and degree of Bishops. The truth is, that there are very few men in either House of Parliament (Ministers or any one else), who ever think of the happiness and comfort of the working Clergy, to be compelled, by this new law of the Commission, to answer, under a penalty, and if they do answer them, they incur, perhaps, a still heavier penalty. “Have you had two services in your Church all the year?"-"I or bestow one thought upon guarding decline to answer.". "Then I fine you 201.""I have only had one service." "Then I fine you 2501." In what other profession are men placed between this double fire of penalties, and compelled to criminate themselves? It has been disused in England, I believe, ever since the time of Laud and the Star Chamber.* By the same bill, as it first emanated from the Commission, a Bishop could compel a Clergyman to expend three years' income upon a house in which he had resided perhaps fifty years, and in which he had brought up a large family. With great difficulty, some slight modification of this enormous power was obtained, and it was a little improved in the amended bill.† In the same way an attempt was made to try delinquent Clergymen by a jury of Clergymen, nominated by the Bishop; but this was too bad, and was not endured for an instant; still it showed the same love of power and the same principle of impeccability, for the bill is expressly confined to all suits and complaints against persons below the dignity This attempt upon the happiness and independence of the Clergy has been abandoned. + I perceive that the Archbishop of Canterbury borrows money for the improvement of his palace, and pays the principal off in forty years. This is quite as soon as a debt incurred for such public purposes ought to be paid off, and the Archbishop has done rightly to take that period. In process of time I think it very likely that this indulgence will be extended to country Clergymen, who are compelled to pay off the debts for buildings (which they are compelled to undertake) in twenty years; and by the new bill, not yet passed, this indulgence is extended to thirty years. Why poor Clergymen have been compelled for the last five years to pay off the encumbrances at the rate of one twentieth per annum, and are now compelled to pay them off, or will, when the bill passes, be so compelled, at the rate of one thirtieth per annum, when the Archbishop takes forty years to do the same thing, and has made that bargain in the year 1831, I really cannot tell. A Clergyman who does not reside is forced to pay off his building debt in ten years. them from the increased and increasing power of their encroaching masters. What is called taking care of the Church is taking care of the Bishops; and all bills for the management of the Clergy are left to the concoction of men who very naturally believe they are improving the Church when they are increasing their own power. There are many Bishops too generous, too humane, and too Christian, to oppress a poor Clergyman; but I have seen (I am sorry to say) many grievous instances of partiality, rudeness, and oppression.* I have seen Clergymen treated by them with a violence and contempt which the lowest servant in the Bishop's establishment would not have endured for a single moment; and if there be a helpless, friendless, wretched being in the community, it is a poor Clergyman in the country, with a large family. If there be an object of compassion, he is one. If there be any occasion in life where a great man should lay aside his office, and put on those kind looks, and use those kind words which raise the humble from the dust, these are the occasions when those best parts of the Christian character ought to be displayed. I would instance the unlimited power which a Bishop possesses over a Curate, as a very unfair degree of power for any man to possess. Take the following dialogue, which represents a real event. Bishop. Sir, I understand you frequent the Meetings of the Bible Society? Curate.-Yes, my Lord, I do. Bishop.-Sir, I tell you plainly, if you continue to do so, I shall silence you from preaching in my diocese. Curate.-My Lord, I am very sorry to incur your indignation, but I frequent that Society upon principle, because I think it eminently serviceable to the cause of the Gospel. *What Bishops like best in their Clergy is a dropping-down-deadness of manner. Bishop.-Sir, I do not enter into your reasons, but tell you plainly, if you continue to go there you shall be silenced. The young man did go, and was silenced; and as Bishops have always a great deal of clever machinery at work of testimonials and bene-decessits, and always a lawyer at their elbow, under the name of a secretary, a Curate excluded from one diocese is excluded from all. His remedy is an appeal to the Archbishop from the Bishop: his worldly goods, however, amount to ten pounds: he never was in London: he dreads such a tribunal as an Archbishop he thinks, perhaps, in time the Bishop may be softened if he is compelled to restore him, the enmity will be immortal. It would be just as rational to give to a frog or a rabbit, upon which the physician is about to experiment, an appeal to the Zoological Society, as to give to a country Curate an appeal to the Archbishop against his purple oppressor. concern : Caligat, nubem eripiam. It is ominous for liberty when Sydney and Russell cannot agree; but when Lord John Russell, in the House of Commons, said, that we showed no disposition to make any sacrifices for the good of the Church, I took the liberty to remind that excellent person that he must first of all prove it to be for the good of the Church that our patronage should be taken away by the Bishops, and then he might find fault with us for not consenting to the sacrifice. I have little or no personal nor peThe errors of the bill are a public cuniary interest in these things, and -the injustice of the bill is a have made all possible exertion (as private concern. Give us our patron- two or three persons in power well age for life.* Treat the Cathedrals all know) that they should not come bealike, with the same measure of justice. fore the public. I have no son nor Don't divide livings in the patronage of son-in-law in the Church, for whom I present Incumbents without their con- want any patronage. If I were young sent or do the same with all livings. enough to survive any incumbent of If these points be attended to in the St. Paul's, my own preferment is too forthcoming bill, all complaint of un- agreeably circumstanced to make it fairness and injustice will be at an end. at all probable I should avail myI shall still think, that the Commis-self of the opportunity. I am a sincere sioners have been very rash and indis- advocate for Church Reform; but I creet, that they have evinced a con- think it very possible, and even very tempt for existing institutions, and a easy, to have removed all odium from spirit of destruction which will be copied the Establishment, in a much less vioto the life hereafter, by Commissioners lent and revolutionary manner, withof a very different description. Bishops out committing or attempting such live in high places with high people, or flagrant acts of injustice, and without with little people who depend upon leaving behind an odious Court of Inthem. They walk delicately, like Agag. quisition, which will inevitably fall They hear only one sort of conversa- into the hands of a single individual, tion, and avoid bold reckless men, as a and will be an eternal source of vexlady veils herself from rough breezes. ation, jealousy, and change. I give I am half inclined to think sometimes, sincere credit to the Commissioners that the Bishop-Commissioners really for good intentions. How can such think that they are finally settling the men have intended anything but good? Church; that the House of Lords will And I firmly believe that they are hardly conscious of the extraordinary predilection they have shown *This has now been given to us. for Bishops in all their proceedings: it | full share of the blanks in the lottery is like those errors in tradesmen's bills as well as the prizes. Till thirty years of which the retail arithmetician is of age I never received a farthing from really unconscious, but which somehow the Church; then 50l. per annum for or another always happen to be in his two years- then nothing for ten years own favour. Such men as the Com- - then 500l. per annum, increased for missioners do not say this patronage two or three years to 800l., till, in my belongs justly to the Cathedrals, and grand climacteric, I was made Canon we will take it away unjustly for our-of St. Paul's; and before that period, selves; but after the manner of human I had built a Parsonage-house with nature a thousand weak reasons pre- farm offices for a large farm, which vail, which would have no effect, if cost me 4000l., and had reclaimed anself-interest were not concerned: they other from ruins at the expense of are practising a deception on them-2000l. A Lawyer, or a Physician in selves, and sincerely believe they are good practice, would smile at this picdoing right. When I talk of spoil ture of great Ecclesiastical wealth; and plunder, I do not speak of the in- and yet I am considered as a perfect tention, but of the effect, and the pre-monster of Ecclesiastical prosperity. cedent. I should be very sorry to give offence to the dignified Ecclesiastics who are in the Commission: I hope they will allow for the provocation, if I have been a little too warm in the defence of St. Paul's, which I have taken a solemn oath to defend. I was at school and college with the Archbishop of Canterbury: fifty-three years ago he knocked me down with the chess-board for checkmating him—and now he is attempting to take away my patronage. Still the Commissioners are on the eve of entailing an immense evil upon the country, and unfortunately they have gone so far, that it is necessary they should ruin the Cathedrals to preserve their character for consistency. They themselves have been frightened a great deal too much by the mob; have overlooked the chances in their favour produced by delay; have been afraid of being suspected (as Tories) of not doing enough; and have al-I believe these are the only two acts of lowed themselves to be hurried on by violence he ever committed in his life: the constitutional impetuosity of one the interval has been one of gentleness, man, who cannot be brought to believe kindness, and the most amiable and that wisdom often consists in leaving high-principled courtesy to his Clergy. alone, standing still and doing nothing. For the Archbishop of York I feel an From the joint operation of all these affectionate respect-the result of that causes, all the Cathedrals of England invariable kindness I have received will in a few weeks be knocked about from him: and who can see the Bishop our ears. You, Mr. Archdeacon Sin- of London without admiring his superior gleton, will sit like Caius Marius on talents-being pleased with his society the ruins, and we shall lose for ever-without admitting that, upon the the wisest scheme for securing a well-whole*, the public is benefited by his educated Clergy upon the most eco- ungovernable passion for business; nomical terms, and for preventing that and without receiving the constant low fanaticism which is the greatest curse upon human happiness, and the greatest enemy of true religion. We shall have all the evils of an Establishment, and none of its good. workings of a really good heart, as an atonement for the occasional excesses of an impetuous disposition? I am quite sure if the tables had been turned, and if it had been his lot, as a Canon, employs eight hours per day in the govern* I have heard that the Bishop of London ment of his diocese in which no part of Asia, Africa, or America is included. The world is, I believe, taking one day with another, governed in about a third of that time.' T to incur it in the Poor Law Bill, in the Tithe Bill, in the Corporation Bill, and in the circumscription of the Irish Protestant Church. In all these matters, the Whig Ministry, after the heat of to fight against the encroachments of Bishops, that he would have made as stout a defence as I have done the only difference is, that he would have done it with much greater talent. As for my friends the Whigs, I nei-party is over, and when Joseph Hume ther wish to offend them nor anybody and Wilson Croker* are powdered into else. I consider myself to be as good the dust of death, will gain great and a Whig as any amongst them. I was deserved fame. In the question of the a Whig before many of them were born Church Commission they have behaved -and while some of them were Tories with the grossest injustice; delighted and Waverers. I have always turned to see this temporary delirium of Archout to fight their battles, and when I bishops and Bishops, scarcely believing saw no other Clergyman turn out but their eyes, and carefully suppressing myself and this in times before libe- their laughter, when they saw these rality was well recompensed, and there-eminent Conservatives laying about fore in fashion, and when the smallest them with the fury of Mr. Tyler or Mr. appearance of it seemed to condemn a Straw; they have taken the greatest Churchman to the grossest obloquy, care not to disturb them, and to give and the most hopeless poverty. It them no offence: "Do as you like, my may suit the purpose of the Ministers Lords, with the Chapters and the Paroto flatter the Bench; it does not suit chial Clergy; you will find some mine. I do not choose in my old age pleasing morsels in the ruins of the to be tossed as a prey to the Bishop; Cathedrals. Keep for yourselves anyI have not deserved this of my Whig thing you like-whatever is agreeable friends. I know very well there can to you cannot be unpleasant to us.' be no justice for Deans and Chapters, In the meantime, the old friends of, and that the momentary Lords of the and the old sufferers for, liberty, do not earth will receive our statement with understand this new meanness, and are derision and persiflage—the great prin- not a little astonished to find their ciple which is now called in for the leaders prostrate on their knees before government of mankind. Nobody ad- the Lords of the Church, and to receive mires the general conduct of the Whig no other answer from them than that, Administration more than I do. They if they are disturbed in their adulation, have conferred, in their domestic policy, they will immediately resign! the most striking benefits on the I remain, country. To say that there is no risk My dear Sir, in what they have done is mere nonWith sincere good will and respect, sense there is great risk; and all Yours, honest men must balance to counteract it-holding back as firmly down hill as they pulled vigorously up hill. Still, meant no harm by the comparison, great as the risk is, it was worth while but I have made two bitter enemies by it. * SYDNEY SMITH, SECOND LETTER ARCHDEACON ΤΟ SINGLETON. MY DEAR SIR, Ir is a long time since you have heard from me, and in the mean time the poor Church of England has been trembling, from the Bishop who sitteth upon the throne, to the Curate who rideth upon the hackney horse. I began writing on the subject to avoid bursting from indignation; and as it is not my habit to recede, I will go on till the Church of England is either up or down-semianimous on its back, or vigorous on its legs. mer class, the Resident Prebendaries, whom I wish to save. Prebendaries The Non-resident never come near the Cathedral; they are just like so many country gentlemen: the difference is, that their appointments are elective, not hereditary. They have houses, manors, lands, and every appendage of territorial wealth and importance. Their value is very different. I have one, Neasdon, near Willesdon, which consists of a quarter of an acre of land, Two or three persons have said to worth a few shillings per annum, but me -"Why, after writing an enter- animated by the burden of repairing taining and successful letter to Arch- a bridge, which sometimes costs the deacon Singleton, do you venture up- unfortunate Prebendary fifty or sixty on another, in which you may probably pounds. There are other Non-resifail, and be weak or stupid?" All dent Prebendaries, however, of great this I utterly depise: I write upon value; and one, I believe, which would these matters not to be entertaining, be worth, if the years or lives were run but because the subjects are very im- out, from 40,000l. to 60,000l. per portant, and because I have strong annum. opinions upon them. If what I write Not only do these Prebendaries is liked, so much the better; but liked do nothing, and are never seen, but or not liked, sold or not sold, Wilson the existence of the preferment is Crokered or not Wilson Crokered, I hardly known; and the abolition of will write. If you ask me who excites the preferment, therefore, would not in me- -I answer you, it is that Judge who stirs good thoughts in honest hearts — under whose warrant I impeach the wrong, and by whose help I hope to chastise it. any degree lessen the temptation to enter into the Church, while the mass of these preferments would make an important fund for the improvement of small livings. The Residentiary Prebendaries, on the contrary, perform all the services of the Cathedral Church; their existence is known, their preferment coveted, and to get a stall, and to be preceded by men with silver rods, is the bait which the ambitious squire is perpetually holding out to his second |