THE CHURCH

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 115, 19 March 1853, Page 10

THE CHURCH

The folioAving remarks appear in the Times of the 13th November, and seem to je called forth by the appropriation of the funds subscribed for Ecclesiastical, to secular, purposes by the Canterbury Association.

In the age in which we live Aye seem to have come to the conclusion that institutions must be estimated by reference to their utility, and that it will no longer do to plead the most venerable antiquity or the most firmly established privilege in defence of institutions which cannot stand the test of reason or of fairness. Venerable prescription pleaded loudly for our rotten Parliamentary boroughs and our equally peccant municipal corporations, but in neither case Avas the argument from prescription allowed to prevail. Junius, our great political essayist, and the matchless historian of the middle ages, pleaded for these time-honoured abuses in vain. They fell like ripe corn under the unrelenting sickle of improvement, and the names of those who opposed their destruction are- preserved rather as literary curiosities than as authorities against an act which the will of a nation approved and the voice of a nation sanctioned. Yet, Avhile thus inexorable to these flagrant and vested iniquities, we suffer to grow up and prosper among us monopolies far more grievous and intolerable than that Avhich Old Sarum exercised in returning two members to Parliament, or Sutton Coldfield when it melted down the muniments of its corporate existence to a purple pulp by the droppings of corporation wine. Lord Palmerston says that the love of autiqiuty is inveterate amongst us—that no si<m cm heat the Old Hats but the Old Old Hafs; bat, as far as we are able to see, the old old deans and chapters, canons, and residentiaries ol .Roman Catholic and monastic times are far better than the old imitations of them Avhich have descended to this the nineteenth century. In the middle ages most people Avere infatuated enough to believe that they could compensate for a misspent life by bequeathing sums to charity and religion on their death. Their first care was generally to provide for persons who should offer up innumerable prayers for their souls ; and their second to make some provision tor the poor, whose orisons might, it was hoped, oeenhsted in the same holy office. In these things there might be much blindness and superstition, but there was, at any rate, an aim and a purpose; the prayers for "the soul of the founder might be the result of a paltry and miserable selfishness, and the maintenance of a number of poor people in idleness is not exactly accordant with the modern views of political economy, hut still there was an end earnestly des,red by the donor followed out by the means winch to his limited intelligence appeared most suitable and efficient.

Since such bequests were made, Time the great innovator, has brought with it its altera(ions and ameliorations. The Reformation has cancelled that part of the bequest which ordered masses to be said for the souls of the deceased. The change in the value of money has reduced the sum giveu to the poor to a small fraction compared to what it was originally worth. On the other hand, the increase of commerce and manufactures has raised tne value of land to a sum immeasurably exceeding its worth at any

former period. Under these circumstances how have the conflicting claims of the clergymen and the poor been adjusted ? We cannot complain that a more enlightened vieAV of religion has prohibited the testamentary bequests for masses and ceremonies intended to purchase the repose of the soul. But we had, we think, a right to expect from men dedicated to religion that something else except their own interests would have been provided for, and that he poor would have reaped at least some benefit by the progressive change in the value of property to which their labour so largely contributed. We regret to say, however, that the general practice has been to apply to the poor the strict letter of the bequest, giving them neither more nor less than the sum which they would have been entitled to in the currency of five or six hundred years ago, and to hand over the difference to the clergy in consideration of duties they are no longer called on to perform. We Avill not impair the effect of the letter of a correspondent by recapitulating the extraordinary and outrageous case of the two Messrs. Pretyman, which he there states for the astonishment and indignation of the English public. We believe it would be impossible, out of the Church of England, to find such an instance of enormous payment combined with absolute abstinence from duty. We can comprehend, as we said before, the bequest of money for masses or for the maintenance of the poor., but an appropriation of money left for these purposes for the use of persons Avho have done nothing to deserve such a position, except being the sons of a bishop celebrated for having extracted a larger sum from his preferment than any of his reverend compeers, is utterly anomalous and unintelligible. For whose good, except for their OAvn, do the Bey. Bichard and George Pretyman enjoy wardensbips, rectorships, canonries, and precentorships to the amount of so many thousands a year unburdened by any corresponding duty? Such things are alike repudiated by the state of society out of Avhich they sprang and that into Avhich they have intruded themselves. The past knows them not, and the present rejects them. Yet, Avhile Aye are in the habit of exacting from men of talent and experience the most laborious duties for paltry and inadequate salaries—while we peril the efficiency of the public service in order to carry out throughout its departments a system of rigid and scrupulous economy— Aye suffer hundreds of thousands of the public money to be swalloAved annually by drones Avho cannot even give a specious account Avhen called upon to explain the services Avhich they render. We starve those who Avork in order to gorge those Avho are idle. The accident of birth commands what merit cannot hope to attain ; and Avhat makes this malversation of sacred funds the more shocking is, that they are diverted from the service of the Church to swell the hoards or to supply the extravagance of thenuseless possessors.

We have lately seen in New Zealand a settlement established for the purpose of disseminating under the highest auspices, the pure religion and teaching of the Church of England. Part of its funds Avere obtained by the purchase of land and part by pious eleemosynary subscriptions. Both have been confiscated to secular purposes by the Canterbury Association, and the colonists, after remaining without a place of worship for eighteen months, are at length driven to erect one by voluntary subscription. The sacrilege Avhich has Avithheld from the infant colony the endowments of religion is only similar to that Avhich is curtailing the utility of the Church in the mother country. The Church, like all other institutions in this age, will be judged by the quantity of good she can effect, and that will again depend, like the capital of any private enterprise, upon the amount of work she obtains in return for the capital she employs. Those who intercept these enormous incomes from the hardworking and underpaid clergy are not merely taking what, in justice, is not their own—they are plundering the altar of the gift which has been laid upon it, and perverting to "worldly purposes money Avhich has been subscribed in the fear of God. By every shilling which the sinecurist and pluralist receives is the Church of England impoverished and defrauded. We can understand that men should be found to appropriate money derived from such sources to their own exclusive use, but Aye cannot comprehend how they can unite such conduct with the profession of the true faith, or the adoption of the creed, of a Christian. .