EPISCOPAL INCOMES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.']
Sin,—Your correspondent "J. H." tells us that the Parliamen- tary position and "enormous " incomes of the Bishops put a stumbling-block in the way of Nonconformists longing for union.
In these days, to speak of incomes of 14,000 or £5,000 a year as enormous is almost ludicrous. But why should not a great bishop have a great position and great income ? If he be the man he ought to be, who should have them rather ? Who will set a nobler example of how great power ought to be used and great wealth expended? Who has likelier opportunities for such an example ? If our Bishops are the men they ought to be, it would be a great national blessing that the income of every one of them should at once be doubled. If they are not the men they ought to be, whose fault is it but that of the nation which selects them ?
We do not object to merchant princes,—why should we object to prince-bishops ? Is not a great bishop as likely to use great means to grand ends as a great merchant is? If not, why not ? What argument is there against great wealth for an ecclesiastic which would not be equally cogent against great intellect, I might almost say, against great goodness?—! am, Sir, &c.,
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