The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-07-13 00:00:00

THE CROWN DIAMONDS OF FRANCE.

The exhibition of these jewels in the Champ-de-
Mars, in Paris, has drawn attention to a curious
episode in their history. In 1792 the Constituent
Assembly ordered an inventory to be made of them,
and that task had hardly been completed when, on the
night of the 16th of August, they all disappeared.
Forty thieves, acting in unison, managed to escalade
the house in the Place Louis XV., in which the gems
were deposited, and effected an entrance by breaking
in the window, and carried them all off. Although
so many men were engaged in the enterprise only
two were caught, but the diamonds could not
be found. At that moment, a man named Lami4-
ville, a hairdresser, was in the prison of the Concier-
genie under sentence of death for coining, but he made
his escape. A few days afterwards he called upon
Serjeant Marceau, a municipal officer who had ren-
dered him some service while he was in prison, and
told the polieman that while in confinement be had
heard the men talking and had discovered the hiding
place of the precious objeots, viz., in the hollows of
two large beams in a garret in a certain street. The
serjeant went, himself to search and recovered the whole
of them, the Regent, the Sancy, &c. As for Lsmioville,
he was sent away from Paris for security. P6Lism. the
mayor of the capital, recommended him to the Minister
of War, and he was made an officer in a regiment of
the line, AcCordirig to an inventory drawn in the
reign of Louis VIII., the jewels were more than
64,000 in number, weighing 18,751 carats, and were
estimated to be worth 215,900,260f.—Standart4

THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER ON THE
POSITION OF THE CLERGY.

Preaching on Sunday before the L,,rd Mayor and
Lady Mayoress at St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. London,
in aid of the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, the
Bishop of Manchester said the clergy were paid partly
by tithes, partly by offerings, and in some cases by
pew-rents, houses of residences, and glebe lands.
Other bodies preferred to depend upon their congrega-
tions. Each method had its advantaees and die-
vantages. Toe minister who was dependent
absolutely for his bread upon the congregation to
whom he ministered was, perhaps, in a still more ex-
tended sense than the Apostle Paul, their " servant."
He was bound to please them, and there was sometimes
a peril lest he should try to please them at the cost
of faith. No doubt there were men endowed with
great gifts in the voluntary churches who could com-
mand hearers, and he had no doubt that a great
preacher who brought together thousands on the
Surrey side would not trim down the mes-
sage to please his congregation. But, looking at it
from a general point of view, it was a temptation
to which he himself should be very sorry to be ex-
posed. Had people ever reflected that, although tin,
value of endowments had been greatly increased by
the prosperity of the times, by the side of it there
had been enormously growing populations, with enor-
mously increased spiritual requirements. This 19th
century, although it had built churches and beautified
them after its fashion, still this wealthy age had
done next to nothing in the way of improving the en-
dowments of the Church of England, which kept it a
"poor Church," though the newspapers said that it
was the richest Church in Christendom. There was
amongst the clergy much poverty and even actual
distress. He saw from the report of the corporation
for which he was now preaching that within the last
thirty years there had been created 10.47 new
benefices. Of these 297 had incomes less than £6O a
year, 1,650 from £BO to 2 00, and 1,600 from
£lOO to 120 a year, or a third of the whole
had less than £l2O a year. He knew for
a fact that very many clergymen had not
£2OO a year. Out of that they had to support a
wife and family of perhaps three or four children, and
also pay the rent of the house. He was quite sure
that many a clergyman did not taste meat oftener than
the agricultural labourer, and many a clergyman of
the Church was thankful for cast-off suits of clothes.
It was said that there ought to be more equality
amongst Church of England ministers. He, as a
bishop, took that to himself. He had to 1 eep a big
house and a position as the head of his diocese.
There were always increasing demands on a bishop.
Not more than a third of their incomes was spent on
themselves and family, and the other claims on them
swallowed up the remainder. If they wanted
to see the work of a clergyman, let them go to
East London—say Bethnal-green or St. George's-
in-the-East, where, perhaps, hardly a man or
woman in the parish had an average education.
It could be only God's grace that led men to
work as they did in these districts. He had no
sympathy for clergymen who married when they
knew that they had no means of supporting a wife
and family; and when clergymen came to him and
made that a plea for preferment, he told them that
it was the hard-working clergyman that he knew in
such cases, and no other If the clergyman who com-
mitted such an error proved by his labours that he
was an earnest worker, then he (the bishop) was wil-
ling to overlook the mistake of a brother. The real
qualities of a true and successful minister were
gentleness, patience, meekness, aptness to work, to be
known to his people, to call them by their Christian
names, giving the kindly grip to the hand of his
people in the street, visiting the widow and the
orphan, visiting in season and out of season, and
sitting by the bedside of the dying, with his Bible in
his hand, and administering that spiritual consolation
which a minister could alone give. The man who did
that had nothing to fear. He could assure them that
it was not the happiest day in his life when he took
upon himself the terrible responsibility of a bishop,
and he was prepared to retire, and feed a flock in some
quiet pastoral district.

_ _
Referring to the Pan-Anglican Synod, his lordship
said there were at Lambeth IA metropolitan Arch-
bishops and Bishops gathered together from the ends
of the earth. Of course an insular Church could not
have the boast of that proud Church which gathered
800 Bishops at the Vatican Council. But, certainly,
it was something to have a conference of four Arch-
bishops and 87 Bishops in the library at Lambeth
from India, China, Polynesia, the Falkland Islands,
Africa. the United States, Ireland, Scotland, Canada,
and other places.