rector. He has all the | energy and desire to throw himself into his new position | which distinguishes the neophyte, and yet in the midst of | all this exaggeration there is still the tone and aroma of the | world which he has left. The parson who has been twenty | years in orders is not one-half so clerical, but he is twice as | distinctively a clergyman, as his curate of five years' | standing. He has quietly grown into the world of thoughts | and ideas which his younger brother is so earnestly | plunging into, and if he makes less fuss about them it is | because they are natural to him and still strange to the | curate. The Church and the world are still wrestling for | mastery in the breast of the latter, and this doubleness of | nature makes him the more interesting of the two. It would | of course be impertinent in us to enter on the more serious | side of the process of clarification; we hardly know indeed | whether a faint tinge of sacrilege may not attach itself to | any criticism of the clerical coat. But it is certain that | clothes are a most powerful agency in the production of | curates. The bishop's chaplain who has sighed over the | levity of his candidates for ordination looks forward with a | just hope to the sobering effect of their daily costume. Its | gloom, its ugliness, its association in idea with the business | of an undertaker, its curious dash of Quakerism in buttons | and collars, its complete transformation of the person | within it, all tell on the young curate. He feels that he is still | a man, but that he not as other men. He is a man with a | difference, as the heralds would put it. And the sharpness of | the isolation which is begun here is all the keener that the | clergy are the only class that isolate themselves in this way. | The barrister does not wear his wig over this tea-table, and | the doctor has given up his gold-headed cane. It is simply | bad taste in a member of any other learned profession if by | talk or costume he obtrudes his own particular occupation | on the notice of men in general. But the young curate finds | himself pledged by the very cut of his coat to be a curate | from morning till night. Society, which so rigidly denies | any licence of distinction to any other class, imposes it in a | thousand minute laws on him. Nothing is quite denied him, | but everything is given with a difference. He may ride, but | not hunt; if he dances, it must be very cautiously; and his | laugh must be a little softer than other men's. But then, if | the curate finds himself marked off from the world, the | world has become in his own consciousness very oddly | marked off from hi, All nations in their earlier development | mass together the world without them under some | distinctive name; to the Teuton all without Teutonism was | Welsh, to the Jew all without Judaism is Gentile. And so all | that lay without the three learned professions, branches as | they were of the great stem of the Church, was

"lay." |

The doctor has long disused the term; with the | barrister it is a mere bit of law-court jargon; but with the | curate it becomes a word of daily life. His friends, his | associates, his very mother and father, are

"laity." |

The business, the politics, the amusements of society | around him are

"secular."

Men and women cease | to exist for him, as far as phraseology is concerned; his | parish comprises some thousands, not of men, but of

| "souls."

Now, next to the power of costume, there is | nothing so influential on a man's way of looking at things | as a conventional phraseology. The curate feels that his talk | differs from other people's talk, and he talks other people's | talk less and less. If he is a weak man, he feels the | attraction of caste; if he is a strong man, his strength | generally takes the form of an energetic resolve to fling | himself into his work. Either way he is drifting further and | further from the world around him, into a new world of | clerical thought and clerical men. | If we turn to the croquet-curate, it is because he is the | typical instance of a very different process going on in the | curate's mind from the clarification of which we have been | speaking, and because he points us most directly to the | influence which chiefly counteracts it. Woman is the great | centrifugal force of clerical life. If his coat and his talk cut | him off from the sympathy of men, they open up to the | curate a sympathy which seems to more than compensate | him for the loss. Society, which fetters him by a thousand | new laws, breaks down for him a thousand old ones. The | sternest mother relaxes in her precautions before the spell | of a white tie, and the giddiest flirts soften down into | district-visitors. There is indeed a charm about a flirtation | with a curate which few ordinary flirtations possess. In the | first place, it is not merely

"wrong,"

as all | flirtations are wrong, but it has about it the subtle flavour of | a special naughtiness. To lead into the ways of lightness | and frivolity, not a heavy guardsman, but the white-robed | creature who intoned so beautifully last Sunday, to listen to | soft nothings from lips that still tremble with

"dearly | beloved,"

has about it a sort of sacrilegious piquancy. | There is an incomprehensible attraction about dark and | mysterious crime; it is not that one wishes to have | committed it, but even the whitest souls will long to know | how one feels after having committed | | it. And here, in this earthly realization of the Loves of the | Angels, a girl feels that she is on the brink of a naughtiness | all the more awful that it is unlike any mere secular | naughtiness. But then, in the second place, it is nor merely | wrong ~~ it is so strictly right. It is impossible that such a | being should do anything wrong ~~ at least anything | very wrong. And then the flirtation itself off into | religion by such very easy transitions; the sermon-case, the | embroidered stole ~~ it is difficult to disentangle the | affections of earth and heaven in them. Lastly, it is so | perfectly safe. A curate is too poor to marry, he is too good | to dream of an elopement; in a word, he is perfect partner at | croquet. And croquet, and sermon-cases, and those | flirtation-chats, half-sentiment, half-piety, work their work | on the curate. If they do not prevent his clarification, they | save the abruptness of the plunge. They prevent his losing | all hold on the world and its sympathies. Many a curate's | sermon is all the better and wiser and more human for his | croquet of the Saturday afternoon. There is a ring of real | flesh and blood about it which he would never have learnt | from his

"Hodgson's Guide."