By far the best account of what was expected from a contemporary clergyman is to be gathered from Jane Austen’s own books. It is one of her strong points that she wrote only of what she knew, and as her own father and two of her brothers were clergymen, we cannot suppose that she was otherwise than favourably inclined to the class. Her sketch of Mr. Collins is no doubt something of a caricature, but it serves to illustrate very forcibly one great error in the system then in vogue—that of local patronage. The other clergymen in her books are numerous: we have Mr. Elton in _Emma_, Edmund Bertram and Dr. Grant in _Mansfield Park_, Henry Tilney in _Northanger Abbey_, and Edward Ferrars in _Sense and Sensibility_. It is impossible to deny that Edmund Bertram is a prig, or perhaps, to put it more mildly, is inclined to be sententious, so sometimes one almost sympathises with the gay Miss Crawford, whose ideas so shocked him and Fanny; yet though those ideas only reflected the current opinion of the times, they were reprehensible enough. When Miss Crawford discovers, to her chagrin, that Edmund, whom she is inclined to like more than a little, is going to be a clergyman, she asks— “‘But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought that was always the lot of the youngest, where there were many to choose before him!’ “‘Do you think the Church itself never chosen, then?’ “‘Never is a black word. But yes, in the never of conversation which means not very often, I do think it. For what is to be done in the Church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the Church. A clergyman is nothing.’” And in reply to Edmund’s defence, she continues— “‘You assign greater consequence to a clergyman than one has been used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own, do all that you speak of, govern the conduct and fashion and manners of a large congregation for the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit!’ “‘You are speaking of London, I am speaking of the nation at large.’” But it is noteworthy that even Edmund, who is upheld as a bright example, does not in his defence assert anything relative to the careful looking after the lives of his flock which nowadays is a chief part of a parish clergyman’s duty. He speaks of conduct, and declares that “as the clergy are or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation,” but all the retort he wins from the girl he so much admires is that she is just as much surprised at his choice as ever, and that he really is fit for something better!