They used to lead the intelligence of
their parishes; now they do pretty well if they keep up with it, and they
are very apt to lag behind it. Then they must have a colleague. The old
minister thinks he can hold to his old course, sailing right into the
wind's eye of human nature, as straight as that famous old skipper John
Bunyan; the young minister falls off three or four points and catches the
breeze that left the old man's sails all shivering. By and by the
congregation will get ahead of him, and then it must, have another new
skipper. The priest holds his own pretty well; the minister is coming
down every generation nearer and nearer to the common level of the useful
citizen,--no oracle at all, but a man of more than average moral
instincts, who, if he knows anything, knows how little he knows. The
ministers are good talkers, only the struggle between nature and grace
makes some of 'em a little awkward occasionally. The women do their best
to spoil 'em, as they do the poets; you find it very pleasant to be
spoiled, no doubt; so do they. Now and then one of 'em goes over the dam;
no wonder, they're always in the rapids.
By this time our three ladies had their faces all turned toward the
speaker, like the weathercocks in a northeaster, and I thought it best to
switch off the talk on to another rail.
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