This, with the light
texture of the introductory part, will, I hope, take off from that
idea of sameness which the repetition of crimes and distresses is
likely to create.
{12} It has been a subject of greater vexation to me than such
trifle ought to be, that I could not, without destroying all
appearance of arrangement, separate these melancholy narratives, and
place the fallen Clerk in Office at a greater distance from the
Clerk of the Parish, especially as they resembled each other in
several particulars; both being tempted, seduced, and wretched. Yet
there are, I conceive, considerable marks of distinction: their
guilt is of different kind; nor would either have committed the
offence of the other. The Clerk of the Parish could break the
commandment, but he could not have been induced to have disowned an
article of that creed for which he had so bravely contended, and on
which he fully relied; and the upright mind of the Clerk in Office
would have secured him from being guilty of wrong and robbery,
though his weak and vacillating intellect could not preserve him
from infidelity and profaneness.
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