I have taken down some instances of these crown impropriations : 1. Radford, Notts.-Population, 9,806; church, 1; accommodation, 550; income of incumbent, £296; no house; amount of impropriation not down in the return.

2. Drax St. Peter, Worcester. - Population, 1,289; church, 1; accommodation, 300; income of incumbent, £81; amount of impropriation not down.

On calling at the Tithe Commission Office, I found that these tithes had, to use the official expression, been "dealt with”—i. e., merged in land rent; but the amount of tithes per acre can never be lost, so that restoration can always be effected. Still it is to be lamented that such an expediency as the merging of tithes in land was ever adopted by parliament.

Mr. Miller, of Harlow, the great advocate for the restoration of a tithe system, thinks the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ought to be a Tithe Redemption Trust on a large scale; but though they have, according to a return called for by Lord H. Vane, had tithes to about £14,000 a year fallen in to them, they have only returned about £2,000 a year. The Tithe Redemption Trust does not seek for centralisation power. Gladly would it see in every diocese a Tithe Redemption Trust. In the deans and chapters of their cathedrals (each one of which is the parish church of the whole diocese) the bishops, according to the ancient laws of our church, ought to find coadjutors in this holy work; and indeed in them should exist the source of evangelising the people and spreading the Church divisionally, and no centralisation societies need exist in London then. And as the parish clergy visit every house, or ought to do, and I have no doubt would if in sufficient numbers, so the bishops ought to be in sufficient numbers and of sufficient activity, and so acquainted with parochial work, as to visit every parish and know its condition both as to spiritualities and temporalities. A bishop going to our villages in the apostolic spirit of love would be hailed by old and young, and by the parish priest kindly entertained. He would in some places hear the yeoman complain that his tithes were paid to some distant noble, or squire, or lady, or college, or commissioner, and he would be moved to urge the restoration of tithes in his diocesan synod.

The Tithe Redemption Trust seeks no money aid from the state, but it does look to parliament, and call on its agent, the Ecelesiastical Commission, to do its duty with the tithes appropriated, as they fall in; and it throws itself on the Christian zeal and liberality of the public, as in this Free-trade Hall to-day, to come forward freely in united and combined effort to eradicate the evil, and enable the impropriators to restore the tithes, which it is not their fault they possess, but that of the whole nation; and which, if restored, the whole nation would rejoice at, and Heaven would be appeased, and all the people would be taught the way of salvation.

Impropriations, including the crown, £765,000 a year. Suppose 16,000 congregations offer £10 a year; reckon the Tithe at twenty years' purchase, £15,300,000 (but who knows whether many would not in time be restored free like those restored a few years ago by the late Mr. Abel Smith to about £500 a year?) Well, suppose this contribution went on for 100 years, we have £16,000,000! I hope you will become members of the Tithe Redemption Trust. Pro misericordia, pr patria, pro ecclesia Dei.

265

MODES OF AUGMENTING SMALL LIVINGS.

By the REV. THOMAS LUND, B.D.

I feel that I shall best fulfil the task assigned to me, within the allotted time, by restricting myself as much as possible to matters of positive fact.

My position as one of the secretaries of a Diocesan Institution for the Augmentation of Small Livings enables me not merely to theorise upon what may be done in that direction, but to state plainly and truly what has been done; and the facts which I shall produce, will, I trust, render much exhortation and argument unnecessary, even if this were the place for them, which it is not.

I would premise, however, that there are certain special reasons for regarding this subject as one of more than ordinary importance at the present day, and to which, before I proceed, I must advert for a

moment.

1st. The constantly increasing expenditure of all classes, from the highest to the lowest, which makes every one, with a fixed income, relatively poorer than he was formerly. This is a fact patent, I think, to all, and one which is found to bear especially hard upon the clergy.

2nd. The legal restrictions now put upon pluralities, amounting almost to their abolition, whereby the poorer beneficed clergy have been greatly increased in number. Yet no one will wish the enactments on this head to be cancelled.

3rd. The further creation of poor benefices by the formation of new districts and parishes, without any adequate endowments. But who can question the expediency of subdividing large parishes?

4th. The serious diminution in the number of candidates for holy orders, which, if it be not speedily arrested, must clearly result, before long, either in the closing of some of our Churches, or in a return to the old system of pluralities, with less frequent services and other attendant evils. This lack of recruits for the ministry, is doubtless caused, in a great degree, by the clerical poverty everywhere visible, and by the superior attractions, in a pecuniary point of view, of various lucrative and honourable posts in the civil service, recently thrown open to competition, and attainable by young men at an early age, without any university or otherwise equally expensive education.

And

The striking facts connected with "the supply of ministers" have been already laid before the Congress with sufficient distinctness, showing a gradual and an alarming decrease in the number of persons admitted into holy orders in the course of the last few years. who can doubt that one cause, probably the main cause, of the deficiency, is the unwillingness of parents to set forward their sons in the way of the very worst paid profession to which a liberal education can lead and especially now they see that a man may pursue any honest trade whatever, and in social position be reckoned as a gentleman for all that!

I mentioned the attractive offers set before young men and their parents in the civil service of the crown. Take an example, as I think it bears strongly upon our subject.

In the years 1855, 1856, and 1857, according to a published statement, 47 well educated young men, from 18 to 22 years of age, were selected by competitive examination for the civil service of India.

They all commenced with a salary of £480 a year (which may be reckoned equivalent to about half that sum in England), and they were informed that their pay would be increased from time to time purely according to merit. Now, we have an acconnt of these young men, as they stood at the end of 1861, and it is as follows:

And of the whole 47 only three remained at the original stipend of £480.

I adduce this as a specimen of the sort of competition which the Church has now to contend with. And does it not plainly point to the course of action required in our present necessity, viz., the adoption of vigorous measures to improve the incomes of the poorer clergy, and to secure promotion (though that is not the question at present)-promotion, as far as possible, according to merit?

It is evident that the Church cannot continue to hold her position, and perform her duties, as the National Church, with a decreasing staff of ministers and a rapidly increasing people. And tell me how, in a luxurious age like the present, it can be reasonably expected that the ranks of the clergy will be sufficiently recruited as long as, for about one-half of our number, to life-long labour is annexed that most trying of all temporal evils-the constant gnawing of genteel poverty. More than ever are the clergy required to be gentlemen both in manners and education. More than ever are they expected to be earnest workers and liberal givers to their poorer brethren. It cannot be, I think, that English Churchmen will continue to use their neighbour's service without wages, and that too in the most important work which it is appointed to man to do! I cannot think so ill of my countrymen as to believe that they will deliberately act the part of the Egyptian taskmasters, and say to their clergy, "Go now, and work for there shall no straw be given you: yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks."

But to proceed more immediately with our subject. In considering the question of augmenting small livings, one's thoughts naturally turn, first of all, to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. They have been the receivers and distributors of a fund arising from the taxation of a portion of the clergy, and amounting to about £14,000 a-year, for 150 years. Their business has been all along, as defined in their charter, "The augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy;" and their present Secretary, in his published account,* boasts of "the soundness of the system, which was originally established, and has been continued." I have felt it to be my duty, and I have tried hard, to discover the grounds for such boasting; but I confess that, looking carefully at the proceedings of the bounty office from first to last, I cannot find them. I cannot see the practical wisdom of their plan for augmenting small livings. It seems to have such a peddling character about it-doing a little almost everywhere, and really effective nowhere. This will be best understood from an example.

See Hodgson's "Account of the Augmentation of Small Livings, &c.,” p. 15.

Take the county of Derby, in which I am specially interested, and put "the soundness of the system" to the test of recorded facts. In the first ten years of their operations the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty made nine grants of £200 each, and no more, to nine poor benefices in Derbyshire, then under £35 per annum. The grant was made in each case to meet a benefaction of equal or greater amount ; and the ten years' result for the whole county was, that nine poor livings, not one of which exceeded £35, were augmented to the extent, on the average, of £14 5s. per annum each, benefactions included. If this process had been repeated within a short period no fault, perhaps, could have been found with the system; but it is a plain matter of fact that of these nine livings (all of which, remember, were still under £50), only one received further augmentation for the next forty years; and the average interval between the first and second grants was no less than sixty-six years. So much for the first ten years of their administration! Now, what can be said of the last ten years, of which we have any printed account, viz., the ten years ending with 1855? The facts are these:-In those ten years the county of Derby received from the Bounty Office nineteen grants of £200 to as many distinct livings, that is, after the rate of £380 per annum; and the interest of that sum, about £12, was the average annual augmentation, for that period, of the endowments of the Church for an entire county, derived from the funds of the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty! I would gladly believe better things of the Managers of the Bounty Office, if I could; but it is clear, from their own published statements, that their funds have been doled out to poor livings, from first to last, in such miserable driblets, and at such wide intervals, as to be practically ineffective for the cure, or even the sensible alleviation, of clerical poverty—a disease to which, according to my judgment, homeopathic treatment is quite inapplicable. One thing, at least, is certain, that their slow process of augmenting the maintenance of the poorer clergy is unsuited to these times-unequal to the existing emergency.

There is another body of whom I shall be expected to say a word or two-the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. They have been at work, or should have been, for more than twenty-five years, in the same line, with large capital, but, I fear, with small administrative wisdom. As men of business, they are in bad repute; and the results are far from satisfactory. Nevertheless I have great faith myself in the Ecclesiastical Commission-not as it is, but as it is to be. Its rule of proceeding is not stereotyped, like that of the Bounty Office; so, byand-by, by some transmutation or other, it will hit upon the right method, and then we shall see great and telling results; or, which is more likely, "the ponderous and extravagant ecclesiastical machine," as the Times calls it, will be taken to pieces, reconstructed, and made to do its proper work-the augmentation of small livings-with a greatly multiplied effect. Anyhow we may look forward, I think, with hope to the better application of the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

And now I will go on to show you "the more excellent way" which has been recently adopted in the diocese of Lichfield, comprising the three archdeaconries of Derby, Stafford, and Salop-two whole counties and a portion of a third-taking that of Derby first, with which I am best acquainted.

I. In the Archdeaconry of Derby the total number of benefices is 240; and previous to those operations which I am about to detail the account stood thus:

Benefices not exceeding £50 a year.....

exceeding £50 but not £100

Number.

13

52

Out of 240 benefices, 125, more than half the number, did not exceed

£150 a year.

In the spring of 1862, Archdeacon Hill sent forth an appeal, supported by a letter from the Bishop, containing a scheme agreed to by all the rural deans, by which a fund was to be raised from annual subscriptions, donations, and church collections, called "The Poor Benefice Fund," and to be applied to the augmentation of livings within the archdeaconry under £200 a year.

From this fund it was agreed that grants should be annually made of £200 to as many benefices under £200 a year as the state of the fund might allow, on condition that in each case the grant was met by an equal or greater amount from local benefactions. The £400 might then be brought to the Diocesan Church Extension Society, and, the funds allowing, it would be further increased by £100. This £500, being then offered to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, would bring £500 more. And so a poor incumbent, who could raise £200 by local effort, would receive £1,000 in return, for the further endowment of his benefice.

In consequence of the Archdeacon's appeal meetings were held in the principal towns, a committee was appointed, rules were framed for the management of the fund; in less than six months we were in full working order; nineteen applications for aid, fulfilling the requisite conditions, were entertained; and five poor benefices were forthwith selected to receive grants of £200 each, which, by the process above detailed, have already resulted in augmentations of not less than £1,000 to each benefice.

In August of the present year nine other small livings received grants of £200 from the same fund upon the same conditions, which we expect, in like manner, will also shortly issue in an augmentation of not less than £1,000 to each living. They are now only waiting for the decision of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

Thus, in less than two short years, we shall have stimulated the Churchmen of our archdeaconry to contribute towards the maintenance of their clergy an additional sum of £7,215; and thereby we shall also have extracted, as we hope, from the coffers of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, for the same object, the sum of £7,215 more. Total amount, £14,430.

It is further to be observed-and a fact to be especially notedthat little or no difficulty seems to exist in obtaining the first £200 in each case. In less than a year and a half from the commencement of our work in Derbyshire, more than one-sixth of all the incumbents in the county, with an income of less than £200 a year, had declared themselves ready to meet our grants with the required amount from local benefactions.

I ought perhaps to add that we ask no questions about the patronage