year we have seen the returns were from 10,583 benefices in England and Wales, of which benefices 4,413 had resident, and 6,120 non-resident incumbents. Many incumbents who reside on their benefices do no duty; they are only attracted to their parishes by a fine cover for game, an excellent trout-stream, or, perhaps, they seek a quiet retreat, having worn out the better part of their existence in the dissipation of a town life. Even those who reside and do duty, and are called the working clergy, perform a service requiring so little intellectual exertion, that it hardly merits the remuneration of a tide-waiter. They have scarcely ever occasion to compose and deliver an original sermon. The late Dr. Johnson, before he received his pension, was regularly employed in the manufacture of this description of commodity. The market is now overstocked; we seldom turn over a newspaper without meeting with advertisements for the sale of MS sermons, which, next to manufactures, seem the most abundant of all things. Sometimes parcels are advertised in lithographic type; this type being an imitation of writing, sermons composed in it pass with the congregation for original compositions, and the minister has the credit of propounding a good discourse, the result of the previous week's hard study and preparation. A lot of sermons of this description would be invaluable, and might be transmitted from father to son, like a freehold estate. If they became stale, they might be sold or exchanged with a neighbouring incumbent: this is a common practice with ministers who wish to indulge their parishioners with novelty; they exchange one old batch of sermons for another, from a different part of the country. But enough of this. One is at a loss to imagine what the bishops have been doing while the church has been running to seed. These right reverend prelates are expressly appointed to watch over the morals and conduct of the inferior clergy; they are amply endowed and have numerous corps of officers to assist in the discharge of their episcopal functions. Yet they have been strangely remiss in attention to their subaltern brethren. Translations have tended greatly to produce this apathy; they divest the bishops of a permanent interest in their dioceses, and prevent them becoming intimately acquainted with the character and demeanour of incumbents. Until they attain the summit of prelatical ambition, they consider themselves only birds of passage; in their sees, what they chiefly take an interest in is, to fill up the vacant commissions, and then keep a steady eye on Durham or Winchester. Under the primacy of the late Archbishop SUTTON energetic measures of reform were not likely to be countenanced; the career of this mild but rapacious prelate was not an inapt exemplar of the favourite it is perhaps unnecessary to observe, that there are not actually so many individuals as the number of resident and non-resident incumbents in the Returns import. The apparent inconsistency results from pluralities. Every benefice with cure has an incumbent; but, as each incumbent often holds two or more benefices, it reduces the number of individuals to the amount we have stated, (page 27,) namely, 7191. priestly motto on the Lambeth arms,-" Unite the meekness of a dove with the subtlety of a serpent." His grace and his grace's family shared too largely in the advantages of the existing system to relish innovation. His lordship had profound views of the true policy of our spiritual establishment; was always for yielding a little to keep things quiet, rather than make a noise, knowing that the less was said about the church the more she would shine. Some of the primate's successors, on the episcopal bench, appear hardly yet so rife in the mysteries of ecclesiastical dominion. A few years since, Marsh, of Peterborough, was tormenting his clergy with some unintelligible points of doctrine, and Bishop Blomfield lately astounded the inhabitants of London and Westminster with a "Letter on the Profanation of the Lord's Day." Had the strictures of this right reverend prelate been directed only against the baneful habit of drinking to excess, and other vices which disgrace the Sabbath, they might have passed without animadversion; but when he assails the Sunday press, and those innocent relaxations, conducive only to health and harmless enjoyment, he betrays a puritanism unsuited to the age. His lordship seems to opine a poor man is born only to work and pray, while a lord or a bishop may have his concerts, card-parties, and grand dinners every day, not even excepting the seventh. Such idle cant deceives no one; it only excites contempt or disgust. Men's professions now pass unheeded; every thing is put into the scale and taken at its intrinsic worth. People quietly ask why should the clergy take ten millions annually out of the produce of land and industry? What services do they render society? Do they instruct the rising generation? No; they teach them little that is useful and a great deal positively injurious. Are they administrators of justice? No; God forbid they should. Are they profound statesmen? Do they often originate or encourage measures for the good of the country? No; they are most miserable politicians, and as to any project for bettering the condition of the great body of the people, they appear not to have a single idea. Well, but they are ministers of religion! Very few of them are so employed, and as to that the Dissenters are not less teachers of their flocks, and they receive no tithes, build their own chapels, and altogether do not cost one-tenth as much as the mere sinecure rectors of the Establishment. IV. REVENUES OF THE ESTABLISHED CLERGY. It is impossible to produce a complete and accurate statement of the revenues of the clergy. The bulk of ecclesiastical revenue consists of tithe; but, besides tithe, an immense revenue is drawn from other sources. The clergy are almost in entire possession of the revenue of charitable foundations. They hold, exclusively, the professorships, fellowships, tutorships, and masterships of the universities and public schools. Immense landed property is attached to the sees, cathedrals, and collegiate churches. The clergy have, also, a very considerable income from glebe-lands, surplice-fees, preacherships in the royal chapels, lectureships, town-assessments, Easter-offerings, rents of pews in the new churches, stipends of chapels of ease, chaplainships in the army and navy, chaplainships to embassies, corporate bodies, and commercial companies; besides which, they monopolize nearly all profitable offices in public institutions, as trustees, librarians, secretaries, &c. The bishops, who hold the chief estates of the church, and to whom the parochial clergy, on obtaining licenses for curates and dispensation for plurality, are required by law to state the yearly value of their benefices, could furnish the most valuable information relative to the incomes of the clergy. But even this would be insufficient; nothing would throw complete light on the subject, but every member of the establishment, whether in lay or spiritual capacity, making a return of his income and emoluments. Before a long time has elapsed it is to be hoped Mr. Hume or Sir James Graham will adopt measures to supply this desideratum in public statistics; or, if general rumour on the immense revenues of the clergy be a calumny, the task might be advantageously undertaken by Sir R. Inglis or the Right Hon. Henry Goulburn. Till then we have a right to rely on collateral and inferential evidence. The endowments of the church are nearly as ancient as the first introduction of Christianity into Britain, and we know from the results of recent inquiries into the incomes of grammar-schools and other charitable foundations, which are nearly of cotemporary antiquity, that the increase in the value of ecclesiastical estates must be immense. The returns in Liber Regis are usually relied upon, in estimating the revenues of the church, and, perhaps, with other helps, it is the best authority to which we can resort. Of the vast increase in the value of land since the Valor Ecclesiasticus was obtained, the history of St. Paul's School affords a striking and appropriate exemplification. The estates of this foundation are situated in various parts of the kingdom; in A. D. 1524, they produced an income of £122:0:11; in the year 1820, the yearly income derived from the same estates was £5252: 2:11. Here is an increase in value of nearly fifty fold, even under the wasteful and negligent management of a city corporation. The valuation of the rectory of Alresford in the King's Book is only £8 a year; the extent of the parish is 1400 acres, yet the composition for tithes paid by the parishioners amounts to £300 per annum ; being an increase of more than thirty-seven fold. How great must be the incomes derived from such valuable rectories as those of Brentford, Houghton-le-Spring, Spofforth, and Stanhope-the richest in the kingdom,-which are rated respectively in the King's Book at £150, £124, £73:6:8, and £67: 6:8 a-year. The increase in population, by increasing the number of church-fees, has tended, as well as the increased value of land, to swell the revenues of the church, and no doubt many benefices are worth two hundred fold * Third Report of the Charity Commissioners, p. 230. what they were at the time of the Reformation. The vicarage of Hillingdon, held by the present rector of St. George's, Hanover-square, is an instance of the vicissitudes in clerical income. This, it appears, from the original record preserved in the archives of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, was a mere trifle, the great tithes of which, in the year 1281, were bestowed on the Bishop of Worcester towards defraying the expenses of his journeys to the metropolis, and for repair of the church, the small tithes being reserved for the maintenance of a vicar, to be appointed by the Bishop of London. That part of the contract relating to the expense of repairs has always been left to be performed by the parishioners, the Right Reverend Prelates of Worcester contenting themselves with receiving their share of the tithes, and reading a sermon to the inhabitants about once in a twelvemonth. These tithes have been of considerable value, and the management of them not a little extraordinary. The practice has been to let them to the highest bidder, by granting a lease of them for three lives, the purchaser paying down, in ready money, about £8000. Even on these terms it is said to have been a profitable bargain; the last speculator in this spiritual traffic was the late Lord BOSTON, of whom the Bishop demanded the exorbitant sum of £8000, for the insertion of a new life, one of the former having dropt. His lordship neglecting to complete the agreement the lease was nominally made over to the bishop's daughter, who gave receipts in her own name for the amount of tithes collected. Affairs continued in this state until the year 1812, when an act of parliament was obtained for enclosing and exonerating from tithes certain lands in the parish of Hillingdon; which was promptly acted upon, and a distribution of lands took place, by which 765 acres were set apart and appropriated in lieu of rectorial and vicarial tithes for ever. By this arrangement the bishop and vicar have obtained a fine estate in exchange for £16 a-year, the valuation of the living in the time of Henry VIII. All parties are more independent of each other— no contention about tithes nor compositions for tithes. The bishop repairs a chapel in lieu of the church; the vicar is an absentee, leaving a curate for the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants; and the only parties who have sustained any loss are the poor, in being deprived of the rights of common which their forefathers enjoyed. Leaving these incidental illustrations of church property, let us endeavour to ascertain, upon some general principles, the amount of the revenues of the clergy. The estimates, by individuals, of ecclesiastical revenues are mostly limited to a valuation of tithe and the landed estates of the church. Of the unfairness of this mode of proceeding we shall hereafter speak; at present we shall submit to the reader two estimates of the revenues of the church, drawn up on very different principles, and by parties who entertain very different views of the state * Coventry on the Revenues of the Church, p. 174. of our ecclesiastical establishment. The first statement is from the third edition of a work, entitled "Remarks on the Consumption of Public Wealth by the Clergy." Estimate of the Revenues and Property of the Established Church in England and Wales. Annual value of the gross produce of the land of England and Wales Leaving the amount on which tithes for the clergy are levied .... Tithes Estates of the bishops and ecclesiastical corporations Chapels of ease stipends.. Total...... £150,000,000 50,000,000 100,000,000 6,250,000 6,250,000 1,000,000 250,000 100,000 .£7,600,000 Abbey-land, or land exempt by modus from tithe, one-tenth Number of acres actually subject to tithe ... 28,615,680 This number, divided by 10,693, the number of parishes, gives 2,676 tithable acres to each parish. In the Patronage of the Crown, the Bishops, Deans and Chapters, the Universities and Collegiate Establishments. 1733 Rectories, containing 4,637,508 acres, at 3s. 6d. 2341 Vicarages, containing 6,264,516 acres, at 1s. 3d. Annual value of Public Livings.. In the Gift of private Patrons. 3444 Rectories, containing 9,216,144 acres, at 3s. 6d. 2175 Vicarages, containing 5,820,300 acres, at 1s. 3d. 1000 Perpetual curacies, averaging £75 each 649 Benefices, not parochial, averaging £50 each Annual value of Private Benefices. ..... £ 811,563 391,532 1,203,095 .... 1,612,825 363,768 75,000 32,450 2,084,043 160,000 8000 Glebes, at £20 each |