Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/88

hypocritical parson,—in the daily round of our common lives and duties. Most of us know the "salad" cleric,—the gentleman who is a doubtful compound of oil and vinegar, with a good deal of tough green vegetable matter growing where the brain should be,—coarse weed of bigotry, prejudice, and rank obstinacy. None of us are entirely ignorant of the sedately amorous parson who is either looking out for a wife on his own account, or attempting a "Christianly" conversion of the wife of somebody else. In country towns we can scarcely fail to have come across the domineering vicar,—the small and petty tyrant, who whips the souls committed to his charge with rods steeped in his own particular pickle of arrogance, austerity and coercion, playing the part of a little despot over terrorized Sunday-school children, and laying down the law for his parishioners by way of a "new dispensation" wherein the Gospel has no part. One such petty martinet, well known in a certain rural parish, plays regular "ogre" to his choir boys. It is always a case of "Fee, fi, fa, fo, fum, I smell the blood of a chorister," with him. Should one of these unfortunate minstrels chance to sneeze during service, this vicar straightway imposes a penny fine (sometimes more) on the unlucky little wretch for yielding to an irresistible nasal impulse! This kind of thing is, of course, ridiculous, and would merit nothing but laughter, were it not for the dislike, distrust and contempt engendered in the minds of the boys by the display of such a peevish spirit of trumpery oppression on the part of a man who is placed in the position he holds to be an ex-