be named. One of the best livings in York, though comprising a population of more than five or six hundred persons, has, to this very day, service only once a-fortnight. From instances such as this, men are obliged to become dissenters, except they are content to live and die like heathens. Long since, too, has the practice of communicating religious instruction to the young, by means of catechising, been generally given up, a practice so efficient, and once so useful, both to the Church and to its members.

Common sense, as well as the ordinances of the Church, require that every parish in the kingdom should have its legal and paid incumbent constantly living and residing amongst the people. But the Bishop of Llandaff tells us, in his late charge, that, out of 234 incumbencies, into which his diocese is divided, only 97 parishes enjoy the advantage of clergy-incumbents and curates actually resident. Taking the curates to amount to one-half of the whole (and this on Church authority), thus, only about 48 of the 234 incumbents are actually resident in their parishes! And this, we are informed, is a fair specimen of the state of every diocese in the kingdom. Nearly four-fifths of the parishes throughout the kingdom, have no resident incumbent-consequently, nearly four-fifths of the people are left, as it respects their paid and legal pastor, as sheep without a shepherd. Their legal, rightful, and most solemnly-avowed teachers are fled-living on property to which they have, by neglect, forfeited every show of right-and carrying the earnings of their parishioners to spend, or to lavish amongst strangers, perhaps in a foreign land! Some of these wolves in sheep's clothing, the flock never see, or hear, for five, ten, fifteen, twenty, and even thirty years! Some, again, are born, brought up, live and die, and enter into eternity, without even once seeing or hearing their legal teacher. "I speak" (says the authority whence these facts are taken) " of numerous facts within my own knowledge, and of several incumbents, whose churches and parishes I can see from the place in which I sit and write; so that, in regard to the incumbents, there are millions through the land who have literally no man that careth for their souls." And, yet,

shameful to think, eight millions per annum are devoured by these drones. What is more, all this is known and tolerated-known and tolerated by those whose duty it is to stand in the gap; and what is still more fearful, is

barred from remedy, by the dispensations and licenses of the spiritual rulers. Ought not facts like these to arouse the people from their lethargy, to create in them a loathing of such iniquity, and draw from their justly indignant souls, the fearful cry- "Down with it! down with it! even to the ground!" In fact, the opinion of many is declared. "Perhaps," says a Churchman, " half the population of the country have already left the Establishment, and ranged themselves under the standard of dissent. And if we add to this, the very slight attention paid to religion by a great majority of the rest, we shall soon perceive the critical situation in which we stand."

The

To the enormities already enumerated, we must add that of pluralities. Henry the VIII. conferred on the Archbishop of Canterbury the very power which excited just indignation against the Pope-the power of granting dispensations-that is, the power of permitting men to do wrong. It will surprise some, to find that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the metropolitan of Protestant England, still enjoys, by legislative enactment, all the power, privileges, and prerogatives, formerly claimed by the Pope in the full plenitude of his undisputed sway within these realms! On the provisions of this odious Act, all the privileges claimed for pluralities and non-residence, are founded. No person of the laity thinks now of applying for these indulgences, which his Grace is empowered to grant, except the rich, in the case of special licenses. clergy have the exclusive privilege of being permitted to sin. They alone avail themselves of enactments made in bad times, and for bad purposes; and for what?-to fill their pockets and their bellies-to make a gain of godliness. O shame! shame! If the Church fall not, it is not her fault-she has done her best to merit it. Now, as to the number of pluralists. One-half of the livings in the kingdom, and those of the richest kind, are held not singly, but in pairs or triplets. In some neighbourhoods, not onehalf merely, but five to one of the livings are held by pluralists; whilst there are many who have some four, some six, and even more preferments than this. How large a portion, then, of the incumbencies of the kingdom are held, to use the words of Burnet, "merely for the making of a family, for the support of luxury, or vanity, or other base and covetous designs." Notwithstanding the facilities to this wickedness, expressly provided by Act of

Parliament, certain stratagems of no very honourable a character, are requisite to enable the clergy to take the benefit of the Act. Hence, the abuse of chaplaincy to a lord whom they never serve; the sordid adherence to, and abuse of, the King's book of valuation, in opposition to common sense, honesty, and fact, claiming to hold a living, because it is under £8 a-year (in the King's book), when it is well known to themselves and others, that it is nearer £800 a-year! The Bishops are wont to speak against these things in their charges; but it is notorious to all who have attended to the subject, that the Bishops make as many pluralists, and of the richest kind, as any patrons whatever. A Prelate, last year, preached against both non-residence and pluralities. But, mark, before the sound of his voice had well ceased in the ears of his auditors, he made one of his hearers a pluralist, and almost against his will, and holding, at the moment, preferment to the value of £700 a-year! Well may unbelief prevail, and irreligion, and immorality. "On all sides, therefore," says a clergyman, "the Church is exposed to contempt, reproach, and danger. She has lost the repute, esteem, and confidence of millions. The consequence is, that she is so rapidly on the decline, that, without a speedy change, she will certainly fall."

But a better state of things can hardly be expected, whilst there are those, who, like the Bishop of Ferns, maintain and that in attempting to defend the existing state of things-that the "incomes of the clergy are designed to induce men to enter into the Church, with the hope that it would afford them a maintenance, and, eventually, a competence, or even affluence." Unblushing effrontery! The incomes are designed to make men enter the Church, that, eventually, they may enjoy "even affluence!" Good heavens-this from a descendant of the Apostles, and a follower of the Saviour! What a Church, then, we have, which attracts its servants by the love of gain, and the hope of affluence! We now see the reason why enormous revenues fall into the laps of prelates. These are the baits by which they are caught; and the design of the Church would be frustrated, if the baits were not so ample as to give even affluence. No wonder eight millions a-year are expended in feeding the clergy-the wealth of the Church is "designed" to draw aspirants around it! Jugurtha, when retiring from Rome, looked back, and said, that

there all things were on sale. The same may be said of the Church. Money is the moving principle, and, accordingly, not a week passes, but many instances occur of livings advertised for sale. In fact, Church property is in the market, as much as butter, eggs, cheese, and cotton; and the spiritual weal of a parish lies at the mercy of him who has the largest purse!

If, in the midst of such crying evils, the lives of the clergy were what they ought to be, this, of all conceivable things, would be the most amazing. Nor are they so. That there are many upright, pious, and industrious men in the Church, we gladly acknowledge; and, like the ten righteous men of old, they have long averted the divine judgments, and upheld a falling Establishment. Their number, too, we rejoice to believe, is increasing; but they exist and increase, not in consequence, but in spite of the favour and patronage of the powers that be, appointed in the Church. While we have the evidence of Lord Mount Cashel to the fact, that, "in many instances, the clergy lead improper, immoral, and dissolute lives." And, again, amongst the faults of, I fear, too many of the clergy, I enumerated covetousness;" and gigantic will be the task of him who attempts to prove this assertion ill-founded. Before concluding this, we think it proper to copy from The World newspaper, the following astounding fact:"A Bishop, of large private fortune, whose annual revenue from the Church, independently of immense occasional fines, on the renewal of leases, is£16,000, has heaped upon his two sons the following benefices:

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Alas! for poor, priest-ridden England! No wonder poverty is on every hand, notwithstanding the industry, talent, and enterprise of her children. The Establishment needs, even if it be allowed to continue in existence, a reformation from top to bottom. The whole head is sick -the whole heart is faint. Among minor delinquencies, we choose the following, supplied by a magazine, conducted by members of the Established Church:"The tenures by which many lands and offices are held, are not only absurd, but some of them are of such a character, that they ought to be promptly abolished. For instance, in the Church of Castor, a market town in Lincolnshire, on Palm-Sunday, during the time of divine service, the tenant of an estate at Broughton, enters the porch with a huge heavy whip, ten feet long, which he cracks as loudly as possible, three times, while the minister is reading the first lesson; and, after some other ceremonies, fixes a purse, containing a small sum of money, to the end of itplaces himself in front of the reading desk-kneels upon a cushion, and moves backwards and forwards the purse over the clergyman's head, like a bait at the end of a fishing line, during the whole time he is reading the second lesson, to the great merriment of the thoughtless part of the congregation!" G. C. S.

The Unitarian.—No. 5.
(Concluded from page 143.)

Rev. i. 8, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." These words are represented to have been spoken by Christ, and are brought to prove that he is equal with Jehovah. But, when I consider the connexion, this verse appears to me to be only a more emphatical repetition of the 4th, in which the Apostle had declared the eternity of God. He then goes, in the 5th, 6th, and 7th verses, to speak of the glorious things which Jesus Christ had performed for us, and of what he had still to accomplish; and then returns, in the verse under consideration, to speak of the eternity of the power of Jehovah, as a pledge and a security for their accomplishment. The title in the latter part of the verse," which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty;" or, as Dr. Clarke translates it," the Su