[TO THE EDITOR OP THE SPECtLTOR.1
Stn,—The amount required (2400,000 annually as we are told) to raise all..the benefices of the Church of England up to 2200 per annum seems to paralyse the efforts of many who would otherwise make some attempt to help those clergy who are really in need. Might not a beginning be made in helping such parishes as are known to be deserving, and are pretty sure to be filled by able and zealous parish clergy? Would any of your readers, for instance, give an estimate of the sum required to raise all benefices in the patronage of the Bishops or of public trustees, such as the Hyndmann, Peach, Simeon, and Church Patronage Trusts, to 2200 a year for populations under a thousand, and to 2300 for populations above that number. If the livings in private patronage and in the patron- age of Colleges are deducted (as they clearly must be while such patrons have the power of selling their advowsons). we should probably find that the amount required was not half the amount stated above, and not more than might be expected from the laity of the Church of England, who are the richest laity in the world. The private patrons would then be left either to obtain men with private means for their poorer benefices, or would supple- ment them from the lay rectorial tithes, which so many of them hold ; or finding themselves unable to obtain suitable men, or to increase the stipends of their benefices, would be willing to band over the patronage to the Bishop of the diocese or to a public trust. Such a scheme would not meet all the cases of distress, but it would give the laity, who are ready to help, a guarantee that their money, if given, would go to assist deserving men; and they would feel that other cases of distress, not in the patronage of the Bishops or public trusts, might be met year by year during the lifetime of the present incumbents from Diocesan Relief Funds or the Queen Victoria Church Sustentation Fund. Does it not also seem a little beneath the dignity of the richest laity in the world to continue to criticise the use the Church makes of her income when it ha.s been pointed out that the clergy pay Income-tax on 29,000,000, while the total income of the Church is £3,000,000? To rearrange the division of the income of the Church between her clergy would be a matter of many years, and would require the passing of Acts of Parliament. To assist the cases above. named, and to offer an inducement to private patrons to give up the patronage of livings for which they cannot or will not provide an adequate stipend, might be commenced at once by providing a sufficient endowment for parishes in episcopal and public trust patronage.—I 1.m, Sir, &c.,
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