This indeed might seem to do some service, were it carefully observed; and were there not a thing to be got, called a Dispensation, which will presently [at once] make you as old as you please.

But if you will, Sir, we will suppose that Orders were strictly denied to all, unless qualified according to Canon, I cannot foresee any other remedy but that most of those University youngsters must fall to the parish, and become a town charge until they be of spiritual age.  For Philosophy is a very idle thing, when one is cold! and a small System of Divinity, though it be WOLLEBIUS himself, is not sufficient when one is hungry!

What then shall we do with them? and where shall we dispose of them, until they come to a holy ripeness?

May we venture them into the Desk to read Service?  That cannot be, because not capable!  Besides, the tempting Pulpit usually stands too near.  Or shall we trust them in some good Gentleman’s house, there to perform holy things?  With all my heart! so that they may not be called down from their studies to say Grace to every Health; that they may have a little better wages than the Cook or Butler; as also that there be a Groom in the house, besides the Chaplain (for sometimes to the L10 a year, they crowd [in] the looking after couple of geldings):  and that he may not be sent from table, picking his teeth, and sighing with his hat under his arm; whilst the Knight and my Lady eat up the tarts and chickens!

It may be also convenient, if he were suffered to speak now and then in the Parlour, besides at Grace and Prayer time; and that my cousin ABIGAIL and he sit not too near one another at meals, nor be presented together to the little vicarage!

All this, Sir, must be thought on!  For, in good earnest, a person at all thoughtful of himself and conscience, had much better choose to live with nothing but beans and pease pottage, so that he might have the command of his thoughts and time; than to have his Second and Third Courses, and to obey the unreasonable humours of some families.

And as some think two or three years’ continuance in the University, to be time sufficient for being very great Instruments in the Church:  so others we have, so moderate as to count that a solemn admission and a formal paying of College Detriments, without the trouble of Philosophical discourses, disputations, and the like, are virtues that will influence as far as Newcastle, and improve though at ever such a distance.

So strangely possessed are people in general, with the easiness and small preparation that are requisite to the undertaking of the Ministry, that whereas in other professions, they plainly see, what considerable time is spent before they have any hopes of arriving to skill enough to practise with any confidence what they have designed; yet to preach to ordinary people, and govern a country parish, is usually judged such