The proposal was accepted
on the spot, and this pious associate of the Reverend P____n was
immediately invested with the direction of the consciences, and the care
of the morals, of an extensive parish.
Acts of this nature, it is to be imagined, were pursued by censure and
ridicule; but the latter was not often more successful than on the
following occasion:--Two young men, whose persons were unknown to the
bishop, one day procured an audience, and requested he would recommend
them to some employment that would procure them the means of subsistence.
This was just a time when the numerous vacancies that had taken place
were not yet supplied, and many livings were unfilled for want of
candidates. The Bishop, who was unwilling that the nonjuring priests
should have the triumph of seeing their benefices remain vacant, fell
into the snare, and proposed their taking orders. The young men
expressed their joy at the offer; but, after looking confusedly on each
other, with some difficulty and diffidence, confessed their lives had
been such as to preclude them from the profession, which, but for this
impediment, would have satisfied them beyond their hopes. The Bishop
very complaisantly endeavoured to obviate thesse objections, while they
continued to accuse themselves of all the sins in the decalogue; but the
Prelate at length observing he had ordained many worse, the young men
smiled contemptuously, and, turning on their heels, replied, that if
priests were made of worse men than they had described themselves to be,
they begged to be excused from associating with such company.
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