CONCLUSION. HESE were the kind of thoughts that passed through my mind in the leisure hours of various months in town. The hours, indeed, in which I have been free from the pressure : of duty, were short; and they were not many yet, by regular use, one may turn even these to some account. All kinds of hours, morning and evening, of every day of the week except Saturday and Sunday, have gone to the production of these pages. I have not an evergreen now, though I have planted so many; nor am I the possessor of a single tree of any kind. And when I go and visit the pleasant homes of certain friendly country parsons, I feel my loss; and I sigh a little for the days that are gone. And so these pages have not been thought out amid the sunshiny and breezy places where I wrote certain other pages which possibly you have read. Many of them were thought out by a city fireside; some of But them in solitary half-hour walks on quiet winter evenings in a certain broad gas-lit street, remarkable for that absence of passers-by which is characteristic of many of the streets of this beautiful city. especially I remember many restful hours, happily combining duty with leisure, which are within the reach of every unambitious Scotch clergyman. I mean the hours which on one day in each month he may spend in attending the Presbytery to which he belongs. The Presbytery, possibly you do not know, is a court of the Scotch Church; consisting of the clergymen of a number of adjoining parishes, with a lay member from each parish besides. This court exercises over a certain district of country the authority which in England is exercised by a Bishop. It is the duty of every member to be present: so that while attending its sittings you have a pleasant sense that you are in the way of your duty. The business of this Ecclesiastical Court is of deep interest to those who feel a deep interest in it. And a weighty responsibility rests with those members of it whose experience and administrative ability are such as entitle them and fit them to lead their brethren. But a good many of the clergy, especially of the younger clergy, have no vocation that way: and the very eloquent and remarkably long speeches which are often made, would be somewhat wearisome you tried to listen to them. But if you do not try to listen to them, unless at some specially in if teresting juncture, or when some one is speaking whose words carry special weight, you may have many hours of leisure there; and think of material for various chapters like those you have been reading. I have found my hours at the Presbytery very favourable to contemplation, as well as a delightful rest to body and mind. You are in the path of duty: and yet you feel that your insignificance makes your responsibility quite inappreciable. You do your work, we may hope, as a parish clergyman, diligently and not unsuccessfully. But as an ecclesiastical lawyer and legislator, in all probability, your influence is very properly at zero. You have entire confidence that the affairs of the district are being managed by wise and good men, who are your seniors in age and your superiors in wisdom. So you may enjoy a day of rest and of rest happily combined with duty. I have a very great veneration and affection for the Church of England: but I do not think that grand Establishment affords her clergy any season, recurring regularly and not unfrequently, during which they may feel that they are attending to their clerical duty, while yet they are quite free from any sense of responsibility, and from any feeling that they are doing anything whatever. And so I commend these chapters to the kindly reader, hoping that they are not the last. THE END. |