THE CHURCH MENDICANT.
THE Established Church Bill is now passing through the House of Commons. Its main provisions relate to the adjustment of episcopal incomes. The Archbishop of CANTERBURY is to have 15,000/. a year, or three times as much as the Prime Minister ; the Archbishop of YORK and the Bishop of LONDON are to be secured 10,00s/. a year, or twice as much as Lord MesnoraNs : the scale this descends, but not lower than 4,5001. a year. Par- liament will soon have to deal with other portions of the Church property ; and then it will be seen that between three and four millions annually are devoted to the maintenance of the Esta- blished Clergy. In the mean while, two sets of operations are in progress in the country for the support of the State Church. First, the King has issued his annual "begging-letters." Collections are to be made in every Episcopal place of worship throughout the kingdom, for the support of an Establishment which can afford to pay its digni- taries at the rate of 15,0001. and 10,000/. a year, and which annu- ally consumes tithes to the amount of 3,000,000/.,—for the sup- port of a Church which denounces the Voluntary system as art invention of Satan. But the rule of action in the Church is to get all the money that can by any means he extracted from the pockets of laymen—rem, quocunque mode, rem.
Few things are more nauseous than this system of extortion by the King's begging-letters. A beneficed divine drives up to a country-church in a handsome carriage with powdered lackies and a superbly-wigged coachman. He is plethoric with turtle and port. The humble Curate at 40/. a year reads' the prayers; and then the Rector himself does honour to his Majesty's "letters," by enforcing the necessary duty of contributing to the support of the suffering and impoverished Church of Christ. The service over, the congregation of rackrented, over-tithed farmers and peasants, sulkily retire, putting as little as they dare into the plate, upon which the eye of the Clerk or the Beadle is fixed by command of the Rector. The poor folks go home to dine as best they may, and drink very small beer. The Parson, the Minister of the Pauper Church, is helped into his carriage, and departs in all the state of the wealthy and luxurious, to enjoy his venison and claret. This is what happens in very many parishes through- out England. A capital method of increasing the number of Dissenters. Zealous Nonconformists should pray for the con- tinued annual return of the King's " begging-letters."
Those collections are frequently extortionate, under the pre- tence of being voluntary ; but Church-rates are exacted from the people by law. We observe that in various parts of the country, as wsll as in London, the Anti-Church-rate war is kept up with vigour and various success. But whether the rate is granted or refused, the feeling must be nearly universal, that the wealthy members of the Establishment are guilty of inexpres- sible meanness in taking advantage of a law for compelling Dis- senters to pay for the mending of their church windows and the weeding of their burial-grounds. The Nonconformists would blush at the idea of asking a Churchman to pay their pew-openers or to buy their sacramental wine. They have no Bishops with 15,000/. a year. They do not take three millions sterling from the nation in the shape of tithes for the support of their clergy. It is the Church which possesses this enormous income, which con- siders itself as submitting to a reform when the income of the Archbishop of CANTERBURY is cut down to 15,0001. This is the Establishment which seizes the furniture of the mechanic to pay for the mending of broken windows in its temples of worship! Can it be supposed that the people do not draw their own conclu- sions from what is passing before them ? They must ; and when they contrast the exaction of Church-rates and the " begging- letters" with the enormous revenues secured by law to the clergy, they must remember that the world was not Christianized by such means as these : and then the question will occur, " of what use is the Establishment?"
Previous page
