The American Senator

wine seems to reach its full perfection.” The rector heaved a deep sigh as he looked up to the ceiling with his hands in his trousers-pockets. He knew, or thought that he knew, that no one could ever get a glass of good wine in the United States. He knew, or thought that he knew, that the best wine in the world was brought to England. He knew, or thought he knew, that in no other country was wine so well understood, so diligently sought for, and so truly enjoyed as in England. And he imagined that it was less understood and less sought for and less enjoyed in the States than in any other country. He did not as yet know the Senator well enough to fight with him at his own table, and could only groan and moan and look up at the ceiling. Doctor Nupper endeavoured to take away the sting by smacking his lips, and Reginald Morton, who did not in truth care a straw what he drank, was moved to pity and declared the claret to be very fine. “I have nothing to say against it,” said the Senator, who was not in the least abashed.

But when the cloth was drawn⁠—for the rector clung so lovingly to old habits that he delighted to see his mahogany beneath the wine glasses⁠—a more serious subject of dispute arose suddenly, though perhaps hardly more disagreeable. “The thing in England,” said the Senator, “which I find most difficult to understand, is the matter of what you call Church patronage.”

“If you’ll pass half an hour with Mr. Surtees tomorrow morning, he’ll explain it all to you,” said the rector, who did not like that any subject connected with his profession should be mooted after dinner.

“I should be delighted,” said Mr. Surtees.

“Nothing would give me more pleasure,” said the Senator; “but what I mean is this;⁠—the question is, of course, one of paramount importance.”

“No doubt it is,” said the deluded rector.

“It is very necessary to get good doctors.”

“Well, yes, rather;⁠—considering that all men wish to live.” That observation, of course, came from Doctor Nupper.

“And care is taken in employing a lawyer⁠—though, after my experience of yesterday, not always, I should say, so much care as is needful. The man who wants such aid looks about him and gets the best doctor he can for his money, or the best lawyer. But here in England he must take the clergyman provided for him.”

“It would be very much better for him if he did,” said the rector.

“A clergyman at any rate is supposed to be appointed; and that clergyman he must pay.”

“Not at all,” said the rector. “The clergy are paid by the wise provision of former ages.”

“We will let that pass for the present,” said the Senator. “There he is, however he may be paid. How does he get there?” Now it was the fact that Mr. Mainwaring’s living had been bought for him with his wife’s money⁠—a fact of which Mr. Gotobed was not aware, but which he would hardly have regarded had he known it. “How does he get there?”

“In the majority of cases the bishop puts him there,” said Mr. Surtees.

“And how is the bishop governed in his choice? As far as I can learn the stipends are absurdly various, one man getting £100 a year for working like a horse in a big town, and another £1,000 for living an idle life in a luxurious country house. But the bishop of course gives the bigger plums to the best men. How is it then that the big plums find their way so often to the sons and sons-in-law and nephews of the bishops?”

“Because the bishop has looked after their education and principles,” said the rector.

“And taught them how to choose their wives,” said the Senator with imperturbable gravity.

“I am not the son of a bishop, sir,” exclaimed the rector.

“I wish you had been, sir, if it would have done you any good. A general can’t make his son a colonel at the age of twenty-five, or an admiral his son a first lieutenant, or a judge his a Queen’s Counsellor⁠—nor can the head of an office promote his to be a chief secretary. It is only a bishop can do this;⁠—I suppose because a cure of souls is so much less important than the charge of a ship or the discipline of twenty or thirty clerks.”

“The bishops don’t do it,” said the rector fiercely.

“Then the statistics which have been put into my hands belie them. But how is it with those the bishops don’t appoint? There seems to me to be such a complication of absurdities as to defy explanation.”

“I think I could explain them all,” said Mr. Surtees mildly.

“If you can do so satisfactorily, I shall be very glad to hear it,” continued the Senator, who seemed in truth to be glad to hear no one but himself. “A lad of one-and-twenty learns his lessons so well that he has to be rewarded at his college, and a part of his reward consists in his having a parish entrusted to him when he is forty years old, to which he can maintain his right whether he be in any way trained for such work or no. Is that true?”

“His collegiate education is the best training he can have,” said the rector.

“I came across a young fellow the other day,” continued the Senator, “in a very nice house, with £700 a year, and learned that he had inherited the living because he was his father’s second son. Some poor clergyman had been keeping it ready for him for the last fifteen years and had to turn out as soon as this young spark could be made a clergyman.”

“It was his father’s property,” said the rector, “and the poor man had had great kindness shown him for those fifteen years.”

“Exactly;⁠—his father’s property! And this is what you call a cure of souls! And another man had absolutely had his