On this page
-
Text (2)
-
September 27,1856.] THE LEADER. 925
-
, - - - - , we y of THE HOPE OF THE WORK...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Church Insolvent. We Have "Been Too ...
"With this unhappy being , the curate , the incumbent -was placed in . fiendish contrast . Every gentleman kncms the position ( said the Times ) in-which an incumbent stands , as a matter of course , to those whose services lie ha 3 secured for 70 ? ., or 50 / ., or 26 ? . a vear- Of course there is another side to this question , as incumbents take care to inform us . Curates are represented as an inferior race of men , otherwise they would not still be curates . . . . . They are drudges , it is said : there are plenty of them , as there is of drudges in every department , and it is needless ^ to pay more than the market price for an article of trade with which the market is overstocked . ... -It is not easy for any one to maintain a high tone , a dig- nified manner , or the otber components of greatness , on 80 / . a year . . . . . Poverty is very depressing . . . . " . . When ' a poor creature , ' as saucy young ladies and gentlemen call him , gets up in tlie readingdesk , drones out the prayers , and hammers through an old sermon , few know bow often it may be said that he once had genius , sentiment , learning , and zeal : that . Chill penm-y repressed Ms noMe rage . And froze the genial current of the soul . This is stating ' the other side of the case with a vengeance ! but the incumbents would not submit to be crushed by the Times . Ac- cordingly , they come out strongly , and un- questionably they have a case . The " Kector of West Camniell" declares that on account of the abatements in the income of an incum- bent , when he was curate receiving the stipend , sometimes of 80 Z . a year and a house , 100 ? . or 140 Z ., he " could not afford to take one of five livings offered to him . " Another sends the account ; of his living , which is nominally Avorth between 300 Z . and 400 Z . a year ; but after his expenditure in rent , taxes , curacy , & c , he has about 140 Z . of apparent income ; out of which he has to m ake his con- tributions towards charities -. and in the year of his appointment , first fruits and such claims left him with little more than 50 ? Rigid economists revive old stories of plurali- ties , of livings held ' in commeridam ; ' while the incumbent exercises other duties , probably scholastic . Or they point out the fact that the clergy know the scale of income which they may expect ; that they have their choice of a profession ; that they are not bound to marry or have large families ; and that therefore they must not charge the consequences of their own imprudence upon the slender in comes allotted to curates or incumbents . The arguments of these economists appear to be that if the clergy of the Established Church are ill paid , they ought to choose another pro fession , and they ought to regulate their matrimony and their families according to their cloth . Here political economy preaches tlie same doctrine with the Roman Catholic Church , and would establish a celibate clergy The other economists set off the great prizes of the Church against its deplorable blanks and seem to think that it is good fun to gamble in . the chances of Church preferment In all these comments , in all these advocacies and complaints , we have not yet departed from the strict limits of the Established Church' ; we are but repeating the state ments , arguments , and comments of church men . But despondency can go 3 et further . Our weekly contemporary appeals to the statistics of Mr . Hoka . ce Mann , and draws from them the most painful of all conclusions . Tlie Spectator quotes from Mr . Mann ' s book the proportions of attendance at divine service Sunday . Fifty-eight per cent , of the whole population of the manufacturing districts "Yorkshire and Lancashire could attend ser vice : the number would be 937 , 000 . The Church of England provides 238 , 000 sittings the number of sittings provided by the Church and the sects together is 573 , 000 . The number of attendants at church is 122 , 000 at all places of worship , 348 , 000 . In great manufacturing towns , therefore , Church provides a quarter of the accommo dation requirod "by tho population ; \
C v : t < s ( n U ir p n n IS q ^ , -t r j , c t j c t s s t 1 c ( ] < 1 i i 1 : . 1 < i ! ¦ - , - . , . - - on of - ; ; the the - the Church and the sects together do not pro- vide room for two-thirds ; yet the actual at- tendance in the Establishment is about one- seventh , and in all places of worship together not much more than one-third ! All people who are physically able to go to church could not find room , but the room provided is much in excess of those who are willing . The primary want , thenj is a more efficient Mi- nistry ; but who in these days are to get a more efficient Ministry when the rate of pay is such , that the incumbent and the curate quarrel 3 not over a surplus salary , but over a deficiency which each wants to thrust upon the other ? The two societies—the Pastoral Aid and the Additional Curates Society— raise respectively 37 , 264 L and 17 , 3232 . in the year—^ a mere drop in the ocean . The churches of the Establishment are empty for want of a clergy to draw an audience into that theatre ; two great societies raise the paltry sum of 52 , 000 Z . for the purpose of recruiting the clergy—about 51 . a head on the total number of the clergy ; and here we seem to have come to the end of the resources . The Church , indeed , once had tithes ; but who can recover them from the I lay impropriator 3 ? The only remedy which occurs to the most outspoken friend of the ! , Church is alarming : — " If the Church , of 1 England is to stand , sooner or later we must I come to a general voluntary contribution , , for its partial support , and sooner is better than later ; indeed , postponement may be i irremediable . " The great Establishment , then , lias nothing left for it but to send . round the plate ! l What are its hopes of success when its , best performers display their powers in empty ¦ churches , while a Spurgeon , the newest s novelty of one of the most heterogeneous r sects in the country , is obliged to remove b from a . private chapel to Exeter Hall , in order l that he may thunder his exciting sermons } into tens of thousands of ears . There is a ) zest in the prospect of being damned . Sittb-• geon tells his ' auditory that the indifference 3 of the clergymen is misprision of damna-- tion ; that the neglectful incumbent is ani swerable for the perdition of all the souls in , his church ; and that at a future day , when i he has passed from these petty squabbles - with Ids curate , he may have his parish r " come howling after him into hell . " There > is no lack of voluntary contributions towards 3 this kind of preaching ; they are collected c for Spubgeon at the doors of Exeter Hall in sums enough to supply a stimulus greater s than alcohol for this vehement orator . But } , how can the incumbent or the curate , dragged o down by a deficiency of 10 Z . in the annual i . pittance , rise to sublimities like these ? It ( S is an unequal competition . The confession d that the Establishment has no resources but d the plate , is a confession that the days of the s- Establishment are numbered—that is , as an i- Establishment . The voluntary system could never Biicceed ir for the support of ministers whose mhristra : s tions have been arranged according to the xx ideas of James the Fiiist ' s day . Tlie very ie call for a revision of the Bible—a call sup le ported by the whole force of better intelli m gence in these days—shows that while we le must revere the spirit of the men who trans of lated tho Eiblo , we must inevitabl y revise r- their imperfect manner of doing their work ie But if we must revise tho verbal construction s ; of that volume , does it not follow that jh must revise the whole construction of the lie machinery for tho exposition of tho religion 0 ; that the volume teaches ? This is exactl lie what the country has been doing , by means lie of ' Dissent . * "But when the multitude sets o- itself to administer any affairs of an elevated lie character , it inevitably falls into tho error ¦
a t i ] a c a n c t t \ I t 1 c i t g < ] appointing officers who are fitter to be led than to lead . Still more when it sets itself in opposition to the elite of the country . An antagonistic democracy is as false in its ex- . clusiveness as an antagonistic aristocracy ; and the principle holds good in religion as much as it would in science , as much as it does in politics . The existence of an Establishment that cannot be supported voluntarily by the whole body of the people , prevents the existence of a real national Establishment representing the -whole body of the people . ' The Established Church ' blocks out a National Church . It is becoming pauper , because it draws its whole resources from the past , aiid lives upon tithes that have been , impropriated ; and its sole chance of saving itself is by converting itself into au administration for the religion 1 of the entire country ,- —making itself what it s has ceased to be , the Church of England .
September 27,1856.] The Leader. 925
September 27 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 925
, - - - - , We Y Of The Hope Of The Work...
, - - - - , we y of THE HOPE OF THE WORKHOUSE . Disclosures that are made from time to time by the press justify the account of : English workhouses written by Mrs . Jameson . * As that lady , unlike a number of her countrymen , does not declaim against an evil without suggesting a remedy , her protest is entitled to some attention . Having provided for the poor , we ai e too little in the habit of inquiring hoio we have provided for them . A fortunate accidemt occasionally brings to light some bad aspects ( perhaps , however ^ not the worst ) of our poor-law system , and there is then an uproar ; but the fitful charity dies away , and the paupers are left to their guardians . Against this class of gentlemen we have no wish to urge any general charge , which we liave not the means of substantiating . But it may be said , without in- ^ justice , thab , upon the whole , they are the i guardians of the tax-payers , not of the poor . l Their duty , as interpreted by themselves , consists in seeing that the inmates of tlie : workhouse are not too comfortable , and that no one is an inmate who can by any quibble be excluded . ; "We will not take the recent flogging cases . as characteristic of our workhouse adminis-\ tration . Tliey may be exceptional , though ' , decidedly they were the scandal of the parish s of Marylebone . At all events , it is not to i be denied that some workhouses are better I governed than others . There are the clean , and the dirty , the systematic and the slovenly , r the healthy and the pestiferous ; the harshly b and the lrindly controlled . There are matrons 1 of motherly virtue and matrons as odious a a I stupidity in a stnte of chronic intoxication t can be . You may find the master to be of n an amiable , conscientious character , or he t may be a privileged ruffian , a small womane ftogger . a Mrs . Jameson affirms that she has seen in workhouses things she could hardly speak of . d But setting aside their worst aspects , her - complaint is that the mosb vulgar of human e beings are employed to manage the most . y ignorant , . paupers to govern paupers , tl » o i- nged and infirm to attend upon those more l- infirm and aged still . The charity of the e law is worked by a , hard and coarse mni- chinery . The tax which supports it is " paid o so reluctantly , with so little sympathy in ita ' c . purpose , that the wretched paupers seem to n be regarded as a sort of parisli locusts , sent e to devour tho substance of the rate-payers , ie as the natural enemies of those who are n taxed for their subsistence — almost as y criminals . " Mrs . Jamebon is not ex-» s aggerating . Lot us ask any one familiar j * The Communion of Labour : a Second Locturo on 5 < * tho Social Employments of Women . By Mrs . Jaroouon . ° i Longman and Co .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27091856/page/13/
-