Many will think that he was wicked to grieve for the loss of episcopal power, wicked to have coveted it, nay, wicked even to have thought about it, in the way and at the moments he had done so.
With such censures I cannot profess that I completely agree.

The _nolo episcopari_, though still in use, is so directly at variance with the tendency of all human wishes, that it cannot be thought to express the true aspirations of rising priests in the Church of England.

A lawyer does not sin in seeking to be a judge, or in compassing his wishes by all honest means.

A young diplomat entertains a fair ambition when he looks forward to be the lord of a first-rate embassy; and a poor novelist, when he attempts to rival Dickens or rise above Fitzjeames, commits no fault, though he may be foolish.
Sydney Smith truly said that in these recreant days we cannot expect to find the majesty of St.Paul beneath the cassock of a curate.

If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain the aspirations of a man.
Our archdeacon was worldly--who among us is not so?
He was ambitious--who among us is ashamed to own that "last infirmity of noble minds!" He was avaricious, my readers will say.