Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1914 — ATTACK OLD CHURCH ABUSE [ARTICLE]

ATTACK OLD CHURCH ABUSE

Prominent Englishmen Join to End . Sale of Life Rectorates in British Isle. London. —The Duke of Rutland, Earl Fortescue, Lord Hugh Cecil, Sir Charles Walpole and other prominent men have organized, at the suggestion of the Westminster Gazette, a movement to rid the Church of England of the evil of the sale of "advowsons,” the right of presentation to a church or other ecclesiastical benefice. Of the 13,000 benefices in the United Kingdom more than eleven hundred are dispensed by the king, more than seven hundred by the universities, and the rest by either bishops and other ecclesiastics, or else by the nobles, esquires or other private individuals who own the "livings” in parishes. For centuries it has been the prerogative of these private "owners” of .parishes to sell the post of established preacher, which Is literally a life job. There still remain in England and Wales about six hundred parishes where the right of naming the rectors is held by private owners, who sell it the same way as other property. In these places the parishioners possess little, if any, guarantee that the requirements of religion or social well-being will be considered by the patron. The owner has in the parish pulpit an asset which produces a certain income and creates a parson’s freehold, and not even the bishop can prohibit the sale if certain forms be observed. The present movement is an attempt to preserve the spiritual rights of villagers. For a living worth <1,500 a year a clergyman pays <6,000 down and he gets a life post At his death the place again is sold. When he is ill he has to hire a substitute or do without. There is no way to get rid of him, so long as he commits no crim* Inal act.