“If he be married, the choice of his wife was made rather by his ear than by his eye; his judgment, not his affection, found out a fit wife for him.... “As he is just in all things, so is he to his wife also.... Therefore he gives her respect both afore her servants and others, and half at least of the government of the house, reserving so much of the affairs as serve for a diversion for him; yet never giving over the reins, but that he sometimes looks how things go.” The ideal wife is thus described: “Instead of the qualities of the world, he requires only three of her. First, training up of her children and maids in the fear of God; with prayers and catechising and all religious duties. Secondly, a curing and healing of all wounds and sores with her own hands; which skill either she brought with her, or he takes care she shall learn it of some religious neighbour. Thirdly, a providing for her family in some such sort, as that neither they want a competent sustentation, nor her husband be brought into debt.” In modern times a section of the clergy in the English Church have shown a disposition to revert to the practice of earlier ages, and follow a celibate life. It is part of the ascetic movement which some years ago was rather a marked feature in the Church. But even among those Anglicans who recoil from the term “Protestant,” and endeavour to preserve as much as possible of the forms of Church government which prevailed in pre-Reformation times, there are few comparatively who adopt this species of monasticism. No doubt marriage has greatly helped to break down the authority of the priest. A man with a wife and family living the domestic life of an ordinary citizen is brought at once to the level of common humanity, priest though he be. He loses that glamour which attached to him when he was cut off from his fellows and set apart on another plane by virtue of his office. Women, more than men, have been in all ages prone to superstitious reverence for ecclesiastical authority. They are still apt to look to the clergyman to guide them in the daily affairs of secular life, not because they consider him better qualified intellectually than other men, but because they have a lurking remnant of belief in priestly infallibility. There are many who make the clergyman a referee on all subjects, of whatever nature, and look upon him as the proper head of every movement, educational, philanthropic, or otherwise, irrespective of his qualifications for such a position. The deference paid to clerical opinion and the leaning on clerical authority are survivals of old habits of thought, weakened in the process of transmission, but having a strong principle of vitality.