The Express.
London, England, 1859-07-27 00:00:00

SPEAKER OF THE LZOIBLATIVE COUNCIL

This bill was rem' s third ties sad rand.
_ _

PUBLIC HEALTHS! LL.
This bill was rued • third time sayllsisid.
SPIRITUAL DIBTITUTION.

The Bishop of LONDON mil he bed bees requested by
Talons petitioners on the outset of spiritual des-
Station in large tome and manufacturing dis-
tricts in England to call their lonishipte attention ,
to it. Three of these petillom wen from the °minty of Dar-
ham, One was from the Church Building Society of the
diocese of Lauda!, and the other, which was the more im-
portant in hit estimation, was from the London Dioceses
Church Building Society. The obis ct of three petitioner"
we. similar. Tray all wished to draw their lordships' atten-
tion to a select committee of their lordship.' house which eat
last year, and produced • vary voluminous and interesting
report. The petitioners were afraid lest co practical result
should follow from that report. TM prayer of the petitioner.
wee manifold. They prayed not that parliament ehoold in-
tartans by Initiation with voluntary efforts, but that lega-
latton might bees conducted as to gihe sops to those robin
tary effort"; they prayed that is the ecclesiatical com-
mission there should be a .epurate department for church
building purposes, as the accumulation of the Moines. of the
commission we., in their estimation, so great as to prevent
matters of this kind being carried on with suffident expe-
dition. They complained also of the difficulty which often
stood in the way, by what they regarded vexation* investigs
ttons into the title of land gives fa church beadier purpose,
and preyed that facilities might be an each as were at i re-
sent eejoyed by the E eclogue" C nen. They prayed also
that acoarding te the ram of the select committee
there should be a relaxation of the llortmain Aot, and that
tenants fur if. should be able to grant sites for churches and
avid fsr schools. But there wee a more important
IpOuireintould he in the MOM es of their lordships
that the seketommittes to w had alluded having ex-
unmet a great deal otos-Mace spiritual destitution et
the metropolis Abed other pop was of opinion shat
the mode la which tbe funds • disPoal of the commis-
sion wave°w by ant of parliament distributed weq not the
bat mode, To Sleeken" whet 110 mato be void refer t•
. • passage in tineremeteleserbkh they dwelt on the subject
of the Finsbury atoll, in St. Paul's Cathedral. It was felt
by the committee that when the church was penmen! of a
lags property, It ought to be applied to the spiritual
wants of the lucent, In which the property was situate.
It •••• felt for instance, with regard to the county of
Durham, diet ea the church was proprietor of a great many
mime, and ea there wea en enormous population within a
*anew space when thous mines were worked, this property
ought to be applied to the spiritual wenta of that mining p
puletion. In that diocese there was • palish called Bentieldside,
where in 1841 there was a population of under 500 persona.
Soon afterwards mines were discovered in the surrounding
bills, and the result had been the establishment of iron works,
sod the vnulatioo had increased to nearly 13,000 persons.
The proprisors of these mines were the ecclesiastical com-
missioners; he was en ecelesdaetioal commissioner himself,
end he must not be understood as casting any blame on that
body when be sated that the sum which they gave for the
spiritist wants of that population was only 1501. par annum
to the minister. No doubt it might turn out—he did not
know whether that was the ouse—that though the eccleelas•
tail counnisaionere were proprietors of these mines, they
would not enter into fall possession for en indeffnite period,
and therefore he only mentioned thk to illustrate the general
keeling of diecoatent as to the mode of distributing these
hinds which had sprang up In the county of Durham. That
discontent was very reasonable as to the object of it, but the
se clesiastioal consuirioners were bound to adminieter ea

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rarliament, and that set of parliament did not
give them the power of oonsiing the local
claims of any place in which they had pro-
perty, entree it were tithe property. Hut wee n
this subject wee brought before the select committee a
resolution vas parsed recommending that the Low on the
subject should be altered. It wee found. especially in re-
ference to the metropolis, that as the eeclesisetical commie-
eionere were at this moment, in connexion with one single
gall of St. Paul's Cathedral, powered of property yielding
au annual income of 7,000.1. which In a few years will in-
crease to 60,00 W., it was tot likely that anteciptione
would be raised voluntarily to rains the spiritual wants of
the population of the City of London. The °matinee there-
fore recommend that whether the property consisted of tithe
or land, or anything else, the law should be altered to that
they might relieve the local wenn. It wee not proposed
that all the church property in any locality should be devoted
to that locality. For instance, It wee not proposed that
the great property which the see et London possessed in
Psddington, should be devoted to that wealthy locality ; but
it was felt that it wee only right that where thousands of
persons were inhabiting • place which It was • mockery to
call a parish, where there was neither clergyman, nor
chorea, nor any of the appliances which the clerical
system required, end if the church posse-sad property
in that district, the lint nee that ought to he made of that
property was to provide fir the spiritual wants of that die-
trict. It happened that he wee a member of another com-
mittee of their lordships house on • bill to enable the axle •
eiwtical commissioners beet to edentates, their property,
and in that committee also the ems resolution was adopted.
A bill wee drawn up by that committee which embodied that
resolution distinctly; it passed that house, end wee sent down
to the other house of parliament, and that bill wee looked
opal' with great atiafaction by the clergy living in populous '
places. The lest erosion but tee alms!, and that bill with
some others perished, there being. ho *ever, no oljection to
the clause he bed referred to. Lea session the then Secre-
tary of State for the Home Department introduced another
bill, but that bill, instead of making It imperative on the
commissioner@ to consider the spiritual wants of the locality,
only gave them • permissive power. Now it had been some-
times doubted whether corporations had consciences, hat
whether that was true or not it wee certainly the fact that
officials frequently, if not commonly, managed to rule corpo-
rations: and for same reason or oilier the officials of the
coclodeatical commiesion had • strong objection to that mode
of adniinligerlng the property. That bill, therefore, would
probably not have effected the object in Yaw, but it shared
the unhappy fate of its predemwor, and died • nature' death.
Asother bill had now appeared, which they were told wee
only to arrange a law matters of business. (gal GRAN-
VILLE hers addreead an observation to the right rev. pee-
ls.* which wee inaudible in the gallery.) He should make
SO for her allusion to the bill, except to beg their lordships
toned it aith frOdt care before they passed it, and to ray
that it had been suggested, if the hill passed, they would
lose the only hold they now had on the ointrolisiorners a to
the die. ribution of these funds in the way that the aom-
mines had recommended. He thought the petitioners
had great ground for taking their lordebipa, If say
bill came before them not containing such • eases
as that he had referred to, to hesitate before
they pawed snob a bill. He hoped that in future
the legislation to supply spiritual wants would not
be confined to cutting -down • canonry or dividing a large I
Stag into two or three small Stage, but that the measure'
would be of • larger character. It was trite that the copula-
tion of the metropolis wee increasing 'by 60,000 'yea, and
that all the churches built by his predecessor fell far short of
accommodating that thawed pop It wee true that
individuate bed exerted themeelw tithe highest WWI%
but it was felt That taloa their lordeltlpsaidesvourad to give
free scope to voluntary eff irte those efforts could sot be exerted
with any chance of MOSS, sad there wee the greatest danger
last this metrepoila should fall into • state which would be
ase7,:dangerota to the ieterees of religion.
CHICHESTER made come romarkeon the =
of CO" .)leg sites for the erection of churches, end
the ecclesiastical ocontoloolottoro.