CURIOSITIES OF ECCLESIASTICAL PATRONAGE.
THOSE of our readers who have not made acquaintance with the iniquities which have gathered round the sale and exchange of ecclesiastical benefices, may have been sur- prised at an advertisement which appeared in the Standard a few days back. Two guineas reward was offered to any registrar of deaths who would send to Mr. H. H. Levett a copy of the certificate of death of the Rev. Murray Work- man, late of The Cedars, Putney, a notice of whose death was printed in the Times of August 10th. Evidence of a death which happened some time ago is often required, but it is sel- dom wanted in the case of a death which has only just taken place. But the notice in the Times referred to certain " dis- closures " made before the Royal Co-nmission on Ecclesiastical patronage, and when we turn to the Report of the Commission, Mr. Levett's anxiety is at once explained. Mr. Workman has been a diligent labourer in a vineyard in which, to be success- ful involves a frequent assumption of false names. His efforts to do good to his brother-clergy have been so constantly mis- taken and misrepresented, that it is only by modestly veiling his identity that he can hope to pursue his trade unmolested. In no way could this be done so effectually as by making the world suppose he is dead. So long as he was known to be alive, no precaution, as regards privacy, would prevent clergymen from suspecting that the agent who calls him- self Mr. Jones or Mr. Robinson is in fact their old friend Workman. If, on the other hand, they can be induced to be- here Workman to be dead, they will go to their new adviser with no fear that he may, after all, be only Workman- under an alias. This explains Mr. Levett's desire to make sure that Workman is really lost to us. He is quite prepared not to de- plore him, if he can only be sure that he is gone to the grave. What the probabilities of the case are, we do not in the least know. No place of death was mentioned in the Times, which is in itself slightly suspicious ; but, on the other hand, carelessly worded notices of death do sometimes appear in newspapers. Our readers must determine for themselves whether Workman is most likely to be dead or alive.
Even if he be dead, it remains to be seen whether the game he has so long and so successfully played will not be carried on by some one else. It may do something to make this im- possible, if we recall the kind of proceedings by which Work- man probably became rich himself, and certainly made others poor. The scandal of the existing law with reference to Church patronage is so great, that it can hardly be too often insisted on. The only reason for being silent is the danger of becoming wearisome, and at this moment, when Workman's real or supposed death has brought his name into recollection, there is less risk than usual of this untoward result coming to pass. Workman seems to have begun his career as a broker in livings more than twenty years ago. In 1852, he was sentenced to penal servitude for inserting a cypher in a cheque, and while under- going his punishment he may be supposed to have convinced himself of the folly of breaking the law when more money might be made by evading it. Accordingly, when he came out of prison, he set up as a clerical agent. Having some private means, he bought adrowsons and next presentations, kept an organ of his own—the Church and School Gazette— and retained a young clergyman to act as his secretary. The ways in which he turned this machinery to profitable ac- count can in some cases only be guessed at; but bankruptcy, which is mistakenly supposed to be always a mode of losing money, seems to have been one of them. Workman was bankrupt in 1856, in 1864, and in 1875. On the latter occasion, he owed one clergyman £3,780, another .D1,500, another £1,200. How these sums became part of his liabilities may be guessed from the last-men- tioned instance. This £1,200 had been placed in Workman's hands in order to complete the purchase of a more valuable living, the gull having already made over his living to Work- man for exchange. Workman pocketed the £1,200, and presented another client to the living, so that the unlucky clergyman, who thought that his worldly position was to be bettered by the intervention of Workman, found that he had reason to think himself lucky if he had any worldly position left. The whole transaction was simoniacal, and consequently the law could do nothing for him. He was refused even the barren honour of being scheduled as a creditor on Workman's estate, so that his £1,200 was hoplessly lost. As to his living, he had made it over to Workman for an illegal purpose, and if he had asked the law to set aside the transaction, he would only have brought it down upon himself. The presenta- tion which Workman made to this living may possibly have been gratuitous. At all events, part of the consideration- money seems to have been the liberty to preach occa- sionally in the church. It can hardly be supposed that there was any particular message which Workman felt con- strained to deliver, but the respectability attaching to an actual appearance in the pulpit probably had a money value. In another instance, in which the same tactics were pursued, the victim was still more unfortunate. Workman succeeded in getting hold of the clergyman's living and of £3,000, and then defied him to get either back, as he could not come into Court without confessing himself guilty of simony. This gentleman's acquaintance with Workman has thus reduced him to a state of Apostolic poverty at one part of the year, and of something less during the other part. The victim "now works as a day-labourer, and is usually in the workhouse during the winter." At the time when these statements were made to the Royal Commissioners, Workman was still the patron of some eight or ten livings, which he used in the prosecution of his trade ; and if he is not dead, he is probably the patron still. At this moment he is very likely acting as his own executor, and disposing of "the late Mr. Workman's" patronage, in order to begin his new career to the better advantage.
There is not the least need to pity any of the clergymen who fell into Workman's toils. They must all have meant to go as near to simony as they could, even if they did not con- template overstepping the boundary, and they richly deserved what they got. It is not from any sympathy with them that we have recalled the misdoings of the agent with whom they delighted to deal. Our object is simply to insist once more on the gross immorality which surrounds the whole system of sale and exchange of benefices. Workman's case is not a solitary one. There is at least one other agent known to be carrying on business in much the same way, and there may be others. To a certain per-centage of the Clergy the temptation of making money by getting hold of a better living than their own is quite irresistible ; and so long as parsons of this type exist, and are allowed to buy and sell livings under certain conditions, these conditions will be evaded by the agency of scoundrels like Workman. It is not a kind of trade which it is desirable to have associated with the cure of souls, and its suppression ought not to be delayed beyond another Session.
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