THE SALE' OF LIVINGS.
LEATHAM had an easy part to play 'on Tuesday. in The Sale of Livings is one of those indefensible practices which bear a charmed life, because'it is so difficult to put an end to them without abolishing something which we wish to keep. Most people are agreed that private patronage in the English Church has its advantages. The man of the world sees in it a pro tection against Episcopal enthusiasm ; the Evangelical sees in it a protection against Episcopal coldness ; the Ritualist sees in it a protection against'Episcopal tyranny. If private patronage were' abolished, it is the patronage of the Bishops that would be increased, and if a much larger proportion of the Beneficed' Clergy were Episcopal nominees, every one of these classes would feel more'or less • aggrieved. The man of the world would, miss the convenient family arrangements ; the' Evangelical would miss his Simeon Trustees and similar expedients for leavening fashionable watering-places with Calvinistic doc- trine ; the Ritualist would feel that his • hope of finding an ecclesiastical field depended for the future on the improbable; chance of his finding episcopal favour. Those •who claim-
to
look at the question with no special sympathy with any onW' of these classes would feel that the abolition of private patron=' age removed one of the chief securities for variety of view an& character in the Clergy, and by doing 'this removed one of ' tbr main safeguards of an Established Church. It is because the' Church of England is so many,-sided that she finds's° many' willing to recognise and support her claim to an exchisive,State4 recognition to which historically, or logically it would be diffi- cult to make out her claim, and without private' pat-if/nage- it would be much less easy to keep'alive this variety.
Given, then; that private patronage is to be Maintained; what relation does it stand to the 'sale of livings'? At first' it may seem as though• there were no necessary' connectiorin between them. The conception of private patronage iniplielat that the patron is trustee for the parish, and that he gives thel living to the clergyman who, as he thinks; will best' serve the spiritual interests of the parishioners: As soon' as'thiis.icletiJ has been taken into the mind,-the notion' of selling-lherighti to perform. this duty seems incompatible with it: Th0 trustee 'of a 'marriage • settlement does not sell his right to', choose the solicitor' who is to manage the trust' fneds, and why should' the patron sell the right of choosing'? the parson who is 'to manage more important reatters still?: As regards trusteeships and executorships; Englishmen are: rather punctilious in thinking of nothing but the of ' the ceytuis que trust; it is' only when they come to deal spiritual matters that laxer views come in, and that they allovr themselves to put livings up to auction. Why is not some-" thing done to put an end to a system which brings so muchl discredit on the Church, and introduces 'pecuniary considera-i ' tions into a transaction from which they ought to be'altogether banished ? It is not for want of trying. Bishops and politi- cians have put their heads together and done their best to' devise a remedy. But one and the other have retired'from' the contest leaving matters as unsatisfactory as they found- them, and now the subject seems to be given up to Mr. Leathern. In his hands the subject becomes less thorny, because he has only to end his speech with a resolution; instead of with a Bill. The only objection to this treatment of the subject is that nothing conies of it. Supposing that the'' House of Commons, instead of being counted out on Tuesday night, had done what Mr. Leathern asked it to do, and had declared that it is desirable to adopt measures for preventing simoniacal evasion of the law and checking abuses in the' sale of livings, what would have been gained?' Mr. Leathern had to begin his speech with the admission that a re- solution to this effect had on a former occasion been• passed, with the unanimous assent of the House of Com-- mons and with the concurrence of the Government, but that it had remained a' perfectly barren declaration. A Bill or two on the subject have been introduced and with- drawn, and that is all. Simoniacal evasion of the law( goes on as briskly as ever, and not a single abuse in,• the sale of livings has been checked. Nor is this =legion due only to the indolence and indifference of Parliament or of the Government. There are real difficulties 'in the way of doing anything effectual,—difficulties which account for; if they' do not justify, the indisposition to meddle with' the- queStion which successive Governments have felt. Even Mr: Bright once made the Purchase system in the Church the' object of a speech to his' constituents, and it was rather supposed' at' the time that this pronunciamiento on his part indicated' the
particular form which the Radical attack on the Establishment would next take. But Mr. Bright never went any further ; and it is not unfair to suppose that when he came to consider the kind of prohibitions he would wish to introduce, he saw how serious the obstacles were.
The simplest and most effectual—perhaps, we may say, the only effectual—way of dealing with the question would be to prohibit the sale of Advowsons, leaving them to pass from patron to patron by descent or bequest, but not by purchase. But it is easy to imagine cases in which this prohibition would work exceedingly ill. The sale of an advowson implies that for some reason or other the owner of it wants to get rid of it. Either he is in difficulties, and prefers the money-value of his patronage to the patronage itself, or he has conscience enough to feel that he is not the right man to exercise spiritual patronage. In either of these cases, what is gained by insisting on a patron's retaining an advowson ? As it is, there is always a chance that the purchaser may be better fitted to exercise the patronage, than the vendor is. If the sale were forbidden, a needy comer would be tempted to find means of making money by the exercise of the patronage which he is unable to dispose of openly, while an owner who felt his own inability to exercise the patron- age judiciously, would probably exercise it at the suggestion or solicitation of friends who were no better judges of a parson than himself. The compromise usually suggested is to allow the sale of, advowsons, and altogether prohibit the sale of next pre- sentations. This plan is recommended by the fact that it is in connection with the sale of next presentations that the grossest abuses are to be met with. Here, however, we are con- fronted by the certainty that such a law would be evaded. Evasions of law are never things to be lightly treated, but they are very much worse when the law is recent and definite, than when it is antiquated and uncertain. If the sale of next pre- sentations were forbidden by Statute, and that Statute at once became a dead-letter, the effect of the practice on the charac- ters of the clergy who were guilty of it would be very much more marked and more injurious than it is now. Yet that an Act of Parliament could be drawn on a subject of this kind which should defy evasion seems impossible. When men cannot help themselves, they are almost always willing to trust one another, and nine times out of ten their confidence is justified. If a patron wanted to make money by the sale of a single pre- sentation to a living, but did not wish the patronage to pass altogether away from his family, he could not be prevented from presenting a clergyman on the understanding that money was to be paid to him after the presentation, and in the great majority of oases the money would be paid, even if there were no means by which payment could be enforced. Probably, however, the ingenuity of conveyancers would soon devise some means of enforcing such payments without disclosing the nature of the, transaction out of which they arose. We are inclined to think that the remedy is to be sought not so much in the direction of prohibition of sales, whether of advowsons or of next presentations, as in the gift of a veto to some public authority, whether diocesan or parochial, in all cases of a plainly improper exercise of the right of patronage. If adequate safeguards against the appointment of unqualified clergymen to benefices were provided, it would become a matter of much less importance at whose instance an Incumbent was appointed, or by what means the right of appointing him had been obtained.
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