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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.
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Untitled Article
State of the Curates of the Church of England . 229
Untitled Article
fit for the exertion , and much less the mind , which it is necessary to have in a calm , quiet , and intelligent state , to be able to perform the duty to
advantage . This duty cannot , then , be performed while things remain as they are . If the curate be a married man , and the generality of curates are , he will be compelled by his necessities to devote the greater part of his tim ^ ti his pupils ; six of the best hours of the day will at least be employed in this manner : he must eat , drink , and sleep i he must be studious in reading and learning the Scriptures , and in composing sermons ; he must walk for the benefit of his health ; he must visit the sick , baptize the living , and bury the dead ; and when all this , and often more than this , is done , what time will remain at his disposal for training the young , the rude , and the ignorant , in the principles of religion ? If it is not intended to restore Popish celibacy amongst us , the working clergy must be better paid , or they cannot perform the duties of their sacred office .
The Parish Priest further maintains , that the principles of justice aud equity most certainly require that curates should be fairly and honestly remunerated . If , he says , " If one class , and that a large class , of the ministers of any church be by their poverty , or rather by the selfishness of the other class , deprived of the means of fulfilling their obligations , the welfare of the Church is not duly consulted , nor its character sufficiently maintained . —That the case which I have supposed is a just representation of the actual state of the Church of England , no unprejudiced man will pretend to deny . "
Whence he argues it is the duty of Churchmen " to wipe out the foul blot which , has so long sullied the fame of the Church , " and " take away the reproach which the Dissenter and the Roman Catholic have so long cast in our teeth , that our beneficed clergy regard the fleece far more than the flock . " He continues : 11 The hopeless condition of a great many of the curates might be insisted on—the necessity of their maintaining their rank in society might be statedthe almost impossibility of their emerging from the poverty and privation in which they are placed , might be urged—the desolate state of their familiesthe time of superannuation , sickness , and death , to which they must come , and the want of temporal aid and comfort in these distressing seasons , might be mentioned—as too many glaring proofs of the absolute necessity of some amelioration of their circumstances "
To the state of Church patronnge the Parish Priest then turns . Unless the curate has influential friends and powerful interest , it matters nothing to him that there are rectories and vicarages , and comfortable parsonage-houses , and snug prebendal stalls . He sees them , it is true ; but it is like the land of promise , afar off . He may labour diligently to deserve them ; but his labours will be in vain . Does he look to private patronage } He will look in vain , except he has claims on the wealthy , the noble , and the powerful .
To episcopal patronage ? Of this little will remain by the time the sons , brothers , nephews , cousins , sons-in-law , chaplains , and college friends of a bishop , are provided for . To public patronage ? This channel is more closed against him than any other . For though the Lord Chancellor disposes of nine hundred benefices , yet " were even the purity of an angel , the piety of a saint , the labours of an apostle , the energy and zeal of Peter , the learning and eloquence of Paul , the wisdom and gravity of James , and 3 he benignity and Jove of John , all united in his own single person , they
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/5/
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