ECCLESIASTICAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3626, 30 August 1872, Page 3

ECCLESIASTICAL.

TO TUB EDITOR OF TUB LYTTELTON TIMES. Sin, —Apropos of recent events, will any of your clerical readers be good enough to state, touching the admission of clergymen into this diocese, whether the law and practice of the Church of England is observed, with regard to testimonials ?

It is well known that in England no clerk, proceeding from one diocese to another, can be licensed by any Bishop, unless he is provided with a testimonial, in canonical form, signed by three beneficed clergymen, and countersigned by the Bishop of the diocese, in which such clerk has served “ for three years last past,” and the absence of that testimonial is a prhna facie, disqualification, necessitating special investigation. If this very stringent rule of the church is invariably enforced in England, where every information is immediately accessible, how much more indispensable ought it to bo in the colonies, where so many delinquents take refuge, as well as adventurers resort? No clergyman qualified to obtain this testimonial, would think of removing without it, either in England or Ireland, ranch loss of going abroad, for his health or otherwise. It is his only recognised passport. Then comes the questions, is, or has been, that rule enforced in this province; and if not, why not? I can hardly suppose it possible, that had there not been much laxity in the observance of this wholesome discipline,

in times past, the disgrace of so many instances of scandal, more or loss, as are known to have occurred, would have been spared to “ the Church of England in New Zealand.”

The concluding words of the testimonial referred to are these :—Moreover we believe him in our consciences to bo a person worthy to be licensed to the cure of souls.”

This is signed by three incumbents, having Lad personal knowledge of the nominee for the three years preceding ; and the Bishop certifies—“ The subscribers are clergymen licensed in my diocese, and are worthy of credit.”

Such arc the precautions and guarantees taken at home, to exclude “ all things that offend,” and the church at the antipodes cannot afford to dispense with them. Your obedient servant, A THOUGHTFUL. CHDRCHM AN. N.B.—Under various pretences (” ways that arc dark, and tricks that are vain ”), or, it may even be ex necessitate, the prescribed form of canonical testimonial, is often times modified or qualified. But all such dilutions are suggestive of suspicion and should be very jealously regarded, upon the maxim of caveat emptor.