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ON 
 
 CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 AND 
 
 NEW ENDOWMENTS. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B.A. 
 
 PERPETUAL CURATE OF BILLERICAY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RIYINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE; 
 
 AND AT THE ADDITIONAL CURATES’ SOCIETY'S OFFICE, 
 
 1 , WHITEHALL. 
 

 
 * ■>. 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
<Z*€A OC& G^CCc,^ / cre^t~£>t* 
 
 CM<r 
 
 ON 
 
 CHURCH EXTENSION 
 
 AND 
 
 NEW ENDOWMENTS. 
 
 Our present purpose requires that we should briefly 
 retrace the history of the establishment of the Church of 
 England, so far as is necessary to show the origin and 
 history of its endowments. 
 
 The missionaries who converted our Saxon forefathers, 
 addressed themselves first to their kings, as our mis- 
 sionaries in South and Central Africa now address them- 
 selves first to the chiefs. Each king of the Heptarchy, as 
 he was converted to the faith, encouraged the Missionary 
 Bishop and his staff of clergy to settle at his chief town. 
 He helped them to build their rude wooden cathedral 
 church, and their common home adjoining, and endowed 
 them with lands and manors for their support. At first 
 the Bishop and his clergy lived together under the shadow 
 of their Church in the royal town, and thence the Bishop 
 sent his clergy, and went himself as need required, on mis- 
 sionary journeys through his diocese, which was conter- 
 minous with the kingdom of the Heptarch who had taken 
 \ -them under his protection. These itinerating clergy visited 
 
 A 2 
 
4 
 
 the villages and hamlets thinly scattered amidst the Saxon 
 forests. They naturally addressed themselves first to the 
 thanes, around whose manor houses the rustic population was 
 grouped. Wherever they succeeded in gathering together 
 a little company of believers, there they revisited from 
 time to time, to minister to them the word and sacraments ; 
 and they gradually extended their operations wider and 
 wider among the scattered people, as opportunity served. 
 
 Among other things these missionaries taught to their 
 converts, that Christ their Master had ordained for the main- 
 tenance of the ministers of the Christian Church, a provision 
 similar to that which he had before ordained for the main- 
 tenance of the priests andlevites of the old Jewish Church ; 
 “they who served the altar lived of the altar, and so 
 they who preached the gospel were to live of the gospel.” 
 They taught that this parallelism extended to the pro- 
 portion of the provision which was to be made ; so that it 
 was every Christian man’s duty to give a tithe of his sub- 
 stance to God. We are told that obedience to this doctrine 
 came the easier to the Saxons, because they had been 
 accustomed to give a tithe of their substance to their 
 heathen priests. This tithe at first was all paid into a 
 common Church fund, which was under the control and 
 dispensation of the Bishop. 
 
 Archbishop Theodore, who presided over the English 
 Church from 668 to 693, was the founder of the 
 Parochial organization of the Church of England, whose 
 object was to secure to the people the regular ministrations 
 of resident pastors, instead of the occasional visits of itin- 
 erating missionaries. He exhorted the thanes to build a 
 Church on each manor for the honour of God, and the 
 comfort/of themselves and their people, and to provide a 
 dwelling-house beside it, and a parcel of glebe, for the resi- 
 dence of the clergyman. As an inducement, the Archbishop 
 
5 
 
 permitted that every thane so doing should in future pay the 
 tithe of his manor to his own pastor, instead of sending it 
 to the Bishop's common fund; and further, that he might 
 select his own pastor out of the general body of the clergy. 
 The system inaugurated by Archbishop Theodore was 
 gradually carried out all over the kingdom ; and by the 
 time of the Norman Conquest the parochial organization 
 of the Church of England was completed. As each 
 kingdom of the Heptarchy was in ecclesiastical language a 
 diocese, so each manor had become a parish; the clergy- 
 man to whose spiritual cure (care) it was committed, was 
 styled its rector (ruler) ; and the choice of the rector, i.e. 
 the patronage of the benefice, continued to be vested as of 
 right in the Lord of the Manor. 
 
 As I sit writing, I overlook a wide extent of beautiful 
 country, undulating, and well wooded. Southward, the 
 Thames is gleaming, like a broad line of molten silver, 
 under the morning sun ; eastward, there is a glimpse of 
 the river Crouch over the shoulder of a hill. I can count 
 fifteen churches which dot the landscape. Little Burstead 
 and Great Burstead; and the spire of Laindon, crowning a 
 huge natural tumulus in the middle of the valley ; and 
 Laindon Hill; and Basildon tower; and the shingled spire 
 of Bamsden Crays peeping above its churchyard oaks ; and 
 the gable of Bamsden-Bellhouse gleaming white by the 
 reflected sunshine, and the grey tower of Bun well; and on 
 the hill to the left are the spire of Stock, and the brick 
 towers of Downham and Bettendon ; and the sky line of 
 the eastern hill is broken by some specks, which, on this 
 clear day, I can distinguish to be the church tower and mill 
 of Bayleigh, and further left the tower of Canewdon ; 
 Thundersley, on the side of the same hill, is buried among 
 its trees ; while through the gap to the south-east, I can 
 just distinguish in the distance a clump of trees crowning 
 
6 
 
 a singular natural tumulus, which rises out of the low 
 ground by the shore of the Thames, and within that clump 
 of trees is hidden the church of Pitsea. They are all within 
 a few miles of one another: they are all Saxon names 
 except one (Canewdon), which may stand to us as a 
 memorial of the Danish invasions in Saxon times, and which 
 was really built as a monument of Canute's victory at 
 the great battle of Ashingdon. I try to picture to myself 
 the country as it was in those old Saxon times of which 
 I have been writing. The whole landscape was thickly 
 covered with common and forest, like the Australian 
 or New Zealand Bush. The population was but thinly 
 scattered, for there were then only two millions of people 
 in the land which now bears twenty millions. The 
 Bursteads, and the Laindons, and the Ramsdens, and 
 Basildon, and Downham, and the rest, were then mere 
 clearings in the English Bush, connected with one another 
 by little-traversed footpaths and bridle ways through wood 
 and over moor. Each clearing had its manor-house, with 
 the cottages of the labourers grouped hard by, round 
 the village green ; and within each clearing, where those 
 towers and spires and bell-cots now form eye-marks in 
 the wide landscape, there was even then a little church on 
 the same site, a small rude structure, probably, built of 
 axe-hewn logs, with unglazed openings, but at least as 
 good as the hall of the manor-house ; and beside each 
 church was the little timber house which the thane had 
 built for his parson. And if we could pass broad England 
 under review, and restore it in imagination to what it was 
 in Saxon times, we should get a very similar succession of 
 landscapes ; pictures of forest and marsh and moor, dotted 
 thickly over with patches of clearing, each clearing with 
 its manor-house, and hamlet, and church, and parsonage ; 
 with only here and there in a county, a little town, not 
 
7 
 
 larger than our smallest market towns ; and only here and 
 there in the kingdom, a great city, surrounded by huge old 
 walls of Roman building rising sheer out of the unin- 
 closed meadow land, over whose grim circuit, as we look 
 down upon it from the neighbouring hill, we can see the 
 straggling lines of wooden gables and thatched and 
 shingled roofs, with broad spaces between of garden and 
 orchard trees, and two or three churches in their clear 
 space of churchyard, lifting their square towers through 
 the thin blue haze of wood smoke. And ever since, from 
 that day to this, while the clearings have been extended 
 until their circumferences have touched, and only strips 
 and corners of primeval forest and moor are left; while 
 dynasties have been swept away, and wars and revolutions 
 have rolled their waves over the land ; while the people 
 have not only multiplied ten-fold, but have changed from 
 Saxons to Englishmen; while manufactures have been 
 created, and great towns have sprung up ; still there, 
 through all changes, have stood the Saxon churches 
 and parsonages — altered, enlarged, rebuilt, most of them, 
 but still on the old foundations ; and still, through all 
 changes, the endowments of the Saxon thanes have main^- 
 tained a constant succession of clergy to minister to God 
 in those old churches, and to labour for the temporal and 
 spiritual welfare of those successive and ever-increasing 
 generations, who have gradually converted the scattered 
 clearings of the Saxon forest into this broad and populous 
 England. If the maintenance of the ministry by the 
 tithes of the people is not an ordinance of divine obliga- 
 tion in the Christian Church, it is at least a wonderfully 
 wise adaptation of the divine pattern in the Jewish Church ; 
 it has had the seal of God^s blessing upon it, and has been 
 the mainstay of religion in this realm of England for well 
 nigh a thousand years. 
 
8 
 
 About the time of the Norman Conquest there was a 
 great revival of monasticism throughout Christendom. 
 The Norman Conquerors introduced into England the 
 custom of endowing these religious communities not only 
 with manors and lands, but also with the parochial 
 benefices of which they had become the patrons. This 
 was done by the papal permission, a sufficient portion of 
 the benefice, to the satisfaction of the Bishop, being 
 reserved for the maintenance of a Vicar. The result of 
 this system was to increase the wealth of the religious 
 houses by the impoverishment of the parochial churches — - 
 they robbed Paul to pay Peter. The result was found to 
 be in many cases injurious to the interests of the church 
 and people ; the sources out of which the parochial clergy 
 had maintained their local hospitalities and charities were 
 cut off, and the stipend that remained was often so small 
 that it was difficult to obtain competent men to serve the 
 cures. All this did not take place without remonstrance. 
 
 Bishop Kennett, in his work on Impropriations, has col- 
 lected a whole series of protests, from the twelfth century 
 downwards, and from all kinds of men, from the parochial 
 clergy, from the bishops, from the patrons, from the 
 parishioners, from parliament, from convocation. Monks 
 themselves were found sometimes opposing their own 
 convent in an attempt to appropriate a rectory ; the 
 different religious orders often accused one another of 
 greediness after tithes ; and even one or two of the popes 
 set their faces against the system. But on the whole, the 
 religious orders and their Norman patrons were too 
 strong. By the time of the Reformation, no less than 
 4 , 692 * parishes, including a great number of the town 
 
 * The Ecclesiastical Commissioners’ Report of 1835, gave 4,662 as the 
 number of impropriate benefices when the impropriate tithe amounted to 
 1,000, 000£. a year. 
 
9 
 
 parishes, had become impropriate ; and when the Council 
 of Trent at length formally pronounced against impropria- 
 tions, forbade them in future, annulled all which had been 
 made within fourteen years, and ordered that out of the 
 earlier impropriations a competent augmentation of the 
 vicarage should be made, within a year of the end of the 
 Council, it came too late to benefit the Church of England. 
 It was indeed the hope and expectation of the people, 
 that when the religious houses were suppressed, the impro- 
 priate tithes would have been restored to their parishes. 
 And there seems at first to have been such an intention in 
 the king's mind; but “tithe-corn made good bread," and 
 Henry and his courtiers found appetite for it all. 
 
 We must, in justice, recur to that middle-age period, 
 during which the parochial churches were being impo- 
 verished by impropriations, to note that during the same 
 period there were some important additions made to the 
 machinery for the spiritual instruction and care of the 
 people. The Monks doubtless did something indirectly 
 for the spiritual welfare of the people, by maintaining 
 schools and cultivating theological learning, though they 
 did not personally employ themselves in pastoral work; 
 on the contrary, their profession was to seclude them- 
 selves from the world, in order, by contemplation, and 
 prayer, and self-mortification, to cultivate their own 
 growth in holiness. But the four orders of Friars were 
 founded on purpose to supplement the labours of the 
 parochial clergy. They were orders of itinerant preachers 
 — lay preachers — home missionaries; and Sir H. Stephen 
 describes the preaching of the Dominicans and Franciscans, 
 at their first establishment in the thirteenth century, as 
 resembling in tone that of the followers of Wesley and 
 Whitfield, and producing a similar revival of religion 
 
10 
 
 among the people. The history of these orders has some 
 important lessons for us in these days. Their liberty to go 
 preaching and performing other clerical functions, without 
 any permission or control from the rector of the parish, 
 or the bishop of the diocese, into which they intruded, led 
 to perpetual jealousies and rivalries between the friars and 
 the parish clergy. Again, their dependence upon the hos- 
 pitality and alms of the people for support had its natural 
 consequences; the wandering preacher was tempted to 
 cultivate the arts of popularity ; and men who had no real 
 call to the office, undertook it for the sake of the idle, 
 wandering life, and the alms which it authorised them 
 to collect. 
 
 Again, during this period chantries were founded in 
 many churches, often more than one in the same church, 
 and every chantry was served by a special clergyman. 
 In some cases, these additional clergymen were enjoined 
 by the deed of their foundation to help in the spiritual 
 care of the people ; doubtless, in the majority of cases 
 they did, to a greater or less degree, lighten the labours 
 of the parochial clergy.* The number of these friar 
 
 * The parish from which these pages are dated supplies a rather re- 
 markable illustration of the text. There was a chantry here of unknown 
 foundation, hut the chantry chapel, instead of being an addition to the 
 parish church of Burstead, or a part of the church itself, partitioned off by 
 parclose screens, was situated a mile and a half away from the parish 
 church, in the market town of Billericay, which had sprung up at the junc- 
 tion of two great highways, probably long after the Saxon thane had 
 erected his church near his own burghsted. The only existing remain of 
 the old chapel is a brick tower of the fifteenth century. There is no 
 doubt that the chapel served as a chapel of ease, and its priest as the 
 chaplain of the town of Billericay. At the suppression of the chantries 
 in the time of Edward VI., this was given to the Tyrrel of that day, 
 who put the endowment into his pocket, and generously presented the 
 building to the inhabitants. They had henceforward to provide a chaplain 
 for themselves ; until quite recently the town was made an ecclesiastical dis- 
 trict, and endowed with 120?. a year by the Governors of Queen Anne’s 
 bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 
 
11 
 
 preachers at the time of their suppression was about 3,000.* 
 The number of chantries was about 3,000.f Thus, at a 
 time when the population had increased to about five 
 millions, the spiritual provision for the people of England 
 and Wales was reduced at a stroke to what it had been 
 at the time of the Conquest, when it numbered only about 
 two millions ; while, at the same time, the property, out of 
 which additional spiritual provision might have been made, 
 was seized for lay uses. 
 
 The seizure of tithe into secular hands, and its dese- 
 cration to secular uses, was a sacrilege in the eyes of the 
 people; and it did not pass without protest against its 
 fulfilment, or without attempts to remedy the mischief. 
 Bishop Kennett gives a series of protests to Parliament 
 and the Sovereign, by such men as Cranmer, Latimer, 
 Hooper, Grindall, and Whitgift. James I., in the first 
 year of his reign, published his intention to take steps 
 for amending the evil, but the design failed. Charles I. 
 entertained similar good intentions ; and in the third year 
 of his reign, a bill was actually brought into the House of 
 Commons, “ For Augmentation of Ministers’ Livings.”! 
 
 * I cannot find any record of the actual number. The figure in the text 
 is only a rough estimate from the total number of Regulars at the suppres- 
 sion, as given by Newcourt. t Herbert’s Henry VIII. 
 
 X A speech delivered on this occasion by Mr. Benjamin Bridyer, contains 
 some remarkable passages, as pertinent now as then : “ In the first year 
 of the king, and the second convention, I first moved for the increase, and 
 enlarging of poor ministers’ livings. I showed how necessary it was to be 
 done ; how shameful it was that it had been so long neglected. There 
 were then as now, many accusations against scandalous ministers. I was 
 told to tell the house that there were scandalous livings too, which were 
 much the cause of the other ; livings of five marks and five pounds a year ; 
 that men of worth and of good parts would not be muzzled up to such 
 pittances ; that there were some places in England which were scarce in 
 Christendom, where God was little better known than among the Indians- 
 I declared also, that to plant good ministers in good livings, was the 
 
12 
 
 The bill did not pass the Parliament, but so strongly 
 did men feel on the subject that a Society was formed for 
 raising money to buy impropriate tithes, and dispense it 
 to needy ministers. The Society made a great error in its 
 mode of doing the work ; it did not restore the tithes to 
 the parishes to which they belonged, but kept them in its 
 own hands, and dispensed pensions to such ministers, and 
 in such sums, as. it chose. This course was considered to 
 be so objectionable and so illegal that an information was 
 filed against the feoffees by the Attorney-General, and the 
 Society was dissolved. It is much to be regretted that 
 through this unwise conduct of the work the whole design 
 should have miscarried, for we are told that “it is 
 incredible what large sums were advanced in a short time 
 towards so laudable an employment;” so much so, that it 
 was “verily believed that within fifty years rather pur- 
 chases than money would have been wanting to them the 
 impropriators very generally assisting the good work by 
 selling their impropriations at a very favourable valuation.* 
 The Commonwealth actually did increase some of the 
 small livings, but at the Restoration what had thus been 
 done was held to be illegal, and the augmentations reverted 
 to the sources from which they had been derived. 
 Charles II., however, endeavoured to obtain a general 
 
 strongest and surest means to establish true religion : that though the 
 calling of ministers be ever so glorious within, yet outward poverty will 
 bring contempt upon them, especially among those who measure men by 
 the acre, and weigh them by the pound, which, indeed, is the greatest 
 part of men.” 
 
 * Another society has been formed of late years (the Tithe Redemption 
 Trust, 1, Adam Street, Adelphi, Strand), for the purpose of purchasing 
 impropriate tithes, and restoring them to their proper parishes ; and to 
 this Society we wish every success. The plan which is advocated in 
 these pages, is larger than that of the Tithe Redemption Trust, in that 
 it proposes to make new endowments ; the investment of the new endow- 
 ment in the impropriate tithe of the parish, where it can be accomplished, 
 being, however, contemplated as a feature in the plan. 
 
13 
 
 augmentation of the impropriate livings ; in obedience to 
 his letters the bishops and ecclesiastical corporations did 
 actually make considerable augmentations of the parishes 
 in their appropriation ; but it was not found practicable to 
 induce the lay impropriators generally to follow this good 
 example. Queen Anne gave up the first fruits and tenths 
 of benefices, which the clergy of the unreformed Church 
 had been accustomed to pay to the Pope, which Henry 
 had seized for the Crown, and which had been paid to the 
 Crown ever since, to form a Fund for the augmentation of 
 small livings, which is known by the name of Queen 
 Anne’s Bounty. And from that day to this, with the 
 exception of isolated instances, nothing has been done to 
 remedy this great injury which the rapacity of Henry 
 VIII. and of the governors of Edward VI. have inflicted 
 upon the Church ; so that up to the beginning of this 
 century, the endowments of the Church of England were 
 still no other than what was left of the original endow- 
 ments of glebe and tithe, which our Saxon ancestors had 
 made before the Norman Conquest. 
 
 The consequences of the impoverishment of the Church 
 at the Reformation were greater than we should, perhaps, 
 at first sight have been prepared to expect. Many of the 
 vicarages were so small in value, that even before the 
 Reformation, when the clergy were unmarried, and the 
 fees and offerings were numerous, competent men could 
 hardly be found to take them. The case was now much 
 worse ; the vicarages were still poorer than they were by 
 the loss of many of the fees and donations which the 
 unreformed religion, under the name of “ Altarage,” 
 brought to the ministers ; and now the clergy had 
 wives and families to maintain. The consequences 
 were most lamentable. “ The clerical profession,” says 
 the late Professor Blunt, in his admirable little history 
 
14 
 
 of the Reformation, “ no longer held out the same in- 
 ducements to men of liberal acquirements and liberal 
 minds to enter into it. A very considerable proportion 
 of the parishes of England were served by priests utterly 
 ignorant and unlettered.* The patrons had given their 
 benefices to their menials as wages, — to their gardeners, 
 to the keepers of their hawks and hounds — these were 
 the Incumbents ; or else they had let in fee both glebe 
 and parsonage, so that whoever was presented would 
 have neither roof to dwell under nor land to live upon, 
 but too happy if his vicarial tithes afforded him a chamber 
 at an alehouse, and the worshipful society of the dicers 
 and drinkers who frequented it, — nay, himself, perhaps, 
 the landlord.” Bishop Jewel says to the same purpose, 
 “ By reason of the impropriations of vicarages in many 
 places, and in the properest market' towns, they are so 
 simple that no man can live upon them, and therefore 
 no man will take them. There is no house so spoiled 
 as the house of the Lord; there is no servant so little 
 rewarded as the servant of Christ and the disposer of 
 the mysteries of God.” This depreciation in the character 
 and status of a large proportion of the clergy continued for 
 hundreds of years. Lord Macaulay's description of them, 
 in the time of William III., may be exaggerated ; its 
 especial defect, perhaps, is that it puts a caricatured por- 
 trait of the condition of the poor vicars, and curates, and 
 chaplains, as if it fairly represented the whole body of the 
 clergy ; but still it is a portrait of a large number of the 
 clergy of that day. During the last century the character 
 
 * How ignorant and unlettered, it is hard for us to realize in the 
 present day. The questions which Bishop Hooper put to his clergy in his 
 primary visitation, will give us some notion of it. They were such as 
 these : “ How many commandments are there ? When written ? Can 
 you say them by heart ? What are the articles of the Christian faith ? 
 Can you repeat them? Can you recite the Lord’s Prayer ?” 
 
15 
 
 and status of the clergy have gradually improved, until at 
 this moment the clergy of the Church of England form a 
 body as respectable for social position, learning, piety, and 
 zeal, as any body of clergy which any branch of the 
 Church has ever possessed. 
 
 But those who look deeply into the great movement, 
 which began at the end of last century, and in the midst 
 of which we have the happiness to live — a movement which 
 we may call a new Reformation — they see that causes are 
 at work which again threaten a depreciation in the status 
 and character of the clergy. 
 
 In the last century, the permission of pluralities made 
 a decent maintenance for a less numerous clergy at the 
 expense of the efficiency of the church. The abolition of 
 pluralities was doubtless a right and wise step ; but if it 
 has had the good effect of increasing the number of the 
 clergy, and putting a resident clergyman into every parish, 
 it has also had the effect of putting a great number of 
 clergymen into benefices which do not afford them a 
 competent maintenance. 
 
 Let us look at the facts of the case. The Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners on their incorporation, took an accurate 
 account of the values of all the benefices in England and 
 Wales, — of the gross values from tithe, glebe, pew rents, 
 fees, Easter dues, and every other source whatever ; and 
 the results at which they arrived are thus presented to 
 the reader in a tabulated form. 
 
 There are in England and Wales — 
 
 1915 Benefices under 
 
 . . £100 
 
 1591 
 
 between £100 and 
 
 . . 150 
 
 1355 
 
 „ 150 „ 
 
 . .. 200 
 
 1964 
 
 „ 200 „ 
 
 . . 300 
 
 1317 „ 
 
 „ 300 „ 
 
 . . . 400 
 
10 
 
 830 
 
 Benefices between <£400 and 
 
 . . £500 
 
 504 
 
 )> 
 
 >> 
 
 500 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 600 
 
 337 
 
 » 
 
 >) 
 
 600 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 700 
 
 217 
 
 yy 
 
 }> 
 
 700 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 800 
 
 129 
 
 yy 
 
 yy 
 
 800 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 900 
 
 91 
 
 yy 
 
 yy 
 
 900 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 1000 
 
 137 
 
 9) 
 
 yy 
 
 1000 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 1500 
 
 31 
 
 >) 
 
 yy 
 
 1500 
 
 yy 
 
 . . 2000 
 
 18 
 
 >> 
 
 yy 
 
 2000 and 
 
 upwards. 
 
 We are quite sure that these figures will very much 
 astonish the great body of our lay readers, who have 
 always been accustomed to look upon the church as a 
 wealthy church, and have heard the Times talk vaguely of 
 “ several thousands of otiose and well beneficed clergy.” 
 Look into the figures a little, and they give such results 
 as these, that there are 3,506 livings whose gross yearly 
 value is under 150Z. a year; there are only 964 benefices 
 whose gross income is over500Z. a year; while the “rich” 
 livings, those over 1,00QZ. in gross annual value, are only 
 186 in number. These are the gross incomes ; after the 
 stipends of one, two, or three curates have been deducted, 
 and the subsidies to the schools and other charities, 
 and the thousand occasions have been provided for in 
 which there are expenses to be incurred, and no fund 
 available except the parson’s purse, the net balance left for 
 the maintenance of the parson and his family, and for his 
 hospitalities and private charities, is represented by a 
 much smaller cypher; indeed sometimes the difference 
 between the ostensible and the real value of a living is so 
 great, that it is no unusual thing for a man to decline a 
 rich town living, on the plea that he has only small private 
 means, and cannot afford to take it. 
 
 Again, the subdivision of our over populous parishes is 
 rapidly creating a new class of poor livings. There is 
 
17 
 
 hardly a large town in the kingdom which has not within 
 the last twenty years been thus subdivided. We revisit 
 some great town, which we knew in youth with its 
 one venerable spire or tower rising up out of the midst of 
 a dense mass of houses ; and we see, not only that the 
 population has increased, by the suburbs which the town 
 has sent out in various directions ; but we see, too, that the 
 Church has been busy among that population, by the spires, 
 and towers, and bell cots of new churches which have 
 sprung up too. We know that every one of those spires, 
 and towers, and bell cots, has a district of the town assigned 
 to it ; and that in that district an energetic clergyman is 
 labouring day and night ; and we thank God for the great 
 work which is being done in our day ; and we thank Him 
 again that we are permitted in the humblest way to help 
 in it. But then our thoughts wander on to the difficulties 
 of the work. We remember that each of those beautiful 
 new churches, built at the cost of many thousands of 
 pounds, is endowed with only 50 1. a year, and that the 
 clergyman’s gross income usually amounts only to about 
 120?. a year. We picture him to ourselves, toiling 
 year after year through a long life, amidst the inevitable 
 difficulties, anxieties, and disappointments of such a 
 charge ; and loaded besides with the difficulties, anxieties, 
 and cares of straitened circumstances; and then we 
 remember Bishop Jewel’s words, “No servant is so little 
 rewarded, as the servant of the Lord.” And we should be 
 disposed to cry out against the expenditure of those 
 thousands upon the beauty of the fabric, while the 
 minister was left to starve, if we did not remember that 
 the same liberal hearts who built those beautiful fabrics at 
 the cost of thousands of pounds, can with as much ease 
 raise as many more thousands to endow them withal; and 
 if we did not believe that they only need to have the 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 importance of such endowments clearly brought to their 
 minds, to induce them thus to complete the good work 
 which they have so nobly begun. There are already 
 some 2,000 of these new ecclesiastical districts; which 
 give a total of some 5,500 beneficed clergy, whose 
 BENEFICES ARE LESS IN GROSS ANNUAL VALUE THAN 150/. 
 A year ; and we look forward to a large addition to their 
 number. 
 
 These causes are already beginning to produce their 
 natural effects. Every now and then, of late years, the 
 press has teemed with discussions on the poverty of the 
 clergy; and the public generally have become aware of 
 the existence of one Society which collects old clothes 
 from the benevolent, and distributes them among the 
 poor clergy ; and of another Society which affords occa- 
 sional pecuniary assistance to clergymen in special distress. 
 But these are only eruptions thrown out by the evil which 
 is at work in the body. The real evil is, that a very large 
 number of the clergy, and they often occupying the most 
 difficult, laborious, and important spheres of labour, are in 
 straitened circumstances ; their usefulness is crippled by 
 the want of power to meet all those little expenses which 
 are involved in setting a-foot and keeping up any work for 
 the public good; their minds are distracted, and their 
 spirits depressed by the cares and anxieties of the res 
 angusta domi ; and their prestige and influence are injured 
 by their known poverty, for it is still as true as it was in 
 the time of Charles I., that u though the calling of 
 ministers be never so glorious within, yet outward poverty 
 will bring contempt upon them, especially among those 
 who measure men by the acre, and weigh them by the 
 pound, which indeed is the greatest part of men.” 
 
 Parents begin to question with themselves whether they 
 will incur all the expenses of a University education for 
 
19 
 
 a promising son with a view of his entering the Church, 
 when all the prospect before him is a curacy of 100Z. for 
 an indefinite number of years, and the chance of getting 
 preferred to one of these 5,500 benefices of less than 150Z. 
 — for the prospects of getting a better living, without money 
 to buy it, or family interest to procure it, are very small 
 indeed. It is true, at present, men of wealth will put their 
 sons into the Church with no better prospect than this, 
 because of the social status which the clergy hold ; but 
 let that prestige once begin to fade, and in a generation 
 we should fall down to a clergy both poor and despised. 
 
 This ought not to be. The rule which God has laid 
 down is, that “they who preach the Gospel, should live 
 of the Gospel ; ;; viz., by the contributions of those to 
 whom they preach. And certainly God did not con- 
 template that the wealthy laity should live in affluence 
 themselves, and calculate the living of their pastors 
 on a scale of the severest economy ; — “ Let him that is 
 taught in the Word minister unto him that teacheth in 
 all good things” We are not left to conjecture, or to 
 reason from what is manifestly fitting in such a case. 
 The law of God sets before us a standard; as they who 
 served the altar of God, in the Jewish church, lived by 
 the altar, so they that preach the Gospel ought to live of 
 the Gospel. Any one who will take the trouble to ascer- 
 tain what kind of living God ordained in definite detail 
 for his ministering servants in the Jewish Church, will 
 find that it was a very sufficient and even ample endow- 
 ment ; and this is the standard set up for the measure of 
 the provision which the laity are bidden by the Gospel to 
 provide for those who sow unto them spiritual things.* 
 
 * Lord Chancellor Bacon, in his considerations touching the edification 
 and pacification of the Church of England, declares it “ a constitution of 
 the Divine law, from which human laws cannot derogate, that those that 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 What we propose is not anything wild and extravagant. 
 We often hear kind-hearted persons say that no clergyman 
 ought to have less than 300/. a year. We do not contem- 
 plate anything approaching that degree of munificence. 
 It would be very undesirable to tempt men to take Holy 
 Orders for the sake of the loaves and fishes ; and we shall 
 have the cruelty to leave the five or six thousand curates 
 to their present stipends of from 50 /. to 100/. a year.* A 
 young man who enters the army or navy begins on 
 an equally low rate of pay ; and if he entered either of 
 the other learned professions he would have to begin 
 at 0, and work his way up to as many 0’s, with some 
 significant digit on their left hand, as Providence pleased. 
 But as a consolation to the curates, we would use all 
 our exertions to procure promotion for those who earned 
 it. We would preach aloud that the patron of a living 
 holds the benefice, not as a good thing to give to his son 
 or his friend's son, or to sell in open market to the best 
 bidder, but as a solemn trust on behalf of the parishioners; 
 that in presenting a clergyman to a cure of souls he incurs 
 a very solemn responsibility, second only to that of a 
 Bishop in receiving a candidate for Holy Orders ; a trust, 
 on whose proper exercise the welfare of the church and 
 the salvation of souls depends ; a trust, of whose exercise 
 the Great Head of the Church and Bishop of souls will 
 demand a strict account when he shall come to judge the 
 quick and dead. 
 
 To turn to the beneficed clergy. We would raise every 
 
 serve at the altar should live of the altar ; that those who dispense spiritual 
 things should reap temporal things, in a proportion not small or necessi- 
 tous, but plentiful and liberal.” 
 
 * Except that in some of the large town parishes, where the permanent 
 services of a man of superior ability and experience are desirable, we would 
 raise the stipend to 200Z. a year, and perhaps make its tenure permanent 
 under the title of lecturer. 
 
21 
 
 benefice to 200?. a year. In parishes of more importance,, 
 which demand the undivided attention and labours of 
 an able man, we would make the benefice equal to 
 300?. a year net. And there are many vicarages of market 
 towns where, if we had Fortunatus’s purse, or, still better, 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s power of raising a 
 million, totus teres atque rotundus , by the simple imposition 
 of Id. income-tax, we would think we did the Church 
 and nation a service by augmenting the living to 500?. 
 a year ; on the same principle that the Mayor of a 
 borough town, even under the Municipal Reform Act, is 
 allowed a salary, to enable him to maintain the dignity of 
 his office, and to promote good feeling by bringing his 
 citizens together in the exercise of a wide hospitality, 
 and to set a good example in local charities and subscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 And, to lay bare the very bottom of our wishes, we 
 should gladly see a Suffragan Bishop with 1,500?. a year 
 placed over every large town, such as Liverpool, Leeds 
 Birmingham, Sheffield, &c., &c., &c., to give organization 
 and comprehensiveness to the now isolated labours of 
 the clergy of such towns. And lastly, we should be 
 glad to see a large permanent order of Deacons, whether 
 they are to be maintained by a distinct provision, or left 
 to be paid out of the benefices of the clergy in whose 
 parishes they labour. 
 
 But at present our business is with the increase of 
 the incomes of the poor benefices. How is this to be 
 effected ? 
 
 The favourite scheme of those kind-hearted persons who 
 desire that no clergyman should have less than 300?. a 
 year, is, that the rich livings should be cut down to 
 increase the poor ones. But a glance at the table which 
 we have given at pp. 15, 16 will show that there are but 
 
22 
 
 very few livings which, in justice to their incumbents, 
 will hear any diminution; and a little farther inquiry 
 would show that the advowsons of the majority of those 
 which would bear a little paring are in private hands, 
 and that we have no right to diminish those benefices 
 without compensation to the patrons. 
 
 There do, however, already exist two funds for increas- 
 ing the endowments of small livings, and they are both 
 actually derived from a taxation of the existing property 
 of the Church. Queen Anne’s Bounty is derived from a 
 contribution which every clergyman is required by Act 
 of Parliament to give out of the first year’s income of 
 his living, and by a further annual payment proportioned 
 to the value of his living. The Governors of Queen Anne’s 
 Bounty distribute something over 10,000?. a year, in 
 capital sums of 100?., 150?., and 200?., funded or invested, 
 for the augmentation of seventy or eighty poor livings 
 annually. The funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 
 are derived from the surplus of the estates of the bishops, 
 and deans, and chapters; after allowing to those digni- 
 taries a certain annual stipend, lately fixed by Act of Par- 
 liament. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, after dealing 
 with a vast amount of Church property for twenty- 
 three years, at an annual cost for working expenses of 
 20,000?. a year, had in 1856 a surplus of 5,000?. to devote to 
 the increase of poor livings; in 1857 a surplus of 50,000?.; 
 in 1859 a surplus of 75,000?. The dispensers of both these 
 funds use them so as to elicit as much as possible from 
 private sources to meet their grants ; and of the private 
 benefactions thus elicited, we learn that a large proportion 
 is contributed by the clergy and their connexions.* 
 
 * A correspondent of the British Magazine , under the initials “ W. P.,” 
 in the volume for 1835, p. 330, gives a calculation founded on the official 
 documents of the Bounty Fund, that from the commencement of the fund 
 
23 
 
 It would take hundreds of years for these two funds to 
 bring up the benefices of England and Wales to the mode- 
 rate standard which we have suggested as desirable ; and 
 we cannot wait hundreds of years, doing gross injustice all 
 that time to millions of the clergy, and for all that time 
 crippling the efficiency of the Church. Whence, then, 
 are we to derive the funds ? 
 
 We have no hesitation in giving an answer. We ask 
 them of the laity of the Church. We appeal to their feel- 
 ing of personal kindness and esteem for the clergy ; to 
 
 up to 1835, the whole amount of private benefaction in aid of grants from 
 that fund amounted to 771,885Z. 9s. 6d ., of which (omitting shillings and 
 pence) there had been contributed by — 
 
 Trustees and Executors of Laymen £111,743 
 
 General subscriptions (many of them said to be assisted 
 
 by clergymen) 50,740 
 
 Noblemen 73,539 
 
 Private Individuals 259,669 
 
 Clergymen — 
 
 Dignitaries . . . . > £62,138 
 
 Private Clergy . 199,662 
 
 Colleges . 15,360 
 
 277,160 
 
 So that the clergy, from whose incomes the Royal Bounty is annually 
 drawn, have, in addition, been the most munificent of any class of society, 
 not only relatively but absolutely , in their benefactions towards the aug- 
 mentation of poor benefices. And not only are the clergy the greatest 
 contributors to the permanent augmentation of poor livings, but it is only 
 by the free devotion of their private incomes to the Church’s service that 
 the endowments of the Church are now in any degree able to supply the 
 Church’s ministry. Here is what the Times of the other day (April 9, 
 1860) says on this subject : — “ It [the Establishment] attracts a vast num- 
 ber of private incomes into the Church, which are eked out by the benefice 
 into something like a decent maintenance, and which thus make, as it 
 were, a benefice of what in itself hardly was one. The Church has the 
 advantage of the clergyman’s private fortune, which goes to uphold the 
 respectability of the ministry of the Church, adds to its position and 
 influence, and is often directly bestowed, more or less, on public and 
 religious objects. This is practically the way in which our small livings 
 are augmented. The augmentation from the Ecclesiastical Commission 
 will never do much for them.” a 
 
24 
 
 their appreciation of the benefits, temporal and eternal, 
 which the maintenance of an efficient clergy will confer 
 upon the Church and nation ; to their sense of obedience 
 to the divine command, which bids them out of the abun- 
 dant wealth which God has given to the laity of England, 
 to provide a sufficient maintenance for the clergy, — and 
 not only for the existing clergy, but for so many clergy, 
 bishops, priests, and deacons, as are requisite for the effi- 
 cient performance of the divine worship, and the care of 
 the moral and spiritual interests of the soul of every man, 
 woman, and child of their Church and nation. 
 
 We have shown our readers in the foregoing pages how 
 that provision, which has maintained a clergy ever since in 
 England, was provided by those rude, unlettered Saxon 
 kings and thanes, whom we are disposed to look down 
 upon as barbarians from the height of our science, and 
 civilization, and wealth, and luxury. We have reminded 
 them how half that provision was confiscated by the 
 rapacity of Henry and his nobles. We have now to 
 tell them that we have arrived at another great era in 
 the history of the Church of England ; we have en- 
 tered upon a new Reformation, not now a doctrinal 
 but AN ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH OF 
 England. God has poured out his Holy Spirit upon his 
 Church of England ; He has stirred up a real and great 
 revival within her. The' outlines of this administrative 
 Reformation have been sketched out by the fathers of the 
 Church — an episcopate numerous enough really to or- 
 ganize, and lead, and oversee the Church's work ; a more 
 numerous Presbytery ; a Diaconate doing deacon’s work ; 
 the active personal co-operation of the lay members of the 
 Church in all the Church's work; a restoration of its full 
 corporate functions to the Church through all her machi- 
 nery, from Convocation to the Parish Vestry-machinery, 
 
25 
 
 which has been so providentially preserved through ages of 
 disuse, now to be repaired, enlarged, and set to vigorous 
 work again. What is lacking ? Chiefly money to carry out 
 the work ; and that God has given in unprecedented 
 abundance to the laity of England ; and now He calls upon 
 them to provide that which is lacking to carry out this 
 new Reformation. 
 
 And herein we have a word to say especially to the 
 wealthy commercial classes of England. On this very day 
 on which we write, we see a leading article in the Times 
 newspaper, commenting on the vast increase in the wealth 
 of England, as proved by official returns ; arguing that this 
 increase is not to be detected among the landed gentry, 
 the farmers, or the professional classes ; but that the 
 increased and increasing wealth of England is absorbed 
 by the manufacturing and mercantile classes. This is 
 an exaggeration. The increase of the wealth of the country 
 has extended to all classes, from the highest to the lowest ; 
 but certainly the bulk of it is to be found among the 
 classes to whom the Times ascribes it. There is a mer- 
 cantile aristocracy springing up, which aspires, and which 
 perhaps is destined, to take its place beside the old terri- 
 torial aristocracy. At present, perhaps, it has, speaking 
 generally, only the ruder elements of an aristocracy, 
 wealth and mental energy, but it is rapidly acquiring 
 most of the others. The sons of the great merchants are 
 receiving a thorough liberal education ; some at our own 
 universities, still more abroad, in the school of foreign 
 travel, and the living languages. Some of them have built 
 palaces for the home of their commercial operations, and 
 churches, and schools, and libraries for their work-people ; 
 i. e. they have begun to be not ashamed of their calling, 
 and to recognise its duties. The element of permanence for 
 their mercantile establishments is the great element still 
 
26 
 
 lacking. That of birth is, perhaps, the least important 
 element, in England. When we see the representative of 
 a great hereditary mercantile house, which requires almost 
 the financial knowledge of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 and the staff of a department of state, which gives the wealth 
 and influence of an ancient barony, which is conducted on 
 principles of honourable and liberal policy ; such repre- 
 sentative being on a par with the best in the liberality 
 of mind and polish of manner which a liberal educa- 
 tion and good society impart ; recognising the claims 
 which his dependents have upon him, and doing his duty 
 to them as the old landed aristocracy recognise and per- 
 form the duties which old feudal traditions have taught 
 them ; we are bold to say that such a man will speedily 
 take rank among the aristocracy of England. It is to 
 this rising aristocracy that we especially desire to say a word. 
 In the old days, when the land formed the wealth of the 
 kingdom, the Norman adventurers who seized upon it at 
 once recognised the duties and responsibilities of their 
 position, and upon that recognition, more than upon any- 
 thing else, has their aristocracy been based, and by it per- 
 petuated. The rising mercantile aristocracy, speaking 
 generally — for there are noble exceptions — do not yet 
 recognise and fulfil the duties and responsibilities of their 
 position. But, in truth, it is under their chiefship that the 
 increasing masses of our population are gathered; it is 
 upon the labour of those masses that their wealth is 
 founded. Our great merchants and manufacturers have 
 now the same duties and responsibilities towards the 
 urban populations which the landed gentry have towards 
 the rural populations. On the rising mercantile aristo- 
 cracy then — on the whole class of those who derive their 
 wealth from trade — we conceive that the Church has an 
 especial claim. The tithe and the church rate which 
 
27 
 
 maintain the existing fabrics and ministers of the Church, 
 do not fall upon them ; their wives and daughters do not, 
 speaking generally, labour among their people in works 
 of Christian love. Theirs is the duty to establish the 
 Church of England in the towns ; God has given them 
 abundantly the means to do it ; and in the present revived 
 life and energy of the Church He has offered them the 
 opportunity, and given them the call to do it. We there- 
 fore boldly appeal to “ the men who live in towns,” and we 
 ask them, of the great wealth which God has given them, 
 to build new churches, and multiply clergymen, and 
 endow new benefices, taking the patronage thereof to 
 themselves ;* to knit close, by all kindly care and Christian 
 offices, the bonds of connexion between them and their 
 work-people ; and we are confident that nothing will more 
 directly tend to give them that influence over their 
 people, and that prestige among the gentlemen of England 
 to which they honourably aspire. Almighty God, after 
 all, is the great giver of wealth, and the supreme fountain 
 of honour ; and He has declared that they who give to 
 the poor lend to the Lord, and He will repay them ; and 
 that them who honour Him, He will honour. We proceed 
 to sketch out the machinery through which we invite our 
 readers to help to effect this great and good work. 
 
 The “ Society for Promoting the Employment of Addi- 
 tional Curates in Populous Places,” was founded twenty- 
 two years ago, under the patronage of the Sovereign, and the 
 government of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church. 
 Its object was to encourage the employment of additional 
 clergymen in the large towns and manufacturing districts. 
 
 * Lord Blandford’s Act gives every facility for the formation of new 
 •parishes, and offers the patronage of them to any one who will build a 
 church and endow it with 45£. a year, or provide an endowment only of 
 1501. a year. 
 
28 
 
 Its plan was, first, to get additional curates stationed in 
 these large parishes, and to induce the incumbents to allot to 
 these clergymen separate districts ; to encourage the clergy 
 of these districts to organize them into separate parishes, and 
 to found churches and schools, and all the other apparatus 
 of a parish; to help to supply these clergymen with an 
 immediate stipend, and, in time, to encourage and assist 
 the permanent endowment of the districts ; and so, ulti- 
 mately, to get them established as separate parishes. 
 
 For a long time the larger proportion of the funds and 
 energies of the Society have been absorbed in the more 
 pressing work of multiplying the numbers of the clergy, 
 by giving aid in their stipends. Now, at length, it is be- 
 lieved that the time has arrived when prominence may be 
 advantageously given to the remainder of its scheme, viz., 
 to the securing of a sufficient endowment for these new 
 parishes ; and not for the new parishes only; the abolition 
 of pluralities is a part of the same great work of Church 
 extension, and multiplication of the clergy ; it has had the 
 effect of putting numbers of clergy into inadequately en- 
 dowed parishes ; and these incumbents of the ancient and 
 impoverished vicarages have as great a claim upon the inte- 
 rest and help of the laity of England as the incumbents of 
 the newly-formed districts ; and must, therefore, in common 
 justice, be included in the Society’s operations. 
 
 The agency of a Society seems to be especially needed in 
 this work ; for the agency to which we usually look as the 
 most efficient for taking the initiative in moving the people 
 to liberal contributions to all other good objects, is not so 
 available for this. The poor parson begs for everything 
 and everybody else; and he has a right to do it, for he first 
 gives out of his own scanty means in far larger proportion 
 than anybody else; but he will not beg for himself. There 
 is many a poor parson, who within the last ten years has 
 
29 
 
 begged of bis parishioners, and gone a-field among his 
 neighbours, and taxed the sympathy of his relatives and 
 personal friends, to raise two or three thousand pounds 
 to restore the dilapidated parish church ; but his modest 
 pride would hinder him from hinting that the next step 
 ought to be to restore the impoverished benefice; to do 
 honour to God in the person of His minister, as well as in 
 the fabric of His house. A Society can organize the work 
 for him. Its agent can come into his parish, on the invi- 
 tation of the churchwardens, and help to organize an En- 
 dowment Committee, and can subsequently attend a public 
 meeting, to urge the matter upon the people, by arguments 
 which the parson will not use. An indifferent person 
 can press home the argument, that it is the duty of them 
 that are taught in the word to minister to him that 
 teacheth in all good things; that a poor parson is a 
 scandal and disgrace to a rich laity ; yea, that they who. 
 abound in every comfort and luxury, and leave God’s 
 minister to pinch and pine, are in the same condemna- 
 tion with them who live in their ceiled houses while God’s 
 house lies desolate. An indifferent person can tell the 
 people that it is for their own interest that the parson 
 should be in comfortable circumstances, able to set an 
 example of simple well-ordered comfort in his household, 
 to bring his neighbours together by his modest hospitalities ; 
 not distracted from his higher avocations by the sordid 
 cares of genteel poverty; able to foster every work of 
 public good by a liberal example, and to have an open 
 hand to the poor. 
 
 A Society, too, can take a tone with the Patron of the 
 living which it is in contemplation to augment, which his 
 own presentee could not take. It can say plainly to him, 
 “ If by our means the income of this living is augmented, 
 the market value of your property in the advowson is 
 
30 
 
 increased in the same ratio, what will you contribute 
 towards the augmentation of the value of your own 
 property ? ” It is a question whether, in augmenting any 
 living, the Society might not also stipulate with the Incum- 
 bent thus benefited to effect an insurance on his life, to be 
 devoted to the further augmentation of the living. 
 
 That a Society may be able to effect all this local good, 
 it must have a general fund of its own, so that it can go 
 both to parishioners and patron with this excuse for inter- 
 ference, and this provocative to liberality, “ We offer you a 
 grant of money proportionate to what you will contribute.” 
 Take an example : the Committee of the Society, having 
 funds in hand, look down the list of poor livings and 
 select one, which, from its large population or other cir- 
 cumstances, seems to have special claims. The Secretary 
 is instructed to put himself in communication with the 
 .Incumbent, to ascertain the circumstances of the place, 
 and the likelihood of a successful issue to an attempt to 
 raise funds to augment the living. The Incumbent, 
 accepting the Society's offered help, puts the Secretary in 
 communication with his Churchwardens, or other of his 
 chief parishioners who are most likely to take an active 
 interest in the matter. Mr. Secretary sends to his corre- 
 spondents papers and pamphlets ; they distribute them, and 
 ascertain and rouse the feelings of the people. Ultimately 
 they summon a meeting, at which a deputation from the 
 Society attends to plead the cause ; an Endowment Com- 
 mittee is appointed by the meeting ; and so the subscrip- 
 tion is set fairly a-foot. Suppose the Society to offer a 
 grant of 250/. to meet subscriptions to the amount of 500/., 
 and a similar donation from the Patron of 250/. ; Queen 
 Anne’s Bounty or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would, 
 in all probability, in such a case as we have supposed, also 
 make a grant of 250/. at least ; total, 1,250/., which, in- 
 
31 
 
 vested at 3 per cent., would yield an augmentation of 
 income of 37 /. 10s. But, suppose further, that the pre- 
 sent Incumbent was required out of this augmentation to 
 assure his life to the amount of 500 /. for the benefit of the 
 living, at his death the total augmentation of the living 
 would have attained the sum of 1,750/., yielding a clear 
 augmentation of income to the amount of 52 Z. 10s. — all 
 the result of the Society’s grant of 250/. It is to assist 
 the Society in effecting such results that the reader is 
 requested himself to contribute, and to move his friends 
 to contribute, to the Endowment Fund oe the Society 
 eor Promoting the Employment oe Additional Curates 
 in Populous Places. 
 
 Will any one object that in the present aspect of eccle- 
 siastical affairs — or, to speak more definitely, in the face 
 of the machinations of the Liberation Society — it is 
 hazardous to risk any more capital upon the same tenure 
 as the old endowments of the Church of England? We 
 might say, if there be hazard, accept the hazard, pile your 
 offerings high in the same boat which bears the endow- 
 ments of the Church of England, and leave God to bring 
 it all safe to port. But we do not see any hazard at all. 
 We believe that the Liberation Society has received its 
 death blow. So long as it was popularly believed that it 
 represented the great body of English Nonconformists, 
 and that its objects were to obtain the abolition of certain 
 conscientious grievances, or even to escape the distasteful 
 payment of certain contributions to the Established Church, 
 a good deal of popular sympathy was enlisted on its side, 
 and only a great deal of apathy was opposed to it. But 
 now it has become known that the Society is repudiated 
 by the great Wesleyan body, which outnumbers all the 
 other sects put together ; that it does not include more 
 than a fraction of the Independents and the Baptists ; in 
 
82 
 
 short, that it consists of a mere clique of clever, designing, 
 political dissenters. It has become known, from the ad- 
 missions of its chief members, that its real design is to 
 destroy the Church of England, and, in the language of 
 Mr. Miall, to scatter its dust to the four winds of heaven ; 
 and that the ultimate object of those who thus aim at the 
 destruction of the Church of England is, by the distinct 
 admission of Mr. Miall, to set up democracy upon its 
 ruins. Now that the character and designs of this Libera- 
 tion Society are known, it is no longer to be feared ; and 
 there is no hazard, at least from that quarter, in adding 
 fresh endowments to the Church of England upon the 
 same tenure as the old ones. And if there be hazard to 
 the old endowments from any other quarter, the most 
 effectual way to prevent it will be to add others to them 
 upon the same tenure. It is so long since there was any 
 endowment of churches in England, that the people know 
 nothing of how it was done, and have no sympathy with 
 the endowers; but every man who can be induced to 
 become an endower of churches, though only to the extent 
 of a shilling heartily subscribed, will at once have acquired 
 a practical knowledge of the whole subject, and a sympathy 
 with all his brother benefactors, whether Saxon thanes or 
 nineteenth-century Englishmen, and an interest in the 
 maintenance of the whole endowments of the Chuich of 
 England. Besides that, the multiplication of a properly 
 endowed clergy will, with God’s blessing upon their earnest 
 labours, speedily win back the heart of the people to the 
 church of their fathers, and teach them to regard him as a 
 bad citizen and a bad Christian who will not do all in his 
 power to extend and increase her efficiency. 
 

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