The Express.
London, England, 1851-07-02 00:00:00

Isnda4 wits man @A la Ile agreed with the hon. member
trio Maidstone par. Hope) that, after all, the building of
Marches was net term most important object to be attained;
sad the great value of Sir Robert Peel's measure was that
the money was applied in the maintenance of clergy
in new districts, while the building of churches
followed as the result of private contributions. He should
meet the motion of the noble lord by moving the previous
question. As regarded the amendment, it was necessary
Ina to know what the property of the church really was ;
and, as it would take a long time to ascertain that, the
adoption of the amendment must necessarily be postponed.
He confessed himself unable to follow the hon. member for
Maryleboue into the revenues rind the conduct of each
bishop; hut he must say that for many of the evils eass.
planed of prospective remedies had been provided. (Mar.)
It was extremely uncertain what the annual income might
be, hut, in the act passed last year with regard to the cad e-
ostical commission, provision was made for the removal of
that evil. The clause to which he referred was the lith,
which regulated the time, mode, and condition of payment
Of the bishops and archbishops ; and he was not aware of
any other means which could be devised for regulating the
mode of payment of these ecclesiastical functionarice. lie
should, therefore, feel bound to object to the addition
moved by the hon. member for Montrose, and he should
Move the previous question. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. S. lIERBERT thought that if any doubt existed
Open the subject it ought to have been removed by the tem-
perate manner and the able advocacy of the noble lord who
opened the question. Ile regrettel the determination of
Sir G. Grey. He defended the recommendation of the
commissioners to sell the chancellor's livings, which were
not crown patronage. He should be glad, he said, to see
these hying. sold, and the patronage dispersed throughout
the country. Ile supported the motion on the ground that
there was a great anti lamentable deficiency of religious in-
struction in England, and because he thought the measure
It proposed ',efficiently specific as a remedy for the evil.
lie contended that the present crisis in the protestant faith
and the aggression of an invading church required every
meal, of resistant* to be called into action, among which
be assigned the foremast rank to a due development of the
powers and resourcee possessed by the established church.
Sir It. 11. INGLIS, alter preferring a plea against the col-
lateral topics that had been introduced into a debate essen-
tially applying only to the extension of the church, addressed
himself to the censures of Sir B. Hall. He relied upon the
legal interpretation of the claim which the dignitaries of
the church could prefer to the ecelsiastical revenues, and
which border a on the character of the titles held by in live'
dual, over their private properties. lle therefore questioned
the right of parliament to interfere, The English church.
he inaiutained, fulfilled its duty, and conferred more essential
benefits, especially on the middle clauses and the poor, than
any other ecclesiastical system in Europe. He hoped the
Isomer would pause before it committed itself to a propos 3
tion which would alienate its patronage front the crown,
and perpetrate u legalised spoliation of capitular revenues.
After a few observations by Mr. Acmes (who opposed
the motion), upon the subject of Chancellor's livings,
Parallel: LB C ItN complimented the noble lord on the man-
ter in which he had introduced the motion ; and hoped he
would emulate the example of the noble lord lately a
member of the house (the Earl of Shaftesbury) in his
philanthropic labours for the welfare of the poor. (Cheers.)
Be (Mr. tioulhurn) was quite ready to accord to the hon.
baronet opposite (Sir B. Hull) the motive which he bad
crowed of a desire to befriend the church—by exposing its
abuses and thus procuring their rectification—but he could
not allow that the lion. gentleman had shown much judg-
ment in the selection of his topics. It' the abuses which
he had pointed out were existing ones, there might have
been snore reason iu commenting on them i but they were
such as belonged to a state of thing. which had been Tenn'.
shed by 'tannst acts of legislation. (Hear, hear.) The
bon. baronet had brought charges against the Bishop of
London which he (Mr. Goulburn) felt ashamed, standing as
he did in the centre of the right rev. prelate's diocese, to
have to defend. (Cheers.) 'I he Bishop of London received
no more than the act of parliament hail authorised him, and
they ought to blame, therefore, not his lordship, but the
law. (Hear, hear) But however large his lord-
ship's income, it was not spent in selfish indulgence
or in a luxurioue expenditure ; but he believed it was laid
out principally in the extension of the church, and in en-
couraging the growth of nligion arucmg.t the pourer classes
of his tick. At all events, the power of extracting money
for charitable purposes had been admitted by the hon.
baronet as a test of a nun's worth ; and he need, therefore,
only point to the gnat number of new churches, particularly
at It. thnal-green, which had owed their existence to the
light rev. prelate, as a practical answer to the charges
brought against him. The same remark applied to the
of Winchester and Durham—the latter prelate
bestow not only voluntarily increased the contribution
named in the act, but having within the last seven years
given no lie. a sum than 30,000 f. to works of piety and
church extension. (Cheers.) Fault had been found with
the Bishop of Itocheeter fur nut having si.ited the cathedral ;
but it was no part of a visitor's duty to do so unless a corn.
plaint was made to him, and then it 'roe his business to in-
vestigate the matter, and we that justice was dune. (Ileac,
bear.) It had likewise been said that there was no instance
of a bishop having gineu up anythiug in his own person;
but in order to repel this insinuation, it would only he ne.
cesesary to refer to what he had stated of the Bishop
of Durham. In addition to that, however, he might say
the Bishop of Salisbury, who had also been animadverted
on, was the very first man who offered to carry out the
provision. of a hill which had Teen posed to enable
bislitee, to cerey into effect in their life-time the arrange-
ment. which were to take plant at their deaths. The right
bon. member having defended the conduct of several other
pre tat,. c spremed himself in (*lour of the extension of the
panwhial syetc m ; although he route not consent to pur-
chase it at the expense of the reduction of all ecclesiastical
salaries to rent et the most. Such a step would, in his
opinion, deprive the elerey of that just and beneficial in-
fluence• which they exercised over society generally, and
particularly over ON higher classes. (Cheers.)
Mr. lIORSMAN said that while we had in this
country the must richly endowed church in the
world, we had a population perhaps the most
selected of any country in Christendom. The
revennee of the established clench of England,
as they appeared by the parliamentary returns,
alone showed something like five millions a year, being
more than the revenues of three-fourths of the powers of
Marope, and only five exceeding them, and at the same time
there was a state of things which was universally acknow
kdettil to Is wo destitute and deplorable that all the efforts
which hail been made of late, and ell the societies which
had taco established, had tailed to mitigate the calamity.
That was the fact. What was the cause? (Hear, hear.)
There were rcemirces within the established church to re-
mesly the evil. Why, then, did the church not remedy it?
His hon. friend had shown from returns on the table of the
house, that it 1.1.2.4 the owl-ailministnition and bail distribu-
tion of those funds that made thrnso insufficient; and when
the right how gentlemen came down at a moment's notice
With a mass of details of which the house was uninfernied—
Mr. GOt'LBL'ItN said that they related to an ante-

cadent period.
Mr. 11010 NAN.—Documents were furnished to met
ben who moved fur them, and the house ought to have
been supplied with the information from which the right
hon. gentleman had quoted. The complaint ought not to
tonic from the right hon. gentleman who had enjoyed pecu-
liar opportunities of gaining information, and was now
invested with peculiar duties, involving a peculiar obliga-
tion to render himself familiar with the subject. Various
suggestions had been made. The hon. member for
Wiltshire seemed to embarrass himself in tho search
more after far-fetched and questionable remedies
than those which lay near :Oland, Take the obvi-
Cue remedy proposed by his hon. friend. Here were
revenues tobuitustereil by ecclesiastical dignitaries of
whom the complaint was that they had too much power and
ton little responsibility, and of whom the noble lord had said
that they had too much of secular and too little of spiritual
functions. These dignitaries of the church were the admi-
nistraton of these revenues, and they administeml them
in as to intercept them in their way to the poor. (Hear.)
Me thought his hon. friend had :clearly proved that
statement. What was the income of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury from parliamentary authority ?
It was 15,000/. a year, and besides that he had
two palaces, and it had cost the country 20,0001. or
30,01101. for his taking possession of them. The patronage
attached to his see was to the amount of between 70,0001,
and 00,0001. The question was of remedying the deficiency
and adding to the spiritual instruction to this poor man's
church, and they had been told that they might sell the
Chancellor's livings and run out the leases of the lessees,
and there had been a bill introduced to let the fee; sittings
away from the poor to the rich for hire. Those were the
remedies which one after another had been suggested,
Instead of the plain and simple plan of taking off the super-
fluity. He believed that every sane man had made up his
mind that 15,0001. a year for a bishop was more than the
rest of the world furnished an example of. (Hear.) Then
came episcopal incomes, some of 10,0001. a year and others
with 6,000/. a year, and the episcopal bench had
received during a period of seven years the sum of 60,000 f.
in tines alone. The first and most obvious remedy was to
take away this superfluity, and to distribute it among the
poor who wanted it. Not very long ago the question
of tithes was one of much contest and acrimony in that
house. Some came forward and denounced that system,
and professed themselves the dear friends of the
church, but whose conduct showed them to be
enemies to the church. (Hear.) So with church rates
also. Many persons thought them injurious to the church
and a friend to the church proposed to get rid of church
rates. The time was, when out of the clergy of the church
of England 10,000 were non-residents, and a bill having
been introduced to change that system the promoters were
denounced as enemies to the church. The same happened
in the case of pluralities, and he who attempted to reduce
them was denounced as an imprudent friend to the church
by making a statement of such facts. It was not in the
statement of these abuses, but in becoming the champions
of these abuses, that the evil lay. For the enacting of the law
Sting their incomes the prelates were not responsible. The
right hon. gentlemen had said that the Bishop of London had
taken his income from parliament, and that he had nothing to
do with the amount ; but the right hon. gentleman was one
of the commissioners who had reported what the incomes
should be, and the Bishop of London recommended that the
income of future bishops of that see should be 10,0001. a
year. But he himself retained a much larger income than
be said was necessary for his successors. (Hear, hear.) He
bad no disposition to dispute the encomiums passed by the
right hon. gentleman on the Bishop of London. The Bishop
of London might be a moat generous man, but it should
be borne in mind when the generosity of a prelate was con-
cerned, that not what he gave should be considered, but
what he retained. If, for example, he gave 10,000/. a year
out of an income of 16,000/. a year, he certainly deserved
credit, although that was not quite so much as might be ex-
pected from a bishop ; but if, out of an income of 50,0001.
be gave but 10,0001. a year, then he should be judged, not