The statistical return of the voluntary offerings of the Church
of England for the year ending Easter, 1907, has just been issued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In order to guard against duplication, a twofold division is adopted, discriminating between the funds raised and administered by central and diocesan societies, and those under the control of parochial and local organisations. Under the first bead, the income of the Church is £2,488,575, and under the second £4,973,668, the total being £7,462,243. In this sum no account has been taken of contributions to societies supported by the co-operation of Churchmen and Nonconformists, nor of grants from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty. As regards the latter bodies, we may call attention to a statement published by the Archbishop of Canterbury. By wise retrenchment the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have con- siderably increased their funds during the last twenty years, and they are now able to launch a scheme by which all benefices in public patronage where the population exceeds a thousand and the income is less than £200 per annum will be raised to that sum, and those where the population is at least five hundred and the income less than 2150 per annum will be raised to that sum. The scheme will not only augment about a thousand benefices, but will enable the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty to do their distinctive work more effectively, and will relieve diocesan funds and the Queen Victoria Clergy Fund. The Ecclesiastical Com- missioners are to be very heartily congratulated upon their wise and thrifty administration of Church property.
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