The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-10 00:00:00

and should not take all fair and legal steps to gratify it.
In favouring his election the parliamentary
notables must have foresees that he would act so, and
by now quarrelling with his on that accoust they
are really guilty of enthroning and elevating a pre-
sident for the selfish interests of the moment, which
they must have determined to oppose and to put
down later. By such policy as this, the pulls-
watery notables profusely sowed the
_meds of
civil war. And as they @Laced Loins Yfiturri:
and his dynasty to their selfish vanity, so
they are now doing the same with Loots NAPO-
LEON, throwing the country at both epochs and
for both muses into convulsion and syncope. TM
men who do this strike as as the most guilty and
most foolish personages in all history. They have
forced Lotus NAPOLEON into a position from
which there is no issue rave in his destroying
the Assembly or the Assembly destroying him.
Whilst as the only mode of solution, different
corps of the army will be called into play,
ranged perhaps on different sides, under hosti:e cost-
menders, and even, if they do not fight, called to de-
cide according to their political predilections as to
which shall preponoorate, the legislative or executive
power. The idea of a party, professing to be chsm-
pions of order, awakening Bush antagonisms and
appealing to such suffrages and such °hunts as these,
is indeed • more monstrous act of folly than even
French politicians have yet committed throughout
their loos career of inconsistency and absurdity.

THE Reverend the Exl of GUILFORD (the son, as
our readers know, of a former Bishop of Winchester)
has at last, in the ripenws of his years and the ful-
ness of his puree, yielded to that public opinion which
he so long disre4arded and once 53 signally braved :
an example of the most flagrant nepotism that ever
degraded a protestant, and almost rivalling the greater
enormities of the itomish church, and of the

proving morality and earnest spirit of our times.
Some years ago Lord GUILFORD resigned a canonry
in the cathedral church of his episcopal parent; in
September last he denuded himself of the three
livings united for the benefit of bishops' sons in the
benefice commonly called Alresford; in November
he shed the great parish of St. Mary's Southampton ;
and now, of all the profitable patronage show-
ered upon him by his lather, the Bishop, the old
Earl only retains the Mastership of St. Cress ;
attached to which is an information in the Court of
Chancery at the suit of the Attorney-General, insti-
tuted on an Address to the QUEEN by the Hoene of
Commons ; and it threatens to deprive him of some
part of the wealth he has for forty years derived
trom that Foundation; reformed in vain by as great
a man and as resolute a reformer as England ever
knew—WILLIAM OF WYREUAM.
What time, they were when bishops could benefize
on benefice accumulate on their sons! When the
PRETTMANS and the NURTUS were the bu-sing and
shining lights of a church with each pretensions as
that of Ecgland ; when governments defended, and
parliament sanctioned such acts and such men; when
the gentry of England could see nothing wrong but
everything right in such administration of patronage;
when honest men who doubted its propriety were
denounced as Jacobins and radicals; and when
old GEORGIE ROSR used to throw a halo of sanctity
about such transactions by talking, in connexion with
them, of " the blessed comforts of our holy religion,
sad the gloomy despair ct Atheism !"
They have gone, however. Lord GUILFORD Was,
perhaps, their last relic. With his resignations of
Alreaford and S. Mary's, the coarse unscrupulous
insolent nepotism of English bishops has finally
expired. It is dead and buried, never to rise
again. And for its destruction we can't be too thank-
ful ; for in times past its leaven leavened all our
bread; its corruption tainted everything. There is
hope sad health and strength for • nation that casts
off such gangrene and decay.
Bat, though this grosser episcopal nepotism
has given way before the progress of public
morality, let it not be supposed that nepotism of a
more delicate and refined sort, of an order more
inoffensive and less material, less of the earth earthy,
is also extinct. No, it exists, and is more or less to
be seen in every episcopal family in the kingdom ;
adapting and conforming itself to the better sense of
respo:monlity now current in sod recognised by
society; pleasant, agraable, sociable, moderate, yet suf-
ficient. Bishops woe are no longer fat pluralists—that
the law forbi&--that public opinion won't tolerate;
bat jest as in these hard times the younger eons of
aristocratic holm, may be seen picking up small
appointments, from thit of Serjeant-at-Arms to
Queen's Messengers • so bishops' sons may, in modest
detail, be observed dropping into substantial beta fiefs
and first rate parsonage housee. Low prices have
brought down these people's pretension!.
Look, for example, at Alresford. There, as we have
said, Lord GUILFORD held united three livings ;-
1. Old Alrosford, worth about tioo/. a year, with one of
the best parsonages in England; 2. New Alreaford,
2,7•01.; and 3. Medeted, 6001. a year. From time
whereof, as lawyers say, the memory of man rur.neth
not to the contrary, these three conjoint livings have
always been held by area, or sons-in-law of the 11:shops
of Winton. In these times, however, such an
union was no longer possible. So, on their vacancy,
Bishop SumwEll has instituted three incumbents to the
three benefices; uniewhat equalising the revenues of
New Alredord and Medsted. But the precedent for
Old Alresford having • bishop's son as its rector was
too strong to be disregarded; and to it, its 8004 a
year, its excellent parsonage, and its 600 inhabitants,
Bishop Semmes has presented his son GEORGE; a
young gentleman of very small pastoral experience,
bat otherwise very well fitted for a large house,
a good income and little duty. To another of
these livings, and to one that required an experienced
clergyman, he has presented a still younger ezelesi-
aerie who is believed to be a connexion in some way
or other with the fortunate family of SUMNER; but
the third, by way of compensation, he has bestowed
on a gentleman qualified by previous training.
Now, in this bestowal of these three liviLgs, there
is nothing positively scandalous; but there isjust as
mach nepotism and disregard of the real wants of two
of the parishes as society will endure. There is
nothing in this exercise of episeopal patronage that
lay patrons having rich family livings can derive a
good example from. It is very possible that the
appointments may all, in the course of time, turn out
satisfactory; but in respect of two, there is cer-
tainly very little security founded on experience
of the gentlemen promoted, that they will. For
them presentations, the motives were clearly per-
sonal, and to some extent selfish ; and if bishops,
in disposing of their best livings, exhibit so
small a sense of responsibility, what are we to
expect from Lord Chancellors or lay patrons ?
The diocese of Winchester is swarming with poor
hard working curates; and they are, Dr. SymNrm tells
them in triennial charges "the real martyrs of the
present day." Yet, when three good livings fall
Unit he quietly overlooks the "martyrs," and finds
Imerpeesiag qualifications in his youngest son and a
younger kinsman. This, to say the least of it, is
unpleasant, disagreeable inconsistent. It is not
principle, but personal whim, that dispenses patron-
age in this way ; and patronage so dispensed requires
some control, some restraint. To pitch boys into
good benefices, and to expect the parishioners to be
thankful, is not reasonable. It is to treat a Chrkian
ministry nes profession, not as a vocation.
Leaving Alresford, its choice livings, and its small
population, let us pass on to St. 'Mary's, Southampton,
with its 3,0001. a year, and its 20,000 people. To it
Bishop Sexesn has presented his friend Archdeacon
WIGRAM. Now if yen ask the churchmen in this
huge parish who and what Archdeacon WIGRAM
they will tell you they know nothing at all about him.
He may be a very excellent man, for all they can say ;
and he may be utterly unsuited for their edification,
for all they can ascertain. They are positively, com-
pletely ignorant of his person, of his powers, of his
principles, of his piety, of everything about and con-
nected with him. Yet for the remainder of his and
their lives probably this unknown man has to be their
minister.
Surely there is something very unreasonable is
20,000 people being compelled to have a minister oil
whom they know nothing ? Considering. the rein..
lions that ought to exist between a minister and
his flock, there is something illogical in itself and
ill fitted to secure those relations in such an origin of
their connexion. The inhabitants of St. Mary's have
more or lees power in the selection of all their public
functionaries; except when it comes to their rector;
then the Bishop of WINTON sends them whom-
soever he pleases, without consulting a soul in the
parish arid without knowing much about its state and
wants—now, a clergyman who for half a century