THE SACRED TENTH.* No one can read Dr. Lansdell's long
and interesting book without realising that he is an enthusiast; and to be an enthusiast in the most difficult of all arts, the art of giving, is calculated to disarm the severest critic. The author desires "a reformation in modern almsgiving, and a revival of the principle and practice of tithing," and his "pages are dedicated to those persona of all countries and in every clime who, recognising that it is a religious and moral obligation to give, desire to study the extent of their responsibility ; and having learned their duty, intend to do it." With these ends, this dedication in view, Dr. Lansdell leads the reader through many countries and among many people in many centuries for the purpose of exhibiting the dim beginnings, the wide dispersal, the late decay, and the modern revival of sacred almsgiving. Very considerable care and patience have been bestowed upon this narrative, and Dr. Lansdell has given chapter and verse to support his statements both of fact and opinion. His "Bibliography on Tithe.
Paying and Systematic and Proportionate Giving" is extremely useful and practically exhaustive, and enables the doubting reader to check or supplement the views of the writer. The first volume deals with the history of tithes. We have "Ancient Tithing," a description of tithing or its analogues in pagan Egypt, Asia, Greece, and Rome; in patriarchal, Mosaic, Old Testament, and Talmudic times.
Next we are led to consider Christian tithing, and Catholic teaching, practice, and legislation on the subject. Then we have three chapters on pre-Reformation tithing in England, followed by six chapters on tithe abuses.
So far as the earlier history goes, Dr. Lansdell's book seems to us on the whole trustworthy and interesting. His weakness is his desire to press records and words into his service that have more to do with general charity than with tithing or tithe-paying. We may very well doubt, with Selden, whether patriarchal custom or Mosaic law bOund the Jew, or Christian custom before the fifth century bound the Christian, to pay tithe as tithe ; and certainly our Lord gave no directions for the payment of tithe, save in so far as such behests may be implied from His general direction to obey the law. Until the early Middle Ages tithes may indeed be regarded as voluntary gifts, which by custom were payable out of any profit—however noble or disgraceful— to uses—however disgraceful or noble—dictated, or supposed to be dictated, by some God whose traditional characteristics inspired the veneration or the fear of the giver. This practice of devoting to religious purposes a portion of the daily or yearly profit is probably as old as religion itself, and developed with the development of religion from its germ.
The devotion of a tenth occurs in the earliest ages and dis- appears in the obscurity of prehistoric times. The proportion was possibly chosen in an age when ten (learnt from the ten fingers) was the numerical limit and one-tenth was the smallest fraction capable of measurement. A tenth, therefore, could not have been the custom among races incapable of reckoning up to ten. The Australian "black fellow" has probably no custom of tithing at all. As is shown here, the priests soon came to demand or to expect more than the minimum that conscience or custom dictated. Dr. Lansdell, however, accepts no such theory. He believes and teaches that the tenth was divinely and specifically imposed upon the world :—
"If it was originally left to every man to give for religious purposes merely according to his own inclination—that is, as much or as little as he pleased—then how should so many peoples have hit upon a tenth for God's portion, rather than a fifth, or a fifteenth, or any other? Does not the universality of this propor- tion point to a time when the ancestors of those nations lived together, and so derived the custom from a common source ?• No profane author, and no account or tradition known to us in any country, professes to give that origin, nor does the Bible do so in express terms. Can we, then, frame any hypothesis that would account for the facts before us ? Most men, presumably, will
• The Sacred Tenth; or, Studies in Tithe-Giving, Ancient and Modern. By Henry Lansdell, D.D. With Portraits, Maps, Illustrations, and Appendices containing a Bibliography on Tithe-Giving. List of Crown Grantees and Modern Lay-Owners of English Alienated Tithes. 2 vols. London S.P.C.K. [16s.2
allow that sacrifice was not a human invention, but a divine institution appointed by God. And if Clod appointed also that some things were acceptable to Him as 'clean' and others not so, is it reasonable to suppose that Ho would have omitted directions about the quantity, or proportion in which such things should be offered ? If, then, we may venture the hypothesis that God from the beginning taught Adam that it was the duty of man to render a portion of his increase to his Maker, and that that portion was to be not less than a tenth, then we shall see that the facts recorded in Genesis not only do not contradict such a supposition, but corroborate and strengthen it."
It is too late in the day, we may venture to think, to adopt this literal position. Unquestionably it was convenience culmi- nating in custom, and not a divine command, that distinguished between " clean " and "unclean." God deals in principles, not in particulars. He gives us laws of charity, not hard-and- fast rules of division that in particular cases become a cruel burden. The new dispensation swept away the very position that DP. Lansdell would re-establish. The spirit of the old law, not its formal formularies, was what Christ recognised. The tenth quit tenth could have meant nothing to Christ, and certainly meant nothing to His followers until the pressure and gloom of the Dark Ages once again hardened moral principles and obligations into legal and inequitable rules.
It is difficult altogether to understand Dr. Lansdell's position about tithes in dealing with the period since the Reformation. It is quite clear that nowadays tithes, in the technical sense, are not given to God by any one. The tithes that are paid are not really given at all, for the purchaser of the land out of which they are paid takes the tithes into account when he purchases, and in effect deducts from the price the capitalised value of the tithes. Would not Dr. Lansdell himself do this P Except in the cases—there can be very few—where the descendants of the original grantee of the tithes pay them still, no one pays formal tithes in Dr. Lansdell's sense to-day. The tithe to-day is property and nothing else, and is no gift at all. It is useless to be angry with Henry VIII., or even with the Parliament of William IV., for the misappropriation or the extinction of tithes. No doubt the appropriation was very wrong, but if one enters into the moral right of possession curious questions arise. How, for instance, in many cases did
a particular parish or a particular monastery become entitled to the tithe that Henry stole,—if stealing is the right term P
The Church has not always acquired property in the way that its Founder would have approved. If, however, it is replied that time bad quieted possession in the case of the Church, surely the same reply applies to the vast bulk of the three million of tithes held by the laity in England. Practically every one who owns tithe in England has paid for it, and the plea that it ought to be returned to Holy Church is adequately met by the answer that those on whose behalf it was given —if it was ever given—to Holy Church are now far more abundantly provided for out of the rates than they ever were out of tithes in the days when Poor-rates did not exist. If Church property was "the patrimony of the poor," the poor have gained far more out of the rates given by the State than they have lost by the State alienation of tithes. It must be borne in mind, also, that the administration of the patrimony of the poor cost a great deal more than the administration (lavish though it is) of the Poor-rates. The Church through- out the Middle Ages was too often a fraudulent trustee of the patrimony of the poor. Moreover, it must be remembered that the Church (though she has no poor to maintain in the old sense) is really better off now in the matter of tithes than she was before the time of Henry VIII., in conse- quence of the enormous increase of the titheable area since that age.
It is somewhat curious that Dr. Lansdell, though he seems to admit (p. 499) the weight of the argument, does not include among his modern analogues of tithe the money paid by the community in the way of rates (especially Poor-rates),—money which is primarily used for the benefit of the poor, and there- fore Jakes the place of the patrimony of the poor. If this were done, and the huge sum so raised were added to the £15,000,000 annually given in formal charity in England, it would be found, we may well believe, that the average English- man contributes more to the good of the community—and that is the true meaning of tithing—than the average pious Jew of Mosaic days. These points are taken with respect to Dr. Lansdell's work ; but we must offer a final word of praise. His book is certainly calculated to make the average man realise more adequately the duty of devoting a definite portion of his substance—of his time, his work, or his money—to the glory of God and the good of man. To bring this lesson home to the minds of those who arc tempted to believe ht the value of money for money's sake is a national service. We are not altogether at one with Dr. Lansdell's rather mediaeval point of view on the subject of tithes, nor can we accept his warning drawn from the fearful fate that has overtaken some of those who have misappro- priated tithes, but we may commend in the strongest terms his conclusion as to the religions and moral duty of charity. Charity covereth the multitude of sins, and pardoneth even a clerical or lay impropriator by purchase or descent. The guilt of sacrilege, indeed, cannot seriously be said to attach to any possessor of this particular form of property.
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