Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/398

362 to the non-residence of most of the clergy, the numberless sinecures, and pluralities, their general manners, the luxury and state which prevails too much among them, the coldness and lukewarmness of the best, who content themselves with delivering or preaching now and then some cold essay, or with publishing once in their lives some literary book and God knows how rarely they do so much, which has as little to do with the real duty of a parochial clergyman, such as you see it practised even in most Catholic countries, as so much Mathematics or Natural Philosophy. Can it be supposed that the newspapers will supply their place, and inculcate lessons which are calculated to make a man happy here and hereafter?

"But put conscience and all sense of duty out of the question, Jet the matter be considered with a view to the simple question of interest. Does any reflecting clergyman or friend of the Church suppose that nearly two millions of Catholics, open as they are to the practices of Foreign Powers who know well enough what a good cloak religion still affords, and how powerful an instrument it still remains, and 250,000 Dissenters with the example of America before their eyes, the only description in the kingdom capable of enthusiasm of character, situation, and connection, able both to concert and act, will long continue to pay tithes to such an immense amount, to the idle non-resident clergy of the small number which remains?

"Is there anything more likely to strike the minds of an awakened and active people, whose natural character is full of imagination and enterprise, who, fresh from so much political action, cannot be expected to settle all at once and become half-women, than the state of the Clergy and Church revenue? Is it not much better that they should occupy themselves so than cabal with France, Spain, or Austria, or for the Catholics and Dissenters to set to cutting each other's throats, which perhaps some cunning men might wish, as the best means of supporting the Protestant clergy in their overflow of wealth. What string is there For brilliant lawyers and intriguing