In the year 1807 Heber took orders, and obtained the living of Hodnet, in Shropshire, which was in his brother’s gift; he then returned to Oxford for the purpose of taking his degree as master of arts. It will readily be supposed that he, whose piety was truly apostolical, even while in a secular station, now that he had assumed the habit of a Christian minister, became doubly anxious to render not only his conduct, but the very thoughts of his mind, pure as became his holy calling. The church has in no age been destitute of teachers remarkable for their virtue and benevolence; but even among preachers of the gospel it is not often that a man so gifted as Heber with genius, with enlarged knowledge of mankind, with almost boundless charity and benevolence, can be found, the perusal of whose life must create in the reader as well as in me the vain wish that we had numbered him among our friends. Yet Heber was far from being an ascetic. Like all men of high imaginative powers who have never suffered vice to brush away the down from their nobler feelings, he had a bold faith in the enduring nature of affection, and spoke of love, not like a pert worldling, whom no excellence could kindle, but like a philosopher, aware of the prejudices of the vulgar, but far above being swayed by them. “To speak, however, my serious opinion,” says he, in a letter to a friend, “I believe that were it possible for a well-founded passion to wear out, the very recollection of it would be more valuable than the greatest happiness afforded by those calm and vulgar kindnesses which chiefly proceed from knowing no great harm of one another. You remember Shenstone’s epitaph on Miss Dolman: _Vale, Maria, Puellarum Elegantissima, heu quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse._ I am not sure how long that romance of passion may continue which the world shows such anxiety to wean us of as soon as possible, and which it laughs at because it envies; but, end when it may, it is never lost, but will contribute, like fermentation, to make the remainder of the cup of happiness more pleasant and wholesome.”