Few, very few, are the cases where a man who has accepted a Curacy _with his eyes reasonably open_ finds that such is the friction of the position that his first duty is to seek a release. There are such cases, I am afraid. But, I say it again, they are very few; and in every case which looks as if it were one of them, the Curate should _first_ exercise the severest scrutiny upon himself, trying honestly to find, in some magnifying mirror, "the beam in his own eye." [Matt. vii. 3.] And even where such scrutiny still leaves it plain, after consultation not only with sensible friends (if necessary) but of course with the Lord Himself, that it is best to seek a change, let it be remembered that, up to the very last day of connexion, the Curate is still the Curate, bound to all possible loyalty and good faith.
It is with some misgivings of feeling that I have dwelt thus at length on difficulties and anxieties incident to the relationship of Curate and Incumbent. But I do not think after all that I shall be misunderstood. In the nature of the case, the bright sides of the matter have hardly needed comment. The Curate who finds himself the favoured and advantaged helper of some true-hearted leader needs little counsel from me, unless it be in face of the fact, on which we have touched, that the noblest leaders in the Lord in the whole English Church are not above parochial criticism, or even parochial slander. But I do know that there are Curates whose circumstances are less favourable; and I long to impress it upon them that few Christians have a larger and more fruitful field than they for the cultivation of some of the crowning graces of the Gospel. It is for them to make no common proof of the power of the Indwelling Lord to subdue the iniquities of His people, to hallow their inmost spirits, to set before their lips the watch and ward of His blessed Presence, to drive utterly away from their pastoral souls the wretched spirit of sarcasm, to enable them for an unselfish faithfulness when no eye but the unseen Master's oversees.