Few men can have watched the movements of opinion during the last few years without being impressed by the change of attitude observable in the two contending parties engaged upon the assault and defence of the possessions of that mysterious entity which goes by the name of the Church of England.

This entity it must be premised, so far as it has a collective existence, exists in the person of certain officials who are supposed to be devoting their lives to certain duties, and are in the possession of funds which, after every deduction from the grossly exaggerated estimates of the rhetoricians, are certainly large, and yet are being added to every week by the lavish offerings of the English people. We must go back to a remote past if we desire to trace the origin of that reserve fund for the maintenance of our clergy on which they now live; a fund which has gone on growing, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, for considerably more than a thousand years. When people talk of disendowing the Church of England, they mean that this accumulated fund shall be confiscated by the nation for whose benefit it exists, and that it shall no longer be used for the purpose to which it has been so long devoted.

But what is this Church that it is to be despoiled and beggared, to be disestablished and disendowed? We cannot call it a corporation, for it has no corporate existence as a chartered company or a college has. It has no representatives in the Lower House of Parliament, as the universities have. It has no common council with disciplinary powers, as the Incorporated Society of Law or the Inns of Court have. It has no voice speaking with authority, no homogeneity deserving the name. It cannot pass ordinances for the regulation of its minutest affairs, or impose rules of conduct upon any one, or levy the smallest contribution from man, woman, or child by its own decrees. You may call it an army if you please; but it is an army in which the commissioned officers have no control over the rank and file, no power of enforcing attendance at drill, no articles of war which any one heeds, and no generals whom any one fears. This mysterious entity, which is the sum-total of a multitude of more or less isolated units, we say is the owner of lands and buildings and rent-charge, and this property it is said is the property of the Church—the Church? Nos numerus sumus!

Without any very great misuse of language, it may be said that among us there is another mysterious entity; this, too, the sum-total of a number of isolated units. These units, too, were only the other day in possession of houses and lands, and buildings considered to be public buildings; the units were almost in the same position as the clergy are at this moment, freeholders and practically irremovable; they were expected to perform certain duties which, as a rule, they performed with zeal and fidelity. In many cases, when sickness or old age came upon them, they discharged their functions by deputy; they had practically little or no discipline of control over them; “visitors” who never visited, feoffees who never interfered, governors who never governed. Each of these functionaries was called a Schoolmaster, and the building in which he officiated was called a school. The sum-total of these many units had no name; but if the public buildings were rightly called schools, the aggregate of them might for convenience be called The School. A noun of multitude, standing in the same relation to its units as the current term “the Church” does to its units—the Churches.

To whom did the property from which the schools were kept in efficiency, and their masters furnished with a maintenance—sometimes with much more than a mere maintenance—to whom did this property belong? I can find but one answer. It was the property of the nation; a reserve fund which the nation had permitted certain individuals to set apart from time to time for the furtherance of the education of the people, the object aimed at being considered so excellent that the conditions imposed upon posterity by the founders were allowed to remain in force, these founders being supposed to have entered into a contract with the nation that, in consideration of the value of the surrender made, the reserve of property should be sanctioned, and the conditions imposed be held to be binding upon posterity. The land or the rent-charges which yesterday were private possessions ceased to be so to-day: they were private property, they became public property, and constituted the Educational Reserve.

I can no longer resist the conviction that, as in the one case so in the other, the nation may reconsider its treaty with School or Church; may determine that the reserve hitherto set apart for the education of a class, or a district, or the founder’s kin, should no longer be applied according to the compact sanctioned in previous ages, and may in the same way reconsider its compact with the alienation of property now known as Church property, and deal with that far larger reserve hitherto applied for the promotion of the moral and spiritual welfare of the people. The nation has the right to do this, as it undoubtedly has the power. Whether in this case summum jus would not be found to be summa injuria is quite another question.

But it is one thing to say this large reserve shall be administered otherwise than it is, and quite another thing to say that it shall cease to exist as a reserve at all. It is one thing to deal with our ecclesiastical endowments on the lines that school endowments have been dealt with, and quite another to deal with them as Henry the Eighth dealt with the property of the religious houses. To adopt the one course would be readjustment, to adopt the other would be confiscation. Nevertheless, if the majority of the new electorate should decidedly and unequivocally pronounce that such is its pleasure, assuredly the property now held in reserve in the shape of religious endowments will be confiscated. Religion will be the luxury of the rich and well-to-do; the proletariate and the agricultural labourer will have to supply themselves with an inferior article, or to do without it altogether.

If a revolution so tremendous, if a calamity so overwhelming, is to befall this nation, and is to take effect by the deliberate choice of its people, at least let a great nation address itself to the task with the semblance of dignity; at least let it be clearly explained and firmly adhered to that the clergy reserve is not to be given over to general pillage. Do not be guilty of the baseness of bidding for the votes of the proletariate by holding out hopes of a general scramble. Do not corrupt the poor dwellers in the villages by inviting them to embark in a filibustering raid upon their friends and neighbours.

It is a question which a philosopher might worthily employ himself in answering—how it has come to pass that during the last fifty years the struggle for supremacy between political parties has tended to become less and less a regular warfare and to assume more and more the character of a game. Nay! It is rapidly developing into a game rather more of chance than of skill, and one in which the most daring and reckless adventurer is just as likely to sweep off the stakes as the most gifted and sagacious player. It is one of the most unhappy results of this condition of affairs that there has grown up in our midst a class of touts and hangers-on who do the dirty work of either side and bring discredit upon both. They are the swell-mob of politics. Such creatures live by inventing grievances and fomenting discontent, their doctrine being that whatever is is wrong; their artillery is always charged with explosive promises. These men are going up and down the land loudly proclaiming that the parsons have robbed the poor of their own, and are holding out to their dupes the wildest hopes that when the spoliation comes the poor shall be the first to benefit by the great change.

We shall never be able to silence the voice of charlatans. The sausage-seller in Aristophanes is the type of a class of men who have found no scope for their talents in any honest calling, and who because they must live have been forced into the trade of lying vociferously. I do not write for these—to these I have no word to say. It is with the men whose hearts are throbbing with some patriotism, and who have not lost all loyalty to truth and honour, that I desire to have my dealings. It is with such that I would humbly and earnestly expostulate, whatever their philosophical or political opinions, and whatever may be their creed. Even if it were as easy to prove, as it is demonstrably the reverse, that there ever did exist in England at any time or in any place a right on the part of the poor to any portion of the tithes of a parish or to the glebe, who, it may be asked, are the poor? The receivers of parochial relief, whether in the work-house or outside it? Or every able-bodied peasant who claims to belong to the needy classes? Are you going to ask the agricultural labourer to cry for spoliation, and to bribe him to raise the cry by the promise of converting him into what our fathers called a “sturdy beggar”? And then are there no poor artisans? Are the millions of our towns to be left out in the cold while Hodge disports himself with his new possessions? Are Liverpool and East London to go on as they are, while Little Mudborough is to enjoy a feast of fat things?

But the demagogues who live to corrupt the people have promises to make to others than the labourers. They are telling the tenant-farmers, too, that they will be gainers by the great confiscation, and endeavouring to persuade them, too, that when it comes they will be relieved from the burden of the tithes. Would they be so? If the payment of tithe were abolished to-morrow, can any sane man believe that the tenant-farmer would be allowed to put the tithe into his pocket or to keep it there? Can any sane man believe that rents would not rise exactly in proportion to the amount of charges from which the tenant was relieved? Rent is nothing more than the money payment supposed to represent the just return which the owner claims from the occupier for the privilege of cultivating his land. The occupier makes his account and calculates how much he can gain by the compact. The landlord’s share is his rent. He is the sleeping partner. Relieve the expenses of the going concern from the payment of the tithe, or, which is the same thing, add it to the profits, and what power on earth will prevent the landlord, directly or indirectly, sooner or later, absorbing the proceeds of the newly-created bonus?

Moreover, if you begin to “do away with the tithes,” are you going to do away with them only in the case where the parson receives them and does something—at any rate something—in return for the income he derives from them? Are you going to let the tithes be levied as before where they are paid to laymen, to corporations, or colleges? Are those tithes which are necessarily spent in the parish by the resident parson to be “done away with,” but all such tithes as are necessarily carried out of the parish and paid to a London company, an alien, or a college at Oxford or Cambridge, to be levied as before? Is it a gravamen against the parson that he spends his tithe where it is paid him, and among the people who pay it, and that he is bound in return for it to do the payers some services which they may exact on demand? Are you going to confiscate the tithe where the receiver does something for it, and to let the man who does nothing for it collect it as before? Imagine the amazement and disgust of a farmer who should be told that his neighbour on the other side of the hedge is never to pay tithe again because in that parish there has been a parson to pillage; but that he, on this side of the hedge, is to pay it as before, because Mr. Tomkins, or Mrs. John Smith, or the Saddlers’ Company is the lay impropriator, and the rights of property are to be respected. It would not be long, I imagine, before our friend the farmer would go for the lay impropriator, and with a will too.

But, if the labourer and the tenant-farmer are not to be cajoled by promises that must needs be illusory, least of all are the landlords to be gained over by the inducement held out to them that they, of all men, are to benefit by the change. They more than any other class are responsible for the loud outcry that has been raised. The tithe-rent-charge is a first charge upon the produce of the land. They are the landlords who, as a class, have done their best to make people forget this fact. How often have we heard of a landlord or his agent declaring loudly, “I have nothing to do with the tithe—that is a matter between the tenant and the parson!” A more monstrous assertion it would be difficult to invent! Far more true would be the direct opposite, if the parson, or the impropriator, should say, “I, as receiver of tithe, have nothing to do with you, the tenant—the tithe is no concern of yours; my claim is upon the owner of the soil!” In point of fact, it is in the last resort upon the landlord, and the landlord alone, that the tithe-owner, lay or clerical, has his claim.

But, if we should only aggravate the incidence of the immense calamity which would ensue from the confiscation of the clergy reserve by handing over the spoils to the labourers, or the proletariate, or the farmers, or the landlords, and yet the electorate should resolve to carry out this great spoliation, and call upon the executive to sweep away the clerical incomes, and lay its hand upon the property from which these incomes are derived; what is to be done with this huge fund so confiscated, and how are we to prevent the landlords being in some form or other the only gainers by the change?

If confiscation comes, let it come, say I, as no half-measure. Let there be no bargaining, no tinkering, no compromise—in fact, no mercy! No—no mercy! Let this thing be done in root-and-branch fashion. Let the nation set its face like a flint; let the Church—it would be the Church then—begin its new life naked and bare. Both sides will have a bad time of it. It takes little to decide which will have the worst time of it, the starved Church or the starved people.

Therefore, if indeed this nation decides that it can do without religious teachers, and that these shall live of those who want them, let us put up our parish churches to auction, and dispose of the glebes to the highest bidder, and flood the market with comfortable parsonage-houses, sold without reserve, and let the tithe be levied by the tax-gatherer, and let it be levied from the owner of the soil, as the land-tax is. Furthermore, let us have no assignment of any share of the plunder to any class or any special fund. Let us hand over the proceeds of the sale of churches and houses and lands to the Commissioners for the Extinguishing of the National Debt, and not to the ratepayers, not to the Education Commissioners, nor to the Commissioners in Lunacy for building madhouses, or any other cheerful and heroic object. Let us have a measure which shall be simple and thorough, with the fewest possible details to vex and embarrass us all. As the parsons die, sell their houses, their glebes and their churches, and let the State at once appropriate the tithe. Let us be brought face to face with the real meaning of a revolution, the tremendous magnitude of which few men can have the faintest conception of. In less than a year after the measure had become law, we should begin to know in what an experiment we had embarked. The sooner our eyes were opened the better for us all. The logic of facts is better than gabble.

Nevertheless, firmly convinced as I am that such a revolution would be an immeasurable calamity to the people of this country, and especially so to the agricultural districts, I am quite as firmly convinced that the present condition of affairs as regards the tenure and administration of the property now constituting the clergy reserves cannot possibly go on much longer; that the mere mockery and pretence of discipline among the clergy themselves must be replaced by something much more real and effective; that, in short, some large and radical measures of Church reform are being called for, such as the nation feels must and shall be carried out, though the great body of the people do not yet see, and cannot yet be expected to see, on what fundamental principles such reform should be advocated, or on what lines such reform should travel. As a preliminary, as a sine qu non of all really effective Church reform, it seems to me that, first and foremost, you must begin, not by disestablishing, but by establishing, the Church. As things are among us, it seems to me that the very word establishment is a confession on the part of those who use it that they have failed to discover the right word for that which they would fain obliterate.

We say the Church is a great landlord and wealthy owner of property. Ought not such an owner to have some control over its own and some voice in the disposition of that property. Every railroad company in the land, every joint-stock bank or co-operative association for the providing of milk and butter, every society for the protection of cats and dogs, has a constitution. It has its directors or governors, its recognized officers, its power to make or to alter at least its own bye-laws, its liberty to dispose of its own funds within certain limits, the privilege of meeting and of discussing its own affairs when and where it pleases, and the right of applying to the Legislature of the country for larger powers if such shall appear necessary for the carrying out of objects not dreamt of at its first start.

The Church is absolutely lacking in all these respects, for the very simple reason that the Church, viewed as a going concern in possession of property, has nothing that can be called a constitution.

If the glaring anomalies and the wholly unjustifiable grotesqueness which startle us at every turn when we begin to discuss “Church questions” are to be removed, where are we to begin, and what should be the lines on which any scheme of readjustment should proceed?

First and foremost, let all obsolete and antiquated privileges, which are survivals of a long extinct condition of affairs, be swept away, and with the privileges let the disabilities go also. Let no man be made either more or less than a citizen of the Empire by reason of his being in any sense a member of the Church—not a peer of the realm on the one hand, not disqualified from entering the House of Commons on the other.

As a preliminary to giving the Church a working constitution, it is my conviction that the bishops should no longer have seats in the House of Lords. I cannot see how any director or overseer of any corporation, or indeed of any department of the State, should be made a peer of the realm by virtue of his holding office. I am not wholly ignorant of our constitutional history, although into the historical aspect of the question I decline to enter now. The facts are what we have to face; and as things are, however much we may deplore it, there seems just as little reason why bishops should be raised to the peerage as why the naval lords of the Admiralty should be created barons. But, if you dismiss the bishops from the Upper House, you certainly cannot exclude the inferior clergy from the lower one. Whether in the one case the Church or the House of Lords would be much the loser may very reasonably be doubted, notwithstanding the conspicuous ability which is and has for long been characteristic of the Episcopal Bench. In the other case, the Church and the House of Commons are just as little likely to be much the gainers by letting clergymen represent the constituencies in Parliament. As in France, so would it be in England; the clerical candidates would be very few, the clerical members fewer. That, however, does not affect the question whether or not clerical disabilities should be abolished.

But by far the most necessary and radical reform that is imperatively called for is the abolition of that preposterous antiquarian curiosity, the Parson’s Freehold.

The philosopher of the future who “with larger, other eyes than ours,” shall survey the history of our institutions and tell of their origin, their growth or their decay, will, I believe, be amazed and perplexed by nothing so much as by the strange vitality of this legal phenomenon—the Parson’s Freehold. That any man who is in any sense a public servant should, by virtue of being nominated to hold an office, be made tenant for life of a real estate from which only by an act of his own can he be removed—that would seem to most of us so entirely startling and outrageous in the abstract as to be absolutely intolerable in the concrete reality. Let us look this thing in the face.

Imagine a postman or a prime minister, a clerk in the Custom House or the captain of a man-of-war, an assistant in a draper’s shop or your own gardener, having an estate for life in his office, and being able to draw his pay to his dying day, though he might be for years blind and deaf and paralyzed and imbecile—so incapable, in fact, that he could not even appoint his own deputy, or so indifferent that he cared not whether there was any deputy to discharge the duties which he himself was paid to perform. Imagine any public servant being thrown into prison for a flagrant misdemeanour, or worse than a misdemeanour, and coming back to his work when the term of his imprisonment was over, receiving the arrears of pay which had accrued during the time he was in gaol, and quietly settling down into the old groove as if nothing had happened. Imagine any public servant being suspended from his office for habitual drunkenness, suspended say for two years, and not even requiring to be reinstated when the two years were over, but gaily taking his old seat and returning to his desk and his bottle, as irremovable from the emoluments of the first as he was inseparable from his devotion to the last.

Yet all this, and much more than this, is possible for us beneficed clergymen. I am myself the patron of a benefice from which the late rector was nonresident for fifty-three years. Is it at all conceivable that we should continue to keep up this condition of affairs under which we have been living so long? The last thing that any other public servant would dare to confess would be that he was physically or intellectually or morally unfit for his office. The retort in his case would be obvious enough—then leave it, and make way for a better man. But the holder of the Parson’s Freehold smilingly replies, “Certainly I will retain my hold upon the income after paying my deputy. Am I not a landlord? and as tenant for life I will assuredly cling to my own.”

Being such as we are, men of flesh and blood as others, and occupying the frightfully impregnable position which we do; fenced about with all sorts of legal safeguards which put us above our parishioners on the one hand, and out of the reach of our bishops on the other; having, as we have, an almost unlimited power of turning our benefices into sinecures while we reside upon them, or of leaving them to the veriest hireling to serve while we are disporting ourselves in foreign travel almost as long as we should choose to stay away;—I know no more splendid testimony to the high and honourable character of the English clergy than that which would be wrung from their worst enemies who should fairly consider what the law of the land would allow of their being if they were so disposed—and what, in fact, they are. It is because as a class they are so animated by a high ideal; because as a class their conscience is their law; it is, therefore, that, in spite of legal safeguards which in their tendency are corrupting and demoralizing, as a class they are incomparably better than they need be. The clergy of the Church of England constitute the one protected interest in the universe that does not languish. Nevertheless, C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. These things ought not so to be.

How then are the evils inseparable from the present state of things to be remedied? They are evils which do not appear on the surface where the clergy themselves are conscientious, high-minded, and zealous, throwing themselves into their duties with self-denying earnestness, and hardly aware of how much they might abuse their powers if they were so disposed. They are very real and scandalous evils in the case of the careless, the worthless, and the immoral; that is, exactly in the case of those whom we can least afford to leave as they are.

I can see no other plan for utilizing to the utmost the resources already at our disposal than by sweeping away altogether this archaic anomaly of the parson’s freehold. We are all a great deal too tenacious of vested rights, a great deal too reluctant to deal harshly with those who have accepted any office under certain conditions expressed or implied, to allow of our disturbing the present occupants of the benefices, or to bring them under any new rÉgime. As long as the existing beneficed clergy choose to retain their hold upon their benefices, obviously they must be left undisturbed; as they are freeholders, so they must continue to be, and practically irremovable; but, as they drop off either by death or voluntary resignation, let the freehold be vested in other hands. Let us follow the main lines upon which the Endowed School Commissioners pursued their revolution in the case of the educational reserve fund, learning experience by their blunders, their failures or their fads.

And when we do so, where shall we find ourselves?

1. The freehold of every church, churchyard, glebe-house and lands, together with the tithes and any other invested funds now constituting the endowment of a benefice, would be vested in a body of trustees or governors exactly as the estates and buildings of the endowed schools are at this moment. These governors would have the administration of this estate entrusted to them, and be personally and collectively responsible for its management—responsible, that is, to a duly constituted authority with a power of enforcing its precepts.

2. All liability to keep house and chancel in repair, together with all powers of mortgaging the lands of a benefice, would be transferred from the incumbent to the governing body of trustees.

3. The patronage of every benefice would, as a matter of course, pass out of the hands of the present patrons, and would be vested in the trustees of the benefice; exactly as the patronage of Shrewsbury and Sedbergh schools passed out of the hands of St. John’s College, Cambridge, or as the patronage of Thame school passed out of the hands of New College, Oxford, or as the patronage of Brentwood, Kirkleatham, and Bosworth schools has passed out of the hands of private patrons into those of the newly-constituted governing bodies.

4. The governors in presenting to a benefice would in each case be expected to consider the financial position in which it happened to be at the time of the vacancy, and would be empowered to determine what amount of net income could be assigned to the incumbent according to the circumstances of the estate in their hands; in all cases guaranteeing a minimum stipend and, in cases where a house was provided, a house free of all rates, taxes, and repairs.

5. The governing body would be required to render an account of all moneys received and expended to the constituted authority, to which they would be answerable.

6. Any clergyman presented to a benefice by the governing body would be liable to be dismissed for inefficiency or misconduct; such dismissal to be subject to an appeal as against caprice, malevolence, or tyranny.

Before proceeding further, it will be as well at this point to consider an objection that may be offered, and then to see how such a reform as that proposed would work. First, with regard to handing over the property of a benefice, together with the patronage, to a body of trustees. Such a course will certainly be denounced as revolutionary, and of course that word has a very alarming sound. But I venture to remind objectors that we have already embarked upon this revolutionary course, and on a very large scale too. We have already taken vast estates out of the hands of ecclesiastical corporations, and vested them in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. We have already made our bishops stipendiaries, receiving their salaries from the holders of their estates; and happy are those deans and canons who are in such a case, and not in the pitiable condition of landlords with their farms upon their hands, or let to tenants who, just now, can make their own terms with the panic-stricken lifeholders of the freehold. But this is not all. There are at least a thousand benefices in England at this moment, the patronage of which is already in the hands of trustees; and in many of these cases—in many more cases than people suspect—the very freehold of the church itself is vested in those trustees, who have almost entire control over the funds, and almost entire control over the fabric of the church. At this moment, as I write, there is lying on my table an application from the Trustees of St. Excellent’s Church, at Jericho, asking me to subscribe for the erection of a tower, and pleading that the Trustees have done all that was possible, and have been loyally seconded by their devoted vicar.

Ask those who know anything of what has been going on in the second city in England during the last forty years what condition the masses at Liverpool would be in at this moment but for the church-building on the Trustee system which has been in operation there so long. Ask them whether that system has worked well or ill, and whether there is any reason to regret that the patronage of the Trustee churches is not in other hands.

And now with regard to the working of the scheme proposed.

The rectory of Claylump finds itself vacant by the promotion of its rector to the bishopric of Loo Choo. The governors forthwith proceed to take a survey of the property they hold in trust, and to look about for a new parson. The character and qualification of the various candidates for the vacant benefice are carefully inquired into, and, the choice being made, the new incumbent is presented to the bishop of the see and instituted with all fitting and necessary solemnity. But before he enters upon his charge the new rector has been informed that, in view of the governors being responsible for certain outgoings, they can for the present guarantee the parson only a minimum income of x pounds per annum, to be increased according as the funds at their disposal shall allow of the augmentation.

Observe that we already find ourselves face to face with the problem which has been found so difficult of solution—viz., how to deal with Ecclesiastical Dilapidations. A beneficed clergyman at present may, if he pleases, let his house tumble about his ears—may let his barn be tenanted by the rats, turn his stable into a pigsty, and, keeping his glebe in his own hands, render it valueless for his successor for the next five years. At his death he may be absolutely insolvent. The next incumbent is, however, called upon to put all into tenantable repair at his own cost, and by the very fact of accepting the living is liable for these substantial repairs.

Or a beneficed clergyman may do exactly the reverse. Being tenant for life of a living of less than three hundred a year, he may convert the parsonage-house into a noble mansion—erect hot-houses and conservatories ad libitum, build stables for a dozen horses, and lay out acres of the glebe in ornamental gardens; and he too may die in difficulties. At the avoidance of the living the bishop may give orders for pulling down half the house and more than half the appurtenances; but the question of who is to pay for the expenses of the alteration will present a serious difficulty, and may be settled in the strangest way at last. As long as the living is in a good neighbourhood, with certain advantages which it is unnecessary to particularise, it will not be hard to find another man of fortune who for the sake of the house will consent to accept the cure. But, if it chance that a neighbourhood has “changed,” and the parish has become otherwise than a desirable place of residence, that parish may find it very hard indeed to get any who will face the terrible prospect of having to keep up a palace on £300 a year. In either case—that of finding himself with a tumble-down rectory, or that of finding himself with an entirely unsuitable one—the incoming parson will assuredly have to make his account to submit to a serious abatement from the nominal revenue of his preferment, and will assuredly be in no better position than he would be if, not he, but the trustees, were the owners of the parson’s freehold.

But once more. Let us suppose that the new rector under the new rÉgime finds it desirable to add to his parsonage-house for any reason or for none. What follows? Is he to be allowed to do as he pleases? Certainly not. If he can get the consent of his governors, well and good; without that consent he would have no more right to build up than to pull down. He would be living in an official residence provided for him. Clearly, he could not be permitted to deal with it as if it were his own.

Again, let us suppose that the parsonage should sorely need repair, and that the parson, being poor or otherwise unwilling to be meddled with, should declare it was good enough for him. Would it be reasonable to let an obstructive eccentric continue living in a house which was seriously lessening in value from the want of structural repairs? It is obvious that the governors who were liable for these repairs being duly executed, and whose interest was to maintain the buildings in good and tenantable condition, would interpose. The official residence having to be kept up by the income of the benefice in their view would clearly not be regarded as something to be handed over in its entirety to the present holder of the living, as if his personal interest were the only thing to consider.

As it would not be allowable for a Plutus to over-build, so it would not be permitted to a niggard to let the parsonage fall into disrepair. In either case the governing body would have a voice, and over the buildings of the benefice they would exercise a general supervision and control.

What, however, will startle most people, and especially clergymen, is the proposal to give to any body at all or any person or any officer the power to dismiss a parson from his cure. Yet, as an abstract question, why should the parson be the only functionary to enjoy the immunity he does? Is it because it does not matter much to his parishioners whether he is fit or unfit, moral or immoral, active or indolent, whether he is exhibiting an example of holiness or is a mere helot whose daily walk is an abominable scandal? As things are, the more conscientious a clergyman is, the more easily you may hunt him out of his preferment; such men cannot bear to stay where—as they put it in all earnestness and devout sincerity—they are “doing no good.” Such men are ready enough to go out into the wilderness if you tell them they are not wanted or are hindering Christ’s work by staying where they are. But tell the bad man that he is not wanted in his parish, and his ministrations are hateful to the people among whom he lives, and he will laugh in your face with the grim joke that, if the people don’t like to come to church, they may stay away, and if they don’t want him at the font or the altar or the grave, so much the better; he will have less work to do for his money. The thick-skinned with a seared conscience defies you; safe in the possession of the parson’s freehold, he holds his own.

How is it that we are always so ready to conjure up the worst imaginable evils when any new proposal is offered to us, and always draw some picture of abuses and horrors when we begin to think of any great change, as if there were no abuses and horrors which called for the change? “A body of governors with a power of dismissal,” it is said; “why, no man’s position would be safe!” To begin with, I do not see why the first thing to be aimed at should be that any one’s position should be safe. The first thing that is needed, imperatively needed, is that the duties of any office, from that of the Prime Minister downwards, should be effectively discharged. It may be very desirable that the driver of an express train should be safe of getting his wages as long as he lives. It is infinitely more desirable that the train itself should not run off the metals from the aforesaid driver going to sleep.

But whose position in the case before us would be unsafe? As a rule, only his whose position ought to be unsafe. The Endowed Schools Commissioners have been at work for more than twenty years. Every one of their schemes gives to the governing body a power of dismissal, and that too with usually no appeal. During these twenty years, I have never heard of more than two cases in which this power has been exercised; so slow are we Englishmen to be hard on an old servant, or to use to the utmost the powers which we have in our hand.

Our next point to consider is, what should be the constitution of the governing body?

Let it be premised that, in embarking upon a reform so radical as this that is contemplated, I for one at the outset shrink from committing ourselves to any details until we have first laid down the grand principles on which we are going to proceed. Moreover, it must never be forgotten that the circumstances of every parish or district in England vary to an extent which they who have never thought much upon the subject could hardly bring themselves to believe. In a matter of so much intricacy and complexity we must not be afraid to feel our way, and at any rate let us have at the outset as few hard-and-fast lines as may be.

With this caution and proviso, I yet venture to suggest that the main lines to be laid down should be as follows:—

1. The governing body should not be too large, nor should it ever be chosen from the inhabitants of the parish exclusively.

2. It should be a representative body.

3. Its meetings should not be held too frequently.

4. Its proceedings should be duly chronicled, and a record kept which might be produced and referred to when necessary.

1. Not too large, because experience proves that any administrative body is in danger of becoming a speechifying body, and liable to be influenced by pressure from without, almost exactly in proportion to the increase of its numbers. Nor should this body be chosen exclusively from the inhabitants of the parish. In the case of small parishes, it would be quite impossible to find persons qualified to exercise the powers to be conferred, or fitted by education and intelligence to occupy the independent and important position of governor.

2. It will be necessary that the governing body should in all cases be a representative body. In such a body what interests should be represented?

(i) First the owners of the land on which tithes are paid. Observe, I do not say the tithe-payers; for, of all the objectionable practices which have sprung up among us affecting the tenure of the land, and the burdens it has to bear, none appears to me more mischievous or indefensible, none has done more to make the tillers of the soil discontented, or led them more passionately to set themselves against their best friends, than the practice sanctioned by the Legislature of calling upon the tenant to pay the tithe in addition to the rent of his land. As long as this goes on, so long will both tenant and landlord be tempted to make common cause with one another in hopes of getting rid of the tithe. You might just as well call upon the tenant to pay the landlord’s mortgage interest, or the jointures and annuities with which the estate is charged, or the premiums upon his policies of insurance, as call upon him to pay the tithe. A landlord holds his lands subject to certain charges, which are antecedent to any profits that may remain to him after they are discharged.

The land-tax, the county-rates, the tithe, are all on the same level; so are the jointures, annuities, and interest of money borrowed. Of course the landlord would gladly throw them all upon the tenant if he could, and does throw upon him all he can. In permitting him to follow this course, you tempt the tenant to cry out, “Away with this payment, and away with that!” and you tempt the landlord to cry, “Amen! So be it, as long as my rent is assured me!” Worried by the annual recurrence of extra payments, for which he has to provide at all sorts of inconvenient times, the tenant is ready enough to demand relief from these burdens, never reflecting that he is playing the landlord’s game, directly or indirectly robbing somebody else to enrich the owner of the soil. “Down with the rates!” means “Throw them upon the Consolidated Fund and let the taxpayer relieve the landlord.” “Down with the jointures!” would mean “Rob the dowagers and let the landlord be the richer for the pillage.” “Down with the mortgage interest!” would mean “Up with the debtor at the expense of the creditor;” and “Down with the tithe!” would mean the extinction of the parson, but with the gain of not a shilling ultimately to the tenant, though with a very considerable gain to the owner of the land. It must be, and it is, demoralizing to allow the payment of the tithe to be regarded as an extra with which the tenant is chargeable. The obligation to pay the tithe is a condition antecedent to the owner of the soil enjoying the very possession of his land. The tithe is a rent-charge upon the land, exactly as an annuity or jointure is—or, if you choose to call it a tax because the term tax is an odious word, and therefore serviceable when you want to make those you hate odious—it is a landlord’s tax, and no tenant should be allowed to pay it without having the right under all circumstances of deducting it from his rent.

Moreover, without yielding to the temptation of straying into an historical argument, yet remembering that in the past there was a very close connection between the landlord whose estate supplied the tithe from which the parson was supported and the patron of the living to which the parson was instituted, I think there are good reasons why the owners of the soil liable to pay tithe should be represented in the proposed governing body of a benefice. Where the parish was a close parish—i.e., owned by a single landlord—he would naturally and very properly be the only person eligible, or at any rate capable of nominating the tithe-owner’s representative. Where there were many landlords, they could elect their representatives—one or more, as the case might be—in the ordinary way.

(ii) As the owners of land subject to the payment of tithes should be represented, so should the ratepayers of the parish have their representative upon the board of governors. And here I confess I cannot see that you could introduce any religious test whereby any one should be disqualified by reason of his creed. I do not believe that in ordinary cases any real inconveniences would arise. That under no circumstances conceivable evils should emerge is too much to hope for; but whether or not, we must, I repeat, face the facts, and what reasonable man, who watches the signs of the times, will be sanguine enough to expect that, in our days, we have any chance of extorting from the Legislature anything in the shape of a conscience clause? But, when I speak of ratepayers, I mean bon fide payers of rates. I exclude from this category the compound householder: I by no means exclude unmarried women who pay their own rates and taxes, who are often among the most sagacious, high-minded, and exemplary inhabitants of a country parish, or of a town one too, for that matter. If any should have a voice in the choice of a representative governor, clearly they should.

(iii) But, if the owners of the soil and the ratepayers should be represented, it would be more than unreasonable—it would be a monstrous injustice—that the regular worshippers in the church should be left without their representative governors. I am quite aware that some people are ready with all sorts of difficulties and all sorts of objections when we come to deal with the qualification of church membership, and quite aware, too, that at this point one is sorely tempted to do that which I protested against above—viz., go into details; but I resist the temptation, simply expressing my conviction that there can be and there is no real and insuperable difficulty in defining what is meant by “regular worshippers,” and that such difficulty would vanish at once if we were really in earnest in grappling with it. I am not hinting at a compromise. Here as elsewhere what we want is—common sense!

(iv) Again, I conceive that on any board of governors there should be a representative appointed by the bishop of the diocese, and that he should be a resident in the archdeaconry in which the benefice was situated. In every board of directors, be it of a railway or bank or insurance company, it is held to be essential to effectiveness that one or more of such directors should have some pretension to technical or professional knowledge of the business carried on. Is it too much to ask that at least one expert should be found upon every body of church governors? Such a representative would, if discreet and able, be always listened to with respectful attention; if inclined to be domineering or impracticable, he would assuredly be outvoted when it came to a contest. He would be a voice, but he would be no more.

(v) It is conceivable, nay it is probable, that in addition to these representative governors it might in some cases be advisable that other members should be added to the governing body. Thus it might be contended by the present patrons of benefices, whether lay or clerical, that they should be represented, and I can see no particular objection to such a claim being allowed. It is also conceivable and probable that, after due consideration and discussion, it might be thought advisable to group two or more benefices together and vest their funds in the same body of governors. Indeed, in many country districts, where the endowments are very small and the population very sparse, it might prove extremely difficult and sometimes extremely undesirable to have a board of governors for each of these tiny units, let alone the absurd waste of power which in such cases would be inevitable. But, such as I have sketched it out, such in the main would be the constitution of the governing body of every benefice in the country, and to that governing body the freehold of that benefice and its appurtenances, together with the patronage thereof, should be handed over.

(vi) With regard to the qualification of those eligible for a seat upon the governing body, I am not prepared to discuss that question at the present stage. This, however, I know—viz., that there is only one subject of the Queen who is now disqualified from presenting a clergyman to any benefice in England. A Jew or a Mormonite, a Mohammedan or a Parsee, Mr. Bradlaugh or Mr. Congreve, may be, and for ought I know is, patron of the richest or the poorest living in England; but if any of these worthy persons should suddenly become influenced by Cardinal Manning and be received as a member of the Church of Rome, then and then only would he become incapable by law from exercising his patronage—then and then only would it pass out of his hands. If we have come to this pass, that in anything like a large majority of cases Churchmen should find themselves outvoted by Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics in the governing bodies, would it not be pretty clear that something was wrong?

But would the functions of the governing body be confined to the management of the estate of a benefice and to the appointing and, where necessary, to the dismissal of the incumbent? Yes. It seems to me that the functions of a governing body should go no further. That was a golden rule which Lord Palmerston laid down for the governing bodies of our endowed schools, and which these bodies have generally had the wisdom to carry out in practice—“Get the best man you can find and—get out of his way!” It should be no part of the duties of the governing body to interfere with what may be called the internal affairs of the church and the ministrations of the parson. These should be matters of arrangement between the congregation and their minister. Let the powers and the duties of churchwardens be defined as clearly as may be—let the number of the churchwardens be increased if you will, or let the old sidesman be revived; but let it be clearly understood that the parish is one thing and the congregation is another. Let it be understood that the rector of the parish as a parish officer should be accountable to the governors in so far as they are trustees for the parish reserve fund; but in matters with which only the congregation worshipping habitually in the church are concerned, let no outsider have any locus standi. If in his administrations a clergyman insists on doing or leaving undone certain practices which are hateful to the congregation to which he ministers; if between priest and people things should come to a deadlock; by all means let it be allowable, as it ought to be, for the people to demand redress, and let them ask for that redress with authority and a claim to have their grievances considered. In such cases there would be no need of rushing into the law courts, no spiteful resort to costly legislation to crush or ruin a foolish, obstinate, and ignorantly conscientious clergyman. The congregation—speaking through their representatives, the churchwardens, sidesmen, or whatever other name you might choose to call them by—would lay their complaint before the bishop first, and as an ultimate resort would go to the governing body, and claim that their parson should be dismissed, on grounds which should be, of course, properly formulated.

And this brings us to another matter—viz., the prominence (I do not say pre-eminence) to be given to the congregational element in any readjustment of church regimen at the present time. It is idle to talk as if the Church were co-extensive with the nation, or as if the inhabitants of a parish were all worshippers in the church fabric. If a man now does not like the ritual or the doctrine offered to him in his parish church, he leaves it, and goes where he finds what he wants. It will always be so. There was a good deal of nonconformity in the Apostolic times, and there will be nonconformity as long as men love to have things their own way. If an apostle were to find himself rector of any parish in England, with an angel to play the organ, and a multitude of the heavenly host to chant the psalms and “render” the anthems, would Jannes and Jambres be satisfied? On the other hand, though it is impossible but that offences should arise (which means that offence should be taken), it is our duty and our interest to minimise the occasion of offence; and it is clearly neither right nor politic that any man should occupy such a position as that he may, if he please, go very far towards making himself a “lord over God’s heritage,” and by adopting such a course not only lessen his own influence, but commit a serious wrong to the assembly of worshippers to whom, after all, it must be remembered, he is appointed to minister, not to be an irresponsible dictator.

Wherever there is a “congregation of faithful men” regularly worshipping together in any church, the very sign and evidence of life among them is that there is a great deal of mere business to be got through. There are large sums of money raised for various purposes, there are organizations great and small to be looked to, there are meetings to be held, arrangements of very different kinds to be made, and work of all sorts to be done. It must be done, and it can only be done by the incumbent in conjunction and co-operation with the congregation; as long as the two work together all goes on smoothly, if they are at variance friction ensues. It would be preposterous that all the money collected by and through the voluntary contributions and the voluntary exertions of the congregation should be handed over to an outside body such as the governing body we have been dealing with above. Indeed, such a proposal scarcely deserves to be seriously considered; the congregation as a congregation must in all reason be allowed to manage its own affairs. But, inasmuch as no institution in the world can hope to flourish if its manager prove himself incompetent, quarrelsome, and fractious, and when it becomes apparent that the well-being of the institution is being sacrificed only to keep the wrong man in the wrong place, then you get rid of that wrong man, sometimes with joy, sometimes with sorrow. So should it be with our churches. To give the congregations the appointment of their parsons or to arm them with a veto would be to follow a course which all our experience warns us against, and to which—I cannot explain why—all our national habits of thought, convictions, and prejudices are opposed. But, under any circumstances, cases might occur where a reluctant congregation might find itself saddled with a minister who, after a fair trial, should prove himself altogether unsuited to deal with the peculiar conditions, social, financial, or religious—which presented themselves; and where such cases did occur the congregation in its own interests—to go no further—ought to have the opportunity of making its wishes or its objections known. As to graver matters, where a parson’s moral character was in question, I do not think it worth while to deal with them. As to the proposal of setting up parochial councils in our country villages, I find it very hard to believe that this can have ever been put forward seriously by any sane man of the world. Surely, surely it can only be the clumsy joke of a dreamer which suggests that we should establish village parliaments for the discussion of matters of ritual and theology among the representatives of a population which sometimes counts by tens, usually by a few hundreds, and very rarely by thousands. In the single diocese of Norwich there are actually one hundred and two parishes in each of which the population is less than a hundred, including the last baby. Think of a parochial council in the parish of Bittering Parva, where I was once told “there are between fourteen and fifteen inhabitants!”

I am quite aware that the questions which still remain to be dealt with in considering any comprehensive measure of what is known as Church Reform are many and difficult, and some of them are of the highest importance. They will come on for discussion, we may be sure, and abler men than I am, and men better qualified to handle such questions, will doubtless engage in them.

In the hands of such men I would gladly leave the serious and difficult problems which are calling so loudly for solution. The power of dismissal of a parson from his cure, for other than moral offences, at once brings us face to face with the question, “How are we to provide for aged and broken-down clergy in their time of need?” It also suggests the question, “In what relations will the governing body stand to the congregation on the one side and the bishop on the other?” The throwing open the benefices to what is sure to be stigmatized as open competition will be distasteful to some, but will result in changes which I am convinced will be, on the whole, of immense benefit to clergy and people, and especially they will tend towards the promotion of the best men to the most valuable cures. Yet here too, when we come to details, it will be necessary to open our eyes to some difficulties, from which, however, we need not shrink, nor will they, I believe, be found so insuperable as may be imagined.

The training, too, of the younger clergy during their term of apprenticeship, if I may use the expression, and the general supervision and periodical inspection of the benefices which has now become the emptiest of forms, will assuredly be called for by all who desire a coherent scheme for the readjustment of matters ecclesiastical. It is hardly to be expected that we should be allowed to go on much longer in the rambling way we do.

If it were only the supremacy of this or that form of doctrine or worship, however dear to us, however sacred, that was at stake, I for one would not willingly embark in the conflict that is before us, or step out from the limits of the humble sphere in which I find myself. I would hold my peace except among my people, and try my best to till the little plot in the heritage of God which His good providence has assigned to me for my daily work. But there is much more at stake than any merely sectarian view of the case would have us believe. It is no mere fight between religious factions and sects and creeds. The question now is whether or not that machinery whereby the schooling of our moral sentiments has been carried on for ages shall be cast from us as a thing of nought, while we surrender ourselves to the private-venture teachers to provide a new machinery by-and-by. Are we to have no functionaries whose remonstrances any one need attend to? Is there to be no voice speaking with the semblance of authority, bidding the people do the right and avoid the evil? Is there to be no national worship, no national religion, and of course no national creed? How long can Christian ethics be supposed to last?

For ages the vessel of the State has gone on its way riding through a thousand storms, and buffeted by a million billows; its rudder has been at times unskilfully handled; at times the course has been set with evil consequences; at times the steersmen have been rash or blind. But shall we now, in an outbreak of passion or panic, unship that rudder and cut ourselves adrift, with never a helm to trust to, in the open sea?