A clergyman writes to the Times to complain of the
law which prevents a curate from doing anything except take pupils, and pleads that he ought to be allowed to qualify if he pleases as a physician. He would be much more useful than he is now, and might add something to his insufficient income. The point is, will the writer give the ratepayers, or congregation, or Bishop, any power to dismiss or suspend a clergyman for neglecting his work? A man might be a better pastor for being a doctor, and he certainly would be a wiser one, and some of the most success- ful missionaries in the world have been surgeons also, but the line could not be drawn there. The rule must be abolished altogether, and then how is the farming, physicking, teaching, or ohopkeeping incumbent to be kept to his higher task ? Anybody but a clergy- man can be made to work, but every living is a freehold.
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