Preaching was the master passion of his life It... Preaching was the master passion of his life It was the pulpit that
reconciled him to exile within a great city, and persuaded him to the
enjoyment of roguish company Those there were who deemed his career
unfortunate; but a sense of fitness might have checked their pity, and it
was only in his hours of maudlin confidence that the Reverend Thomas
confessed to disappointment Born of respectable parents in the County
of Cambridgeshire, he nurtured his youth upon the exploits of James Hind
and the Golden Farmer His boyish pleasure was to lie in the ditch,
which bounded his father's orchard, studying that now forgotten
masterpiece, `There's no Jest like a True Jest' Then it was that he felt
`immortal longings in his blood' He would take to the road, so he swore,
and hold up his enemies like a gentleman Once, indeed, he was
surprised by the clergyman of the parish in act to escape from the rectory
with two volumes of sermons and a silver flagon The divine was
minded to speak seriously to him concerning the dreadful sin of robbery,
and having strengthened him with texts and good counsel, to send him
forth unpunished `Thieving and covetousness,' said the parson, `must
inevitably bring you to the gallows If you would die in your bed, repent
you of your evildoing, and rob no more' The exhortation was not lost
upon Pureney, who, chastened in spirit, straightly prevailed upon his father
to enter him a pensioner at Corpus Christi College in the University
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Cambridge, that at the proper time he might take orders
A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
At Cambridge he gathered no more knowledge than was necessary for
his profession, and wasted such hours as should have been given to study
in drinking, dicing, and even less reputable pleasures Yet repentance
was always easy, and he accepted his first curacy, at Newmarket, with a
brave heart and a good hopefulness Fortunate was the choice of this
early cure Had he been gently guided at the outset, who knows but he
might have lived out his life in respectable obscurity? But Newmarket
then, as now, was a town of jollity and dissipation, and Pureney yielded
without persuasion to the pleasures denied his cloth There was ever a
fire to extinguish at his throat, nor could he veil his wanton eye at the sight
of a pretty wench Again and again the lust of preaching urged him to
repent, yet he slid back upon his past gaiety, until Parson Pureney became
a byword Dismissed from Newmarket in disgrace, he wandered the
country up and down in search of a pulpit, but so infamous became the
habit of his life that only in prison could he find an audience fit and
responsive
And, in the nick, the chaplaincy of Newgate fell vacant Here was
the occasion to temper dissipation with piety, to indulge the twofold
ambition of his life What mattered it, if within the prison walls he
dipped his nose more deeply into
louis vuitton travel bags the punch-bowl than became a divine?
The rascals would but respect him the more for his prowess, and knit more
closely the bond of sympathy Besides, after preaching and punch he
best loved a penitent, and where in the world could he find so rich a crop
of erring souls ripe for repentance as in gaol? Henceforth he might
threaten, bluster, and cajole If amiability proved fruitless he would put
cruelty to the test, and terrify his victims by a spirited reference to Hell
and to that Burning Lake they were so soon to traverse At last, thought
he, I shall be sure of my effect, and the prospect flattered his vanity In
truth, he won an immediate and assured success Like the common file
or cracksman, he fell into the habit of the place, intriguing with all the
cleverness of a practised diplomatist, and setting one party against the
other that he might in due season decide the trumpery dispute The
trusted friend of many a distinguished prig and murderer, he so intimately
mastered the slang and etiquette of the Jug, that he was appointed arbiter
A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
of all those nice questions of honour which agitated the more reputable
among the cross-coves But these were the diversions of a strenuous
mind, and it was in the pulpit or in the closet that the Reverend Thomas
Pureney revealed his true talent
As the ruffian had a sense of drama, so he was determined that his
words should scald and bite
necklace chanel the penitent When the condemned pew was
full of a Sunday his happiness was complete Now his deep chest would
hurl salvo on salvo of platitudes against the sounding-board; now his voice,
lowered to a whisper, would coax the hopeless prisoners to prepare their
souls In a paroxysm of feigned anger he would crush the cushion with
his clenched fist, or leaning over the pulpit side as though to approach the
nearer to his victims, would roll a cold and bitter eye upon them, as of a
cat watching caged birds One famous gesture was irresistible, and he
never employed it but some poor ruffian fell senseless to the floor His
stumpy fingers would fix a noose of air round some imagined neck, and so
devoutly was the pantomime studied that you almost heard the creak of the
retreating cart as the phantom culprit was turned off But his conduct in
the pulpit was due to no ferocity of temperament He merely exercised
his legitimate craft So long as Newgate supplied him with an enforced
audience, so long would he thunder and bluster at the wrongdoer
according to law and the dictates of his conscience
Many, in truth, were his triumphs, but, as he would mutter in his
garrulous old age, never was he so successful as in the last exhortation
delivered to Matthias Brinsden Now, Matthias Brinsden incontinently
murdered his wife because she harboured too eager a love of the brandy-
shop A model husband, he had spared no pains in her correction He
had flogged her without mercy and without result His one design was
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make his wife obey him, which, as the Scriptures say, all wives should do
But the lust of brandy overcame wifely obedience, and Brinsden, hoping
for the best, was constrained to cut a hole in her skull The next day she
was as impudent as ever, until Matthias rose yet more fiercely in his wrath,
and the shrew perished Then was Thomas Pureney's opportunity, and
the Sunday following the miscreant's condemnation he delivered unto him
and seventeen other malefactors the moving discourse which here follows:
A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
`We shall take our text,' gruffed the Ordinary `From out the Psalms:
``Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days' And
firstly, we shall expound to you the heinous sin of murder, which is
unlawful (1) according to the Natural Laws, (2) according to the Jewish
Law, (3) according to the Christian Law, proportionably stronger By
Nature 'tis unlawful as 'tis injuring Society: as 'tis robbing God of what is
His Right and Property; as 'tis depriving the Slain of the satisfaction of
Eating, Drinking, Talking, and the Light of the Sun, which it is his right to
enjoy And especially 'tis unlawful, as it is sending a Soul naked and
unprepared to appear before a wrathful and avenging Deity without time
to make his Soul composedly or to listen to the thoughtful ministrations of
one (like ourselves) soundly versed in Divinity By the Jewish Law 'tis
forbidden, for is it not written
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