I still remember one hoary sinner--possibly still alive, for he was the sort of man who would be likely to live for another thirty years, to support Mrs. Poyser’s theory, “it seems as if them as aren’t wanted here are th’ only folk as aren’t wanted i’ th’ other world”--who boasted that, being entitled to ninety days’ leave of absence from his flock in each year, he arranged to take the last quarter of one year and the first quarter of the next, whereby he got six months’ solid holiday. The drawback, he said, was that he couldn’t get another holiday till October 1 of the third year. I cannot say what provision he made for the services in his absence, and it was not for me to ask. But on a visit to a country school in another parish I found that the incumbent had been away for four months _by special leave from the Bishop_, because his wife was ill, and that he had thoughtfully arranged for the Vicar of the adjoining parish “to come over and give them a service on Sunday afternoons.” The benefice in his case was valued in the “Clergy List” at over £700 a year, with a house. These cases of neglect and the worse cases of evil-livers sounded strange in the ears of a Civil Servant whose tenure of office was on a frailer footing. I used to point the finger of scorn at the Bishop, who might be supposed to intervene. “But how is he to get evidence?” his defenders would say. I replied that if I were Bishop with £5,000 a year, I should hire a private detective and send him down to old Boozer’s parish (Rev. O. Boozer, Great Tiplingham) for a month to collect evidence. But I was told with some warmth that the clergy would consider that a most ungentlemanly proceeding. This surely is to put vermin on a level with game. I said that the churches were magnificent. It is another instance of the compensatory tendency of the gifts of Providence, that ugly countries generally have fine churches. Look at Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire. There was a time when even Holland received the benefit of this arrangement, and did not build shanties round the bases of its cathedrals. The decay of agriculture, the diminution of the rural population, and, above all, the migration of the weavers to the coalfields have wrought havoc with the congregations, charm the Rector never so wisely. Who, outside Norfolk, knows that “worsted” gets its name from Worstead in East Norfolk, a village with a noble church that might hold from 800 to 1,000 people? I see in the “Clergy List” that the population is now 781, of whom 54 per cent. might be expected to go to church, if they valued statistics--and our incomparable Liturgy.