DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.33699#0018
6 The Vicar of Wakefield.
CHAP, II.
Family misfortunes. The loss of for-
tune only serves to encrease the pride
of the worthy,
nPhe temporal concerns of our family were
chiefly committed to my wife's manage-
ment, as to the spiritual I took them entirely
under my own dire&ion. The profits of my
living, which amounted to but thirty-hve
pounds a year, I made over to the orphans
and widows os the clergy of our dioecese; for
having a lufhcient fortune os my own, I was
carelels of temporalities, and feitasecret plea-
sure in doing my duty without reward. 1 aiso
let a resblution of keeping no curate, and of
being acquainted with every man in the parish,
exhorting the married men to temperance, and
the bachelors to matrimony; sb that in a few
years it was a common saying, that there were
three sfrange wants at Wakefield, a parson
wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and
ale-houses wanting cusfomers.
Matrimony was always one of my favou-
rite topics, and I wrote several sermons to
prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar
tenet which I made a point of supporting;
for 1 maintained with Whilfon, that it was un-
lawful for a pried of the church of England,
after the death ofhisfirif wife, to take a second,
or
CHAP, II.
Family misfortunes. The loss of for-
tune only serves to encrease the pride
of the worthy,
nPhe temporal concerns of our family were
chiefly committed to my wife's manage-
ment, as to the spiritual I took them entirely
under my own dire&ion. The profits of my
living, which amounted to but thirty-hve
pounds a year, I made over to the orphans
and widows os the clergy of our dioecese; for
having a lufhcient fortune os my own, I was
carelels of temporalities, and feitasecret plea-
sure in doing my duty without reward. 1 aiso
let a resblution of keeping no curate, and of
being acquainted with every man in the parish,
exhorting the married men to temperance, and
the bachelors to matrimony; sb that in a few
years it was a common saying, that there were
three sfrange wants at Wakefield, a parson
wanting pride, young men wanting wives, and
ale-houses wanting cusfomers.
Matrimony was always one of my favou-
rite topics, and I wrote several sermons to
prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar
tenet which I made a point of supporting;
for 1 maintained with Whilfon, that it was un-
lawful for a pried of the church of England,
after the death ofhisfirif wife, to take a second,
or