CLERICAL BLOOD PRESSURES
SIR.--Mrs. Furlong may say that my %ie%%; are 'jaundiced,' but it would be better if she met them with reasoned argument.
I have belonged to the Lincoln diocese for more than forty years. I am joint patron of a benefice in the diocese. And I maintain that absolute power should not reside in the hands of bishops who do not belong in any sense whatever to the county or the diocese, who are in every sense of the word ephemeral—there have been seven since I came to the diocese.
I could fill a page with a recital of the names of villages which have had their parsonage houses sold in the last ten years. Yet pensioned retired schoolmasters and similar people would gladly .take these livings for a very small stipend. Am I jaundiced in thinking that the main task of the rural clergy is to reside in their villages and pray for their parishel in the village churches?—Yours faithfully, AUSTIN I 11E Great Carlton Rectory, Louth, Lines
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