On Wednesday Sir Paget Bowman read a paper before the
Church Congress on the Queen Victoria Clergy Fund, which was founded in 1895 to relieve the increasing poverty of th six thousand beneficed clergymen who have less than e20 o a
year. During the fonr years a sum of £140,285 has been raised in the twenty-eight affiliated dioceses, and for the most part expended in grants to the very poorest livings. Much good has therefore been done, but Sir Paget's figures are not very hopeful. If the great body of English Churchmen really felt the need they could raise ten times that sum without the smallest effort. Even that, however, or five times that, will not extinguish the evil unless the livings can to some extent be pooled, and the parishes which are unnecessary are merged in larger units. We wonder what the source of the reluctance in England to pay the clergy, as contrasted with the willing. ness to subscribe for other ecclesiastical objects, really is. Some say the cause is Establishment, which induces men to think that they ought to have clerical services for nothing ; but we do not notice that the Nonconformist clergy, taken as a whole, are so well off, and are driven to believe that ordinary laymen see no harm in Anglican Orders being confined to men with private means. They will find the supply run short if that happens, and will keep out of the Church many whose enthusiasm or whose powers might raise the whole standard of spiritual life. We confess we rather dread the monopoly of benefices by " men of means."
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