Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/89

 *ample of kindness, good temper, cheerfulness and amiability to all. True, the vicar in question is what may be called "liverish," and a small boy's sneeze may seem, to a mind perverted by bilious bodily secretions, like the collapse of a universe. But there are various ways of conquering even one's physical ills,—at least to the extent of sparing poor children the infliction of fines because they have noses which occasionally give them trouble.

The begging cleric is of all sacerdotal figures the one most familiar to the general community. One can seldom attend a church without hearing the mendicant's plea. If the collection taken were indeed for the poor, and one felt that it was really and truly going to help feed the starving and nourish the sick, how gladly most of us would contribute, to the very best of our ability! But sad experience teaches us that this is not so. There are "Funds" of other mettle than for the sick and poor,—"restoration" funds especially. For many years a famous church was in debt owing to "restorations," and Sunday after Sunday the vicar implored his congregation to lift "the burden" off its time-honoured walls—in vain! At last one parishioner paid the amount required in full. The vicar acknowledged the cheque,—put a recording line in the "Parish Magazine,"—wrote a formal letter of thanks regretting that the donor did not "show a good example by attending public worship on Sundays,"—after which, for more than a year he did not speak to that parishioner again! This is a fact. Neither he nor his wife during that time ever showed the slightest common civility to the one individual who, out of all the parish, had "lifted the burden,"