Jonathan Swift

Swift as a hardworking clergyman, caring for the poor, upholding a standard of decency in worship which was then almost unknown, practicing habits of prayer which he carefully concealed from the eyes of his friends - such is the theme of this book, which, omitting the well-worn subjects dear to the literary critic, succeeds in giving a new picture of the man himself. The real purpose of these chapters is to give an outline of Swift's religious life, and to sketch something of the work he did during his thirty-two years as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. It is particularly necessary to do this in Swift's case, because he himself was so singularly unwilling to advertise the fact that he had a religion of any sort. At the first casual glance Swift would seem to have little interest in Christianity. It does not leap to the mind at once that Swift was a Church dignitary. Far more publicity attaches to his writings than to his Deanship. The average reader thinks of Swift as the author of Gulliver's Travels and as the writer of bitterly cutting and often scurrilous satires. He does not often realize that Swift was a great Dean.