CHURCH’S “BIG BROOM."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19997, 14 January 1927, Page 12

CHURCH’S “BIG BROOM."

FAIR PLAY FOR PARSONS. BADLY NEEDED REFORMS. The recent action of the English Ecclesiastical Commissioners in throwing open their recreation grounds for Sunday games (says a London paper), has made many people ask: “Who are these Commissioners? What do they do?’ Some have an idea that they are a sort of Church Tr.asury and pay all the clergy. That is not S °The commissioners are a body created by Parliament in 1836 to deal with the then grave and scandalous financial abuses of the Established Church and to evolve order from the chaotic state into which its endowments, revenues, and property had fallen. It was hoped, too, that financial reform would bring about a much-needed revival in spiritual efficiency —at that time at a very low ebb. After the Reformation, as the result of the large, but piecemeal, grabbing ot church lands by court favourites, what was left of the once vast episcopal estates was very unevenly distributed. For example, in 1831 the revenues of the sees of Canterbury and Durham were £19,182 and £19,066 respectively. At the other end of the scale were the Bishops ot Rochester and Llandaff with estates that brought in but £1450 and £925 annually. This was as unfair as it was unequal. Most of the bishops held, without rendering service, other valuable offices and preferments. To give but one instance of several, a Welsh bishop, with an episcopal revenue of £1897, also held the distant Deanery of Durham, then worth £3266. There were similar abuses in tne revenues and offices of the cathedrals. Further, while some favoured clergythen able to command influence—field several rich benefices at the same time, other clergy were in a state of poverty. Just short of £2OOO benefices had an income of less than £IOO a year. The average stipend of a curate was £Bl. Reform was inevitable, and thus —to wield a new, and very vigorous broom —the commissioners came into being. The commissioners consist or the two archbishops, the diocesan bishop, three deans, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Master of the Rolls, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Secretary of State, and 11 other business laymen. They now own and administer the episcopal and cathedral estates, lands, property, farms, and so on, and after paying fixed salaries to the bishops,, the surplus revenues are devoted to an extraordinary number ot purposes. „ “Livings” which were but Starvings have been increased in value by grants, parsonage houses have been built in parishes in which there was either no vicarage or the original one had ■ fallen into a state of ruin; help has been given toward the founding of new parishes and the building of new churches; old and infirm beneficial clergymen, with nothing to look forward to but the workhouse it they resigned, have been granted small pensions, as have also aged and unbeneticial curates. . . Large, poor parishes receive grants in aid of curates’ stipends, and, in short, the commissioners use the surplus revenue arising from the old estates to help to make the work which the Established Church, in common with the hree Churches, does for th 3 nation as effective as possible. The recreation grounds, parks, ana open spaces owned by the coimnissioners were part of the old estates, and thus, by making them free for use and enjoyment, we all benefit.