The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-09-09 00:00:00

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS

This body, attacked by the London Times, and accused
of abuse or mismanagement of the funds at their dis-
posal, have at length found a defender in the Rev. John
Blackburn, of Attercliffe, near Sheffield. Mr. Black-
burn has himself experienced their bounty, the chapelry
in which he has laboured for twenty-eight years having
been endowed and divided into districts, with additional
curates attached, by the commissioners ; and the rev.
gentleman considers it a debt of gratitude on his part to
break a lance in their behalf. The specific charges of the
Times do not, however, receive from him that satisfactory
. .

refutation which we could have wished to have seen.
The fact of the commissioners having miscalculated
their means, and disappointed expectations which they

have not the power to fulfil,—that churches are
about to be closed for want of the promised support—is
not got rid of by an enumeration of the cases in which
they have not been found wanting. The public will still
look for a satisfactory solution of the causes of that " em-
barrassment" which the commissioners themselves admit
to exist in their affairs, as well as to have it explained by
what sad judgment they commenced their labours with
the erection or improvement of palaces for themselves,
whilst the working clergy and the destitution of the means
of religious instruction in so many dioceses are left to
wait for the progressive accumulation of their funds.

Without some explanation, the public will persist in re-
taining the impression that they have begun at the wrong

With regard to that portion of the charges of the Times,
which relates to the enormous outlay said to have been
Incurred in the erection of the palace of the Bishop of
Rochester, at Darsbury Park in Essex, and which Mr.
Blackburn does not dispose of, we are glad to find ano-
ther witness, the Morning Herald, more successful.
The expenditure on this episcopal residence, set down by
the Timex as nearly.£4o,ooo, our contemporary informs us
is much overstated, the house having coat less than £BOOO
and the land about £15,000. This sum, however, is much
too large to be appropriated for such a purpose at present,
if the fund from which it has bee❑ paid is that belonging
to the Commissioners, and to which the country is look-
ing for increased provision for religious teaching. But we
are told it is not so derived, but arises from the sale from
another palace and estate of the bishopric, and is thus
merely a transfer of property from one county to another
—we presume for conveniency of location. In the same
way, the residences of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bris-
tol, and of Lincoln, have been paid for from sources per-
fectly independent of the fund of the commissioners.
With regard to another case—that of the Bishop of
Rochester—a contemporary, the Church and State
Gazette, states that the money to be paid for his new
estate, and residence thereon, cannot be said to arise from
property attached to the episcopal see, in the same sense
as a similar explanation is applied to the case of the
Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. The money raised to
complete the new purchase, by the disposal of property
hirherto belonging to the see, became a portion of the
fund in the hands of the Commissioners ere it could be
allotted to the purposes named. No disappointed churches
may have a claim upon it ; but the question does
present itself—is it wise to authorise the expenditure
of these large sums, while heavy responsibilities will await
a satisfactory conclusion? We by no means dispute the
right of the Commissioners to do as they have done,
though we are still inclined to question the wisdom. No
Church has been wronged by this particular transaction ;
but many might have been benefitted had the transaction
been differently conducted. It may be said that, if less
property in Kent had been sold, the destitute churches
would have derived no advantage, and the bishop would
have been less suitably lodged. But might not the matter
have been so arranged as to have disposed of full as much
property, and have given a portion of it to the churches
closed for want of aid ? In that way the Church, the
bishop, and the country, would have been equally and
fully satisfied."
We quite coincide in opinion with our contemporary.
We have no desire to see any of our bishops unsuitably
lodged, nor has the country. But in the case of some of
them a little splendour resigned, to be devoted to useful-
ness and the saving of souls, would have been a subject
of grateful contemplation to every Churchman and every
Christian.