Certainly it is a matter of common
observation in England that the sons of clergymen are frequently
unsatisfactory. The explanation is very simple, but it is so often
lost sight of that I may perhaps be pardoned for giving it here.
The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things
must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He
is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other
people. It is his raison d'etre. If his parishioners feel that he does
this, they approve of him, for they look upon him as their own
contribution towards what they deem a holy life. This is why the
clergyman is so often called a vicar- he being the person whose
vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his
charge. But his home is his castle as much as that of any other
Englishman, and with him, as with others, unnatural tension in
public is followed by exhaustion when tension is no longer
necessary. His children are the most defenceless things he can
reach, and it is on them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve
his mind.
A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts
fairly in the face.
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