less something to say on the other side. among their equals in age elsewhere. In the dim religious light of Lambeth the Not that we agree with Dr. Thorold in case of the luckless author of the prohibi- regarding this self-conceit as the opposite tion seems desperate indeed, but in the of humility. The opposite of humility is purer air of Westminster he may possibly pride; and we should think it quite possiregain his fame and name. In the mean ble that a good many of the young clergy time, it would perhaps be as well that we to whom Dr. Thorold attributes this "sushould have no more of these passionate perb self-conceit " may, after all, in the soliloquies. To see Lord Penzance in proper sense of the term, have in them at the part of justice triumphing over Lord least the making of genuinely humbleChief Justice Cockburn in the less sympa-minded men, not in the least disposed to thetic rôle of law may be an entertaining sight for the populace, but it will bring only a very moderate amount of honor to the bench. Let Lord Penzance try if he cannot wear the garment of inflexibility just for a little while. We will not forget that he is justice if he will only consent to assume for the nonce the unattractive guise of law. Even the very best performers some times accept inferior parts, and however little at first he may relish the exchange, it will not prove uninstructive. And to the public it will be an unmixed good. They will be spared the spectacle of a judge in tears, their hearts will not be torn with pity for the terrible sufferings of the bench, and, what is more, they may even after long lapse of years come back to the innocent belief that the lord chief justice is not entirely devoid of learning or intellectual power. If, on the other hand, judges are to be encouraged to express their opinions of one another, there will soon not be left upon the bench a single reputation.

confide too much in their own strength, because it is their own, or to despise the help they know themselves to need. Conceit differs from pride in being founded on illusion. Pride, on the contrary, is not founded on illusion, but on a deliberate preference for self-centred action; it rejects help, because it is help; it repudiates the idea of dependence, even when dependence would be not only right, but a duty; it endeavors to stand alone, even when standing alone involves failure, rather than lean upon another. But conceit rests upon a "conceit," that is, on a vain fancy; it has more of an intellectual than of a moral origin; it decks out the self in false colors, and so misleads the judg ment; while pride usually, far from overrating the self, not unfrequently somewhat underrates it, though chafing angrily at the knowledge that that self is not stronger and better than it is. If this be the real meaning of self-conceit, as distinguished from pride, we should say that Dr. Tho rold is quite right in attributing to the younger clergy a much larger measure of self-conceit than belongs even to the young of any other profession, but mistaken in regarding, as he evidently does, this self-conceit as the very antithesis of huTHE new Bishop of Rochester, Dr. mility. Nothing is commoner than to find Thorold, in his spirited pastoral, attacks vanity, and the self-conceit which feeds vanrather sharply, though very good-natured-ity, in minds which are, on the whole, subly, the self-conceit of some of the younger stantially humble, which are not really inclergy. "Is it too caustic," he says, "is it tolerant of the consciousness of owing even unjust, to say that a predominant much to others, but are merely under the feature in some of the very young clergy misleading influence of egotistic illusions, of our own time is a superb self-conceit? or it may be, caste illusions, the illusions True, if it is nothing worse, it may soon of an order filled with fanciful ideas of its mend. Years, experience, the widening own greatness and dignity. Pride 'is not horizon of knowledge, intercourse with the vice of the clergy, of the Anglican other minds, enlarged responsibility, and clergy at all events, for pride springs up sometimes a little wholesome neglect, all out of an hereditary dislike to be laid unconcur to cure a disease which your fathers der obligations to others; out of the attisuffered from before you were born, and tude of mind which, while it is often wont which you will see and endure in your to bestow much, resents help and symchildren." And no doubt the bishop is pathy as an insult, -a habit of feeling right that, on the whole, conceit is not only almost impossible to the English clergy, common in the younger clergy, as it is and especially so to curates. But to the among the young men of every profession, illusions of self-conceit probably no men but decidedly commoner among them than are more liable than young curates, and

From The Spectator.
CLERICAL SELF-CONCEIT.

indeed young ministers of all denomina- | kind. It takes a long time to fail as a tions, especially those whose theory of clergyman; or at least to be sure that you their office compels them to attach to it the have failed. It takes a long time even to notion of high supernatural functions, of have the first sanguine self-complacency which they alone are the channels. And taken out of you. Probably in no profesit is worth considering why this self-con- sion are the earnest men who have really ceit is so characteristic of the younger struggled to do their duty, so sure to be clergy that it has become almost a classical put out of conceit with themselves before attribute of theirs, - one which Miss Aus- they grow old. In no profession is the ten noticed and described most effectively sense of inadequacy deeper even amongst at the beginning of this century, in her the ablest, and of total failure commoner pictures of Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton; amongst the feeblest. But it takes time, while, forty years later, Miss Brontë made and the gradually purged sight of sincere it one of the chief features of "Shirley," in spiritual aims, to produce this change of her picture of Mr. Helstone's curate and feeling. There is so much of complacency his friends. involved in the mere consciousness of re

both sides alike there is an artificial protection, and as it were a hot-house life for such conceit as is always natural to the young who have passed through no discipline having a special tendency to remove

One of the obvious reasons for self-con-ligious aims, and so much of artificial ceit in the younger clergy is that the pro- protection against the rubs of life, in the fession itself has, of course, a certain at- charm of a clerical position, that no traction for the fancy of men who are by young men come so late to a knowledge of constitution somewhat vain and egotisti- their own failures and incompetencies as cal. It puts them early in a conspicuous young clergymen, especially if they be, position, and in one surrounded by a good as they often are, attracted into the profesdeal of official respect. Hence it attracts sion by the promise of that very guarded conceit, especially conceit which is hon- prestige which makes it so slow a busiestly mingled with a good deal of sincere ness to get experience of blunders. There desire to alleviate the misfortunes and is more to feed the vanity of a young clergriefs of others. Then, again, the clerical gyman than of any other professional office demands no very alarming appren-junior. There is less to mortify it. On ticeship, no apprenticeship of a kind to repel superficial ability by the severity of its conditions. A well-meaning man, with a good deal of sympathy for his fellowcreatures, and a good deal of pleasure in any display of that sympathy which en-it. ables him to see himself in a graceful and In the next place, there is something in conspicuous position, is very apt to turn the mere idea of being made, in any instinctively towards the clerical office, as special sense, the channels of divine grace one likely to satisfy both the higher and to men, - -even if it be only in the way the feebler part of his nature, and to satisfy of delivering a message, and much more it without requiring any very forced march so in the case of those who think that beof preliminary preparation. The immedi sides proclaiming a message, they are the ate possession of a position of some dig- exclusive conductors of sacramental grace, nity and importance, at but little cost of which necessarily lends itself at first to labor and ability, has a great fascination, of egotistic illusions and self-conceits. It is course, for men who love to think pleas- perfectly true, of course, that clergymen antly of themselves, at the same time that only devote themselves to the work of they are doing good, or believe that they making God known to men in a rather are doing good, to others. This is the more special sense than the laity, — that first and perhaps one of the most impor- they do nothing which the laity cannot do tant reasons why the clerical profession, in almost equal degree, and that what both in the Established Church and in they do they do under some considerable other sects, but especially in the Estab- disadvantages, to which laymen who really lished Church, is apt to attract young men believe in God are not equally exposed. of amiable disposition, who like conspicu- But however true this may be, and howousness, like a position guarded from the ever frankly a good many of the clergy fierce jostlings of competitive life, and do may assure themselves and their people not like to be put out of conceit with that they believe it to be true, it is not easy themselves by attempting tasks in which for young men suddenly thrust into a posi they are pretty sure to fail, and in which tion of at least apparent authority and the evidence of failure, where failure is conspicuousness, to realize that it is true. the result, is of a perfectly unmistakable They call themselves ambassadors of God,

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deep self-distrust, - before old age is upon them. Clerical self-conceit is a harmless sort of folly, at worst; and is so far from being essentially incompatible with true humility, that very often we think it is the earliest phase of what afterwards becomes humility, just as a woman who is a little vain about the accident of beauty will often, as her character deepens, and she sees how little it is worth, become all the humbler for her former vanity. For selfconceit is a very different thing from pride; it is a certain self-occupation with superficial advantages of person or position, and not a deep passion for self, such as makes the sense of indebtedness to others seem an almost intolerable burden.

From The Fortnightly Review.

Moribundus Loquitur.

I.

AND why say ye that I must leave
This pleasure-garden, where the sun
Is baffled by the boughs that weave

which in a sense they are; in the same | It passes away usually before middle age, sense, namely, in which all men and wom- in all but the weakest-minded; it is transen who have a deep conviction that God formed into the very opposite quality,— speaks through their consciences, are ambassadors also. But they are so, as it were, professionally. If they do not declare God's purposes to men, they are worse than nothing. And for a time the consciousness of such a position naturally elates young men who are not aware of their own manifold inefficiencies. The ambassador always fancies that there is some gratifying reason why he, and not another, should fill that office. Soon, perhaps, he finds out that there is a reason, and a good one, but not a gratifying one at all, it may be that his character may have needed the special protection of the clerical position to keep it clear of gross moral defaults, that his talent lies rather in the power to deal with words and thoughts than with things; that he has more power of transmitting than originating; that he delivers messages better than he fights battles. But for a time the sense of elation at being an ambassador of A RAJPUT CHIEF OF THE OLD SCHOOL. God's at all, turns the head of young men. Nevertheless, we do not believe that there is a profession in the world so humiliating, in the best, but also the most painful sense of the word, as the clergyman's; and this is, we think, its real effect in the long run. This "superb self-conceit" of the younger clergymen and ministers of religion soon works off. Even the genuine priest, who believes with all his heart that his agency is employed by God to absolve from sin, to create anew in every mass the body and blood of an incarnate God, to offer up the divine sacrifice for the dying and the dead, he soon learns how little there is in his work in which he has the least right to indulge satisfaction, how much of failure clings to him at every step, how infinitely poor are his achievements. Talk to any of the best of the Irish priesthood, and though you will find a habit of mind almost necessarily authoritative, and even imperious, -necessarily we mean considering the position forced upon them in their little community, you will hardly ever find any self-conceit, usually a profound humility, bred of deep and frequent failure. And still more is this the case with those ministers of religion who attach no overweening importance to their own agency as priests or ministers, who regard themselves rather as laymen selected for a particular duty, than as a spiritual caste at all. The self-conceit of the younger clergy is very natural, and as we believe, very superficial.

even

Their shade o'er my pavilion ?
The trees I planted with my hands,
This house I built among the sands,
Within a lofty wall which rounds

I

This green oasis, kept with care; With room for my horses, hawks, and hounds

And the cool arcade for my ladies fair.

II.

How often, while the landscape flames
lie and laugh to see my dames
With heat, within the marble court

About the shimmering fountain sport;
Or after the long scorching days,
When the hot wind hushes, and falling stays
The clouds of dust, and stars are bright,

I've spread my carpets in the grove,
And talked and loitered the livelong night
With some foreign leman light o' love.

III.

My wives - I married, as was fit,
Some thirteen of the purest blood-
And two or three have germs of wit,

And almost all are chaste and good;
But all their womanhood has been
Hencooped behind a marble screen;
They count their pearls and doze - while
she,

The courtezan, had travelled far,
Her songs were fresh, her talk was free
Of the Delhi court, or the Kábul war.

Written in Rajputana, 1877.

But the floods and darkness veiled our Years hence, when all the earth is calm, flight,