| | | | The worms of the clerical world seem to have turned at last, | and the race of stipendiary curates has suddenly laid before | the public, in a series of indignant and somewhat | incoherent protests, the nature of its sufferings and the | extent of its demands. We own to having experienced, at | the first appearance of this new grievance, a slight | sensation of surprise. Up to this time the British curate had | seemed to our eyes the mildest and happiest of beings, | somewhat vegetative perhaps and uninteresting, but | purchasing, at the cost of a little gentle fullness, an enviable | exemption from the common cares and the common | passions of men. But it seems, after all, that it is but the old | contrast between the nigger dancing joyously before massa | on a festival Sunday and the nigger burning massa's | plantation over his head. All this gentle decorum has | suddenly disappeared, and left us face to face with the | curate in revolt. It is perhaps idle to expect any great | clearness of statement in the first wild shriek of freedom, | but the wrongs against which he has risen are at least | sevenfold. The curate is underpaid, he is slighted by his | bishop, he is trampled upon by his vicar, the parish takes no | notice of him, he has no permanent position, he has no real | authority, he has a mere chance of preferment. It is | impossible that, with wrongs such as these curdling the | very milk of his existence, the public can expect the curate | to go on reading prayers and playing croquet. He has a right | to expect a careful consideration of his grievances, and of | the five points of the new clerical charter by which he | proposes to remedy them ~~ position, permanence, power, | promotion, and pay. | We have, from an instinct of propriety, put the money | question last, but in fact it is from this money question that | the whole out-break has sprung. A society has arisen | with8in the last year or so called

"the Curates' | Augmentation Fund, "

which is not, as its name would | at first lead us to imagine, a society for increasing the | numbers of curates or for increasing each individual | curate's size, but for the purpose of, in some way or other, | augmenting their stipends. We need not trouble our readers | with the numbers of unpromoted curates over forty that this | society has discovered, or | | with the instances of clerical destitution which it has | disentombed. As a curate's stipend is hardly ever less than | 100 pounds a year, it is plain that no such destitution can | exist among bachelor curates; and the world will probably | come to the conclusion that, if clergymen choose to marry | on a hundred a year, it is hardly needful to throw on the | Church the obvious consequences of their own selfish | improvidence. Of course this a hard, lay way of looking at | the matter, which will not be popular in the world of | tea-meetings, where clerical wrongs are dwelt upon with such | gushing pathos, and where it is accepted as a law of nature | that every sucking young parson must of necessity marry. | With lawyers of forty before us waiting patiently for their | briefs, and doctors of forty waiting patiently for a practice, | before they dream of the state matrimonial, we can only | return Johnson's answer to the thief who pleaded that

| "a man must live, " "Sir, I don't see the necessity. "

| For unmarried curates, as we have seen, the ordinary | stipend is far above starvation pitch; and it is to be | remembered that within the last ten years it has risen some | twenty per cent, and that in consequence of the great | demand for additional clergy it is rising still. The truth is, | that a purely economical question must be left to purely | economical laws. If a host of men of genius find | themselves starving in their curacies, we may be sure that | men of genius will soon cease to present themselves in such | shoals for holy orders, and even dunces will avoid entering | on the profession of a curate if there is any profession in | which dunces can do better. But at present we know of no | other profession in which, without any special exertion, a | dunce is sure of a hundred pounds a year. | It is of course very easy to point to the enormous | disproportion between Episcopal incomes and those of the | poorer clergy, and we do no wonder that Mr. Halcombe, the | secretary of this new Society, is able to levy on every one | of the bishops ~~ who certainly must see clearly enough | the absurdity of the scheme ~~ a blackmail of five pounds a | year. But the true reply to the whole matter was very well | expressed in the form of a second grievance by one of Mr. | Halcombe's own clients. This gentleman acknowledged that, | if there did exist a reluctance to take orders, it could not be | attributable to the inadequate pay; an officer in the army or | the navy was just as inadequately paid, and yet there was | no backwardness in seeking admission to either of the | services. But before the soldier or the sailor the path of | promotion lay open, while to the curate it was practically | closed. A well-organized system of promotion by merit was | what this gentleman urged as the true remedy for the whole | difficulty; and though the parallel with the two services, in | one of which preferment depends on purchase and in the | other on interest, was singularly unhappy, his proposal is at | any rate not such a sheer piece of absurdity as most of the | rest. The fault of it is that it means either too little or too | much; that it either wants something to be done which is | done now, or else requires a change in the system of | patronage to be brought about the gravity of which it is | impossible to estimate. If, as we believe, it is at the system | of private patronage that the proposal is aimed, then it is | nothing short of a proposal to revolutionize the whole | character of the Church of England. Private patronage and | Crown patronage are the two great means by which the | Church preserves its character as a national Church, and a | reflection of the varied life and opinion of the people whom | it religiously represents. A system of promotion by merit | ~~ in other words, of Episcopal preferment alone ~~ would | in half a century reduce the Establishment to the | ecclesiastical monotony of the Gallican communion or a | Dissenting sect. But if these two great sources of | preferment are let alone ~~ as in fact, in the present state of | public opinion as to the right of property, they must be let | alone ~~ then Episcopal patronage only remains, and | Episcopal patronage professes even now to be a system of | promotion by merit. Whether the profession is in | accordance with the fact will of course depend on the | individual bishop ~~ on his honesty of purpose, on his | means of discovering merit. We do not know whether Mr. | Halcombe has yet devised a plan for securing the virtue and | the infallibility of the Episcopal bench. | Still, the temper and expectations of a curate are no doubt | considerably moulded by his carrying a possible mitre in | his picket; and this gives a keener edge to the feeling of | powerlessness and want of permanence which several of | these clerical mutineers have expressed. It is very hard to | exist as a mere bird of passage, without any real stake in | the parish; to have neighbouring incumbents not calling on | you because you may be gone to-morrow, and so transient | an acquaintance is not worth making; to be subject to the | vicar's caprice, and tin the event of a quarrel to be | compelled, right as the curate may be in the matter, to go, | because the curate is the only movable party in the dispute. | So great a grievance does this seem that one of the | enthusiasts of the new movement proposes that every | incumbent shall be bound to retain his curate for at least | seven years. But the answer which has been already given | is very difficult to meet; if there is to be compulsion at all | there must be an equal compulsion binding on both parties, | and if the incumbent is bound to be an incapable and | ill-tempered curate for seven years, then the curate must | expect to be bound for an equal time to a snobbish and | tyrannical rector. We do not suppose that this would prove | any great inducement to enter Orders, or that, if it could be | enforced, it would be an advantage for curates. In spite of | the prejudice which bishops entertain in favour of men who |

"stay in their first curacy,"

we are convinced that | the change from one sphere of labour to another, the wider | experience of life, and the greater ability to deal with | differing circumstances which such changes bring with | them, are the best of all possible trainings for a future | incumbency. If a man is for twenty years to be fixed to one | spot, it is just as well that he should see as much of the | world as he can before he is fixed there. Certainly, as far as | our personal experience goes, the higher and abler sort of | clergy are not to be found among those who retain their | curacies for this mystical period of seven years. But from | this transient character of the assistant clergy a want of | authority necessarily results. It is impossible to expect a | bird of passage to take on himself the moral or financial | responsibilities of the parish he happens to find himself in, | but with responsibility goes power. The vicar governs the | parish just because he pays for the parish. He is the master | just because the deficit on the church expenses, and the | interest on the penny-bank, and a fourth of the school | outgoings come out of his picket. However unreasonable | the spiritual aspect of the matter may seem, the power of | the incumbent rests on precisely the same footing as the | power of the House of Commons ~~ it is the power of the | purse. We fancy there are very few incumbents who would | refuse, for instance, to give up their authority over the | schools to any curate who would accept, with the power, | the responsibility of the expenses. But we have never yet | met the curate who would have encountered the proposal | with anything but a stare of dismay. | There is a sort of debating-club air about these harangues | on the subject of

"power and permanence"

which | perhaps stands a little in the way of any endeavour to treat | them seriously. But the moans over

"position"

| merit not even an attempt at serious treatment. One curate | growls that he has not preaching enough. Another | whimpers that his incumbent reserves to himself the | celebration of the communion. A third protests against the | domination of the vicar's wife. In short, curate after curate | rises to justify the contempt of which he complains by | unveiling to the public gaze the miserable littleness of the | world in which he lives. Certainly no groan has gone up | from the public at being deprived of the sermons of this | injured class; in all the discussions on the subject of | preaching which we have seen the complaint has been | generally the other way. As to the vicar's wife, we should | very much doubt whether a woman's tact and experience | might not give many a useful hint to a class not particularly | gifted with either of those qualities. But the very complaint | tells its own tale. A really learned, a really able, a really | earnest man need never trouble himself about his position. | Position comes to him of itself. It is just because the | younger clergy of England as a body are grievously | wanting in all these respects ~~ because they are | substituting

"the dignity of the priesthood,"

as | one of these curates put it, for real ability in priestly work, | and a smattering of the magazines for learning, and croquet | for earnestness ~~ that they have to come forward with a | cry for

"position."

We are far from blaming | these gentlemen for what they call

"speaking out"; |

we hail it as the beginning of a new era when the | clergy will speak plainly to the world around them, because | they will of course expect that the world will speak plainly | to them. And if plain-speaking is to be the order of the day, | then the world will say, we think, something of this sort ~~ | that it is not at a time when the curates of one school are | filling their pet newspaper with accounts of chasubles and | processions, and the curates of the other school advertising | for

"a sphere in an eligible watering-place";

when | even the professional learning of the clergy is far below | that of either of its fellow learned professions, and Church | Congresses tell us that the younger clergy read even less | than the older; and finally, when curates meet together to | protest in the face of the British public against the | domination of the vicar's wife, that the public will be | inclined to welcome the five points of their charter ~~ | position, permanence, power, promotion, and pay.