man-of-war, or as they would regard a herald on a field of
battle. When men are assembled for fighting, the man who
notoriously does not fight must feel himself to be somewhat lower
than his brethren around him, and must be so esteemed by others.




THE HUNTING PARSON.

I feel some difficulty in dealing with the character I am now
about to describe. The world at large is very prone to condemn
the hunting parson, regarding him as a man who is false to his
profession; and, for myself, I am not prepared to say that the
world is wrong. Had my pastors and masters, my father and mother,
together with the other outward circumstances of my early life,
made a clergyman of me, I think that I should not have hunted, or
at least, I hope that I might have abstained; and yet, for the
life of me, I cannot see the reason against it, or tell any man
why a clergyman should not ride to hounds. In discussing the
subject, and I often do discuss it, the argument against the
practice which is finally adopted, the argument which is intended
to be conclusive, simply amounts to this, that a parish
clergyman who does his duty cannot find the time. But that
argument might be used with much more truth against other men of
business, against those to whose hunting the world takes no
exception. Indeed, of all men, the ordinary parish clergyman, is,
perhaps, the least liable to such censure. He lives in the
country, and can hunt cheaper and with less sacrifice of time
than other men. His professional occupation does not absorb all