plaints of being confounded with enthusiasts and fanatics. mental tourists, and elegiac poets. But, notwithstanding the known accuracy of this class of philosophers, we cannot help suspecting that there is a good deal of misconception in the popular estimate of the amount of the evil. We cannot conclude without the most pointed reprobation of the low mischief of the Christian Observer; a publication which appears to have no other method of discussing a question A very great proportion of all the fairly open to discussion, than that curacies in England are filled with of accusing their antagonists of in- men to whom the emolument is a fidelity. No art can be more unmanly, matter of subordinate importance. or, if its consequences are foreseen, They are filled by young gentlemen more wicked.—If this publication had who have recently left college, who of been the work of a single individual, course are able to subsist as they had we might have passed it over in silent subsisted for seven years before, and disgust; but as it is looked upon as the who are glad to have an opportunity, organ of a great political religious on any terms, of acquiring a practical party in this country, we think it right familiarity with the duties of their proto notice the very unworthy manner fession. They move away from them in which they are attempting to extend to higher situations as vacancies occur; their influence. For ourselves, if there and make way for a new race of were a fair prospect of carrying the ecclesiastical apprentices. To those gospel into regions where it was before unknown,-if such a project did not expose the best possessions of the country to extreme danger, and if it was in the hands of men who were discreet as well as devout, we should consider it to be a scheme of true piety, benevolence, and wisdom: but the baseness and malignity of fanaticism shall never prevent us from attacking its arrogance, its ignorance, and its activity. For what vice can be more tremendous than that which, while it wears the outward appearance of religion, destroys the happiness of man, and dishonours the name of God? LETTER ON THE CURATE'S SALARY BILL.* THE poverty of curates has long been *Now we are all dead, it may be amusing to state that I was excited to this article by Sir William Scott, who brought me the book in his pocket; and begged I would attend to it, carefully concealing his name; my own opinions happened entirely to agree with his. men, the smallness of the appointment is a grievance of no very great magnitude; nor is it fair, with relation to them, to represent the ecclesiastical order as degraded by the indigence to which some of its members are condemned. With regard, again, to those who take curacies merely as a means of subsistence, and with the prospect of remaining permanently in that situation, it is certain that by far the greater part of them are persons born in a very humble rank in society, and accustomed to no greater opulence than that of an ordinary curate. There are scarcely any of those persons who have taken a degree in an university, and not very many who have resided there at all. Now, the son of a small Welsh farmer, who works hard every day for less than 40l. a year, has no great reason to complain of degradation or disappointment, if he get from 50l. to 100l. for a moderate portion of labour one day in seven. situation accordingly, is looked upon by these people as extremely eligible; and there is a great competition for curacies, even as they are now provided. The amount of the evil, then, as to the curates themselves, cannot be considered as very enormous, when there are so few who either actually feel, or are entitled to feel, much discontent on the subject. The late regulations The about residence, too, by diminishing | question,—and it introduces other evils the total number of curates, will ob- infinitely greater than that which it viously throw that office chiefly into vainly proposes to abolish. the hands of the well-educated and comparatively independent young men, who seek for the situation rather for practice than profit, and do not complain of the want of emolument. Still we admit it to be an evil, that the resident clergyman of a parish should not be enabled to hold a respectable rank in society from the regular emoluments of his office. But it is an evil which does not exist exclusively among curates; and which, wherever it exists, we are afraid is irremediable, without the destruction of the Episcopal Church, or the agumentation of its patrimony. More than one half of the livings in England are under 80l. a year; and the whole income of the Church, including that of the bishops, if thrown into a common fund, would not afford above 180l. for each living. Unless Mr. Perceval, therefore, will raise an additional million or two for the Church, there must be poor curates, -and poor rectors also; and unless he is to reduce the Episcopal hierarchy to the republican equality of our Presbyterian model, he must submit to very considerable inequalities in the distribution of this inadequate provision. - To this project, however, for increasing the salary of curates, Mr. Perceval has been so long and so obstinately partial, that he returned to the charge in the last session of Parliament, for the third time; and experienced, in spite of his present high situation, the same defeat which had baffled him in his previous attempts. Though the subject is gone by once more for the present, we cannot abstain from bestowing a little gentle violence to aid its merited descent into the gulf of oblivion, and to extinguish, if possible, that resurgent principle which has so often disturbed the serious business of the country, and averted the attention of the public from the great scenes that are acting in the world. -to search for some golden medium between the selfishness of the sacred principal, and the rapacity of the sacred deputy. If church property is to be preserved, that precedent is not without danger which disposes at once of a fifth of all the valuable livings in England. We do not advance this as an argument of any great importance against the bill, but only as an additional reason why its utility should be placed in the clearest point of view, before it can attain the assent of well-wishers to the English establishment. Instead of applying any of these remedies, however, instead of proposing to increase the income of the Church, or to raise a fund for its lowest servants by a general assessment upon those who are more opulent, - instead of even trying indirectly to raise the pay of curates, by raising their qualifications in respect of regular education, Mr. Perceval has been able, after long and profound study, to find no better cure for the endemic poverty of curates, than to ordain all rectors of a certain income to pay them one fifth part of their emoluments, and to vest certain alarming powers in the bishops for the purpose of controlling their appoint-conferred on the prelacy. ment. Now, this scheme, it appears to us, has all the faults which it is possible for such a scheme to have. It is unjust and partial in its principle, it is evidently altogether and utterly in efficient for the correction of the evil in Our first and greatest objection to such a measure, is the increase of power which it gives to the bench of Bishops, -an evil which may produce the most serious effects, by placing the whole body of the clergy under the absolute control of men who are themselves so much under the influence of the Crown. This, indeed, has been pretty effectually accomplished by the late Residence bill of Sir William Scott; and our objection to the present bill is, that it tends to augment that excessive power before If a clergyman lives in a situation which is destroying his constitution, — he cannot exchange with a brother clergyman without the consent of the bishop; in whose hands, under such circumstances, his life and death are vexatious bustle of a new and the laxity of an aged bishop, we cannot but think that a diocese would be much more steadily administered under this system, than by the present means. actually placed. If he wishes to culti- | residence must be lodged somewhere vate a little land for his amusement or why not give the bishop a council, better support, he cannot do it with- consisting of two thirds ecclesiastics, out the licence of the bishop. If he and one third laymen: and meeting at wishes to spend the last three or four the same time as the sessions and deputy months with a declining wife or child, sessions; -the bishop's licence for nonat some spot where better medical as- residence to issue, of course, upon their sistance can be procured, -he can- recommendations? Considering the not do so without permission of the bishop. If he is struck with palsy, or racked with stone, -the bishop can confine him in the most remote village in England. In short, the power which the bishops at present possess over their Examine the constitutional effects of clergy is so enormous, that none but the power now granted to the bench. a fool or a madman would think of What hinders a bishop from becoming, compromising his future happiness, in the hands of the Court, a very imby giving the most remote cause of portant agent in all county elections? offence to his diocesan. We ought to what clergyman would dare to refuse recollect, however, that the clergy con- him his vote? But it will be said that stitute a body of 12 or 15,000 educated no bishop will ever condescend to such persons; that the whole concern of edu- sort of intrigues::-a most miserable cation devolves upon them; that some answer to a most serious objection. share of the talents and information The temptation is admitted, the abwhich exist in the country must na-sence of all restraint; the dangerous turally fall to their lot; and that the consequences are equally admitted; and complete subjugation of such a body of men cannot, in any point of view, be a matter of indifference to a free country. the only preservative is the personal character of the individual. If this style of reasoning were general, what would become of law, constitution, and It is in vain to talk of the good cha- every wholesome restraint which we racter of bishops. Bishops are men; have been accumulating for so many not always the wisest of men; not centuries? We have no intention to always preferred for eminent virtues speak disrespectfully of constituted auand talents, or for any good reason thorities; but when men can abuse whatever known to the public. They power with impunity, and recommend are almost always devoid of striking themselves to their superiors by abusand indecorous vices; but a man maying it, it is but common sense to suppose be very shallow, very arrogant, and very vindictive, though a bishop; and pursue with unrelenting hatred a subordinate clergyman, whose principles he dislikes, and whose genius he fears. Bishops, besides, are subject to the infirmities of old age, like other men; and in the decay of strength and under-possessed it since England has been standing, will be governed, as other men are, by daughters and wives, and whoever ministers to their daily comforts. We have no doubt that such cases sometimes occur, and produce, wherever they do occur, a very capricious administration of ecclesiastical affairs. As the power of enforcing that power will be abused; if it is, the country will hereafter be convulsed to its very entrails, in tearing away that power from the prelacy which has been so improvidently conferred upon them. It is useless to talk of the power they anciently possessed. They have never what it now is. Since we have enjoyed practically a free constitution, the bishops have, in point of fact, possessed little or no power of oppression over their clergy. It must be remembered, however, that we are speaking only of proba the mind of the prelate decayed, wife *Bold language for the year 1808. bishops, daughter bishops, butler bishops, + I have seen in the course of my life, as and even cook and housekeeper bishops. bilities: the fact may turn out to be | non-residence, in short, is a kind of quite the reverse; the power vested in delinquency for which they compound the Bench may be exercised for spiritual by this fine to the parish. If more purposes only, and with the greatest than half of the rectories in England moderation. We shall be extremely are under 80l. a year, and some thouhappy to find that this is the case; sands of them under 40l., pluralities and it will reflect great honour upon are absolutely necessary; and clergythose who have corrected the impro- men, who have not the gift of ubiquity, vidence of the Legislature by their own must be non-resident at some of them. sense of propriety. Curates, therefore, are not the deputies of negligent rectors;- they are an order of priests absolutely necessary in the present form of the Church of England: and a rector incurs no shadow of delinquency by employing one, more than the King does by appointing a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or a Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, instead of doing the duty of these offices in person. If the Legislature, therefore, is to interfere to raise the natural, i.e., the actual wages of this order of men, at the expense of the more opulent ministers of the Gospel, there seems to be no sort of reason for exempting the bishops from their share in this pious contribution, or for refusing to make a similar one for the benefit of all rectors who have less than 100l. per annum. It is contended by the friends of this law, that the respectability of the clergy depends in some measure on their wealth; and that, as the rich bishop reflects a sort of worldly consequence upon the poor bishop, and the rich rector upon the poor rector; so, a rich class of curates could not fail to confer a greater degree of importance upon that class of men in general. This is all very well, if you intend to raise up some new fund in order to enrich curates: but you say that the riches of some constitute the dignity of the whole; and then you immediately take away from the rector the superfluous wealth which, according to your own method of reasoning, is to decorate and dignify the order of men to whom he belongs! The bishops constitute the first class in the church; the beneficed clergy the second; the curates the last. Why are you to take from the second to give to the last? Why not as well from the first* to give to the second,- if you really mean to contend that the first and second are already too rich ? The true reason, however, for exempting my Lords the Bishops from this imposition, is, that they have the privilege of voting upon all bills brought in by Mr. Perceval, and of materially affecting his comfort and security by their parliamentary control It is not true, however, that the class and influence. This, however, is to of rectors is generally either too rich, cure what you believe to be unjust, by or even rich enough. There are 6000 means which you must know to be livings below 80l. per annum, which is unjust; to fly out against abuses which not very much above the average allow-may be remedied without peril, and to ance of a curate. If every rector, how-connive at them when the attempt at ever, who has more than 500l. is obliged a remedy is attended with political to give a fifth part to a curate, there seems to be no reason why every bishop who has more than 1000l. should not give a fifth part among the poor rectors in his diocese. It is in vain to say this assessment upon rectors is reason able and right, because they may reside and do duty themselves, and then they will not need a curate; that their *The first unfortunately make the laws. danger; to be mute and obsequious towards men who enjoy church property to the amount of 18 or 19,000l. per annum; and to be so scandalised at those who possess as many hundreds, that you must melt their revenues down into curacies, and save to the eye of political economy the spectacle of such flagrant inequality! In the same style of reasoning it may be asked, why the lay impropriators are not compelled to advance the salary | to dazzle the parishioners at the rate of their perpetual curacies, up to a of 250l. per annum. The poor man, fifth of their estates? The answer, actuated by those principles of common too, is equally obvious Many lay sense, which are so contrary to all the impropriators have votes in both Houses provisions of the bill, chooses to make of Parliament; and the only class of a good thing of it, because he knows men this cowardly reformation attacks, it will not last; wears his old coat, is that which has no means of saying rides his lean horse, and defrauds the anything in its own defence. class of curates of all the advantages which they were to derive from the sleekness and splendour of his appearance. Even if the enrichment of curates were the most imperious of all duties, it might very well be questioned whether a more unequal and pernicious mode of fulfilling it could be devised than that enjoined by this bill. Curacies are not granted for the life of the curate; but for the life or incumbency or good-liking of the rector. It is only rectors worth 500l. a-year who are compelled by Mr. Perceval to come down with a fifth to their deputy; and these form but a very small proportion of the whole non-resident rectors; so that the great multitude of curates must remain as poor as formerly, and probably a little more discontented. Suppose, however, that one has actually entered on the enjoyment of 250l. per annum. His wants, and his habits of expense, are enlarged by this increase of income. In a year or two his rector dies, or exchanges his living; and the poor man is reduced, by the effects of comparison, to a much worse state than before the operation of the bill. Can any person say that this is a wise and effectual mode of ameliorating the condition of the lower clergy? To us it almost appears to be invented for the express purpose of destroying those habits of economy and caution, which are so indispensably necessary to their situation. If it be urged that the curate, knowing his wealth only to be temporary, will make use of it as a means of laying up a fund for some future day, we admire the good sense of the man: but what becomes of all the provisions of the bill? what becomes of that opulence which is to confer respectability upon all around it, and to radiate even upon the curates of Wales? The money was expressly given to blacken his coat,-to render him convex and rosy, to give him a sort of pseudo-rectorial appearance, and It is of some importance to the welfare of the parish, and the credit of the church, that the curate and his rector should live upon good terms together. Such a bill, however, throws between them elements of mistrust and hatred, which must render their agreement highly improbable. The curate would be perpetually prying into every little advance which the rector made upon his tithes, and claiming his proportionate increase. No respectable Iman could brook such inquisition; some, we fear, would endeavour to prevent its effects by clandestine means. The church would be a perpetual scene of disgraceful animosities; and the ears of the bishop never free from the clamours of rapacity and irritation. It is some slight defect in such a bill, that it does not proportion reward to the labour done, but to the wealth of him for whom it is done. The curate of a parish containing 400 persons, may be paid as much as another person who has the care of 10,000; for, in England, there is very little proportion between the value of a living, and the quantity of duty to be performed by its clergyman. The bill does not attain its object in the best way. Let the bishop refuse to allow of any curate upon a living above 500l. per annum, who is not a Master of Arts of one of the universities. Such curates will then be obtained at a price which will render it worth the while of such men to take curacies; and such a degree and situation in society will secure good curates, much more effectually than the complicated provisions of this bill: for, primâ fucie, it appears to us much more probable, that a curate should be respectable |