BARING-GOULD (Sabine, 1834-1924, Divine and Author)

Fine Early Autograph Letter Signed to Mr Alwood thanking him "for the review. It is rather savage, but I think my book is calculated to exasperate those who do not go in for the same line. I do not doubt that curates would be far more subject to injustice if left to the tender mercies of incumbents, but what I complain of is that they are at the tender mercies of any one, & have no recognised positions,. Ascending to ancient Canon law no priest in a diocese could be suspended or deprived without being tried by the bishops & synod, the synod elected by all the priests of the diocese. That was constitutional. Every man who has rights should have a guarantee for the unimpeded exercise of them. Some friends of mine, curates, have been treated with gross injustice, & if they had cared to make their cases public would have roused indignation against the Bishops, but then - how about their own future prospects? What other bishops would receive them into their dioceses? I will lend you In Exitu Israelif you like. Can you not come over & lunch with me some day, see the Church & carry off the book. I am now working up the ... schism in Bohemia as a profitable subject to exhibit the stupidity of Rome in missing an occasion of conciliating. The second volume of my Origin & Development will not appear till the excitement of the war is over, though it is printed. War has a bad effect on the sale of books ...", 2 sides closely written 8vo., Daltons Parsonage, Thirsk, 27th August

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. The manor house of Lew Trenchard, near Okehampton, Devon, has been preserved as he had it rebuilt and is now a hotel. He is remembered particularly as a writer of hymns, the best-known being "Onward, Christian Soldiers".
He took Holy Orders in 1864, and became the curate at Horbury Bridge, West Riding of Yorkshire. It was while acting as a curate that he met Grace Taylor, the daughter of a mill hand, then aged fourteen. In the next few years they fell in love. His vicar, John Sharp, arranged for Grace to live for two years with relatives in York to learn middle-class manners. Baring-Gould, meanwhile, relocated to become perpetual curate at Dalton, near Thirsk. He and Grace were married in 1868 at Wakefield.

Item Date:  1870

Stock No:  41707      £225

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