before the expiration of twelve months after his return he be absent for the space of a month, the Bishop may, without a further monition, issue a sequestration. No reason is assigned why he may not have during this year the same annual leave of absence as other incumbents: his return on monition assuredly cannot disqualify him from the grant. The clause seems to be arbitrary without a reason, and to be only calculated to lower a clergyman in the estimation of his parishioners.

But (sec. 49.) if the Bishop shall see just grounds for the remission of the penalties attached to non-residence, either in part or in the whole, he is vexatiously compelled to transmit the particulars to the Archbishop; or if similar reasons for remission shall appear to an Archbishop, he must perform the same routine of transmission to her Majesty in council, whose decision shall be final either as to the remission or non-remission; although it is provided, that the decision of the Archbishop, with respect to the cases transmitted to him by the Bishop, shall be final. Now, as other clauses enjoin that the commissioners, or her Majesty in council, be certified of transactions of this nature, it is very plain, that if this act shall come into operation, the Archbishop's decision will not be final. The next clause ordains, that two sequestrations for non-residence within two years shall make a benefice void.

The 51st clause enforces a penalty of forty shillings per diem for holding adverse possession of a benefice-house, declaring contracts for letting those, in which any spiritual persons are required by the Bishop to reside, void. Had the enactment rested here, it would have been beneficial; but it goes on to provide, that any person, who shall have been in possession of it by a verbal agreement only, or one "in which the condition aforesaid for avoiding the same shall not be inserted," who shall be turned out of possession by virtue of this act, shall be entitled to sue the person with whom the agreement had been made, for damages at common law. The retrospective operation of this provision is contrary to every principle of legislation; it enforces a penalty for the purposes of the act, incurred virtually before the act was framed or planned; and is among the other parts which will become positive wrongs. Some other means should have been devised for the satisfaction of the injured party, at which the present confiscating government could not assuredly have been at a loss.

The 55th and following clauses are equally open to animadversion. We cannot object to the power given to the Bishop to appoint a curate where non-resident incumbents neglect to do so; but we conceive, that an incumbent's absence for two months in the year, without having a licensed curate on his benefice, is not sufficient to invest the Bishop with the power. It is in fact a curtailment of the period allowed for absence in a preceding

clause; and if the duty be properly done in a parish during this statutable absence, it is a strange encroachment on a rector's income to ordain, that it shall only be done by a licensed curate, of whom he will not, according to the provisions of the act, very easily rid himself. The whole act is full of contradictions. The space of a clergyman's absence is first defined; then by its consequences it becomes curtailed; yet (sec. 56.) a curate is required to reside in a parish in which the incumbent has not satisfied the Bishop of his full purpose to reside during four months in the year. If an incumbent, exempted by office or license, be intended, the clause is absurd, because the law would compel the residence of a curate: if others be intended, the other clauses render this period of four months arrant nonsense. It is also too vague; for it does not express how the Bishop is to be satisfied; and it in every way opens the door to oppression. But the 59th clause, which in large benefices, where the curate's salary may be ensured by voluntary contributions, allows the Bishop to license a curate, and if the incumbent does not make the appointment to appoint one, must prove detrimental to the Church, For as there are few parishes in which varying opinions may not be found, it is evident, that the more wealthy will, under this, force an advocate of their own notions into the pulpit, and that thus schism and boundless heresy will ensue. The Dissenters will be on the alert, and where they preponderate, will infallibly thus harass the Church; for the clause, like many others, is so indefinite, we hope not purposely so, that it is clear, that if the incumbent refuses to nominate the object of the voluntary subscriptions, but proposes another person, the Bishop will acquire the power of nominating him. Experience assures us, that in most cases the individual would be found before the voluntary subscriptions were collected, and that the voluntary subscriptions would be withdrawn were another individual nominated; consequently, to complete this provision of the act, this individual, however his notions might differ from those of the incumbent, must finally be appointed and licensed by the Bishop. We require no prophetic afflatus to foresee the result.

Although one grand object of Lord John Russell is to destroy pluralities, if the good of the Church entered into his legislating mind, he has contradicted his object in section 64, which allows a person to be licensed to two curacies within the same diocese at the same time, without the trouble which is inflicted on an incumbent. This we should imagine the very worst sort of pluralities, as in the other case curates are usually provided, and the only advantage to the incumbent is an increase of income; whereas in this the duty of two parishes, which is a consideration of more importance to the legislature than the comparative income of an incumbent is confided to one man, who generally will find sufficient employment in one parish and its duties. The power of

increasing the curates' stipends and of nominating two, where the population exceeds 2000 persons, which this act vests in the Bishop, will frequently take away a great part, if not the whole of a rector's income, so that he, to whom the benefice belongs, serving the Church at the same time, will often be impoverished and not receive more from his rightful property than his stipendary curate. In how many cases have livings been purchased by parents, and the cost deducted from the parents' final bequest! Yet by this infamous provision the private patrimony is damnified, whilst the ecclesiastical labour continues subject to coercions, hardships, and penalties. And, as in certain instances, the curate will take (sec. 73.) the whole value of the benefice, we cannot suppose that this view did not present itself to the framers of the act.

Incumbents are the particular subjects of oppression: for, by sec. 78, the incumbent cannot get rid of a curate without six months' notice; whereas, by sec. 79, the curate may quit his curacy on a notice of three months to the incumbent and Bishop; and even with this notice the Bishop's consent may dispense. "Are your ways equal, O house of Israel?" The 81st clause, too, which allows the Bishop to appoint curates to all sequestered benefices, is exceedingly gross; the only exception being where the sequestration is for the purpose of building a residence. It is a clause which will lead to considerable difficulty and litigation; for though the incumbent of the sequestered benefice may wish to perform his own duty, a power is given to the Bishop to set him aside, and to substitute à curate. And where a benefice is sequestered for non-residence, this clause will come into collision with those respecting the removal of the sequestration on the incumbent's return, if the Bishop, from personal dislike, availing himself of the power conceded to him in sec. 81, should have in the mean while appointed and licensed a curate to the Church.

The 92d section, which requires the appellant to give security for costs in his appeal to the Archbishop, though expressly for the purpose of discouraging frivolous appeals, is evidently directed against all appeals whatsoever; and we have no doubt, that the costs would be sufficient to deter many aggrieved persons from seeking redress. Every thing in this Act is more or less oppressive: for example, the non-resident on monition is required to return within thirty days to residence, if he would prevent a sequestration: but this monition must not necessarily be served. upon him, since in case he cannot be found, it will be sufficient that a true copy be left at his usual or last known place of residence; consequently a monition may be issued, and a sequestration may follow it, without his knowledge; for the copy left with the officiating minister, or one of the churchwardens, or that affixed on the church-doors, might be equally unknown to him. The non-resident might be abroad; so that in every point of view the limitation is too short. The recovery of penalties, and

the recovery of fees, &c. are also subjects of monition and sequestration. But "ut imponatur coronis," the 112th section is, "And be it enacted, that nothing in this Act contained shall be deemed, construed, or taken to derogate from, diminish, prejudice, alter, or affect, otherwise than is expressly provided, any powers, authority, rights, or jurisdiction, already vested in, or belonging to any Archbishop, or Bishop, under or by virtue of any statute, canon, usage, or otherwise howsoever." Since the things "otherwise provided," however, perform all these specified particulars by wholesale, we think, that the mockery and insult of this clause might have been spared. If it were possible to take away a substance, and leave its shadow, it would afford an accurate comparison to this bill.

The Rev. Sydney Smith, who is always acute, reasons powerfully and sarcastically on many points, which are contained in this incongruous mass of absurdity and complicated tyranny. We suspect, that his "backhanded" compliment (if we may use this forcible provincialism) to Lord John Russell, who

Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis,

must be most galling and conscience-stirring. Wherever Mr. Smith notices the proposed Act, he brings its vexatious consequences prominently before his readers. Among other vexations entailed on the rural Clergy, he notices the compulsion to go before the rural Dean, whose residence may perhaps be situated at a distance of twenty or thirty miles, and to submit to a crossexamination on minute circumstances, to be verified by the production of witnesses, than which nothing can be more degrading and impertinent, nothing in more direct violation of an individual's private rights. It is, indeed, in every way, clear, that the present Government's aim is to harass the Clergy, and to sow dissatisfaction between their different orders: whether their plan be subsidiary to one of Daniel O'Connell's, to prepare the way by this harassing and disaffection, by these disgusting coercions and inquisitions, by these restrictions and penalties to Romanism, we may surmise, but not affirm.

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If, as Mr. Smith observes, it was desired to abolish pluralities, it had been more worthy to have done so at once, instead of confining them within ridiculous limits. But as they have been permitted within certain distances for two hundred years, and as on the faith of existing laws, livings have been bought and bequeathed, and social plans adopted, the ruin, which this bill would hurry on individuals in a moment, driving those trusting to the venerable laxity of two hundred years to a gaol from the virtue of yesterday, is an appalling injustice, and turns human life into a mere scramble. The clause, which allows the imposition of a Curate on a Rector, where the living is 410l. per annum, and the population exceeding 2,000, though the greater part may be

Dissenters, at the expense of the fifth part of his fortune, is " an abominable piece of tyranny, and will turn out to be an inexhaustible source of favouritism and malice." The following observation is very pertinent. "In the Bishops' Bill, I have in vain looked for a similar clause-That if the population is above 800,000, and the income amounts to 10,000l., an assistant to the Bishop may be appointed by the Commissioners, and a salary of 2,000l. per annum allotted to him." The consequences of the Subscription-Curates are also pointed out with great vigour, and the power, which this clause will throw into the scale of the Evangelical party, the certainty of jealousies, quarrels, and comparisons between the subscriptionist and the Rector, the contempt which will come upon religion, and the "canting and crowing of the Evangelicals over the regular and established Clergyman of the parish, are exhibited with energy and truth.

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No one can fail to perceive, that the Bishops must be subservient to the Commission and to her Majesty in Council; and whoever has read Dr. Spry's pamphlet, which was reviewed in our last number, must be convinced that this Commission sinks into the Ministry itself; so that, whether reference be made to the Commission, or to her Majesty in Council, still the Ministry are the real directors of Ecclesiastical affairs. A petty degree of tyrannical power, very liable to be misused, is granted to the Bishops: but the dignity and veneration of their office will be abolished by the Church Bills. The worst feature of the whole is, perhaps, the obstacle thrown in the way of appeal: it is a low-minded attempt at absolutism on the part of the liberal Whigs. And what is the Archbishop? in name, but not in reality, the Head of the Church,-subservient to the Commission or Council, and in every way impeded in the discharge of his dignified office. Since then, the real dominion over the Church is evidently transferred, by this and other Bills, to those who are not its friends, little penetration is necessary to discover their real purpose.

That a system of unjust persecution is in action against the Church, is but too apparent. And this system, in our opinion, goes beyond the power of any legislature; for it circumscribes the income of a clergyman, and in some instances almost takes it away; at the same time requiring that he be fitted to his sacerdotal office by an expensive academical education, and be debarred from those employments immediately out of his profession, by which his income might be openly increased. It presumes to fix his income, then forces a curate or curates on him, whilst he is in the full vigour of his strength. Mr. Hume, too, wishes kindly, that livings should be equalized, until all are worth 2007., which, with Lord John Russell's Act taking nearly the entire amount for the curate would certainly be a splendid provision for the Church. It is very strange, that Mr.