ANGLICAN CLERGY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 109, 31 January 1908, Page 7

ANGLICAN CLERGY.

■■ « . MONEY FOR POORER BENEFICES. DT TET.EGUAm — ritcss ASSOCIATION—COPTBIOnT. . London, January 29. The , Ecclesiastical Commissioners propose to make a fresh annual grant of : £50,000. to tho clergy, raising tho incomes of a thousand of tho poorer-Anglican benefices.' 11 PENSI.ONS "FOR" CLERGY. . The. Ecclesiastical Commission' is a bodv permanently appointed in IBSG more .equally to distribute the revenues of Church livings in England. The Commission consists, of tho -archbishops and bishops, tho three most important of; the deans, certain of the judges and Ministers of State, eleven laymen appointed by the Crown, and n. Church Estates Commissioner appointed by -the Archbishop ofVCanterbury. ■ . .. ... ' At a recent ir.eof iii;f of Convocation tho Archdeacon of Worcester moved that this House desires to - express its satisfaction 'that ■' there is ,n trood nrqspept of n general system .of-pen-sions lor the clergy on'tlie lines of the" resolution agreed to by both Houses of Convocation. The pension scheme, declared tho Archdeacon, would'remove one of the greatest reproaches against the Church of England as the only body that did not make provision for its aged clergy. With this pension question' out of the way one-half the difficulty, which beset any schemo for improving the financial position of the clergy and relieving the aged, and infirm from parish work, for Which tlicy wero incapacitated, would be removed. A possibly unconsidered utterance of tho Bishop of London on. the scandal of clerical poverty has brought upon him a vast amount of adverse criticism. He referred in . commiseration to the ease of a clergyman's daughter, who had to rise early to black the boots, not only of the family, but of the visitors, and was at once reproved by a number of correspondents, who reminded linn that the clergy are pledged to endure hardness. Commenting on this matter, a Church newspaper states"For the Church of England to half starve her ministers, and then to tell them blandly that they must expect to endure *luirdness, is only to imitate tho apostasizing Jew, who, watching his faithful fellow-Hebrew being burned at tho stake, whispered in his ear: 'Stand firm, Moses; stand firm.'"