" In a year or two
it was cut short. He then let his beard grow, and, after some
hesitation, his moustache. Many of the older people, we are told, were
scandalised, but remained silent; some wrote to the newspapers in
protest. The moustache was declared to invest ministers "with an air of
levity and worldliness." A letter of approval purported to come from
the shade of a Wesleyan minister, the Rev. H.D. Lowe, who, in 1828, had
his beard cut off by order of the Wesleyan Conference. It ran as
follows:--
"REVEREND AND BEARDED SIR,--It rejoiced my shade to see
you not only addressing Methodists, but sitting among many of the
identical men who required that cruel sacrifice of me, and that
unrebuked when you even spoke of dreaming of belonging to the
'Legal Hundred,' bearded though you are."
Professor Hodgson used to tell a good story of a shaky village knight of
the razor who gashed the minister's cheek. "John, John!" cried the
reverend sufferer, "it's a dreadful thing that drink!" "'Deed it is,
sir," mildly assented John, "it makes the skin unco tender.
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