Certainly it is a matter of common observation in
England that the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. The
explanation is very simple, but 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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