On Wednesday in the Upper House of Convocation the Bishops
discussed the diminution of the candidates for Holy Orders. The Bishop of Winchester believed that the main cause was the financial one. Parents and relations would not encourage, or often even sanction, young men taking up a life so much exposed to the risks of poverty. The Bishop of Hereford thought that conscientious difficulties deterred men, and the Archbishop of Canterbury believed that the present troubles and disputes in the Church acted as a deterrent. For our part, we believe that the explanation is much more simple, and one by no means discreditable. In old days men went very largely into the Church on purely social and pecuniary grounds. Now it is the exception for a man to take Orders unless he has, or thinks he has, a vocation. The Church has ceased to be looked on as a profession like Medicine or the Law, and naturally that has reduced the available recruits. There is a West of England story of a Bishop asking a candidate for Holy Orders, who was a younger son of a dis- tinguished but not very rich county family, what were the reasons which should induce a young man of position to be ordained. The candidate naively answered, " Pecuniary reasons, my lord." Those are seldom the reasons now, although in spite of the complaints, often just, of the poverty of the clergy, the Church, with its splendid prizes and large number of comfortable posts, remains the easiest profession in which to secure a livelihood. That secularly minded men are not nearly so often tempted to take orders by motives of ambi- tion and personal advancement as they used to be, strikes us as by no means unsatisfactory. The prizes in the Church are as numerous as, and more valuable than, those at the Bar.
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