Clearly the rector was not what is called in these days an
"earnest" man: he was fonder of church history than of divinity, and had
much more insight into men's characters than interest in their opinions;
he was neither laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious
in alms-giving, and his theology, you perceive, was lax. His mental
palate, indeed, was rather pagan, and found a savouriness in a quotation
from Sophocles or Theocritus that was quite absent from any text in
Isaiah or Amos. But if you feed your young setter on raw flesh, how
can you wonder at its retaining a relish for uncooked partridge in
after-life? And Mr. Irwine's recollections of young enthusiasm and
ambition were all associated with poetry and ethics that lay aloof from
the Bible.
On the other hand, I must plead, for I have an affectionate partiality
towards the rector's memory, that he was not vindictive--and some
philanthropists have been so; that he was not intolerant--and there is a
rumour that some zealous theologians have not been altogether free from
that blemish; that although he would probably have declined to give his
body to be burned in any public cause, and was far from bestowing all
his goods to feed the poor, he had that charity which has sometimes
been lacking to very illustrious virtue--he was tender to other men's
failings, and unwilling to impute evil.
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