"
"But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought _that_
was always the lot of the youngest, where there were
many to chuse before him."
"Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?"
"_Never_ is a black word. But yes, in the _never_
of conversation, which means _not_ _very_ _often_,
I do think it. For what is to be done in the church?
Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the other
lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church.
A clergyman is nothing."
"The _nothing_ of conversation has its gradations, I hope,
as well as the _never_. A clergyman cannot be high in
state or fashion. He must not head mobs, or set the ton
in dress. But I cannot call that situation nothing which
has the charge of all that is of the first importance
to mankind, individually or collectively considered,
temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship
of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners
which result from their influence. No one here can call
the _office_ nothing. If the man who holds it is so,
it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its
just importance, and stepping out of his place to appear
what he ought not to appear.
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