PLACES FOR PARSONS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 26, 1877

PLACES FOR PARSONS.

How the Traffic in Church Livings Goes On in England.

Last night, says a London letter of the 28th ult., a very temperate and quiet expose of this abuse of church patronage was given in the House of Commons, and it very opportunely comes before the public and the press at this moment. It appears that a regular system of Stock Exchange in these “livings” has been going on for some time, and that there have been “bulls” and “bears,” and “puts and calls,” and “rigs and corners” of clerical brokers as vigorously and as unscrupulously indulged in as ever Capel court or Wall street has seen.

At present there are 2000 livings, or about one-fourth of the whole salable patronage of the Church of England, on the market. They are offered to any one by public notice, just like second-hand furniture or broken-down horses. No questions are asked as to qualifications or sentiments or views of the intending buyer. He pays his money and takes his choice. The idea that even a Brahmin or Buddhist may purchase, by proxy, of a white-looking curate such a fat investment is rather serious. That “the care of souls” is put up at auction and knocked down to the highest bidder is no secret. It is done in civilized England. It was proved by testimony that many of these clerical brokers frequently sold good livings for prompt “spot” cash to preachers with damaged moral reputations. Bishops admitted this, and said they had no power to cope with the evils of simony. Yet to do away with private patronage in “livings” in the Church of England would be one of the most serious wounds to the “material interests” of the “Establishment.”—Sel.