of ecclesiastics, was thus completed by the secular power, and a vast amount of Church property was in this manner irretrievably separated from religious uses, despite the warnings and remonstrances of the out-spoken Latimer. Not even first-fruits and tenths escaped the grasp of the royal spoiler, though he laid his hands on them with the gracious provision that a new incumbent should not be charged with the payment of tenths for his first year in addition to his first-fruits; seeing that these last were indeed the whole amount of his living in the king's books, and that few birds bear plucking twice in one year. In the reign of the better-minded Anne, these appropriations would seem to have laid heavily on the royal conscience, and a worthy effort was made, not indeed to remit them, but under the name of Queen Anne's Bounty, to set them apart as a separate fund for the general good of the Church; a fund which, augmented from various sources, and held in trust with a large amount of modern Church endowment money, is administered at considerable cost by a body of influential governors; who, in their practical views of Church extension, shared in the general dormancy of the English until recent days, if even now they are fully awake to the opportunities they enjoy.

Having called the attention of our readers to the parochial clergy of England as being on the whole a deserving body, claiming from their countrymen, as the least they can ask, the benefit of common justice in the protection of their temporal rights; having also shown the unhappy precedents which exist for making them fair objects of plunder, to the great injury of the Church's available revenues, we now come to the practical object which we have in view, viz. to give a brief review, supported by facts and details, of the chief items of those many oppressive burdens which are the subject of our complaint, and which, by a gradual process of accumulation, have made such inroads into clerical income, that, in many cases, a benefice of considerable gross value in the eyes of the public is hardly worth the holding, except for the respectability of the position. which it imparts. The life of a country clergyman, from first to last, is one of unceasing demands upon his purse, beyond all proportion with his receipts, if only his case is fairly compared with any other species of income. Let us trace a not uncommon specimen of this career from its very outset. A college education is in the first place necessary, which is a matter of great expense, and often leaves behind it very diminished resources with which to begin real life. If no fellowship is in prospect, and if no special interest or talents give the hope of brighter fortunes, a title for orders has to be sought for in the humbler fields of the clerical profession. A stipend of 50l. a-year is thus obtained, out of which it often happens that 5 per

cent. has to be paid to a clerical agent,' unwarily employed to procure this splendid income. The candidate for orders then presents himself for ordination; and although it may have appeared to his innocent mind beforehand, that the Bishop had a sufficient income to pay his own secretary, and that the state might dispense with stamp-duty on his entering a vocation which promised for a time so little remuneration, and enjoyed so little protection, yet he is called on to contribute about 3., or 6 per cent. out of his first year's income, in the shape of fees to the diocesan functionaries, including the government stamp. Out of the residue of the 50%. he is then supposed to 'live like a gentleman' for a whole year, till the same process recurs at his admission into priest's orders. On each occasion he has also to encounter considerable expense in travelling to the place of ordination, and in living at hotels for the greater part of the week. Some Bishops have even found it in their conscience to summon candidates for ordination to pass this most solemn period of their lives amid the excitement and costly living of the metropolis; but cases of this gross injustice are becoming daily rarer; and it must be recorded, to the credit of our own days, that several episcopal palaces are opened to all the candidates for ordination, who, throughout the Ember-weeks, receive lodging and such moderate and becoming hospitality as the season justifies from their episcopal hosts.

After two years we may hope that our typical curate obtains 100l. a-year, an income which must satisfy him for an indefinite length of time. As, however, we are not discussing the peculiar grievances of unbeneficed clergymen, we shall at once pass over to the period, when, by some chance, or in reward for peculiar merit, he is presented to a living, the income of which would seem to promise him a comfortable subsistence for life. The time has now arrived when he is about to fulfil the exquisitely poetical idea of the village pastor, or the country parson (call him which you will), with an easy though frugal competence, which will allow him also to devote his fair share of liberality to objects of charity and to other holy purposes.

What, however, is the first touch of real life that meets him, after he has uttered words of thanksgiving for the improved hopes and prospects of his family circle, and after he has received the congratulations of too credulous friends? All is not gold that glitters. He finds the induction itself a rather expensive process, and has probably to raise 50l. for this purpose alone; though what advantage either he or the Church are to derive from this payment is a point about which he is never able

1 We rejoice that the intervention of extortionate agents in all arrangements about titles and curacies is now wholly unnecessary, in consequence of the Registry lately opened. for these purposes by the Additional Curates' Society.

to obtain a clear explanation. The episcopal secretary is a man of business, makes his charge, receives his money; but satisfies no vain curiosity by answering questions that refer to bygone history, or the definite object of the payments which (we are blandly told) he is but the passive instrument of demanding.

Once inducted, and safely landed on the shores of a fixed clerical position as a beneficed clergyman, he may perhaps fancy that all will now go smooth. But in these days of newly enforced residence, it is a very common thing to find that a parsonage-house has to be built forthwith, with money borrowed on the living from that thrifty lender, Queen Anne's Bounty, the repayment of which will press heavily upon him or his successors for thirty years to come. Then he is a lucky man if he does not find it incumbent on him to spend a large sum either in building a schoolroom, or providing a schoolmaster, or in both, aided but very insufficiently by private subscriptions or public societies. It is not improbable, also, that he will have to lay out a considerable sum on the church, unless he is content to submit to arrangements that will be a constant annoyance. After all these things are set on foot, the fact also begins to dawn on him, that his rates and taxes are much heavier than he contemplated, and that they reduce the ideal value of his living to something painfully below his original estimate. He then has to draw in his whole scheme of expenditure and usefulness, or becomes involved; everybody is at him for money, some because they suspect he is poor, and others because they imagine the parson to be always rich. Then follow a series of years during which his family expenses necessarily increase, and his parochial burdens multiply, owing to the system, as we hope presently to explain, by which these are mismanaged in the hands of local authorities.

Oppressed by all these adverse circumstances, he is discouraged in his work; secular cares destroy in his mind that calm habit of reflection which is essential to the proper discharge of all spiritual offices; and if no timely aid comes in, which by a kind Providence is often, we acknowledge, the case, he has to struggle on, severely testing his powers of endurance, and his ability to maintain the honour and dignity of his holy calling. Patience under adversity, we have every reason to feel sure, is the rule, though exceptional cases may occur which bring discredit on the Church. But it may be said that individuals in every class of life will always be found in difficulties, and that no proofs of peculiar hardships can be made out from the mere fact that clergymen are occasionally involved as well as others. We do not, however, wish to make this our proof; we start from the presumption itself, supported by other facts, that clerical income is unjustly taxed, and only appeal to cases

of distress in order to show the results; though we must honestly confess that the worst instances of clerical involvement with which we are acquainted do not happen among the sort of cases we are describing, but among those who, if it were not for their own negligence and carelessness, ought to be under more than usually favourable circumstances of life. It is, however, with full confidence in the justice of our remarks that we appeal to much struggling endurance and anxiety of mind among the poorer beneficed clergy of our Church, which may fairly be traced to the very heavy and unexpected burdens incident to clerical income.

Considerable private means are, indeed, usually necessary to enable a clergyman to undertake the charge of a living, with any prospect of comfort to himself or usefulness to his parish. Is this, however, a right system? and ought the Church thus to depend on the private wealth of her Clergy? It is too plain that such a state of things must have a very injurious effect on patronage, and must in great measure preclude any fair system of promotion by the rules of merit or experience.

The ministry of the English Church, as at present constituted, depends too much on the self-support of some thousands of clergy, who have money of their own, who do not really live on their ecclesiastical stipend, and whose whole position involves, as we have said, a great mixture of secular and religious character. The family living or the purchased advowson, if the purchase has been prudently conducted, i. e. not on borrowed money, but with a handsome balance left over the purchase money to meet the expenses of induction, &c., are arrangements which generally end smoothly enough. A gentlemanly or a rich incumbent is thus provided, who spends his days unharassed by care, and with every opportunity of usefulness in his parochial charge. But hardships which are lost sight of in such cases, become apparent and very serious to a clergyman without capital, who expects to live, as Scripture requires, of his ministry, and has earned his way to a small living by diligent service as a curate. The career of such an one, passed in the harassing anxieties to which he is often exposed, but too surely proves that the possession of private fortunes is almost a necessity to priests of the English Church, if they are to live with any comfort or advantage as beneficed clergymen, in all such parishes as are not endowed with unusual amplitude.

This of itself is surely an evil. A working body of Clergy should open its ranks to other merits besides those of money or family. Talent, zeal, ministerial powers, theological learning, ought to have their influence, and ought to be remunerated with competent maintenance, in the Church of the richest nation in the world,-a Church which, though no longer rich in the

endowment of her ministry regarded as a whole, does yet exhibit here and there most striking contrasts to the picture we have drawn of suffering and endurance on the part of many.

Without, then, denying that good results may follow from the admixture of rich men among our country clergy, we claim that they should afford no pretext for any laxity in supporting the full rights of ecclesiastical property strictly so called. It is this property which is available for the true and permanent interests of the nation, which is or might be at command to enlist in the cause of religion active and good men, who may yet be without money either to purchase good livings, or to accept those which are but the vehicles of taxation and of many unequal burdens.

Church property at this day is looked on with very jealous eyes by many in our legislative bodies and elsewhere. It is needful, therefore, that its bearings be well understood, that the analogies and distinctions between secular and ecclesiastical property be well defined, and that the various charges which detract from the value of the latter should be fully recognised before others are imposed, or before the incomes of the Clergy, according to the vulgar estimate of their value, are dealt with as available property by soi-disant Church reformers. Too many who talk on these subjects have never seen an incumbent's balance-sheet at the end of the year, nor have any notion of the small amount which is often left for private expenditure. They judge from a few isolated cases of wealth, without any true comprehension of the large proportion of the Clergy, who, though in possession of a gross income which sounds well, yet really live on their private means, and, if dependant only on the Church's offerings, must present to the world a very different figure to what they do,

It is time, however, that we appeal now to facts and individual instances which may bear out our general remarks. A few such instances, by no means peculiar or selected ones, have been kindly supplied for our use by incumbents whom we can fully trust, and who, on public grounds, have aided our inquiries with the fervent hope that some remedy may be found for the hardships which they experience in themselves, and see in others.

The many separate grievances which form the aggregate of fiscal and other burdens exclusively borne by the Clergy will, in the course of our article, be considered under distinct heads; but, in the first instance, we shall lay before our readers two or three examples, as they have been forwarded to us, of their total amount, the income being also stated out of which they have to be paid. Persons who are not acquainted with these charges will be rather startled at their enormity, and wonder how it is that the rural clergy of our Church get on as well as they do,