charities with an income of £156,000 a year-a sum almost sufficient to deal with the whole question, and the better management of which any committee ought to enquire into before asking for more help. In the Diocese of Lincoln, a committee appointed last year by the late Bishop Wordsworth (not the Diocesan Conference Committee), recommended that a pension fund should be founded following Canon Blackley's scheme, which forms section C. of the proposed plan, by which all clergy unbeneficed, or resigning, at or after 60 would receive £100 a year by payment of £50 at ordination, at 23, or an equivalent by instalments; and, secondly, that a widow and orphan fund be founded on the plan and with the rates of the Scotch Free Kirk, which, after 35 years of existence, gave widows £46, and orphans £24, or £36 if both parents were dead; next year we may expect these pensions to be increased. The premium required from us would be £5 entrance at ordination, £5 on marriage, £10 on second marriage, or marriage after 45 years, and £7 a year, equal in all to about £7 10s. a year; our pensions to commence with would be £32, £12, and £28 respectively, to be increased, as in Scotland, quinquennially, as the fund can afford. These two funds should be open to all now in holy orders at rates to be fixed by an actuary, and rendered compulsory on all future ordinees by Act of Parliament. Such a scheme thus offers all the immediate benefits claimed for a voluntary scheme, and prepares the way for the liberation of the funds of our charities, which might justly be required to provide assis tance both to the pension fund and the widow and orphan fund. Once they can pay the premiums of the unbeneficed, about £35,000 a year, £243 the non-returnable sum mentioned as required of a man of 30 to purchase an annuity of £50 for a possible widow, his wife being 25, will discharge a benefice of the incumbent's premium, and provide for the widows and orphans of the incumbents in perpetuity. I trust that Mr. McKnight will have an opportunity of making known to us the results of the canvass of opinion that he has made during the last four or five weeks. The ratios are as six for the principle of a compulsory fund to one against it. We must thank most heartily the gentlemen who favoured us with replies. Their letters contain most useful matter ready to hand for those who may still carry on the object we have in hand. I will now consider some objections. It has been said that our widow and orphan fund rate of £7 (or £7 10s. including fees) proves that we propose to tax men who will not have the possibility of a chance of benefiting. Now all insurance rates are calculated on the probabilities of some not benefiting. As to any not having the possibility of a chance of not benefiting, who can say of any young man aged, we will say, 24, that he has not the possibility of a chance of leaving a widow or orphans. Mr. Duncan, to whom we are all greatly indebted, appears to me to have brought across the border the gift of second sight when he speaks thus. We, who cannot forecast the future of the individual, judged it good for all to recommend that all should join the fund. Again, it is said, a compulsory fund would encourage improvident marriages. We thought a certain provision for contingencies, that now frequently involve destitution, robbed the so called improvident marriage of much of its unwisdom. Some say, "Why should I pay for others? I have made provision." We answer, "Men in holy orders have the option of joining or not. Compulsion is for the future ordinees, all of whom will secure an equal benefit." A strong point is made of the hardship of compelling the celibate to pay to a widow and orphan fund. There are men, let us hope there ever will be some, who, called to special work, are celibates for the kingdom of God's sake. They will never be so very many-they must be our strongest men. Will they, who have so cast out self from their hearts, refuse to join so good a cause as a common fund for the widows and orphans? We would gladly excuse them could it be so managed, but under our proposal it can scarcely be; and we cannot believe that those who love God most will care for the widows and orphans least, and refuse to put their hand to our work.

The Rev. F. THORNE, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Gray's Inn Road, W.C.

I Do not wish to claim the attention of this meeting for more than a few minutes, but one or two remarks which fell from Mr. Sadler ought to be referred to. Mr. Sadler is in favour of an annuity fund for widows and orphans; but this was a subject which the committee to whom the question of pensions was referred was debarred

from considering. There is no doubt that it would be a good thing to have annuities for widows and orphans, but we are not considering that now; and I submit that this is not the question before the meeting, it is the question of clergy pensions. Mr. Sadler bases his notions, for the most part, on the action of the Free Kirk of Scotland. Now the stipends of the clergy of that Church are all paid out of a common fund, and they are paid with the deductions made for the widows' and orphans' annuities. Does Mr. Sadler wish the same course to be pursued in England? I do not. I do not want to see the funds of the Church of England greatly interfered with; and I hope the day is far distant when such a course as that above stated will be taken. Compulsion has been advocated, but I am not in favour of compulsion. My idea is that even if compulsion were deemed desirable it would take about five-and-twenty years to procure the necessary Act of parliament, and that Act could not take effect for another thirty-five years. Where should we all be by that time? Certainly not in this world. We are anxious to have a scheme which shall begin at once. If the scheme foreshadowed by Mr. Duncan were adopted it might be put in operation at once, and I sincerely hope it will. We are deeply indebted to Mr. Duncan, for if it had not been for him we would have been lost in a maze of figures. We have now been able to get the actuarial results. We believe Mr. Duncan's calculations to be perfectly correct, and that the scheme based on them can be easily carried out. I do not think there can be two opinions as to the benefit and necessity of such a scheme. I have no doubt that when the scheme becomes thoroughly understood that the great body of the clergy will become original members of the society, and that the society could be launched before Christmas. I cannot imagine a greater measure of reform than that proposed by the scheme which would take away a great source of inefficiency in the Church. I am sure it is a project which the laity will be glad to come forward and help. The laity know how difficult it is for the clergy to make provision for themselves, their wives, and their children. This cannot be done except by a drastic measure of reform-by such a reform as that now suggested. The Church of England has progressed, and I hope it will continue to do so, and one of the things which will make her more steadfast is plenty of support from the clergy and laity for the institution we advocate. Those who are under sixty-four years of age can buy an annuity for themselves, and those who are above that age I hope will get one given to them.

The Rev. EDWIN R. WARD, Curate of West Horsley, Surrey.

I SPEAK in a three-fold capacity. Speaking as a curate, I think the 10,000 unbeneficed clergy should be represented at this meeting. So long ago as 1881 and 1882, I wrote to the Guardian advocating a clergy pensions scheme, and have published a magazine article, entitled "A Curates' Pension Fund.' As a diligent attendant at the meetings of the committee, which produced the report on which the "Clergy Pensions Institution" was founded, I have had some further practical experience on this question. I value the proposed institution, because it aims at the removal of the lazy and incompetent, and the promotion of the industrious and efficient clergy. Some person may say, What need is there of a clergy pensions institution? There is a great need for it, when at the last census 3,269 out of 21,663 clergy were over sixty-five years of age. Not only so, but great scandals would be removed by its effective working. A London daily paper a short time ago published the following paragraph :-"The living of Ashcombe, Devon, has become vacant by the death of the Rev. W. H. Palk at the advanced age of eighty-nine years. The deceased gentleman had held the benefice for the long period of sixty-five years." Now, on further inquiry, I find that this veteran pluralist and aged cumberer of the ground not only held Ashcombe for sixty-five years at £300 a year (£19,500), but the still more valuable living of Chudleigh for forty-two years at 550 a year (£23,100), taking in all £42,600 for his work. Now, if that gentleman had held one living at £300 a year, and retired at the age of seventy, he would have received £13,500 and have been well paid, instead of which he received more than three times this amount from the Church's revenues. Such scandals as these, if allowed to continue, will do more harm to the Church than thousands of tracts issued by the Liberation Society. The greatest blessing the illustrious Prime Minister now in office could do to the Church (and he has declared in his Newport speech that "the Conservatives are in

favour of Church reform ") would be to pass a short Act of Parliament to the following effect:-"No benefice to be held by any clergyman after attaining the age of seventy, or before reaching the age of twenty-eight. If this were done, inexperienced clergy would no longer be thrust into family livings on taking Priests' Orders, and bishops would be spared the scandal of having to institute men of over seventy years of age to the temporary charge of parishes. Above all, promotion would be quickened in the case of young, middle-aged, and old deserving curates. Let the rulers in Church and State legislate for the Church on the lines of the Civil Service where retirement is optional at sixty-five, but compulsory at the age of seventy, no matter how efficient the holder of an office might be. Our present want of a retiring scheme leaves us with clergy too old to work their parishes vigorously, and who, if they employ an earnest curate, are in many cases so jealous of his younger and more vigorous powers for work intellectually and physically, that work on modern Church lines is not done by the rector nor allowed to be done by the curate. I am leaving my curacy because I cannot get my aged rector to move with the times, or to allow aggressive Church work to be done in a country parish where drunkenness and carelessness as to spiritual things, and also open and aggressive infidelity abound. "As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be was true of God's eternal and unchangeable truth, but it ought not to be applied to the methods of Church work. If the Church would be a true servant of Jesus, she must meet the advancing tide of democracy by showing herself in harmony and touch with every sphere of modern life in all that is good. She must not stand aside from science, politics, or social questions, nothing should be common or unclean to her in the noble attempt to regenerate society by grace and strength derived from her Incarnate Lord in and through sacramental and other means of grace. Reforms are wanted, and one great reform would take place if the clergy, young and old, and the laity supported the "Clergy Pensions Institution," to make provision for the aged, and to promote the retirement of certain conscientious clergy unable to retire on a third of their present income, but who would go, to the good of themselevs and their parishes, if that third were supplemented by this society. It has been said of the present crisis in Church and State, "You should not swap horses when you are crossing a stream "-I answer, " But what if one of the horses is too weak to carry you through the stream, and if journeyed with will sink you in the flood of disestablishment and disendowment." Put a good horse in his place. Reform the Church. Facilitate the retirement of the aged and incompetent, give Church people some voice in the election of their parish priest, think less of vested interests, and have a greater thought and love for the eternal interests of immortal souls, and then

Naught shall make this Church of England rue,
If only to herself she prove but true.'

"

The Rev. E. A. SALMON, Vicar of Martock, Prebendary

of Wells.

I SUPPOSE we are all anxious to see the subject under discussion brought to a practical result. If there is any person present at this meeting who has a doubt as to the necessity of some such scheme as that now suggested, I would simply ask him to go to the office of the Additional Curate's Society, and ask for the Report of the Church of England Incumbents' Sustentation Fund, and look carefully over the statistics. I would also ask him to go to the depôt of the National Society, and ask for the Report of the Lower House of Convocation of Canterbury on Pluralities, and study the statistics in the schedule attached to it, statistics which have been compiled very carefully for the whole of England. If he is not convinced that these statistics are most valuable in proving the necessity, then I say his case is a hopeless one. I have worked in my diocese some years, and I am painfully aware of the necessity there is for something being done. One-twelfth of the livings are under £100 a year. Out of this amount, how can a clergyman take his pension and provide for his successor? Two-fifths of the livings in the diocese are under £200 a year, which makes it almost impossible for the clergyman to take his pension and provide for his successor. There i- great difficulty in filling the vacancies at all, and it would be much more difficult to do so if there was compulsory retirement. A scheme was propounded some time

ago by an Archdeacon and circulated throughout England. That scheme was to the effect that the sum which accrued between the voidance of a living and the institution of the new incumbent, should be formed into a fund for pensioning the aged incumbents. But there is a manifest unfairness and difficulty about such a scheme. Supposing a man, after he had accepted the living, were to pass to another living, or died in a very short time, it would be manifestly unfair to himself and his family. Let us, however, simply deal with the scheme before us. I have carefully studied it, and I am sure a more satisfactory basis for carrying out the scheme could not be brought forward. I am glad that the idea of compulsion, or anything like it, has been abandoned. Compulsion would involve many hardships; and to put a hard and fast line on livings, the expenses connected with them being so variable, would be manifestly unjust and unfair. I do not like anything that savours of compulsion. I was sorry to hear the suggestion that there should be anything like interference with the contract between the incumbent and the curate, and that the subject should be made a question between the bishops and candidates for Orders. Let us leave it to enlightened public opinion and public duty. Everywhere we are preaching against the sin of improvidence to our people. Let us set an example of thrift and provident habits ourselves; and let the clergy, as a body, aid and support the admirable movement which has been so ably explained at this meeting. I hope and trust that those who have brought forward the scheme will again bring it prominently before the clergy as well as the laity, unfettered by anything like a multitude of details which can be settled afterwards, but as a scheme pure and simple. I trust that not only those who want such a scheme, but those who may never require it will support it; and then I believe the laity throughout the length and breadth of the land will take it up. I have worked for years on behalf of the Sustentation Fund. That fund has brought forth some of the most noble feelings of the laity, for it has shown them the wants of the Church. I could give you the names of a large number of laymen who have increased the endowments of livings; and if the laity see that the clergy are in earnest in supporting the scheme propounded, they will not be backward in coming forward and helping it. I think I may claim to know a little about the statistics of the Church, and I earnestly commend the scheme to the good wishes of the clergy.

The Rev. A. W. MILROY, Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and Rector of Newnham, Hants.

ONE of the subjects discussed at the Church Congress at Carlisle last year was, "What can England learn from Scotland in ecclesiastical matters?" I have long felt that there were two things which the English Church could learn from Scotland, viz., a superannuation fund for aged and infirm ministers, and a system of insurance to provide for the widows and orphans of the clergy. If both of these are found in the non-established Churches of a poor country like Scotland, it seems to me to be a disgrace to England with a wealthier Church that nothing of the kind yet exists in the Church of England. This clergy pensions fund is an attempt to wipe off that disgrace in part. In Scotland the fund for the aged and infirm ministers is provided by voluntary charity, while insurance for the benefit of widows and orphans is compulsory on all the ministers. As a matter of theory, I think that it should be made compulsory on our clergy to subscribe to both of these funds, but compulsion implies going to Parliament and this involves delay. It is, I believe, Mr. Moody who has said "If you do not begin for fear of making mistakes, you will probably make the greatest mistake of all-that of doing nothing." This institution is a beginning in the right direction. It does not exclude the principle of compulsion afterwards if that should be found advisable, but meantime let us begin as the Free Church of Scotland began with a voluntary system, and think of compulsory powers later on. An objection may be made to this institution that it is simply a new insurance society, and that clergymen can insure for a sum to be paid at death or in old age in any of the existing companies. As a matter of fact a large number of clergy do not insure. This institution possesses the advantage of having two elements. It has one branch conducted on purely business principles, so that any clergyman, whatever his private means may be, can feel that he is subscribing for a pension which his own money is to

buy for him as a purely business transaction. But this scheme also leaves room for the charity of the laity, although I am not sure that it will be charity at all, but rather self-interest, or the charity that begins at home, that will induce them to contribute to this institution. On the principle of gratitude for past services, they can subscribe to purchase a pension for a clergyman who has served long and faithfully, so as to secure him ease in his declining years, while they will be stimulated by the more powerful motive of the expectation of benefits to come, if by providing for his retirement they can secure the services of a clergyman in the prime and vigour of life.

The Rev. C. J. ROBINSON.

(IN answer to a question.) There can be no doubt as to the stability of the proposed institution. We will be charged Government rates, and receive the substantial security of the Government.

The Rev. W. H. E. MACKNIGHT, Rector of Silk Willoughby, Sleaford.

I AM an advocate of Mr. Sadler's scheme, for experience has shown that nothing efficient and final can be found, but that which is based on compulsory contributions. It is not difficult to see the reason why. Any voluntary insurance scheme reaches those only who are prepared and able to pay the premiums required, whilst those are left out who lack the will or the means, and out of these come the heirs of destitution and superannuated hanger-on. But an insurance scheme for pensions to the superannuated is not the complete answer to the real wants of the Church. If our object is to promote the greater efficiency of the clergy, then it will not be sufficient to pension off, and by compulsion, superannuate such men as myself. To lay aside the few enfeebled by age among us, will be but a small measure of relief. The "Resignation Act" already meets this want for all but the incumbents of the small livings; and for them a pension fund of no large amount might be formed by the proposition Mr. Sadler has put forward. But the real want is a fund to provide annuities for widows and orphans. This would relieve the strong man, in the vigour of his manhood, of all anxiety for the future of those near and dear to him, and the Church would receive for the full term of his active manhood, the free unburdened use of all his powers. This is the great want of our system, as is painfully witnessed by those distressing and abject appeals for help for those left destitute in their widowhood, and for orphans unprovided for. This is the blot in our system which cries for a remedy. But it is said, and we have heard it strongly asserted to-day, that compulsion would not be tolerated, and could not be enforced. It may be answered conclusively at once, that in the Kirk of Scotland, and in the Free Kirk it is tolerated and thankfully accepted. But on this point the "will of the clergy" is the one decisive factor. If a large majority of our body decide that a compulsory system of insurance is the only safe, complete, and final one, it will be both tolerated and adopted. And to obtain some reliable information as to the opinion of the clergy on the point, 3,000 circulars have been sent to the Rural Deans in every diocese, and to other representative men; to those holding valuable preferments, and those with small livings, and to the unbeneficed. The answers we have received are most decidedly in favour of compulsion, as many as six to one maintaining that the question of pensions will never be finally or satisfactorily settled until compulsion is adopted. As to the possibility of obtaining an Act of Parliament to effect it, we may answer that the Established Kirk of Scotland obtained, without difficulty, their Act in 1740, and the Free Kirk in the year after the disruption, and no bodies of men could be more jealous than they of any State interference with their privileges and rights, but they could, without fear or hesitation, ask from the one source of all legal authority, the necessary power for their own self-regulation. And so can we. I have asked members on both sides of the House, and in both Houses; and among them, those who have had the largest experience of Parliamentary life, and can best tell the possibilities of legislation; as, for