If Mrs. Candour ever looks into English history she will remember the condition of the country curate and the squire's chaplain a century and a half ago. She will recall the contemptuous manner in which he was treated. Macaulay tells of him. Fielding describes him. The plays have him. He is everywhere in the literature of the time, and everywhere a pitiful figure. Whether the portrait of the chaplain be accurate or not, it certainly faithfully shows the feeling with which he was regarded. And if the feeling were justified by the character of the men, what was the reason that the men were what they were? Because the general opinion was then what Mrs. Candour's is now—that a clergyman should not be well paid. The chaplain was a pauper, and he was treated accordingly. The result was certain. Humannature always revenges itself. If you arbitrarily set apart certain men asex-officioa peculiarly holy class, and deny them the advantages and chances of other men, they will become servile and mean, and lose the noble spirit of a true man. Mrs. Candour may point to the fat English bishoprics—to such a shameful correspondence as that which Massey records between William Pitt and Dr. Cornwallis, Bishop of Lichfield—and ask if prizes of such a kind are a good thing, and if anything could more corrupt good men than such chances. Yes, one thing could; and that is sure penury and starvation. But there is no need of fat pulpit appointments. Wherever they exist they will be the objects of intrigue and chicanery. What has that to do with a society giving their minister part of the money that he makes for them?
If Mrs. Candour insists that the money should not be made, and that the preaching should be free, the argument is still against her, because infinitely more good can be done by the charitable organizations which the money supports than bymere free preaching. Besides, the money to which she objects founds free churches and sustains free preaching. If she will fall back upon the other system, and have the churches built and the pulpits supported by established funds, then, at least, she will be consistent. But does she think it desirable for the welfare of society that there should be huge ecclesiastical funds? Would she restore the dead hand? Upon the whole, is it better that the priesthood, or the Church as such, should hold great properties, and dispose of unlimited money? The voluntary system has, at least, this advantage, that the money is not ecclesiastically held, and while it is the system of her choice, Mrs. Candour has no right to complain of those who are willing to pay to hear a great preacher, and thereby enable countless others to hear preaching, and to be taught and succored for nothing.
Her position, indeed, is that of those who sometimes invite a speaker to lecture for the benefit of a charity, who agree to pay the lecturer what he asks, and then ask him to take half as much,giving the rest to the charity. They either think that the lecture is not worth the price agreed upon, or that it is the lecturer's duty to bestow a sum equal to half his fee. The reply to such gentlemen is short: It was a fair bargain; you have profited by it; and what the lecturer does with his part is none of your business. And there really is no other reply to Mrs. Candour: Madam, the minister and his friends have made a fine sum of money; and what they will do with it is none of your business, unless they fall to corrupting the public.
But, indeed, there was no need, madam, to argue for the reduction of the salaries of clergymen. We hear in no direction of any tendency to excess; but we do hear everywhere of those abominations, "donation-parties!" Do we make donation-parties to other people whom we pay honestly for honest service? Are bakers and lawyers and tailors and doctors surprised by donation-parties? They are public confessions of our meanness. If we paid the minister adequately, why should we abuse the language by "donating"the necessaries of life to the parsonage? Some kind soul knows that we starve our shepherd, that he is pinched and cramped in his household, that his wife is thinly clad and his children shabby, and that the man of whom we demand that he should be a model of all the cardinal virtues is torn with anxious doubts for his family; and that generous soul proposes that we should club our sugar and butter and help him out. If we do not do it next year, what is to become of him? If we do, why not make it a certainty; why not, dear Mrs. Candour, raise his salary? And if you, madam, would only issue a tariff or sliding scale, so that we might know how much a religious teacher under different circumstances might properly receive—in fine, whether all boxes, or only the alabaster box, must be sold and given to the poor—it would be the most valuable service you are ever likely to perform to society.
THE END
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