The ministers of the Church were at once too rich and too ...

The ministers of the Church were at once too rich and too poor. The Archbishopric of Canterbury and the Bishopric of Durham were each worth £119,000 a year; Rochester, £114,000; Llandaff less than £11,000.

Of 10,000 benefices, the average value was £1285.

Less than 200 were worth £13,000 and upward, but among them were livings of £12,000, £15,000, and one of over £17,000 a year.

The poor parson was therefore very poor, the curate poorer still, best off in Rochester on £1109 a year, worst off in St. Austin's on £155. The mischief was aggravated by pluralism, non-residence, and nepotism.

A great Church family, taking sons, nephews, and sons-in-law together, might easily collect £110,000 a year among them and leave the greater part of their duties to be discharged by curates at £180. The best of parsons could not help being a little too much of a magistrate and landowner, and not enough of a pastor.' Into the gaps left in his spiritual ministrations crept dissent, with its opportunities for personal distinction, close converse, and mutual inspection. At the beginning of our period it was estimated that the Church, the Dissenters, and the Romans were in the ratio of 80, 20, and 4. The figures of Church attendance taken in 1867 show the Establishment decidedly The last, I suppose, was Russell Sumner, Bishop of Winchester till 1869, whose hospitality was the most conspicuous of his many virtues.

Whately of Cookham is the best example. 'A Whateley in every parish' was a catchword of Poor Law reformers.

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