{"product_id":"2940013740433","title":"The Botathen Ghost","description":"There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the\u003cbr\u003eclergy in the west of England throughout the seventeenth century. The\u003cbr\u003eChurch of those days was in a transitory state, and her ministers, like\u003cbr\u003eher formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief with the\u003cbr\u003enew interpretation. Their wide severance also from the great metropolis\u003cbr\u003eof life and manners, the city of London (which in those times was\u003cbr\u003ecivilized England, much as the Paris of our own day is France), divested\u003cbr\u003ethe Cornish clergy in particular of all personal access to the\u003cbr\u003emaster-minds of their age and body. Then, too, the barrier interposed by\u003cbr\u003ethe rude rough roads of their country, and by their abode in wilds that\u003cbr\u003ewere almost inaccessible, rendered the existence of a bishop rather a\u003cbr\u003edoctrine suggested to their belief than a fact revealed to the actual\u003cbr\u003evision of each in his generation. Hence it came to pass that the Cornish\u003cbr\u003eclergyman, insulated within his own limited sphere, often without even\u003cbr\u003ethe presence of a country squire (and unchecked by the influence of the\u003cbr\u003eFourth Estate--for until the beginning of this nineteenth century,\u003cbr\u003e_Flindell's Weekly Miscellany_, distributed from house to house from the\u003cbr\u003epannier of a mule, was the only light of the West), became developed\u003cbr\u003eabout middle life into an original mind and man, sole and absolute within\u003cbr\u003ehis parish boundary, eccentric when compared with his brethren in\u003cbr\u003ecivilized regions, and yet, in German phrase, 'a whole and seldom man' in\u003cbr\u003ehis dominion of souls. He was 'the parson', in canonical phrase--that is\u003cbr\u003eto say, The Person, the somebody of consequence among his own people.\u003cbr\u003eThese men were not, however, smoothed down into a monotonous aspect of\u003cbr\u003elife and manners by this remote and secluded existence. They imbibed,\u003cbr\u003eeach in his own peculiar circle, the hue of surrounding objects, and were\u003cbr\u003etinged into a distinctive colouring and character by many a contrast of\u003cbr\u003escenery and people. There was the 'light of other days', the curate by\u003cbr\u003ethe sea-shore, who professed to check the turbulence of the 'smugglers'\u003cbr\u003elanding by his presence on the sands, and who 'held the lantern' for the\u003cbr\u003eguidance of his flock when the nights were dark, as the only proper\u003cbr\u003eecclesiastical part he could take in the proceedings. He was soothed and\u003cbr\u003esilenced by the gift of a keg of hollands or a chest of tea.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070198137072,"sku":"2940013740433","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740433_p0.jpg?v=1763589609","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740433","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}