ABSTRACT
There were two principal styles of clergyman working in the Church of England in Jane Austen's lifetime. The first, which we may call the 'Establishment' kind, saw their profession in the same light as any other profession. The other kind were designated 'Evangelicals', because they were evangelists who tried to reach the hearts of their parishioners. It is easy nowadays to be contemptuous of the eighteenth-century style of Establishment clergyman, but in fact he was not necessarily either insincere or useless. When Edmund Bertram, who is to be ordained, objects that the 'office' of clergyman 'has the guardianship of religion and morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their influence. Henry Crawford also assumes that a clergyman's life must be an easy one, confined to preaching on Sundays, and implies that a parish priest need not reside in his parish.
