A CURATE'S CAREER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 129, 12 October 1877, Page 5 (Supplement)

A CURATE'S CAREER.

A SAD TALE OP THE TIMES A "Sexagenarian Curate " writes to the Standard, saying that his experience may possibly throw some little light on the difficulty experienced in obtaining \ curates of the Church of England, as it . will show what may be the possible end : of a life spent in doing the work of the ', Church. " I was admitted to holy j orders," he says, " some five and thirty , years ago, and began my ministry in . the diocese of Ely. For a time things ' went on smoothly. Comparatively a poor man from the beginning, I lived and laboured hoping that the reward of \ a small benifice might one day crown my 3 patient waiting. So I moved about , from one curacy to another, remaining in ■

so employed I outlived four of my bishops, two in the diocese of Ely, and two in the diocese of Norwich, for I served under Bishops Allen and Turton in Ely, and under the father of the present Dean of Westminster, and Dr. Hinds in Norwich. But hope, like the bird in the story, led me onwards, and at last took flight and left me in broken health, old, and unbeneficed. I was never a pushing man, and did not then believe that in the pursuit of Church preferment the race is indeed to the swift and the battle to the strong. The death of my last rector and the loss of a small patrimony by ill-advised investments drove me to London to seek rest and medical advice. There my trials began. The little money I had left was soon spent, and being at that time an invalid, and unequal to the exertion of reading or preaching, I looked about for some employment which my knowledge of hooks and some skill as a linguist pointed out as the most likely way by which I might earn my daily bread. Journalism, magazine writing, giving lessons in French, fair copying, and even directing envelopes at five shillings a thousand, were all tried, but every Saturday night the payment of the rent of the single rooml ocupied devoured the bulk of my six days' earnings, and often left me not more than half-a-crown to battle with the wants of the coming week. I felt myself drifting into a state of penury and want. My books and my sermons were sold, and clothes that were good for anything went piece by piece to the pawnbroker. But I still struggled on, eating the scanty bread of independence, and suffering the most pinching poverty. This kind of exjjsten.ee lasted more than two years. I wrote to some brother clergymen of the same University, who were my contemporaries, an account of my position. One of them sent my letter to the Mendicity Office, another forwarded my communication to the Charity Organisation Society. I was interviewed by officials from both Institutions. They treated me much as is the wont of such men to treat the ordinary mendicants and imposters of London. First, my landlady was asked if her lodger was a drunkard, or owed her any rent. This inquiry being answered satisfactorily my room was next invaded, and a black note-book produced, in which all my replies to their questions (the inquisitorial and degrading nature of which it is not possible to describe) were carefully entered. The mendicity officer advised me to apply to the Church Societies which profess to aid necessitous clergymen. The agent of the Charity Organisation Society gave similar counsel. So I appealed to three of the best known Church Societies in turn. My references to beneficed clergymen who knew me personally were satisfactory; I had never held or taught any doctrine contrary to that of the Church of England; I never incurred censure from my bishops or blame from any one of my numerous incumbents. No reason was assigned ; but to each application there came a reply of regret from the secretary, civilly worded, but meaning—no. Things were now looking very gloomy. I had sunk into a state of semi-starvation. Pacing the streets in search of employment, with worn-out boots and threadbare clothes, I have at times been without food for two consecutivedays. Hunger, beyond a certain point, loses its torturing power. After the first twelve hours of fasting, the sharper pains disappear, ancf a dull feeling comes on—not a feeling , of pain, so much as a sense of intense weariness. The sight of the provision stores and bakers' shop windows, at first so appetising, loses its attractions, and you pass them without turning the head. So I made up my mind that I must die —die of sheer want, in the midst of the richest city of the world, surrounded by treasures of untold wealth, encompassed by abundance in evejfy.Jb'rm. To all appearance the end was fast coming. One day. in the past autumn I had managed, I scarcely knew how, to drag myself to a seat near the Hound Pond in Kensington Gardens. There I sat for hours, hardly knowing where I was. Boys were sailing their toy ships on the water, men were giving their dogs a swim, nursemaids with bright-eyed children were throwing bread to the wild fowl. A flood of golden sunshine poured itself on the trees, and on the shining roof of the palace hard by, and lighted up the many-coloured dresses of ladies who were taking their afternoon walk. It was Saturday, and I had scarcely tasted food since the previous Thursday. It was, however, a day that brought an end to my suffering from absolute want. An old college friend, whom I had not seen for many years, was crossing the ! gardens, and recognised me. My story was soon told, and relief promptly given. But for the timely arrival of this good Samaritan I should have perished, and another death from starvation would have formed the subject of a paragraph in the columns of the Press, with the information that the latest victim was a clergyman and a scholar. I do not wish to write bitterly, but I would fain have this picture of what may be the possible end, and reward, of a life spent in the service of the Church, taken into consideration by those who are starting in the race. If after years of patient w.aiting, a curate should unhappily lose his health and fall out of work there exists no institution to which he may turn for speedy aid. Mechanics and labourers, with their club,and benefit societies, are far better provided for than are poor scholars, or impoverished clergymen. With me life's day is well nigh ended. But as a warning to the golden youth of Oxford and Cambridge, in the midst of my present surroundings of garret toil and London loneliness this Christmastide, I write this brief sketch of my own ca-

SCISSORS. ♦ : An eminent Scottish Divine happened to meet two of his parishioners at the house of a lawyer, whom he considered too sharp a practitioner. The lawyer jocularly and ungraciously put the question—" Doctor, these are members of your flock; may I ask, do you look upon them as white or black sheep?" "I don't know," answered the divine, drily, ♦' whether they are black or white sheep ; but I know if they are here long, they are pretty sure to be fleeced." The celebrated bushranger, Martin Cash, died at his residence, Glenorchy, Tasmania. Cash went to the Lord Eodney Hotel, New Wharf, Hobartown on the evening of the 10th • August, and informed the landlord, Mr ■ Samuel Wier, that in consequence of severe illness, he had applied for admission into the General Hospital, but had been refused. Mr Weir allowed him to remain at the hotel until the following Monday, when he returned to his home at Glenorchy. It will be remembered that Cash in the year 1870 published in book form an account of adventures, from which we glean the following particulars :—He was born in the year-1810, in the town of Enniscorthy, Wexford, Ireland. Cash's career, as a young man, was' according to his own account a series of events calculated to develop into the more serious phases of crime, and was subsequently convicted of shooting* a : love rival named Jessop, for which offence he was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. After a brief incarceration in the Cork Gaol, Cash sent with 170 other convicts by the! ship Marquis of Huntly to Botany Bay, New South Wales. They arrived at Sydney on February 10, 1828, subsequent to the assignment or out system coming into operation. Casli ); % was "assigned" to Mr G. Bowman, Richmond. He subsequently made hus escape, and in 1837 he comedo Hobart Town. He was not of the hands of the authorities qf: .the law, and for the next few years lie led a prison life which was ultimately broken by his escape from Port Arthur in company with Jones and Kavanagh in December, 1842. After remaining at large nearly twelve months, during which period he was at the head of a band of bushrangers, and was the terror of the whole colony, Cash was again captured, but not till after the most strenuous exertions ware made to again lay hands on him, and a reward of 200 guineas (with a free pardon and a free passage from the colony, if ■* required) was offered to any person who would give information that would lead, to his capture. In September, 1843, he was tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He was, however, afterwards reprieved and sent to Norfolk Island, where he remained till that establishment was broken up, when he had the satisfaction of bidding adieu to what he terms that " island of despair," and returning to Tasmania, where he was appointed by the late Hon. W. E. Nairn to take'charge of the Government Gardens. On resigning that situation, he went to New Zealand for four years, after which he returned to Tasmania, " and," "having saved a little money, I purchased a farm at Glenorchy, where I resolved to pass the remainder of my days in the calm and tranquil enjoyment of rural retirement." Cash continued to devote himself to farming pnrsuits up till the time of his death. If our memory serves us aright we believe that Cash was for some timo a member of the Canterbury Police force, and was also in business, as a lodging-house-keeper, at Christchureh. v It is a curious thing to find a wreck due, not to the. ship striking a rock, but to a rock striking the ship, yet this is what seems to have happened in the case of the iron screw-steamer Knight Templar, which, off. the Gulf of Tunis, seems to have been struck by a rock from a submarine volcano, while in one thousand fathoms of water, at a distance of ten miles from the nearest group of rocks. The shock was accompanied by a rumbling noise, and by a seething of the sea into white foam all round the ship, and though the ship was n§t stopped in her course, she soon began to fill, and had to bo steered to the Island of Galita, where the captain had to. run her on shore in a shallow place, which he accomplished within four hours of the sub-marine shock. When examined by divers, and subsequently in dock at Malta, it appeared that at a distance of about fifteen feet from the stein of the vessel some nine or ten feet had been torn out of her by something which crossed her course at right angles, and the ship had also been struck in a similar way on the after-part from the same direction, and a good part of-her keel twisted. Mr William Coppin, ex surveyor to the Board of Trade, who gives us this account at length in the Times, is evidently quite satisfied that a rock driven through the sea by a submarine volcano had struck and wrecked the ship. Inangakua Times. In a little Scotch parish lived Jock, a tailor, who, some folks said, was halfwitted. As elders were rather scarce, it was thought by a few persons that they would have a small practical joke at the expense of Jock by getting him elected, telling him as an inducement that elders got a new black coat once a year, and sixpence for snuff every Sabbath they held the plate. Jock, in full belief of this, consented to stand, and m due time was instructed in the mysteries of eldership. After he had served for a year he went to the minister and demanded his black coat. The minister, much astonished, told him that his friends must have been befooling him. " Weel," said Jock, " they were mebbe befauling me about the coat, but \ made sure of the saxpence, for I've taen'd every week I have been at the plate. ■' We had no idea that travelling' tramps technically termed "Sundowners" were such an expensive institution as we find ii they are from " information received." 4; We learn that the manager of one station in this Province actually paid to his cook 4560 during the last twelve months for meals supplied to gentry in question. This sum represents 2,400 persons at 6d per head per meal. Our informant states that thie sum was paid out of fear, that the owners might be burned out, owing to the careless (?) use of fire by those on the road. Wβ leave the fact to speak for itself. U,t n i niirnr.-rv tun Ttx>Tr.nr< of tlio '