PENNILESS PARSONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 31 August 1907, Page 3

PENNILESS PARSONS.

CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER AS MAID-OF-ALL-AVORK.

The Bishop of London, who preached ■on behalf of the Queen Victoria Clergy Fund at St." Peter's, Eaton-square, said that there were 5334 benefices in this country worth less than £2OO a year, and 1139 whose incomes did not amount to £IOO.

He said that these clergy were weight- I ed with the. problem how to make ends meet, and were worn out and hurried into their graves before their time. "Only this week,". he declared, "the wife of a Bishop told me how it cut her to the heart when, during a visit to one of the dioceses, she found that a clergyman's daughter had got up at 6 o'clock in the morning in order to clean the boots of the guests in the house. "Again, only the previous day, in the country, a vicar's wife said to me in confidence: 'The "truth of the matter is, we have not one penny in the house!' "I often feel that words are useless to describe the rottenness of the system of a Church that can leave such a scandal as that for so many years. How is it possible for a man to do his work and preach his sermons when weighed down by % terrible cross he was never meant to bear?

"Such a state of things has led to what we may call 'the new simony,' because, instead of getting the best men for the posts in the Church, it has led to the asking of the question: 'Has he any private means?'"