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a deepened religious interest. We mean that sort of interest in the outer fabric of the church and of its ministers, which not only cushions in scarlet the pew of the rich dissenting manufacturer himself, but also tends to spread his beneficial influence all over his chapel. Such a man, among the dissenters, feels it as a sort of personal reproach that any part of the chapel in which he worships should be left in an unseemly state of disrepair. He also feels a certain kindly responsibility as to the comfort of the minister whom he "sits under," and of the house which his minister's family inhabits. The same interest, with certain obvious and desirable modifications (which a diocesan constitution would bestow), might be brought to bear beneficially on the financial condition of the Church. It may be said that this is a low view to take of matters, but still it is a true view of a state of things which actually exists. The old central church of a manufacturing or county town is often well maintained, while the district churches, which minister to by far the larger proportion of the population of that town, are too frequently left to languish and to struggle on without any adequate support from the richer laity. These richer laymen are not encouraged by the existing regulations as to patronage to take any unselfish interest in their own parish churches.

The importance of the creation of such local interest in the affairs of the Church may be still further illustrated from the diocese of Ripon. In this diocese, where the towns have very rapidly increased and the churches have been multiplied, the patronage has been retained too exclusively in the hands of the vicars of the mother churches. We select for our illustration the ten vicars of the diocese of Ripon, who have in their gift the most important patronage. These vicars are the following:

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The population of the diocese of Ripon is 1,578,582.

The livings, which comprise a third of the population of one of the largest and most important dioceses of England, and which livings contain over half a million of population, are in the gift of ten patrons. If undeniable statistics did not prove such a state of

things, it would be scarcely possible to credit it. Not one of these ten patrons have laid out anything towards the building or endowment of these churches or livings. Neither they, nor their ancestors, have in any way been such benefactors to the Church as to entitle them to such enormous patronage. To divert such patronage, say at the next avoidance of each mother church, can be no injustice to any one. To have in these very important towns 312 laymen of position, influence, and means, as sharers in the bestowal of such patronage, would give an incalculable impetus to the work, and to the stability, of the Church. It is obvious that if 312 laymen, resident in their respective parishes, of presumably larger means, more varied influence, and representing personally a greater variety of Church views, were substituted for the ten vicar patrons, an enormous additional power and energy would be immediately introduced into the Church. It is in these larger towns and cities that the future destiny of the Church of England is now being determined.

If to the livings enumerated above there is added the population of the fifty-seven livings to which the bishop of that diocese solely presents, and half the population of the livings (twenty-six in number) to which the bishop presents alternately with the Crown, there is added a further population of 273,418. Thus in the patronage of eleven patrons (ten clergymen and the bishop) there are churches representing a population of 781,460, or exactly half of the population of the diocese of Ripon.

But in addition to the 173 livings with the above-mentioned population in the patronage of eleven persons, there are also 140 other livings in the diocese in public patronage. These are in the gift of the Crown, Chancellor, the chapters, vicars and colleges. These raise the population of the diocese of Ripon in public patronage to 1,120,000. Thus, of this vast population in one of the most important and influential divisions of England-the West Riding of Yorkshire-781,460 are found to be in the hands of eleven clergymen, and 338,540 in the hands of other public patrons, who have no immediate interest in the locality, and who for the most part are non-resident in the parishes to which they in their corporate character present. It would indeed be contrary to the commonest human experience, if dissent did not flourish under conditions which are so adverse to any active co-operative interest on the part of the laity in the working of the Church.

*It is noticeable that in Wales (where the patronage of the episcopate is even more excessive) the influence of the Church is sunk to its lowest level. This, though not the only cause, is at least one powerfully contributory cause to that result. In Bangor, the Bishop's patronage exceeds one half-75 livings out of 144. In St. Asaph, the Bishop's patronage is three-fourths of all-144 out of 204. In Llandaff, Bishop's patronage 75, Dean and Chapter 26-101 out of 224. In St. David's, 142 out of 405.

It is not to be wondered that the Church of the Principality should languish under h circumstances.

The entire patronage of the diocese of Ripon is represented in the following Table :

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In our analysis hitherto we have limited our observations to a single diocese-the diocese of Ripon. An equally unsatisfactory condition is found in the archdioceses of Canterbury and York, as well as in many other dioceses, especially those of Manchester, Durham, Lichfield, Winchester, and Peterborough.

But without analysing again any particular diocese, we select

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* In a few of the towns above, as Blackburn, Bury, &c., the area of patronage extends beyond the municipal borough.

+ Under the heading of Dean and Chapter nine livings are placed, which are in the gift of Archdeacons, &c.

thirty large and important towns in England. We find that in these most important centres of mining, manufacturing, and mercantile enterprise, the patronage is equally injurious to the development and stability of the Church. The patronage of four-fifths of the livings of these important towns is either in the hands of a very few public patrons, who have, as we noticed before, not contributed anything towards the endowment of the livings: or in the hands of corporate bodies, the members of which reside at a distance from the livings.

The population of the towns above consists of 2,250,000. The public patronage embraces 1,908,900 of that population. The towns are situated in sixteen dioceses. We consequently find from the Table that sixteen bishops, fourteen vicars, and ten chapters present to 373 livings in those thirty towns alone, and that no layman has any voice whatever in the patronage to the 373 livings, embracing a population of 1,750,000. The Crown and Chancellor are the other public patrons, so that not a single local layman has a voice in presenting to livings in these towns, which livings embrace a population of nearly 2,000,000 people.

A great change would result, if in these thirty large towns the 405 livings in public patronage had each three local laymen connected with the parish, appointed as nominators. There would be in these thirty towns alone 1,212 influential men officially recognized and permanently interested in the well-being of their respective parishes, and also in the wellbeing of their clergy. No one cognizant of the work of the Church in any towns of a similar kind, can question the expediency of such a relation of the laymen to their own parish churches.

The miserable stipends, which are attached to the livings in the abovementioned towns, are a sufficient indication of the importance of the latter consideration. In the towns above instanced, the average income of the clergy in the whole of the 405 livings is only £275. Even this general average is raised to that amount by the averages of the five towns of Bishop Wearmouth, Bishop Auckland, Shields, Blackburn, and Wigan. The endowments in these towns have been raised by the claim which the districts have upon the fund of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The average income of the livings in public patronage of the following towns in the list is

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Lincoln, £204
Exeter, 191

In the case of the ten towns mentioned above in the diocese of the average incomes attached to the livings in the gift of the ach mother church, are as follows. In the gift of the

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On such incomes our clergy are expected not only to subsist, but to keep up the appearances of gentlefolk in personal apparel; and as to their households, to find suitable education for their sons and daughters, to contribute something to the manifold necessities of the poor to whom they minister, and to lay by a suitable provision for their widows! Such stipends are found, to the shame of our Church organizations, in numberless other towns besides those mentioned, and such stipends account for the vast number of clerical charities. From these public charities necessitous and distressed clergymen receive their pitiful doles. "A system which combines the opposite evils of deliberately impoverishing, and then gratuitously pauperizing, might be justly reckoned the summum malum of any organization."

Nor need we take upon ourselves to deprive the clerical profession, any more than the secular professions, of the hope of earthly reward by any specious plea that the clergy might thereby be tempted to work from interested motives. The "man-with-the-muckrake," who under the existing state of patronage, works, so to speak, with his eyes on the ground, would continue to work from interested motives, whether the hope of the earthly crown were more or less definite. man who, under existing circumstances, is enabled to look "first" to the "heavenly crown" would none the less "seek first" that "crown," if the Church were to "add unto it" such needful provision, as, to her shame, the majority of our clergy too often, under the present circumstances lack for themselves and for their families.

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We are not to offer unto the Lord "the maimed, the halt, and the blind "-the men "who seek for heaven because earth's grapes a re sour." In no sense, we take it, are we "to make priests of the lowest of the people." Let the Church beware that she does not by her own act so grind the faces of the clergy, that from the ranks of the lowest of the people only, intellectually and socially at any rate, shall she be able to hope for her recruits. Unless some better, more definite, and more honourable provision than the average livings, if livings they may be called, supplemented in extremis by the Poor Clergy Relief Fund, be provided for the majority of the clergy, this will certainly result. A man with a genius for martyrdom may deliberately brave for himself the sordid conditions of a life whose privations he would shrink from inflicting on a wife and children. The Crawleys of Hogglestock are, alas ! a much more numerous tribe than is even dreamed of by many of their lay cousins-more numerous, and perhaps painted with even a greater realism, than it

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