all think it more than likely; but if you was to ask my advice, I’d say to give it ’em a little more plain – meaning the Church folks. It’s expected of a new man. I’d touch ’em up in the State-Church line, Mr. Vincent, if I was you. Give us a coorse upon the anomalies, and that sort of thing – the bishops in their palaces, and the fisherman as was the start of it all; there’s a deal to be done in that way. It always tells; and my opinion is as you might secure the most part of the young men and thinkers, and them as can see what’s what, if you lay it on pretty strong. Not,” added the deacon, remembering in time to add that necessary salve to the conscience – “not as I would have you neglect what’s more important; but, after all, what is more important, Mr. Vincent, than freedom of opinion and choosing your own religious teacher? You can’t put gospel truth in a man’s mind till you’ve freed him out of them bonds. It stands to reason – as long as he believes just what he’s told, and has it all made out for him the very words he’s to pray, there may be feelin’, sir, but there can’t be no spiritual understandin’ in that man.”
“Well, one can’t deny that there have been enlightened men in the Church of England,” said the young Nonconformist, with lofty candour. “The inconsistencies of the human mind are wonderful; and it is coming to be pretty clearly understood in the intellectual world, that a man may show the most penetrating genius, and even the widest liberality, and yet be led a willing slave in the bonds of religious rite and ceremony. One cannot understand it, it is true; but in our clearer atmosphere we are bound to exercise Christian charity. Great as the advantages are on our side of the question, I would not willingly hurt the feelings of a sincere Churchman, who, for anything I know, may be the best of men.”
Mr. Tozer paused with a “humph!” of uncertainty; rather dazzled with the fine language, but doubtful of the sentiment. At length light seemed to dawn upon the excellent butterman. “Bless my soul! that’s a new view,” said Tozer; “that’s taking the superior line over them! My impression is as that would tell beautiful. Eh! it’s famous, that is! I’ve heard a many gentlemen attacking the Church, like, from down below, and giving it her about her money and her greatness, and all that; but our clearer atmosphere – there’s the point! I always knew as you was a clever young man, Mr. Vincent, and expected a deal from you; but that’s a new view, that is!”
“Oh, Pa, dear! don’t be always talking about chapel business,” said Miss Phœbe, coming in. “I am sure Mr. Vincent is sick to death of Salem. I am sure his heart is in some other place now; and if you bore him always about the chapel, he’ll never, never take to Carlingford. Oh, Mr. Vincent, I am sure you know it is quite true!”
“Indeed,” said the young minister, with a sudden recollection, “I can vouch for my heart being in Carlingford, and nowhere else;” and as he spoke his colour rose. Phœbe clapped her hands with a little semblance of confusion.
“Oh, la!” cried that young lady, “that is quite as good as a confession that you have lost it, Mr. Vincent. Oh, I am so interested! I wonder who it can be!”
“Hush, child; I daresay we shall know before long,” said Mrs. Tozer, who had also rejoined the domestic party; “and don’t you colour up or look ashamed, Mr. Vincent. Take my word, it’s the very best a young minister can do. To be sure, where there’s a quantity of young ladies in a congregation, it sometimes makes a little dispeace; but there ain’t to say many to choose from in Salem.”
“La, mamma, how can you think it’s a lady in Salem?” cried Phœbe, in a flutter of consciousness.
“Oh, you curious thing!” cried Mrs. Tozer: “she’ll never rest, Mr. Vincent, till she’s found it all out. She always was, from a child, a dreadful one for finding out a secret. But don’t you trouble yourself; it’s the very best thing a young minister can do.”
Poor Vincent made a hasty effort to exculpate himself from the soft impeachment, but with no effect. Smiles, innuendoes, a succession of questions asked by Phœbe, who retired, whenever she had made her remark, with conscious looks and pink blushes, perpetually renewed this delightful subject. The unlucky young man retired upon Tozer. In desperation he laid himself open to the less troublesome infliction of the butterman’s advice. In the mean time the table was spread, and supper appeared in most substantial and savoury shape; the only drawback being, that whenever the door was opened, the odours of bacon and cheese from the shop came in like a musty shadow of the boiled ham and hot sausages within.
“I am very partial to your style, Mr. Vincent,” said the deacon; “there’s just one thing I’d like to observe, sir, if you’ll excuse me. I’d give ’em a coorse; there’s nothing takes like a coorse in our connection. Whether it’s on a chapter or a book of Scripture, or on a perticklar doctrine, I’d make a pint of giving ’em a coorse if it was me. There was Mr. Bailey, of Parson’s Green, as was so popular before he married – he had a historical coorse in the evenings, and a coorse upon the eighth of Romans in the morning; and it was astonishing to see how they took. I walked over many and many’s the summer evening myself, he kep’ up the interest so. There ain’t a cleverer man in our body, nor wasn’t a better liked as he was then.”
“And now I understand he’s gone away – what was the reason?” asked Mr. Vincent.
Tozer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “All along of the women: they didn’t like his wife; and my own opinion is, he fell off dreadful. Last time I heard him, I made up my mind I’d never go back again – me that was such an admirer of his; and the managers found the chapel was falling off, and a deputation waited on him; and, to be sure, he saw it his duty to go.”
“And, oh, she was so sweetly pretty!” cried Miss Phœbe: “but pray, pray, Mr. Vincent, don’t look so pale. If you marry a pretty lady, we’ll all be so kind to her! We shan’t grudge her our minister; we shall – ”
Here Miss Phœbe paused, overcome by her emotions.
“I do declare there never was such a child,” said Mrs. Tozer: “it’s none of your business, Phœbe. She’s a great deal too feelin’, Mr. Vincent. But I don’t approve, for my part, of a minister marrying a lady as is too grand for her place, whatever Phœbe may say. It’s her that should teach suchlike as us humility and simple ways; and a fine lady isn’t no way suitable. Not to discourage you, Mr. Vincent, I haven’t a doubt, for my part, that you’ll make a nice choice.”
“I have not the least intention of trying the experiment,” said poor Vincent, with a faint smile; then, turning to his deacon, he plunged into the first subject that occurred to him. “Do you know a Mrs. Hilyard in Back Grove Street?” asked the young minister. “I went to see her the other day. Who is she, or where does she belong to, can you tell me? – and which of your great ladies in Carlingford is it,” he added, with a little catching of his breath after a momentary pause, “who visits that poor lady? I saw a carriage at her door.”
“Meaning the poor woman at the back of the chapel?” said Tozer – “I don’t know nothing of her, except that I visited there, sir, as you might do, in the way of dooty. Ah! I fear she’s in the gall of bitterness, Mr. Vincent; she didn’t take my ’umble advice, sir, not as a Christian ought. But she comes to the chapel regular enough; and you may be the means of putting better thoughts into her mind; and as for our great ladies in Carlingford,” continued Mr. Tozer, with the air of an authority, “never a one of them, I give you my word, would go out of her way a-visiting to one of the chapel folks. They’re a deal too bigoted for that, especially them at St. Roque’s.”
“Oh, Pa, how can you say so,” cried Phœbe, “when it’s very well known the ladies go everywhere, where the people are very, very poor? but then Mr. Vincent said a poor lady. Was it a nice carriage? The Miss Wodehouses always walk, and so does Mrs. Glen, and all the Strangeways. Oh, I know, it was the young Dowager – that pretty, pretty lady, you know, mamma, that gives the grand parties, and lives in Grange Lane. I saw her carriage going up the lane by the chapel once. Oh, Mr. Vincent, wasn’t she very, very pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair?”
“I could not tell you what kind of eyes and hair they were,” said Mr. Vincent, trying hard to speak indifferently, and quite succeeding