The Recreations of a Country ParsonBoyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
General
The Recreations of a Country Parson
Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
Clergy -- Anecdotes; Country life -- England; Rural clergy -- England
Things are now all right; and Ellesmere next day announces to his
friends that Mildred and he are engaged. Two chapters, on Government
and Despotism respectively, give us the last thoughts of the Friends
abroad; then we have a pleasant picture of them all in Milverton's
farmyard, under a great sycamore, discoursing cheerfully of country
cares. The closing chapter of the book is on The Need for Tolerance.
It contains a host of thoughts which we should be glad to extract;
but we must be content with a wise saying of Milverton's:--
For a man who has been rigidly good to be supremely tolerant,
would require an amount of insight which seems to belong only to
the greatest genius.
For we hardly sympathize with that which we have not in some
measure experienced; and the great thing, after all, which makes
us tolerant of the errors of other men, is the feeling that under
like circumstances we should have ourselves erred in like manner;
or, at all events, the being able to see the error in such a light
as to feel that there is that within ourselves which enables us at
least to understand how men should in such a way have erred. The
sins on which we are most severe are those concerning which our
feeling is, that we cannot conceive how any man could possibly have
done them. And probably such would be the feeling of a rigidly
good man concerning every sin.
So we part, for the present, from our Friends, not without the hope
of again meeting them. We have been listening to the conversation
of living men; and, in parting, we feel the regret that we should
feel in quitting a kind friend's house after a pleasant visit,
not, perhaps, to be renewed for many a day. And this is a changing
world. We have been breathing the old atmosphere, and listening
to the old voices talking in the old way. We have had new thought
and new truth, but presented in the fashion we have known and enjoyed
for years. Happily we can repeat our visit as often as we please,
without the fear of worrying or wearying; for we may open the book
at will. And we shall hope for new visits likewise. Milverton will
be as earnest and more hopeful, Ellesmere will retain all that
is good, and that which is provoking will now be softened down.
No doubt by this time they are married. Where have they gone? The
continent is unsettled, and they have often already been there.
Perhaps they have gone to Scotland? No doubt they have. And perhaps
before the leaves are sere we may find them out among the sea lochs
of the beautiful Frith of Clyde, or under the shadow of Ben Nevis.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCERNING THE PULPIT IN SCOTLAND.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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