Regarding himself as a lamb for the slaughter, yet tremendously in
earnest not to be sacrificed, he went into the Church groping and
fearing, but resolute. Trembling lest he should not do his duty both to
himself and to his sacred office, he yet determined to try. Thus the
thorn which troubled Sydney Smith was not an affliction, but was what he
regarded as a danger; and, though less patent and pointed than that
in the life of Charles Lamb, probably had not less influence in the
discipline of character.
Behold, then, the long and venerable line of the clergy opening to
receive him, and behold him entering it! The clergy, the priesthood,
the holy fathers, the strong bishops, the monks, the ghostly race, the
retired enthusiasts, now melancholy, now rapt, now merry-making, the
consolers of sorrow, the divine heroes in an earthly life,--even one
of this family does Sydney propose to be. At the age of twenty-four
he becomes curate in the little hamlet of Salisbury Plain,--the young
graduate of Oxford sent into the country to be pastor to the inmates of
half-a-dozen hovels! Then he writes his description of a curate:--"The
poor working man of God,--a learned man in a hovel, good and patient,--a
comforter and a teacher,--the first and purest pauper of the hamlet;
yet showing that in the midst of worldly misery he has the heart of a
gentleman, the spirit of a Christian, and the kindness of a pastor.
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