EPISCOPAL JOBBING.
THE subscribers to the Metropolitan Churches Fund must have felt no little indignation when the Gloucester Palace job was brought to light. They heard the Bishop of London bemoaning the spiritual destitution of the people, and the poverty-stricken state of the Church. All that was wanted to save souls from per- dition was some ready money. The nobleman, the merchant, and the shopkeeper, have answered to the call of the Hierarchy, and subscribed the one thing needful. Dr. BLOMFIELD is to
have fifty additional livings placed at his disposal—that is bad enough ; but then, this same Bishop has authorized a brother Prelate to spend as much as seventy 1001. contributions to the fund in the erection of a sumptuous palace at Gloucester; where there is already a Bishop's residence, which satisfied some of the most distinguished divines the Church has produced—WARnuit-
TON among them—though it is not sufficiently grand for the not very eminent Dr. MoNce. Queen Anne's Bounty, as our readers
are aware, is a fund set apart nominally for the increase of poor livings, the purchase of glebes, and the building of parsonage- houses. This fund is under the control of the Bishops, who have mismanaged it infamously—saving their own pockets at the expense
of the poorer clergy. But in the whole career of jobbing, their reverences have done nothing worse than the appropriation of 7,0001.
for building a palace for the Bishop of Gloucester. About the same sum was already in hand, being the amount paid as damages by the city of Bristol for the destruction of the Bishop's Palace in that now suppressed see ; and, if a new residence for the Bishop of Gloucester was to be built at all, one large enough might have been erected for 7,0001.—that is to say, a house worth, at a mode- rate computation, 3301. a year, ought to have satisfied Dr. Monte.
But no ; a Bishop could not live so meanly, he must have a palace—like the Apostles, whose successors every body knows the Bishops are ; and as there was no other fund from which cash could be so conveniently filched, it was agreed by the right reve- rend plunderers to take 7,0001. from that allotted to the increase of poor livings, and the assistance of poor clergymen. And this was done by the very men who had been investigating the state of the Church, ascertaining its wants, and cutting down the pa- tronage and revenues of the Deans and Chapters, under the pre- tence that the incomes of small benefices should be augmented. Next session, more bills, prepared by the Bishops, will be in- troduced for the " reform" of the Church. It might seem harsh to say, that, coming from such a source, they should be scouted at once; but, gaining wisdom from the experience of last session, we hope that the People's Representatives will scrutinize each clause as if a job lurked in every line. As regards the Act for curtailing the incomes and patronage of the Cathedral subalterns,. we have no expectation that it will pass. Canons and Prebends are as sharp, if not so potent, as Bishops. Not a sixpence will they give up that they can keep. But we have some fear that the bill for sanctioning and perpetuating Non-residence and Plu- ralities will be forced through Parliament ; for both Whigs and Tories will find it a convenient measure for selves and kindred. To the real Reformers we say, watch them.
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