THE CHURCH REFORM BISHOPED.

" Nolo Episeopari."

PARIS, 25th March 1835. THERE is a cant meaning of the word bishop, which JOHNSON— who in his Savage days loved the comfortable thing signified, as much as in his Boswell ones he reverenced the lawn and satin object it vulgarly denotes—has not disdained to admit, and which he interprets a liquor, for the compounding whereof Dean SWIFT has given the following receipt:

" Fine oranges,

well roasted, w itL sugar and wine in a eqp.

They'll make a sweet bishop wile!, gentlefolks sup."

The peculiar flavour of the right reverend liquor is drawn from the roasted orange; and hence it is, perhaps, that by some remote analogy, the natives of a county, which can hardly be missed by Liu that travels from Trent to Tweed, have derived a verb, signi- fying not the act of " admitting solemnly into the Church"—in which sense a man is said to be bishoped, by Dr. DONNE, nor of compounding such a kind and generous bowl as glads the heart tf Cantab at Christmashide—but of Spoiling a ran of milk, which the hussey of a kitchen-maid has let burn at the bottom, to the infinite discontentment of fastidious young muster, who susrends it on the " pothook of hb.- nese," and complains that his breakfast is hishopcd. The Torie=,, with their Right Reverend Commis- sioners, may be said, both properly and metaphorically, to be Lis/roping the Church Reim ii but it is in the North country sense especially, that the nation, when the unpalatable mess is served up, will book it 011 itS 110SC and loathe it as bishoped. The Tories say they will make two new Bishoprics—that they will; but they are not going the way to make a " sweet bishop," or one on whom the People will look sweetly: for, say they, "out of this sum--that is, a sum which divided by twenty six, the number of Bishops aireedy benched, gives nearly six thousand for that of the annual pounds sterling which a Bishop (dtdrissime rerunt, and also the dearest) costs--" an income CANNOT be provided for the two new Bishops." Therefore, oh prodigious "effort of self-denial!" (Standard) they "recommend that certain Cathedral preferment should be permanently attached to the new bishoprics:- sweet, primitive, Apostolical Fathers in God !

The unconscious eflronterv of men constituted in authority which they every day exhibit to an attentive and half-angry

people, would be an unaccountable phenomenon, did not its uni- versality else one to suspect some general law of human nature to be at the bottom of the sack. If; in fact, a nation will make its functionaries so grand, and set them up so high above the middle and virtuous level of life, as to be beyond the wholesome influence which virtuous opinion exercises upon all within its sphere, that nation must expect its functionaries to demean them- selves as though insensible to opinion, and in opposition to those principles of conduct NVIlleh it imposes on all not beyond its reach. The present curious history is but a repetition of one which in 18111 was the common talk of France. Church Reform was then and there the order of the day. Respectable men complained of the ineuflicieut provision made for the working Clergy—" de la viduit6 des paroisses"—a widowhood, be it remarked to the credit of the Galilean Church, arising not from the non-residence of the truant consort, but from his non-existence, and of the inade- quate supply of spiritual instruction. Vile MM. lee Ministres de rediger un projet de loi. The report had dwelt pathetically on the desolation of the widowed parishes, and the hard lot of the working Clergy : the first clause of the bill enacted—new Bishops ! —twelve additional sees' at an annual expense each that would have severally subsisted thirty or forty useful parish priests!s The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Church Commissioners travel, it seems, on a well-beaten road; and it is not without a precedent, that funds destined, in idea, by the public, to the main- tenance of useful working ministers, are to be diverted to swell episcopal revenues, whose exorbitancy is one of the great scandals of the nation. The Anglican Episcopacy would think it damna- tion to take a lesson in doctrine from her Gallican neighbour, but does not see any harm in copying her temporal practices.

The solemn personages, of wig so venerable and so primitive in

satin and lawn, are also, it seems, to be invested with additional powers for animadverther on the " inferior Clergy ; " and it has even crossed the water that an act to this effect is actually in pro- gress through the House.; which, if the report be not a calumny, must surely conceive itself to be the very same Honourable House that existed before the Reform Bill. On this side of the water, where a man, however wrapped up in silk and lawn, and desig- nated Worship, or Grace, or Lord, " by Divine Providence," is still not mistaken for aught but the simple biped of the human species which he really is, it is asked, Quis custodiet ipsos ens- lodes? Although the Gallican Bishop of the present century is in every respect on a more Apostolical Luting, and in conduct and demeanour less like a Pope of Rome than your Anglican Prelate, yet a sensible people are aware that the higher a functionary is lifted up in fortune and dignity, the more prone he is, being but a man, to decline from the aplomb of a steadfastly upright Clarac- ter, and to sink into a timeserving creature of the Court, or a self- seeking grasper at fortune. Such a man will make his sons or nephews millionaires, but not redeem a single soul out of purga- tory, or add (me righteous man to his flock. Here, as well as more notoriously on the British side of the Channel, it is among the "inferior Clergy "—inferior in wine bin and wardrobe, but

• Vide les Discours de Beajamb: amectit, Vol. I., p. 513.

far superior in grace and gcxlliness—that the samples are found of that unaffected piety which once made the strength of Protes-

tantism, and which in some remote corners of the island may still

conciliate a disinterested partiality to the Establishment. There was once, for example, a priest who lived—no matter where, and died, no matter when—a true pillar of the Church, as stout a champion of the faith, and as good and indefatigable a solvent of' God, as any one of the two thousand Nonconformists whom Lord MELBOURNE'S " mild and tolerant" Church ejected from their liv- ings on St. Bartholomew's Day, for the difference of a hair's breadth. This apostle, in an unapostolie age, lived and died a parish priest- sub-chanter of a cathedral over which presided a Dean, purple as his wine and proud as Papal Rome, who nursed his gout arid super- intended a building which a master-mason would have looked after for the tenth part of the Most Reverend's 2000/. a year. In this building, Mr. Dean was himself the greatest personage, save and except on high days, when a yet greater than he was seen " high on a throne "--a high-born prelate, bred in palaces and conversant

with princes ; a divine who knew a hack from a hunter, but would have been sorely puzzled to distinguish St. Justin and St.

Just. Once upon a time, it is said, the chaplain of this mighty clerk havieg finished his superior's Visitationcharge, put it in the pothet of the wrung coat, so that when the gathered Clergy were waiting to collect manna from the lips of the Reverend Father in God, the erring chaplain was obliged to go and excuse his Lord- ship, either by explaining the fact, or telling one of those white things which, Mrs. OPIE says, conduct to the black pit. Er auto disc.? onti,,ei--admire the learning, eloquence, promptitude, and utility of pielacy at e0,000/. a year ! Now the supposed bill would have empowered the gouty Dean and Nimred Bishop to lecture the plied:ism old divine who could have read them a profitable and enuelewsiated lessen in every one of the duties of a clergyman and the virtues of a Christian. He sleeps well ; and while Mr. Dean is forgotten in his marble vault, the memory of the good man still prevails with many, and conciliates a portion of esteem for a Church which pride and privilege, and simony, and plurali- ties, and do-nothingness, and formality, in the place of devotion, and hypomisy, the survivor and heir of piety, are fast buruing down the high-road trod by the CI:HI:116SM vhiehi it superseded, and smile of whose choicest vices it has religiously fostered in its bosom. For, RS Mr. Ilessam remarks, it was not any difference in abstrue dectrines awl difficult ruins of faith which provolsed the Reformation, but the romps and vanities, the riches, luxury, and slothfulness, the mercenary temper and good-for-nothing lives of the Po;. 1511 dignitaries and Catholic Clergy, which, along with a tolerable dame of their goods and chattels, they have bequeathed, in nearly the sonic proportion, to their Anglican successors. Dees this Reformed House ever reflect how mitres are got and by whom they are conferred? What, in fact, makes a Bishop ? If the Minister be a LIVElipooL—that is, lordly, but honest—a - College reputation or a Regius professorship makes him. If the Minister be a CANNING—that is, a latitudinarian in more than poliiics—my Lady er H. M. makes him ; and the graceless lawn of the ci-devant captain of dragoons mingles with the starched. plaits ef the academic tutor. The Episcopal bench is filled by University professors—such are the Mosas, and MARSHES, and evEs ; by my Lord's tutors, or the Minister's—such were the Maxsems and TO:%ILINES, and such are the Binamernhns and. AL LENS; by my Lord's sons and nephews—such are VERNONS, the RYDERS, and BERESFORDS ; finally, by my Lady's Bishops— such are .... whom it would be unpolite to name. All these are as decorous, well-looking-, well- behaved gentlemen as can be found in England, from four or five to twenty and thirty thousand a year. Some of them can read a Greek play, and even edit it ; all can mouth a sermon which the chaplain has composed; there be who can back a steed which the chaplain would be hanged, as Sir JOHN Beenseonn, M.P. says, ere he'd mount; certain have a peculiar unction in saying grace after meal to II. M. and my Lady; and some two or three "can defend MiGuEL and Mello- LIS almost as well, and be in improvieation almost as fluent, mild, and Christian-like, as an ABERDEEN or a LONDONDERRY. It is functionaries of this description whom a bill, said to be in progress through the fuformed House, proposes to vest with ampler coercive powers to reclaim a body of men whose prevail- ing want of meekness, humility, moderation, of primitise indif- • ference to lucre, and of apostolic usefulness of life, are fast robbing the priesthood of that odour of sanctity, without which the priest is less respected than an ordinary member of the community, by as much as his vocation claims for him more than ordinary respect.

The subject matter of the bill—the thing to be wrought on by its operation—is the working parish clergyman, the immediate in- strument of working out men's salvation, purifying their morals, and iaforming their minds. The parish-priest is not a functionary merely in the pulpit ; his vocation unlike that of every other profes- sional man, cleaves to him wherever he goes, and abides with him wherever he is. He is a living, moving, acting monitor of virtue, manners, temperance, simplicity, godliness, and charity, to his fellow-citizens. In his house, the good father, the good hus- band, and the good master; in the market, the upright dealer and punctual paymaster; in the public walk, the courteous and bene- volent acquaintance; and in the assembly of the townsmen, the mediator and peace-maker, for he remembers that such are "blessed." In angry controversies, he maketh heard the voice of charity; in politics, he sets the example of single-eyed patriotism; and in the vacancy of becefices, of modest worth retreating from view, and, like the violet, discovered by its odour. The young love to meet his senile, the old are comforted by the grasp of his hand, the disorderly stand reoulted in his reverend presence, and the worldly-minded expand to the influence of a heavenly temper, as the snowdrop opens to the sunbeam in March. Alas! how ill, and yet how expensively, we devise in our good-natured land the means of adapting public institutions and public functionaries to public benefit. The eye that is to watch the growth and cherish the expansion of virtues, re ithout which the priesthood is an idle, mendicant, and worthless order, is that of a University man who has never been a parish-priest, nor perhaps, till late in life— legitimately at least—a father, and who resembles the philosophi- cal 'abbe of the old Galilean establishment more than devout church-goers are probably aware of. Or it is that of a lord's son or brother, who intrenches himself in his dignity, lives grand in a palace, and-0 miracle of hospitality !—keeps open table once a week for the neighbouring clergy; or of the controversialist and pamphleteer, who pours his holy oil on the flames of theological disputation, and breathes his professional ardour into the bosoms of polit:cel zealots ; or of my lady's man, whose face is better known at court than in his diocese, and whose only means of im- proving the latter is by keeping away from it ; or, finally, of the Gallio, as David Deans wou:d have said, "who cares for none of these things."

What can be the only tendency of a measure making the useful Clergy more dependent on the dignified, but to tender them more like the dignified, (omen hoc avertat Daus !) and less like the plain, active, meek, blameless, aid unambitious men they ought to be? Will it draw them closer to the hearts and affections of their congregation? It can tend only to estrange them ; for the more they look up to their diocesan, the less they will look down to the opinion of their parish—the only true and beneficial censor of the priesthood, and the wider will be the breach between them and the good-will of the parishioners. Its tendency is indeed to discipline the Clergy, but it is an army, not a church discipline; it binds the subalterns more closely to their chiefs, but it severs the whole corps more completely from the community; and thus banging it, by Episcopacy, on the Court and Minister, it makes it more effective than even at present—a tool of State and an in- strument of Government. In an age when the force of reason and civilization is operating a fusion, that should be facilitated instead of being impeded, between orders and classes, and sects, and states, and nations, the Tory policy, happily as impotent as the sea-weed against the spring-tide, is for repairing the old bar- riers that divided England from France, Britain from Ireland, the Catholic from the Protestant, the Churchman from the Dissenter, the soldier from the citizen, and the priest from the parish. Their " scheme of religious instruction" is to obtain a well-drilled army of clergymen, that may be auxiliary to the military and a supple- ment to the police ; and the .Wformed Parliament is reported to relish their state-craft. Certainly this falls far short of relieving the Bishops of their legislative duties ! Yet some discipline is necessary in a body of functionaries—

some order, some gradations ; there must be those who superin- tend and those who execute ! "I doubt," as Lord Glenthorn's Mr. III•Leod replies to his principal's incontrovertible assumptions. But be it so: Tories, are you honest?—strange question, but let it pass for argument's sake—begin your Church Reform at the

summit of the Establishment. Quadruple and quintuple the num-

ber of your Bishops, and divide among them the present revenues of Episcopacy, though even a fourfold or fivefold division is hardly enough to bring down their incomes into apostolic keeping. Is there a priest known any where for his good works and deeds of love,—and such a light is never hid under a bushel—the whole

neighbourhood, town, provinces, can point him mite-quick, make

him a Bishop; leave the College lecturer to lecture, the Regius professor to profess, the Whitehall preacher to preach, and the Court chaplain to say graces. What is here wanted, is active benevolence, fatherly superintendence, knowledge of man, and love of God. Make of him a special minister, and relieve him from legislative duties, for which he is unfit, and which unfit him for the duties of his calling. There, in his own diocese—not so wide but that he knows every village in it—let the goad old Bishop

see length of days in decent plenty, and not inelegant frugality,—

the consulted in all difficulties, the adviser in all perplexities, the corrector of all that is amiss, the rebuker of what is wrong, the terror only of the reprobate. He will love his Clergy and be loved of them; they will go to him, the old as to an elder brother, and the young as to a father; and when a clergyman of education repairs to him for advice, lie will receive him as a fellow-labourer inthe harvest, and not as a menial. With an Episcopal body like this you cannot connect the working Clergy too closely. You will

have provided for the fidelity of the cur/odes, and to such keepers

you may instruct the flock. Begun at this end and so conducted downwards, your Church Reform would be found by the People to

he wholesome and well-flavoured ; they would not say it was btehoped; and remember, that as it is for the People you profess to legislate, so it is by the People that your legislation must eventually stand or fall.

What moonshine in water ! Sir ROBERT PEEL has told US that be does not object to changes which may " extend the legi- timate influence of the Church ;" in other words, he does not ob- ject to whatever may perfect it as an instrument for propagating what Toryism calls loyalty, but what the People feel and know to be fleecing.

The dead are privileged instructors ; the Tory Premier and the Right Reverend Church Commissioners will not be offended by the lessons of a great man, who rests from his labuttes and whose works follow him. To the first he says— Jo suis convaincu que la religion est tine source indispen- sable &amelioration et de bonheur pour respece humaine. Ce West pas que j'ailopte une hypothese tendant ii la representer comae fortifiant k's lois penales. Je la place plus haut, je no la considere point comme he supplement de la potence et de la roue."—Be NJ AMIN CONSTANT, DiSMUrS, VOL I. 512.

To the Kiehl Reverend Fathers in God, who think that out of an annual Episcopal revenue of 150,000/. a year, divided among twenty-six Prelates, " an income CANNOT be provided for two (only two) new Bishops," the man in the grave says-

" Dane quel temps la religion a-t-elle l'oljet des attaques lee plus rives? N:etait-ce pas avant la Revolution de 17S9? Alors Voltaire ecrivait ce que certainemcnt ii n' ecrirait pas aujourd'hui . N'attrilmez pas aux ecrits irreligieux la deca- dence de la religion. Les ecrivains representent leur siecle, et no he ferment pas ; ils en sont les organes et not] les,instituteurs. On n'aurait pas cherche le succes dans si elle tick dejil rite A-la-mode. Eh hien, Messieurs, d cette époque l'Eg,lise de France possedult toutes ses richesses, et see richesses attic& bra- menses: —lb. 513.