The Average Parson.
Our objection to him is not that he is senseless;
this—as it concerns us not—we can patiently
endure. Nor that he is bigoted; this we expect,
and have become accustomed to. Nor that he is
small-souled, narrow, and hypocritical; all these
qualities become him well, sitting easily and gracefully
upon him. We protest against him because
he is always “carrying on.”
To carry on, in one way or another, seems to
be the function of his existence, and essential
to his health. When he is not doing it in the
pulpit he is at it in the newspapers; when both
fail him he resorts to the social circle, the church
meeting, the Sunday-school, or even the street
corner. We have known him to disport for half a
day upon the kerb-stone, carrying on with all his
might to whomsoever would endure it.
No sooner does a young sick-faced theologue get
safely through his ordination, as a baby finishes
teething, than straightway he casts about him for
an opportunity to carry on. A pretext is soon
found, and he goes at it hammer and tongs; and
forty years after you shall find him at the same
trick with as simple a faith, as exalted an expectration,
as vigorous an impotence, as the day he began.
His carryings-on are as diverse in kind, as comprehensive
in scope, as those of the most versatile
negro minstrel. He cuts as many capers in a lifetime
as there are stars in heaven or grains of sand in
a barrel of sugar. Everything is fish that comes
to his net. If a discovery in science is announced,
he will execute you an antic upon it before it gets
fairly cold. Is a new theory advanced—ten to one
while you are trying to get it through your head
he will stand on his own and make mouths at it.
A great invention provokes him into a whirlwind
of flip-flaps absolutely bewildering to the secular
eye; while at any exceptional phenomenon of nature,
such as an earthquake, he will project himself frog-like
into an infinity of lofty gymnastic absurdities.
In short, the slightest agitation of the intellectual
atmosphere sets your average parson into a tempest
of pumping like the jointed ligneous youth attached
to the eccentric of a boys whirligig. His philosophy
of life may be boiled down into a single sentence:
Carry on and you will be happy.
