So he had come, and laboured late and early; and behold, he had failed utterly; and seemed farther than ever from success.

He had opened, too hastily, a crusade against the Dissenters, and denounced where he should have conciliated.

He had overlooked--indeed he hardly knew--the sad truth, that the mere fact of his being a clergyman was no passport to the hearts of his people.
For the curate who preceded him had been an old man, mean, ignorant, incapable, remaining there simply because nobody else would have him, and given to brandy-and-water as much as his flock.
The rector for the last fifteen years, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, was a cypher.

The rector before him had notoriously earned the living by a marriage with a lady who stood in some questionable relation to Lord Scoutbush's father, and who had never had a thought above his dinner and his tithes; and all that the Aberalva fishermen knew of God or righteousness, they had learnt from the _soi-disant_ disciples of John Wesley.

So Frank Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears of half-a-century of base neglect; but instead of doing so, he had contrived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of popery which lies inarticulate and confused, but deep and firm, in the heart of the English people.