A "GREEN HORN". EXETER, 1845

In 1845, the Reverend Henry Courtenay was the Perpetual Curate at St. Sidwells church.  He was a young Puseyite straight from Oxford and was related to the Earl of Devon, - this was enough to make him unpopular with his parishioners and the radical Western Times.  Young Courtenay liked the idea of preaching the Gospel wearing the Surplice - the "white shirt" his parishioners called it.  The congregation rebelled and protested.  They walked out of his services and they mobbed him on his way home.  The Times, predictably, was with the parishioners:

"We presume that this young man is a fair example of what a Puseyite education will do for a weak youth..  He was "plucked" three times in the "little go" - that is he was turned back three time in a minor examination, and three times pronounced to be a dunce.

"Being well-bred and doubtless a well behaved youth with aristocratic lineage, he was made a Perpetual Curate of St. Sidwells.  The barbers give their apprentices a sheep's head to shave, as the initiatory step to a human chin.  The parish of St. Sidwells is presented to an aristocratic clerical green horn to enable him to practice upon the flock.

"To say that this young man is fit for the office of the priesthood, appears to be a most egregious blunder.  To say that he is fit for anything else would be perhaps as great a blunder. He must, however, have an aptitude for something or another - for Providence has not made the most insignificant of its creatures without adapting them to some purpose of divine wisdom, if man in his brief authority and fantastic tricks would not interpose to prevent its operation.  But whatever he may be fit for, he is certainly not fit to be minister of St. Sidwells...."

I like very much the image offered here of apprentice barbers shaving sheeps' heads.  It reminds me of how, in the army, we practiced sewing sutures on wounded oranges.

Green horn for greenhorn is cute.

It seems to me that the idea of divine providence as here expressed is problematic. How, if divine providence be predicated, can the fantastic tricks of men be thought to affect the issue? 

Being plucked in the little go sounds painful!

Source: The Western Times, 25th January 1845.