Luckily, both by position and inclination, Doctor Miles was exempt from all such reproaches. His necessities did not force him into meannesses, and his natural disposition would never have suffered him to fall into them, whatever his circumstances might have been. One heard nothing in his parish of enormous charges for a brick grave, swollen surplice-fees, that would make a cholera, a plague, or a pestilence so rich a harvest, that the minister who would pray in his desk against plague, pestilence, and famine, would be the grossest of hypocrites. He did not look upon his churchyard as the most valuable and productive part of his glebe, to be manured by the corpses of his parishioners, and bear a cent-per-cent crop in monuments and grave-stones. The consecration of the bishop he did not look upon as fertilising the land for his own enrichment, but contented himself with the bare amount of the moderate fee awarded by the law, and neither asked nor received a penny more. Many of the neighbouring clergy called him a weak and prejudiced man, and exclaimed loudly against him for neglecting the interests, or, as they called them, "the rights of the church." But, somehow, his parishioners loved him, though he was rather an austere man, too, and never spared invective or exhortation in case of error and misconduct. The secret, perhaps, was, that they were convinced of his disinterestedness. He took from no man more than was his due; he required of no man more than he had the warrant of Scripture for requiring. His private fortune gave him the means of charity, and to that object all his private fortune was devoted. Every one in the neighbourhood knew that Doctor Miles could have a finer house, could keep a better table, could maintain a smarter equipage; but, at the same time, they were aware of two things, first, that his income was not as large as it might have been had he chosen to exact the uttermost farthing; and, secondly, that it was not for the purpose of hoarding his money that he did not spend it upon himself.
Thus Doctor Miles, as well may be conceived, was very much reverenced in the neighbourhood; his rebukes were listened to, and sometimes taken to heart; his advice was sought, and sometimes followed; his opinions were always respected, if his injunctions were not always obeyed; and his severity of manner was very well understood not to imply any real harshness of heart.