And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be in perfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on the clerical character.  Perhaps you think he was not—­as he ought to have been—­a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a national church?  But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the people in Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with their clergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until it can be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love, I must believe that Mr. Irwine’s influence in his parish was a more wholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twenty years afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers.  It is true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the Reformation, visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was severe in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh—­put a stop, indeed, to the Christmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness and too light a handling of sacred things.  But I gathered from Adam Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few clergymen could be less successful in winning the hearts of their parishioners than Mr. Ryde.  They learned a great many notions about doctrine from him, so that almost every church-goer under fifty began to distinguish as well between the genuine gospel and what did not come precisely up to that standard, as if he had been born and bred a Dissenter; and for some time after his arrival there seemed to be quite a religious movement in that quiet rural district.  “But,” said Adam, “I’ve seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion’s something else besides notions.  It isn’t notions sets people doing the right thing—­it’s feelings.  It’s the same with the notions in religion as it is with math’matics—­a man may be able to work problems straight off in’s head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe, but if he has to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution and love something else better than his own ease.  Somehow, the congregation began to fall off, and people began to speak light o’ Mr. Ryde.  I believe he meant right at bottom; but, you see, he was sourish-tempered, and was for beating down prices with the people as worked for him; and his preaching wouldn’t go down well with that sauce.  And he wanted to be like my lord judge i’ the parish, punishing folks for doing wrong; and he scolded ’em from the pulpit as if he’d been a Ranter, and yet he couldn’t abide the Dissenters, and was a deal more set against ’em than Mr. Irwine was.  And then he didn’t keep within his income, for he seemed to think at first go-off that six hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr. Donnithorne.  That’s a sore mischief I’ve often seen with the poor curates jumping into a bit of a living all of a sudden.  Mr. Ryde was a deal thought on at a distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as for math’matics and