LETTERS TO
THE EDITOR A LIVING IN THE CHURCH
Snt,—Any corporation, institution or business concern- which aims at recruiting capable employees must promise them, first, a living wage
from the start of their careers and, in addition, what are commonly known as "prospects." The recruit begins on a low salary, and, unless in- competent or otherwise unsuitable, can reckon on periodical increases in pay which will enable him to marry, to hinprove his station in life arid, if no pension is assured, to provide for 'his old age. The pay varies with the volume, the difficulty and the importance of the work performed.
Considered as an institution, the Church of England is probably the only corporation in the world which pays its men, outside a limited hierarchy,
neither according to the volume of the work expected of them, nor accord- ing to its nature, nor according to their own capacity, nor according to their age and experience. The pensions it promises are so small as to be derisory.
There are parishes of over ten thousand souls whose incumbents draw, without hope, much less certainty of increment, less stipend than their brothers in rural parishes with a population of two or three hundred, including Dissenters. Incumbents of over sixty succeed and are succeeded by youths in their twenties, and the stipend is the same for both. In what walk of life, or on what principle are two or three hours of work in the day, which is the utmost that many incumbents in villages, with all the will in the world, can find to do, considered to justify a whole- time salary? On the other hand, the straits to which overwork and lack of assistance have reduced many incumbents of the enormous, newly- settled industrial suburbs of our great cities are too notorious to require illustration. If remuneration is to bear any relation to volume of work, very many of our rural clergy are overpaid, very many of those in industrial areas " sweated." Again, to ensure proper promotion of the more capable, it is customary and essential that those in whose hands preferment lies should be well-informed of the fitness or the reverse of those under their authority. Where in the Church of England, the lay- man asks, is there any system or machinery of inspection and report on the work of the parish clergy? He sees rural priests of outstanding spirituality and ability restricted for all their working lives to the cure of insignificant villages. Does their bishop know of their existence? If so, how? In the course of over ten years spent in two dioceses the writer has not seen the face of his bishop in any parish where he has worked as churchwarden.
To the ordinary layman this apparent lack of elementary system is, not to mince words, simply crazy. The matter, he considers, is not one of religion at all, but of common sense. He is now asked to contribute between six and seven hundred thoumnd pounds towards the training of new ordinands recruited from the Services. But what guarantee is there, he asks, that these men, once enrolled, will be treated in any way differently from their predecessors? Still, more pertinent, what will be the quality of the men so recruited? Is -it conceivable that first- or even second-class hearts and brains will:enter Holy Orders with no certain prospects of recognition, no hope that good work and advancing years will bring with them any such increase in stipend as may enable ;hem to marry and rear children, and with nothing but a miserable pittance in store for their old age, while for their widows and orphans the outlook is even more grim? Complaint is often heard of the reluctance of laymen to give their money towards Chu:ch objects. In this con- nection an experience of the writer has a certain significance. He was directed to inaugurate a " penny-a-week fund " in the parish of his residence for the provision of extra curates. A well-to-do farmer whom he approached with this end -in view made the following reply: " If I thought that the money would be wisely spent, instead of pennies I would give shillings. But I will not give a farthing to be dropped into the same old bottomless pit of muddle and mismanagement. Thee go whoam," he added with a smile, " and milk thy bulls! "—I am, Sir,
A CHURCHWARDEN.
yours faithfully,
A CHURCHWARDEN.
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