When we had gotten ourselves made up in order, we went, with Andrew
Pringle, my son, to the counting-house, and had a satisfactory vista of
the residue; but it will be some time before things can be
settled--indeed, I fear, not for months to come--so that I have been
thinking, if the parish was pleased with Mr. Snodgrass, it might be my
duty to my people to give up to him my stipend, and let him be appointed
not only helper, but successor likewise. It would not be right of me to
give the manse, both because he's a young and inexperienced man, and
cannot, in the course of nature, have got into the way of visiting the
sick-beds of the frail, which is the main part of a pastor's duty, and
likewise, because I wish to die, as I have lived, among my people. But,
when all's settled, I will know better what to do.
When we had got an inkling from Mr. Argent of what the colonel has
left,--and I do assure you, that money is not to be got, even in the way
of legacy, without anxiety,--Mrs. Pringle and I consulted together, and
resolved, that it was our first duty, as a token of our gratitude to the
Giver of all Good, to make our first outlay to the poor. So, without
saying a word either to Rachel, or to Andrew Pringle, my son, knowing
that there was a daily worship in the Church of England, we slipped out
of the house by ourselves, and, hiring a hackney conveyance, told the
driver thereof to drive us to the high church of St. Paul's. This was
out of no respect to the pomp and pride of prelacy, but to Him before
whom both pope and presbyter are equal, as they are seen through the
merits of Christ Jesus. We had taken a gold guinea in our hand, but
there was no broad at the door; and, instead of a venerable elder,
lending sanctity to his office by reason of his age, such as we see in
the effectual institutions of our own national church--the door was kept
by a young man, much more like a writer's whipper-snapper-clerk, than one
qualified to fill that station, which good King David would have
preferred to dwelling in tents of sin. However, we were not come to spy
the nakedness of the land, so we went up the outside stairs, and I asked
at him for the plate; "Plate!" says he; "why, it's on the altar!" I
should have known this--the custom of old being to lay the offerings on
the altar, but I had forgot; such is the force, you see, of habit, that
the Church of England is not so well reformed and purged as ours is from
the abominations of the leaven of idolatry. We were then stepping
forward, when he said to me, as sharply as if I was going to take an
advantage, "You must pay here." "Very well, wherever it is customary,"
said I, in a meek manner, and gave him the guinea. Mrs. Pringle did the
same. "I cannot give you change," cried he, with as little decorum as if
we had been paying at a playhouse. "It makes no odds," said I; "keep it
all." Whereupon he was so converted by the mammon of iniquity, that he
could not be civil enough, he thought--but conducted us in, and showed us
the marble monuments, and the French colours that were taken in the war,
till the time of worship--nothing could surpass his discretion.