New Minister in the Parish? - see this!
- Crumbs of comfort for the Clergy
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Speaking of the Minister of the Parish, he says: "When he first comes to the place, he is gladly received and eagerly attended to; just as any other thing would that is new. But when curiosity abates, as it must do with familiarity in repetition, such as have no deeper root than this to their attachment, must grow indifferent and will fall away, perhaps into total inattention. The public is so full of novelty, and more in this than any other nation of Europe, that they are apt to over-rate what is new, and having begun with inexperience and indiscretion, they end with disappointment. Imagination, that deceitful faculty, is always at work to cheat men with vain expectations: they look for more than they can find, and thence suspect at last that they have found nothing."
"I have lived long enough in this world to know, that however sincerely a man may wish to have everybody do what is right, he must be content to see much evil which he cannot prevent, and to hear many falsehoods which he can never hope to silence."
- ~ from a sermon preached on 2 Corinthians 2:16, at Nayland (Suffolk) 13 April 1783 (Sunday next before Easter)
by William Jones (1726 - 1800), Curate of Nayland and Rector of Paston (Northants):
"Parochial Reformation Recommended"
[NB moral reformation, not administrative reformation]