Clergymen of the Church of EnglandTrollope, Anthony
History
Clergymen of the Church of England
Trollope, Anthony
Church of England -- Clergy
It will be said, doubtless, that the statement here made is wrong and
untrue, because the clerical fellow of a college has always before him
the prospect of succeeding to a college living, and does generally end
his days as the parson of a parish to which he has been presented by his
college in the regular order of good things accruing to him. It is quite
true that the clerical fellow does in this way become a real clergyman,
or a parson proper if I may so call him, in the latter half of his life,
when at forty or forty-five he begins to feel that he would like to have
something softer near to him than his gyp or laundrywoman, and bethinks
himself of some Eliza whom he has long half loved, but would never
before allow himself to love altogether,--because of his fellowship.
The fellow then drops his fellowship, and takes a living, and goes to
his parish and becomes a real clergyman. But the fact that he does so
offers only another and a stronger objection to his original ordination,
while it does not, in truth, at all invalidate that already stated. It
is true that the fellow becomes a clergyman at last; but who will
maintain that any man has fitly used a profession to which he has never
applied himself during those years of his life in which his energy was
the strongest, and which he embraced without any view to using it at
all? The fellow of a college is ordained in order that he may hold his
fellowship,--because in old days, when the fellowship was instituted,
fellows were supposed to live the life of monks. We do not think that
any existing fellow of a college at Oxford or Cambridge will declare
that he has undergone ordination with an express view to the living to
which he may succeed after ten or fifteen years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account