Andrewes' opinion, and taste his strawberries.
I feel quite sure that Mr. Clerke, as well as myself, strongly felt
the Rector's influence. He often said in after-years how much he owed
to him for raising his aims and views about the sacred office which he
purposed to fill. He had looked forward to being a clergyman as to a
profession towards which his education and college career had tended,
and which, he hoped, would at last secure him a comfortable livelihood
through the interest of some of his patrons. But intercourse with the
Rector gave a higher tone to his ideas. He would have been a clergyman
of high character otherwise, but now he aimed at holiness; he would
never have been an idle one, but now his wish was to learn how much he
could do, and how well he could do that much for the people who should
be committed to his charge. He was by no means a reticent man, he
liked sympathy, and soon got into the habit of confiding in me for
want of a better friend. Thus as he began to take a most earnest
interest in parish work, and in schemes for the benefit of the people,
our Sunday conversations became less controversial, and we gossiped
about schools and school-treats, cricket-clubs, drunken fathers,
slattern mothers, and spoiled children, and how the evening hymn
"went" after the sermon on Sunday, like district visitors at a parish
tea-party.
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