There are some clerics who, to their sacred duties add “a little literary work.” They are not literary men,--indeed very frequently they have no idea whatever of literature--they are what may be called “literary jobbers.” Many clergymen have been, and are still, greatly distinguished in the literary calling--but I am not alluding to past or future Kingsleys. The men I mean are those who “do a bit of writing”--and help in compiling books of reference to which few ever refer. They are apt to be the most pertinacious beggars of their class,--beggars, not for others’ needs, but for their own. They want introductions to “useful” people--people of “influence”--and they ask for letters to publishers, which they sometimes get. The publishers are not grateful. They are over-run, they say, with clergymen who want to write guide-books, books of travel, books of reference, books of reminiscence. One of these “reverend” individuals, pleading stress of poverty, was employed by a lady to do some copying work, for which, in a well-meant wish to satisfy the immediate needs of his wife and children, she paid him in advance the sum of Fifty Pounds. He sent her a signed receipt for the money with the following gushing epistle: “DEAR ----, Could I write as you do, I might find words to express in part some of my feelings of gratitude to you for all your kindness. My little daughter owes to you untold happiness, and I believe the goodness you ever show her will brighten her whole future life. My dear wife you help to bear her many burdens of health and loneliness as no other has ever attempted to do; and my very mediocre self owes to you, a recognition, after many long struggles, I will not say of merit, for no one knows better than myself, my own shortcomings, but of ‘effort.’ In fact, you come to us as Amenhotep sung of the sun:-- Thou art very beautiful, brilliant and exalted above earth, Thy beams encompass all lands, which thou hast made. Thou art our sun. Thou bindest us with thy love. Thou art on high, but the day passes with thy going! Even so, your kindly heart has shone upon our life, and made us feel the springs of life within us. May the Great Master of all things for ever bless you and yours!”