one hundred and sixteen benefices; although this improved condition of the archdeaconry leaves abundant room for further labours in the same direction.

Where glebe-houses are wanting a non-resident clergy will abound, and the extent to which non-residence prevailed when Bishop Sumner was appointed to the see of Llandaff, will be shown by an extract from the only Charge delivered by that prelate to the clergy of the diocese, in the year 1827:

'It is no doubt attributable in a great degree to the difficulties arising from this want of parsonage-houses-that in Glamorganshire there are only forty parishes, and in Monmouthshire only fifty-seven, which enjoy the advantage of clergy, whether incumbents or curates, actually resident; and, consequently, in the two counties no fewer than one hundred and thirty-seven cures are deprived of those benefits which the constitution of our church and the laws of the realm intended they should derive from the presence of their minister.'

On his introduction to the diocese, Bishop Copleston intimated his resolution to employ the authority of his office in lessening the evils of non-residence; and a comparison of the condition of the church, as described by his predecessor, and as found by his successor, will manifest the amount of improvement which has been brought about in that respect.

In 1850 there were within the archdeaconry of Llandaff ninety benefices with cure of souls, of which fifty-one were served by resident incumbents and twelve by resident curates; one was vacant, and twenty-six were served by clergymen who did not reside. Within the archdeaconry of Monmouth there were, at the same period, one hundred and twenty-six benefices with cure of souls, of which eightyfour were served by resident incumbents, and fifteen by

resident curates, and twenty-seven were served by clergymen who did not reside.*

Instead, therefore, of one hundred and thirty-seven cures without a resident minister, as in 1827, there were but fifty-three in 1850.

Pluralities have diminished as the number of resident clergy has increased:-thus, the number of incumbents who hold more than two benefices has been reduced to nine, and of those who hold two benefices to twenty-seven, of whom thirteen were instituted before the appointment of Bishop Copleston to the see.

It has been truly said that the pluralities from which the church has chiefly suffered in the diocese of Llandaff are not the pluralities of benefices, but of curacies. The 48th of the canons of 1603 directs, that none shall serve more than one church or chapel on one day, except that chapel be a member of the parish church, or united thereunto, or unless the said church or chapel be not able, in the judgment of the bishop or ordinary, to maintain a curate.

When Bishop Copleston was appointed to the see of Llandaff, the performance of one service only in the same church on the Lord's day was general. His predecessor had directed the attention of his clergy to this deficient provision for public worship, and the bishop, in his first Charge, expressed his anxious hope that this want would be supplied without special direction from himself, intimating his intention to require a second duty in all parishes of a certain population, unless his interference should become unnecessary, by the voluntary performance of that duty by his clergy. The scanty incomes of many of the benefices,

*All are considered as resident who live within the area of the benefice, whether in a glebe-house or in a hired dwelling.

In enumerating glebe-houses, all endowed benefices are included; but in estimating non-residence, those cases only are enumerated where the cure of souls devolves upon the incumbent.

thirty-five of which are returned as of less value than 751. a-year, rendered it often necessary to entrust the care of two churches to the same minister; and the Bishop shrunk from imposing the labour of three services on the same person: but where a clergyman's duty was confined to a single church, there seemed to be no excuse for omitting the service of either part of the day. He says, in his primary Charge, 'Nothing is more certain than that both morning and evening service were once universal, not on Sundays only, but on every day of the week; and that the full service on Sunday is but a fragment of that duty which, even after the Reformation, was required of the parochial clergy.'

He preferred on this, as on other occasions, to secure the active and spontaneous co-operation of his clergy, rather than to enforce an unwilling submission to a positive command, esteeming and honouring those who anticipated the exercise of authority by assuming the duty demanded of them.

In that part of Glamorganshire which is within the see of Llandaff, there were only eleven churches in 1827 which had double duty throughout the year, and in Monmouthshire only fifteen, whilst, at the death of Bishop Copleston, double duty was performed in forty churches in the archdeaconry of Llandaff, and in sixty in the archdeaconry of Monmouth. In forty-eight churches in both archdeaconries, in which single duty was performed in 1827, the service was performed alternately in Welsh and English, so that in those parishes divine service was not performed oftener than once a fortnight in the language proper to the majority of the people, whilst, at the death of the bishop, a single duty and alternate service existed in but twenty-four parishes in the archdeaconry of Llandaff, and had no place in the archdeaconry of Monmouth.

Complaints were made, in a few cases, of the insufficiency of the stipend allotted by him to the officiating curate; and

it may remove some of the misunderstanding which has prevailed on the subject, if a candid consideration be given to the principles by which he was guided in the discharge of this delicate portion of his functions. The following extract is made from the Charge delivered by him in 1830:

'In what regards the duties of stipendiary curates and the limitation of their services to two churches, I have little to do but to adopt the regulations made by my predecessors, and to guard against any clandestine transgressions of those wholesome rules. But, in adjusting the salaries of curates, I wish it to be understood that my object is, and ever will be, to approximate, as nearly as circumstances will permit, to the legal rate. The general scantiness of the church endowments in this diocese is so notorious, that it is hardly necessary to advert to it as a reason why the average payment of curates is lower here than in most parts of the kingdom. It would often be oppressive and cruel to one party, without any adequate compensation of good to others, to compel an incumbent, disabled, perhaps, by age or sickness, or acquiring, by his ministerial labours in some other parish, a bare maintenance, or a comfortable abode for a numerous family, to pay the whole income of a small living to one who probably does not want it, or who can do well without it, merely for the sake of theoretical propriety, and that, too, when the spiritual interests of the parish are not in the slightest degree involved in the transaction. It is undoubtedly my duty to look to the legal injunctions in the first instance, but, in the next place, to exercise the discretion reposed in me, and to relax them in favour of those incumbents who would be actually distressed, either in their own persons or in that of their families, if the provisions of the law were rigidly enforced.

'But this concession to the feelings of humanity, however frequent in a district so plundered as this has been of its

ecclesiastical property, must never be interpreted as a rule operating equally in favour of the incumbent who is not poor, and who either resides elsewhere, or is incapacitated for the performance of his own duty. To him, the law points out a standard of remuneration to his deputy, the observance of which it is my duty to require, unless special reasons are alleged for abatement. In every new case this will be done as a matter of course, and, in all others, it must be expected that an increase will be required whenever, according to the information I may receive, no sufficient ground shall appear for continuing the reduced salary.

'It is, in my opinion, one of the wisest provisions of the recent law concerning the salaries of curates-a law which has done more to renovate and invigorate the constitution of our church, and to uphold its establishment, than all the other enactments of modern times-that it permits to the rulers of the church a considerable latitude of dispensation. It would have been an easier and a less invidious task, perhaps, to compel the exact fulfilment of all its regulations, but the discretion actually given is the refuge of many an anxious and aching heart. The bishop is made the depository of difficulties and embarrassments, which it would be cruel to expose to the world at large; and when he is satisfied that the spiritual charge of which he is the guardian does not really suffer, he will naturally and gladly administer the relief which the law has placed in his hands. But the relief which is destined for the poor ought not to be solicited, or even expected, by the rich. The usual plea of the smallness of the living is not admissible, unless with reference to the private circumstances of the incumbent. The law has wisely refused to sanction a division between two individuals of that pittance which is barely enough for one; and, in so doing, it has consulted both the dignity