souls of the aristocracy out of his own hands.
He was much distressed at my announcing
myself a poor man; but more on the church's
account, he said, than on his own, or mine. "It
would be well for this country, Mr. Andrews,
if the ministry were exclusively supplied from
the upper and wealthy classes. There is but
too much truth in what is urged against tithe
and church-rate, and it is a thousand pities
that they cannot both be dispensed with.
Mammon is the besetting sin of our order,
and for my part,"—he grew, at this point,
exceedingly like the engraving—"it is my
humble boast that I have never taken a shilling
from the poor." Mr. Softly, however,
omitted to add, what was equally true,
the poor never took a shilling from
him. He had simply nothing to do with
them; either temporarily or spiritually.
With the exception of the servants and
children before mentioned, no miserable
sinners who had not five hundred a-year, ever
entered his chapel. The themes of his
discourses were upon contentment with our
situations in life, obedience to authority, and
respect to our superiors; which, however
fitted for the dwellers in the lanes and rows
of Santon, were rather superfluous to the
inhabitants of its squares and crescents.
What with the comforts that his well-
cushioned, many-hassocked flock enjoyed in
this world, and the brilliant prospect their
pastor drew of their future life, they
were an especially privileged and elect
congregation.

My next superior was the Reverend
Cruciform Pyx, Rector of St. Dunstan's,
whom, if I had been more of an acrobat, I
should have better pleased. It was at
least six weeks before I had learnt to make
his requisite genuflexions, head-inclinings,
rotations and semi-rotations at the precisely
correct times. We two were accustomed to
proceed to church with our arms folded cross-
wise over our breasts; with our eyes directed
to the ground; which, to me, who didn't
know the road so well, was less easy than it
was to the Reverend Mr.Pyx. St.Dunstan's
was immediately contiguous to a large railway-
station, the superintendent of which was
one of our churchwardens. He was an
essentially practical, but a most obliging person;
and, upon the rector's requesting his assistance
in carrying out a dashing scheme
of having lighted candles before the altar,
he suggested, "But as you are so near the
works, why not lay on a gas-pipe at once?"

Mr.Pyx, although a narrow-minded and
even superstitious person, was a gentleman,
and treated his curate as such, with the
exception of a rather severe homily administered
on the occasion of his detecting me in
company with pigeon-pie on a Friday. I
experienced from him unvarying kindness. I
should have remained with him perhaps up
to this time, but for my having unwittingly
buried a poor man in the churchyard—he
being, not alive, but what was still worse in
the eyes of the Reverend Cruciform—a
dissenter. My rector was away, and had left no
particular orders against this unfortunate
person's interment. Moreover, if I had refused to
do my office I should have been suspended by
the bishop; for, in these cases, what is
conscience in the beneficed clergyman, is supposed
to be too expensive a luxury to be enjoyed by
the curate; but good Mr.Pyx would listen to
nothing save his own indignant voice in
quotation of St. Anathema Maranatha De Sepulturâ
Hereticorum, and from St.Dunstan's I
had to depart forthwith.

It would be tedious to narrate further,
how I wandered from cure to cure without
much permanent benefit; most penniless
men in the same circumstances perceive
earlier that advancement, or even moderate
remuneration, in the church is not to be
expected without episcopal or aristocratic
connection, and are soon content to vegetate
for their natural lives in the position
of gentlemen with the incomes of under–
butlers. Perhaps it had been better for me
if I had done this. I should have then
escaped many a proud man's contumely, many
a proud woman's insult; for I have often met
with a Mrs. Lacey Alley and even a Mrs.
Pyx, who regarded a curate as an animal of
a lower creation, upon whose back too much
cannot be laid. My continual crosses and
ill-fortune have, I am aware, soured my
temper, and not better fitted me for my
profession. I can, myself, detect the bitterness
that threads this very statement. I shall,
perhaps, seem to its readers a carping and
dissipated person, who has the good of himself
in view, rather than that of his order. I do
not defend myself; I wish for the church's
sake that I had myself and my own faults
alone to thank that, after many years of
ministerial labour, I am in the same position,
in all respects as regards emolument and
station, as when I first entered the ranks of
the clergy. The circumstances of my dating
this communication from the Rectory House,
Grapesissour, Hants, is easily explained. I
have no chance whatever of becoming at any
time the rector of that place; that fortunate
divine—who has the advantage of being
married to an earl's daughter, and of possessing
a canonry of a thousand a-year, in
addition to this pleasant benefice of seven
hundred—although an exceedingly
courteous person, is not the sort of man to
resign any of these possessions in my favour;
or, if he were compelled to resign one of
the three, it would be, or I am very much
mistaken, her honourable ladyship. He gives
me, nominally, in accordance with the
command of the bishop and with the wording of
his oath, one hundred pounds per annum;
but I pay him fifty pounds of that back for
the use of the Rectory House, and rather
more than the same sum for keeping up its
extensive gardens. Had I not some private