parishes, it will, probably, give us an estimate, very nearly correct, of the value of lay impropriations: 5516×2676=14,760,816, at 3s. 6d. per acre.. Value of Vicarages and Perpetual Curacies to be deducted Amount of Lay Impropriations £ 2,588,142 830,500 1,752,842 It will thus be seen, that lay impropriators enjoy an income from ecclesiastical property, which exceeds a moiety of the whole revenues divided among the English parochial clergy. In forming the above estimate of the average charge for tithes, a reference has been made to the Reports published by the board of agriculture, about the year 1912, when farming produce had arrived at its highest price. Taking the average charge for great and small tithes in eighteen of the most fertile and best cultivated English counties, as stated in these documents, we find that it amounts to about five shillings and sixpence per acre; and this average would, no doubt, have been somewhat reduced had we the means of ascertaining the money compositions in lieu of tithes in other counties at the same period. If, then, five shillings and sixpence was the average charge for tithes in the most fertile and best cultivated counties in 1812, when wheat sold for f. per load, three shillings and sixpence per acre camot be considered as a low average, when a load of wheat sells for no more than 127., and when the price of every other agricultural production has fallen in the same proportion. The experience of every idividual at all conversant with the subject will, we are persuaded, fully bear us out when we state, that at the expiration of subsisting contracts, the charge for tithes in the richest and best tilled districts camot exceed font shillings and sixpence per acre; and if this be the maximum value of tithes levied on the best land, it is clear that the mean average on all lands cannot exceed three shillings and sixpence per acre. As there are upwards of 3000 churches and chapels, to which neither houses nor glebe lands are attached, we have taken what must be acknowledged a high average value of the glebe in 8000 parishes: it will be further observed that no charge has been made for parsonage houses-none should be made they are built and kept in repair by the incumbents, out of the profits of their livings; and whatever may be the annual value of such residences, it is more than balanced by the capital sunk in building and repairing them: they cannot, therefore, be said to increase the emoluments of the benefices to which they belong. The incomes of the bishops are estimated at a sum which, we are satisfied, exceeds their actual receipts. A considerable por tion of their revenues is derived fixed money payments, which can have received little or no augmentation, while the value of every other species of property has been increased ten-fold : indeed it is a well known fact, that the revenues of one-third of the bishoprics are so miserably deficient and scanty, that it is found absolutely indispensable to permit the prelates who fill them to hold some other benefices, to enable them to meet the expenses which, from their station, they must unavoidably incur. It may also be added that, with the exception of the Bishop of Landaff, who ho has no episcopal residence, they have all large and expensive houses which, from the lapse of time, require constant repair; and that they have a multitude of different officers whom they must pay. When these deductions are made from their gross revenues, we very mu much doubt whether their net incomes can be rated so high as 150,000l. per annum.lt The average value of each benefice in England and Wales amounts, according to our calculation, to (3.447,13811,342) / 3031. 31, annually isodicoquos 7 result race to ensom en To this calculation of the average annual value of English livings, we shall annex an estimate of the expense which the clergy of the establishment must unavoidably incur, in order to o qualify themselves for the proper discharge of the duties which devolve upon them alle teal to 1 It may be assumed, on a moderate computation, that, by the time he has completed the twenty-third year of his age, the friends of every candidate for orders have expended on his edu cation, at school and at college, a sum which amounts to 8001. it may be further assumed that, taking the average of ecclesiastical promotions, he cannot obtain preferment till he has been seven years in orders. If to 800 the principal expended in edu cating him, we add its interest for seven years, it will amount to 11007. It thus appears clear, that at the earliest moment in which an ecclesiastic can expect preferment worth 3034, per annum, 1, 100/ has been sunk in preparing him for the discharge of his official duties. If a man at the age of thirty laid out 11007, in the pur chase of a life annuity, it would produce for him 84/. per annum, which, deducted from 3037. leaves a balance of 2194. as the per cuniary compensation which clergymen, on the average, receive for their professional services. The state thus enjoys the services of between nine and ten thousand well educated individuals, whose province it is to instruct the population of the country in the duties which they owe to their God and to society; and as a recompense for the devotion, of their time and talents exclusively to this object, they do not, on the average, receive more than 2217. each. This is in truth the sum which excites the 002 spleen spleen, and provokes the hostility of the enemies of the ecclesiastical establishment:-still there are men who are either too ignorant or too prejudiced to see this fact; or who, seeing it, are malignant enough to misrepresent the nature, and exaggerate the amount of the provision secured to the ministers of the church of England, with the secret or avowed design of weakening the attachment which the people of this realm, cherish towards the ecclesiastical institutions of the state. 1 " It is not an unusual circumstance that the advocates of the Church of England should be taunted with the extravagant expense of that establishment, when contrasted with the ecclesiastical institutions of Scotland: the loud and incessant praises of Scotch economy with which we have been stunned had led us, before we looked more narrowly into the subject, to imagine that the revenues of the latter were trivial and inconsiderable indeed when compared with the income of the former. For the purpose of enabling those who feel an interest in the subject, to institute a comparison of the expense of these two national churches, we present them with a few details, from, which we shall leave them to draw their own inferences. About the year 1810, the affairs of the church of Scotland were laid before Parliament, when it was discovered that there were in that country 172 livings with stipends which, on the average, did not exceed 1007. per annum; and an annual and permanent grant of 10,000, was made for the purpose of raising the incomes of these benefices to 150/. per annum, exclusive of glebes and houses. The houses attached to Scottish livings are built and kept in thorough repair by the proprietors of land in each parish, and these, together with the glebe, land appropriated for their use, cannot be estimated at less than 30 per annum. The smallest benefices in Scotland, amounting in number to 172, are therefore worth 180, per annum each, while the incumbents of the remaining 776 parishes, which are much more opulent and extensive, enjoy incomes, of various and considerably larger amount. We have reason to think that the following table will exhibit a pretty correct summary of the value of Scotch livings. Con 0172 benefices at £150 each £25,800 200 do. at 200 40,000 at 250 50,000 If the aggregate incomes of 948 livings in Scotland amount to 263,3401. the average stipends of their incumbents are very nearly as high as those of the incumbents of 11,342 benefices in England, who, according to our calculation, divide among themselves a sum which does not exceed 3,459,6887. The average value of Scottish livings amounts to 2751. per annum each, while the average value of each English benefice does not exceed 3031. When the difference in the style and manner of living, and the expense incurred in preparing young men for the church, in the two countries, are further taken into consideration, it will hardly be contended that 2757. per annum is not a much more liberal income for the minister of a Scottish benefice, than 303/. for the incumbent of an English parish. It should be likewise remembered that the above estimate is made on the average price of 'corn in the markets of Scotland during the year 1822; and that the stipends of the Scottish ministers being settled upon a fixed quantity of corn from each land-owner, must rise and fall in proportion to the rise and fall of the price of provisions. As we have taken the corn price of 1822 for the basis of our calculation, it is not unreasonable to presume that we have computed the reveHues of the Church of Scotland by the very lowest scale on which they can be ever estimated. Every one will acknowledge that, in one point at least, the church of Scotland has been much more fortunate than the Eng lish national establishment. When it was ascertained in 1810 that there were in Scotland 172 benefices, with stipends under 150/. per annum, parliament made a permanent grant of 10,000l. per annum, in order to raise them to that amount. " There are, we conceive, but few men who will contend that the legislature did not act wisely, as well as liberally, in making this grant; and we do most cordially wish, that the case of the poor benefices in England had attracted the same attention, and called forth an equal degree of liberality. It is almost certain that, at the present moment, there are in England no less than 3000 small benefices, which the slow operation of Queen Anne's bounty, aided by an an nual grant of 100,000l. made by Parliament for that purpose, will hardly raise to 150l. per annum in less than one hundred years. If it was politic and humane that 172 Scottish livings, not amounting to one-fifth of the whole number, should have been raised to 1507. per annum, we do think that sound and just views of policy should have dictated a similar proceeding with respect to English benefices under that value, which amount to nearly a third of the whole number. Parliament conferred upon the church of Scotland a permanent addition of revenue, which instantly raised the stipends attached to the smallest benefices in that country to 1507. per annum to the Church of England it doles out casual grants, while 003 while it is clear that, on this plan, the same object cannot be effected in much less than a century. It must, therefore, be perceived, that there is no just foundation for the assertion which is frequently and boldly advanced, that the revenues of the establishment for the religious instruction of Scotland are proportionally less than those attached to the ecclesiastical institutions of England. We feel no inclination to undervalue or depreciate the efficiency of the church of Scotland. It is, we trust, as its eulogists maintain, suitable to the tastes, feelings, and habits of the people for whose instruction it provides: but we must, in justice, be permitted to observe, that the praises, lavishly and insidiously heaped upon its comparative economy, do not appear to be well founded; and that in the point where its merits are confessedly the strongest, its claims to approbation and support are not superior to those of our own excellent, although ill-understood and misrepresented, ecclesiastical institutions. We have thus presented what we conscientiously believe to be a correct estimate of the amount of the funds appropriated for the support of the English clergy; it is, we are satisfied, as near the truth as the nature and difficulty of such an undertaking will admit: and we have not only produced the summary results of our inquiries and calculations, but we have disclosed the basis and data on which our estimate has been constructed. If any of the preceding calculations are erroneous, the means are thus supplied by which our mistakes may be detected. It must be evident to every individual, that, entertaining the views which we have explained in this Article, with respect to the nature and origin of church property, we can have no motive to attempt misleading the public as to the real amount of ecclesiastical reveWe advert to this, branch of the subject solely for the pur pose of counteracting the efforts of desperate and unprincipled agitators, who exert all their ingenuity in endeavouring to impose upon the unwary, who proceed, upon an organized system of falsehood and misrepresentation, to generate and foster, among their ignorant and credulous dupes, feelings of hostility towards the ecclesiastical, as well as civil institutions of the state; and who, on all occasions, hold up the clergy of the established church,— not as, in truth they are, men faithfully discharging important duties attached to the property which they enjoy in their respective parishes, and which is as much their own, subject to the conditions on which it is held, as the estate of a lay individual is the property of the owner-but, as men who consume an inordinate proportion of wealth which belongs to the public, and which, it is therefore inferred, the public has a right to resume at its pleasure, ART. |