The Express.
London, England, 1848-05-23 00:00:00

DESTITUTION OF THE CLERGY IN THE
DIOCESE OF LINCuLN.
. _

In answer to a question from Earl Buowesz.ow, as to a
report of Mr. liorsoun's speech of Tuesday 'let, in the
House of Commode, in reference to the clergy of the diocese
of Lincoln,
The Bishop of LINCOLN said: I feel obliged to the noble
earl for putting the question and enabling me to offer an ex-
planation upon the subject to which it relaus. As soon as
I read the report of the hon. gentleman's speech in the
Times newspaper, which represented him to have said that
two clergymen in Lincoln or the neighbourhood hod died of
starvation [no such observations were attributed to tdr.
Horsman in the Daily News report] thinking that such
a statement cast a great stigma upon the clergy of the
county, I requested the hon. gentleman to furnish me
with the names of the two clergymen. In his answer he
tells me that the report in the Times is incorrect; that he
did not state that two clergymen had dicd of starvation ;
but that he could give instances of clergymen who
had died in such a state of destitution that it would
hardly be too much to say that it was bordering in starva-
tion. In confirmation of this; as I asked him for two cases,
he enclosed an extract from a report made to him on the
subject in January last, and of the correctness of which, in
all essential points, he had no doubt. He adds, they are
by no means the only cases of extreme destitution and suf-
fering which he could cite : "la the parish of Auborne,
six miles and a quarter from Lincoln, there died in the year
1834 the Rev. Mr. Watkins, the vicar of that perish. He
came there in 1810, a widower. Some yearn atter he be-
came afflicted with a cancer. Of course he stood in
urgent need of the best medical assistance, but his income,
541. per annum, and that sometimes not regularly paid, pre-
cluded the possibility of his obtaining such advice. His
disease became so terrible, and, superaddrd to the misery
of his position, weighed down his health and spirits
so heavily, that he was driven to the consumption of
opium in order to produce atupefaction. Thus he went on
for several years. The services of the church were of course
neglected. Sometimes there was no service hz six or nine
weeks together—no administration of the 'sacrament for
two years. A large dissenting chapel sprang up, and the
district soon became, what it still remains, the focus of dis-
sent. r,ornetimes, when the poor vicar awoke completely
to a sense of his position, it is reported his feelings proved
almost maddening. lie had no one to care for him—not
even a servant to look after him. He was obliged some-
times—so deep was his poverty—even to beg his daily bread.
He was forced to the humiliating necessity of asking for the
smallest sums of money from neighbouring deny, not as a
loan, but absolutely as a gift. At last death put an end to
his sufferings, which it must indeed have required all the
fortitude at a Christian minister to endure—agony of body,
agony of spirit, agony of mind He died with no other
attendant about him than a charwoman, and he was buried
at the cost and by the din ction of the cli rgy of the adjacent
villages. Nor is this a singular case of din revs. Within the
last few days a case has occurred it. this very city, by no
mesas dissimilar from that I have depicted. The nieumbent
of a parish of 9.31, a year, two mil, s from the cathedral, has
died. His death wns C:,ioned, 1 ern sorry to say, by his
own excesses, and therefore that amount of pity canna be
entertained for him the: must be felt for the poor sie •i of
Auborne. But the account of his death—l have it from one
' cognisant of all the facts—is dreadful. He had been some
time ill ; his wife was also ill. The only other person in ine
house was a little workhouse girl of fifteen or sixteen
sears of age—a dreadful beginning of lite, indeed, for her.
In the middle of the night this child was awoke by the poor
man's groans. She went to his room, found him wrirning
in extreme agony, threw a sheet over him, and left him to
expire. A dog could scarcely have Gird mere wretched.y.
' It was not till late in the evening that any one could be got
to approach the wretched death.bed. When they searched
the house not a single coin of any kind nor a single ar-
ticle of food was to be found. The body of this clergy.
man of the established church of England and ireand
was interred at the cost of Archdeacon Bonney." On
the first of the two caws, which occurred 14 years ago,
when I was not resident in the county, and consequently
I could not be acquainted with the circumstances of tudivi-
dual clergymen in it, I can sae little. I remember only that
Mr. Watkins was represented to me as very poor ; and, if
my memory does not deceive me, he had once been confined
for debt in Lincoln Castle ; but ram confident that the