"The Warden" - Anthony Trollope

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I had never heard of Trollope before. I've read quite a bit of Dickens and everything I have loved so far.

I recently read an article talking about how Dickens' contemporary, Trollope, hasn't "echoed throughout the years" as robustly as Dickens has.
Intrigued as to who this Trollope fellow is I got my first book from him "The Warden".

First off I was taken aback by all of these heretofore unknown, by me, minor roles in the life of a church: precentor, sexton, warden (though I heard of a church warden pipe)... and others. In many instances living in the church. I did some background reading on some of these roles and came across an instance where one old church in some English town, has the role of sexton still in place... the sexton is given a house to live in and the same family has performed that role for generations. That's just beautiful. Maybe this is specific to the Church of England though.... I dunno.

So far into the book I can see the similarities with him and Dickens regarding social reform. The Warden involves themes of church dignitaries taking too much for themselves and sloughing off their responsibility to the poor.

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Interesting section from the book.

Members from the CoE have come under some fire for funds supposedly intended for the poor being used to provide CoE clergy their annual salaries.
A church reformer has his sites set on taking them down. The Church is going to rely on the help of an attorney, Sir Abraham Haphazard, who is currently engaged in his own attack on the Catholic Church:

Sir Abraham Haphazard was deeply engaged in preparing a bill for the mortification of papists, to be called the "Convent Custody Bill," the purport of which was to enable any Protestant clergyman over fifty years of age to search any nun whom he suspected of being in possession of treasonable papers or Jesuitical symbols; and as there were to be a hundred and thirty-seven clauses in the bill, each clause containing a separate thorn for the side of the papist, and as it was known the bill would be fought inch by inch, by fifty maddened Irishmen, the due construction and adequate dovetailing of it did consume much of Sir Abraham's time. The bill had all its desired effect. Of course it never passed into law; but it so completely divided the ranks of the Irish members, who had bound themselves together to force on the ministry a bill for compelling all men to drink Irish whiskey, and all women to wear Irish poplins, that for the remainder of the session the Great Poplin and Whiskey League was utterly harmless.

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This description of the newspaper Jupiter, but all print media in general is fantastic.

So, the warden mentioned above receives alotted funds from a will established many years prior. The warden receives more than a lawyer-church reformer thought fit so this fella searches for the original will.

In the meantime the lawyers friend, who runs Jupiter, published a very harsh story about the affair. Which led to the public having a very acrimonious view of the warden. Who is actually a good man and one who does not set his own wages.

But this section on the power of print media:

Who has not heard of Mount Olympus,—that high abode of all the powers of type, that favoured seat of the great goddess Pica, that wondrous habitation of gods and devils, from whence, with ceaseless hum of steam and never-ending flow of Castalian ink, issue forth fifty thousand nightly edicts for the governance of a subject nation?

Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a sceptre. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits there,—and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it. So it is with Mount Olympus. Should a stranger make his way thither at dull noonday, or during the sleepy hours of the silent afternoon, he would find no acknowledged temple of power and beauty, no fitting fane for the great Thunderer, no proud façades and pillared roofs to support the dignity of this greatest of earthly potentates. To the outward and uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a somewhat humble spot,—undistinguished, unadorned,—nay, almost mean. It stands alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the densest throng of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd; a small secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by quite unambitious people at the easiest rents. "Is this Mount Olympus?" asks the unbelieving stranger. "Is it from these small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops are to be guided, lords and commons controlled, judges instructed in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and orange-women in the management of their barrows?" "Yes, my friend—from these walls. From here issue the only known infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies. This little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated,—ay, and much stranger too,—self-believing!—a pope whom, if you cannot obey him, I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of doing;—one who can excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the pale of men's charity; make you odious to your dearest friends, and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!" Oh heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!