The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-10 00:00:00

THE STATUS OF THE CLERGY.

IN his speech on the Church-rate Bill, the Arch-
bishop of CANTERBURY made some very perti-
nent observations on the social status now en-
joyed by the clergy, pointing out in few words
the effect which it would have upon that s tatus
if the clergy were converted into collectors of
money for keeping in repair their churches.
It cannot be doubted that the social position
which the clergy of the Established Church
occupy is owing very much to their indepen-
dence of their people, and their freedom from
all mercenary motives in the discharge of their
duties. Once make them either pensioners of
the State, or dependent upon the favour of the
people, and much of their self-respect, founded
upon the dignity of their office, is gone. With
dependence comes subservience, and its usual
concomitant, meanness.

It is one of the evils, we think, connected with
many of our suburban district churches that
the minister has to preach to please the
people, not only for his own support (his
income being dependent upon pew - rents),
but also to obtain the means of sustaining the
fabric in which he officiates. This must interfere
very much with his independence of feeling and
consequent faithfulness, especially in his official
dealings with the rich.

There is as much truth as wit in SYDNEY
SMITH'S amusing description of the effects of
pauperizing the clergy. Take, he says, "an
" average, ordinary, uninteresting minister;
" obese, dumpy ; neither learned nor ignorant ;
" striding over the stiles to church with a second-
" rate wife, dusty and deliquescent, and four pa-
" rochial children, full of catechism and bread
" and butter ; or let him be seen in one of those
" Shem-Ham-and-Japhet buggies, made on
" Mount Ararat soon after the subsidence of the
" waters, driving in the high street of Edmonton,
" among all his pecuniary, saponaceous, oleagi-
" nous parishioners. Can any man of common
" sense say that all these outward circumstances
" of the minister of religion have no bearing upon
" religion itself?"

There cannot be a doubt that they have a
bearing, and that, being degrading, they are de-
leterious to the man and his influence. It may
sound all very well to talk of apostolic poverty
being the proper condition for the clergy, but he
must be very ignorant of human nature who
does not know that poverty is never likely to
induce respect. Make the clergy generally poor
and dependent, and, in the present state of
society, they will inevitably be despised.
It is not sufficiently remembered that, in the
apostolic age, the whole Church consisted of the
poor. The Apostles themselves, indeed, were
rich in gifts, and this gave them a commanding
influence ; but the great body of people among
whom they " went in and out" were of the hum-
blest classes. But the whole relation of the
Church to the State (that is, to the whole mass of
the people) is altered now. Manners and modes
of life have altered; in our own country especially,
the whole character of society has changed from
what it was in ancient times, or even so late as the
days of WILLIAM 111. This involves the necessity
of a corresponding change in the relative position
of the clergy. We shall believe those who prate
about apostolic poverty, and would bring back
the clergy to that condition, to be honest enthu-
siasts—not, as now we think them, cheats and
impostors—when we see them throwing their own
goods into common, and submitting their own
persons to the self-denying poverty of the early
Church.

But the clergy of the Church of England, as
was truly observed by the Archbishop in the
debate referred to, do not fear poverty : what
they dread is dependence. They will submit
(thousands often do submit) cheerfully to small
means and straitened circumstances—to be located

in disagreeable districts, among smoke-spouting
factories and a begrimed sooty class of people,
far from the haunts of finery and fashion—if
only they be recognized as holding a recognized
position, and feel they have authority to minister
among them. There is a spirit of self-respect en.
gendered by this which never can attach to men
who know themselves to be absolutely dependent
for the very power to exercise their office upon an
order of people far inferior to themselves. Most of
the clergy of the Church of England, too, are
born gentlemen, and their influence as
such must be of an elevating character in
all the neighbourhoods in which they dwell.
Those who would lower the social position of the
clergy little think how much injury they would
thereby inflict upon society at large. To send
such men round with the begging-box for means
to sustain their churches would be to make men-
dicants of them : it would be to produce a race of
mean and mercenary ministers (for, under these
circumstances, an inferior class only would go
into the Church) who, like the Romish priests
and begging-friars, would seek to make capital
of and profit by the weaknesses, the vicious
habits, the sins and follies of their fellow-crea-
tures. All who would uphold the social eleva-
tion of their country will, upon these grounds,
feel it to be their duty to uphold the indepen-
dence, the respectability, the dignified social
position of the clergy, as an order of men who
ought specially to combine the character of the
gentleman with that of the Christian.
But while we thus argue, we cannot refrain
from noticing that a marked degree of change is
passing over the clergy, as a body, from other
causes. Formerly, none but gentlemen, or those
who, through a regular University education,
had acquired the habits of gentlemen,
entered the Church. These might be the
days of " high and dry " orthodoxy, and of
general inefficiency; but the Church, it must be
admitted, as represented by the clergy, stood
high in credit in those days with the nation.
It is moat important that it should so stand. But

of late years the facilities for obtaining educa-
tion, and for entering the Church, have b ecn so
multiplied—so ninny side-doors, so to speak, for
admission have been opened—that a very dif-
ferent class is finding its way largely into Holy
Orders. Young men, who were only the other
day be hind the counter or the clerk's desk, pick
up a smattering of classical learning ; become
filled with aspiring thoughts ; leave their proper
calling ; go and keep a few terms at King's
College ; or go to Durham, St. Begh's, or
Birkenhead—not being able to bear the ex-
pense of the greater Universities—or become
Scripture Readers for a time, with an ulterior
liew to a loftier leap ; and lo ! in a short time we
meet them as clergymen ! Now, far be it from us
todiscourage honourable ambition, or to say that a
man should never aim to rise above the condition
in which he was born ; if a man of humble birth
has superior talent, let it be brought into exer-
cise: but what we do say is, that very few of
these men have superior talent, and that if large
numbers of such men are admitted into the
Church the whole status of the clergy will go
down—their order will sink in public estimation.
This is a point to which, we think, our Bishops
should look. We are quite aware that there is
great difficulty in finding a sufficient number of
well-educated, well-qualified men to fill the num-
berless new district churches that are springing
up in our large mercantile towns, where the
work is great and the income small. It is only
men of the class above referred to, who will be
willing to take these unendowed district
churches; and they are willing, because to them
it is a real elevation. But then, if the evil is to
be guarded against of which the Archbishop
spoke, we must not overlook the consequences.
Such men will be almost certain to introduce
their acquired propensities along with them ;
and nothing is more to be deprecated than the
turning the calling of the clergymen into a
trade. This will be Popery, though under the
garb of Protestantism.

We have thought it right to draw notice to
this point, because we have for some time felt
concerned for the Church in this respect. We
feel certain that a change is coming over the
Church, which, if allowed to go too far, will reduce
its whole status with the country. Gentlemen
will not enter it, and that will help to lower it.
It will come to be, as we are told it is now in
some of the remote districts of Scotland, that
the ministers of religion will not be associated
with by the gentry, because they are not them-
selves gentlemen. This will obviously be as
much an evil to the State as it is derogatory to
the Church.

It is one of the advantages arising out of our
having a National Church in union with the
State, with a select and highly educated clergy,
residing, with recognized authority, in their
several parishes among the people, that religion
becomes mixed throughout the whole mass of
life, and blended with all the classes of society.
The clergyman being a gentleman does not unfit
him for intercourse (if he has proper feelings)
with the lower classes, while it does fit him for
Intercourse with the higher : thus, by this cir-
cumstance, both are benefited. But reverse it,
and both advantages are sacrificed; for none are
quicker than the poor in perceiving whether
their clergyman is a gentleman, and none more
thoroughly appreciate the qualities of the true
Christian gentleman.

Our Bishops will do well, we think, to be a
little more particular about what sort of men
they admit into the Church. In our own opinion,
iit s not wise to make the way of access into
Holy Orders too easy. The clergy of the
Established Church, it should be remem-
bered, have to come into contact with the
insolent great as well as the provoking poor.
Ile), ought therefore to be men of high edu-
cation—men of manners—men of dignifiFd
self-respect. They ought to be able to curb
the insolence of wealth, or title, or any other
species of proud pretension that may think to
set itself above them. In this the good sense
of the people will always support them ; for,
much as the English people respect rank, they
will never allow that acquired personal nobility
to be trampled under foot which they intend to
be always the reward (in the classical profession
it is often the only reward) of industry, learning,
and piety.

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