ECCLESIASTICAL ABUSES

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 3, 1881

ECCLESIASTICAL ABUSES.

THE Episcopal church, or "Church of England," professes to be the only Christian church, all others claiming the title being nothing but religious associations, or mere clubs. If this is true the world is to be pitied; nay, Christianity is to be pitied. The following statement of abuses presents nothing new to the minds of those acquainted with the working of the system of "sales of livings," and of "preferments" for any reason but that of fitness for the Christian ministry. The great shame to the church is that the evil has not been corrected a generation ago. The following, from the N. Y. Independent, is an "inside view" of the matter, by which the very name of Christianity is shamed:—

"The bishop of Bangor, in the course of his triennial charge, recently delivered at Bangor, said he could not disguise his feelings of shame and indignation at the manner in which lay ecclesiastical patronage was exercised. Most unfit and incompetent men were preferred for livings, owing to political sympathy or family ties, and when inducted they alienated churchmen by indifference and negligence. He hoped the time would come when the parishioners would, at least, have a negative voice in the selection of the man to whom their spiritual welfare was intrusted. The advertisements of sales of livings in ecclesiastical journals were scandalous."