the probable number of dissenters, and persons who did not care to attend, probably every parishioner would be able to attend service once, or even twice, on every Sunday. The clergyman would then at least have an opportunity of doing his duty of preaching the gospel to the poor, and would be released from the unpleasant sensation of inconsistency which (I trust I am not uncharitable) he surely feels now whenever he has to read publicly the second chapter of the General Epistle of St. James. In the rectory district of Marylebone, in London, containing 33,000 persons, there are free sittings for about 500 in a church built to accommodate 2500 persons: the rest are let for pew rents. Again, in St. George's, Hanover Square, with a population in the season of 25,000, there are open free seats for 300 persons, in the passages or against the walls. The other sittings are let for rents amounting to nearly £1000 a year. In another church in London, it was elicited by the Bishop of Exeter that the free sittings, which are in the roof, must be reached by an ascent of nearly one hundred steps! "Are the lame and halt," inquired the Bishop, expected to climb those hundred steps to get to their free sittings?" The Rector acknowledged that he had never seen more than one person in those places, though there may have been others out of sight. 66 At a meeting held at Bath on March 1st, 1864, Mr. Herford described the condition of Manchester as regards church accommodation. There are, it appears, in the central part of that city 300,000 inhabitants, or about 60,000 families. For these there are thirty churches, besides the cathedral. The sittings in those churches are appropriated to about 3000 families, leaving 57,000 families, or nineteen-twentieths of the population excluded from the public worship of Almighty God. At the same meeting, the Rev. J. S. Jones spoke of the condition in which he found his church at Liverpool. It was built for more than 2000 persons, and the seats were hired out at so much per quarter. There were two back rows of benches in a dark gallery, free! Here is a case at Exeter: The population of the parish is 6000 or 7000. There is church room for 900 persons only, and a very small number of unappropriated seats. The appropriation is said to be of the worst kind, for many of the pew holders never come to the church, but give permission to friends (often non-parishioners) to occupy their VOL. V. Z seats. Hence a difficulty of finding a place in a church which is only partially filled. The population of Hockton, near Wakefield, consists of about 2000 persons, chiefly colliers. The church is appropriated to twenty houses, leaving 400 houses without the right of a sitting, save on a few benches in the children's gallery.* This state of things cannot-must not be allowed to remain, if we would see the Church of England doing her work as the national, and more particularly as a branch of the catholic church. Her intrinsic merits are so great and acknowledged that she will remain unshaken by the attacks of her unholy adversaries without, rage they never so furiously: and, if those within, her bishops, priests, deacons, and churchwardens, act up to her principles and precepts, she will endure and increase to the end of the world; but just so far as they forget their duty, just so much will she be weakened. It will be observed that we have been all along considering cases where the population is in excess of the church accommodation. Where the reverse is the case, arguments no less weighty can be adduced against the sacrilegious and illegal practice of appropriation. Why, it may be asked, when there is room for all comers, should not a fixed seat be assigned to each parishioner, so that the exclusiveness of the Englishman may be humoured? Who can suffer by it? These questions are briefly answered thus by the Rev. S. Saxby:† "There is indisputably a sense in which certain seats in a church are less desirable than others. They may be exposed to draughts, or be behind some obstacle, or too far distant for convenient hearing of the words spoken. Who is to have these? It is not reasonable that the squire be put into the worst place, nor in truth is it seemly. It is very certain that the middle class folk, of undefined social position, will not consent to what they would consider a slight on the part of the churchwardens. And thus it must happen always that, in proportion as a seat is objectionable, it is sure to be assigned to the poor. In such a case there can be but one answer to the question of the Apostle, 'Are ye not then partial in yourselves?' There is then always this objection to All these instances are given in Mr. Browning's Essay. They might be multiplied to any extent. Essay II., p. 9. all appropriations, even under the most favourable circumstances, that the worst places are invariably given to the poor. The objection is sufficient of itself, were there none other, to condemn the whole system as in flat contradiction to the word of God." For other objections I must be content to refer the reader to Mr. Saxby's admirable essay. There is one more argument which is frequently brought against the free church system, which still remains to be answered. The pew rents, it is urged, form a useful fund out of which the parish expenses and the priest's stipend, in the absence of an endowment, can be paid with certainty. If you abolish pew rents, you deprive the church of a regular income, and leave the priest to the tender mercies of voluntary subscribers. He is thus kept in a state of uncertainty as to the payment of his stipend, and is placed in a dependant position, which must be exceedingly irksome to a man of refinement. This argument, specious though it appears at the first blush, may be easily and triumphantly refuted. The difficulty is entirely obviated by the adoption of the primitive and apostolic practice of the offertory. Universal experience has proved that the offertory both produces a larger sum of money per annum than pew rents, and is less liable to fluctuations. If a clergyman can induce his congregation to accept the offertory, he may fearlessly abandon pew rents, as far as pecuniary considerations are concerned: he will find that the parish expenses will be now more generously provided for than under the former system. In an appendix to the third essay on Principles of Church Finance, some statistics are given which establish beyond doubt the important proposition that the system of the offertory is the preferable of the two, however poor the congregation may be. That the priest will be more dependant on his parishioners than formerly, if pew rents are supplanted by the offertory, is a statement which is not borne out by facts. Under the system of pew rents the paying parishioners, if any doctrine the clergyman has advanced, or any action he has performed, is not quite to their taste, have the power of absenting themselves from the church altogether, and thus depriving the parish of the annual rent of their sittings, thereby embarrassing the clergyman greatly. The latter, therefore, must make up his mind only to preach just so • An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Finance in Ancient and Modern Times, by James Hamilton, M.A., Senior Curate of Chipping Campden, p. 57. much truth as is acceptable to his perhaps ignorant and bigoted congregation, and no more: and, being under the thumb of the wealthier portion of his parishioners, he finds himself checked and restricted in a manner which is not likely to conduce much to his dignity or peace of mind. In fact under the pew system the parish priest is degraded to the position of mere private chaplain to the pew holders. The whole question of finance is fully and ably discussed in the third and fourth essays, which it is well worth the while of those who take an interest in the question to peruse carefully. The writers of these four essays are careful to impress upon their readers that the free church movement has nothing whatever to do with party. It is neither a hobby of low church, nor of high church, nor of broad church. It is a question of justice. The establishment is allowed to hold an immense amount of national property upon certain conditions. Can any honourable man wish to see any one of those conditions unfulfilled? Expediency bids us to condemn a system which permanently excludes myriads from any means of instruction, secular or religious, practical or moralI care not which it be. Consistency requires that we should not turn church sittings into private boxes, and then pray the lessees of theatres for the love of God to throw open their boxes to the poor for public worship on Sundays. It is as scandalous that a few influential parishioners should club together to share among themselves the best parts of the parish church, as it would be, did the same men combine to enclose the most fertile portions of the village common. F. A. S. TRIA TEMPORA. YOUTH is like a summer morn, Golden fring'd is every cloud; Deeply waves the golden corn, Trill the birds their music loud; And the sun with dazzling ray, Mounteth up to fuller day. Age is like sweet even time; Death is like to silent night, Thus doth Faith with stedfast eye, |