On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
as to gain me any collegiate honours worth mentioning or remembering . If , however , J gained no honours , I incurred no disgraces . My conduct * I aare to assure your lordship , was irreproachable , and also unreproached . Even calumny spared me , for envy found no offence in me . My disposition , though stron gly enthusiastic , was naturally meditative and recluse ; boundless in
abstractions , but of no exuberance in practical activity . I left Christ Church as I entered it ; a man of integral character , esteemed by those who knew me , and therefore justly respected by all . In the course of a few months , after leaving college , I entered the family of a gentleman in Westmoreland , as private tutor to his sons , at a salary of c £ 30 per annum . In this capacity I
remained nine years , nearly . The conscientious pains I had taken in tlie education of my pupils , and the beneficial result he discovered in the soundness of their attainments , and their just conceptions of real religion and essential morality in all its higher theories and movements , grounded on humane feeling as opposed to sectarian rules , induced in him a great respect , and a
considerate sense of gratitude . Believing this to be my due , I did not deem it a meanness to accept from him an acknowledgment of £ 50 in addition to my salary , together with a promise to give me a curacy in a village , the greater part of which belonged to him . This I obtained in less than a twelvemonth after leaving his family .
In the interim occurred the happiest event of my life ; but such is the sad condition of mortality , my deep sympathy with the object has subsequently been the means of inducing my greatest misery . It was in the month of May ., 1814 , when the flowers were fair upon earth , and the heavens pure , that I accompanied
the daughter of a humble country gentleman to the little mossgrown church , situated in the lovely valley of Bedd Gelert , in North Wales , there to plight our vows by a ceremony that could not be more sac . ? d than the devoted love and faith we had previously plighted to each other . We subsequently repaired to the small curac y I now hold , but which I am shortly to lose .
For you , my lord , whose elevated station , and whose affluence from the cradle upwards , even unto the procession towards the descending grave , places you at a distance from my humble condition , measureless , except by our common calling , it must be exceeding difficult clearly to understand , and therefore to sympathize with , the innumerable matter-of-fact grievances attending
straitened means of existence . And these grievances are increased five-fold , by the necessity of maintaining a certain grade in society . The rector of this village has always received an annual income of between four and five hundred pounds , paying rne the sum of £ 45 for doing the duty , he being resident pastor of another and more lucrative parish . My rector was frequently changed during tho first fifteen years of my residence here ; my
Untitled Article
462 Letter from a Country Curate
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 462, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/2/
-