Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/319

 of family design, kitchen and parlour scrupulously clean, "dishes, plates, and coppers well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves." We see the family rising with the sun, the Vicar and his boys going forth to labour in the fields, while his wife and daughters prepare the breakfast at home. All worked alike till sunset, when one of the younger children read aloud the Lessons of the day, he who read best being awarded a halfpenny for the poor-box on Sunday. And yet the spirit of immorality that was abroad must needs disturb this happy home.

Different indeed were the life and duties of the eighteenth-century clergyman to those of our clergy to-day.

Outwardly there was no mistaking the parson.