Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/93

 CHUHCH AND EDUCATION. 57

Eoman Catholic clergy comprise 192 vicars-general, with salaries of from 1,500 to 2,500 francs, or GO/, to 100/. ; 723 canons, with allow- ances varying from 1,600 to 2,400 francs, or 64/. to 96/.; 3,531 cures, or incumbents with incomes ranging from 1,200 to 1,600 francs, or 48/. to 64/. ; and 31,569 desservants, or curates, with stipends of from 900 to 1,200 francs, or 36/. to 48/. The Protest- ants of the xVugsburg Confession, or Lutherans, are, in their reli- gious affairs, governed by a General Consistory, established at Stras- bourg; while the members of the Reformed Church, also called Calvinists, are under a council of administration, the seat of which is at Paris. The Jewish priesthood consists of ten high rabbis, with salaries of from 3,500 to 7,000 francs, or 140/. to 240/. ; sixty-six rabbis, with incomes ranging from 800 to 1,500 francs, or 32/. to 60/. ; and sixty-four precentors, with allowances from 500 to 2,000 francs, or 20/. to 80/.

The Lutherans have a seminary and a faculty of theology at Strasbourg, with fifty-three churches ; and the Calvinists have con- sistorial churches in fifty-nine departments : they meet occasionally in synod, and have a faculty of theology at Montauban. When Calvin founded the Reformed Church in France, he confided the government of each parish to a Presbyteral Council, or Consistory, taken from among the general assembly of the members. This was strictly adhered to till the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of 1787 restored to the Protestants the civil rights they had been deprived of a century before, but it made no regulations as to their religious organisation, Avhich was only determined at the same time as that of the Catholic Church in its relations to the State, by the law of 18 Germinal, year X., known as the ' Organic Articles of the Protestant Worship.' By that law the administration of each of the Reformed parishes was intrusted to a Consistory, composed of the pastor or pastors serving the church, and of elders chosen from the principal laymen in each district. The members of the Council thus established Avere at first named by the Government : half of them Avere subject to re-election every two years, and the elections Avere held by the elders actually in office, Avho named for that pur- pose an equal number of citizens Avho Avere heads of families. This organisation was again changed on the 26th of March, 1852, by a Dic- tatorial Decree of Prince Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic, on the ground, ' that the laAvs which regulated the Reformed Churches had always been deemed insufficient, and that it AA r as of the utmost importance to complete them in the interests of re- ligion, and of administrative and political order.' The decree of the 26th of March charges with the government of each parish a Pres- byteral Council, consisting of pastors and of laics, one-half of whom are subject to re-election every three years. The election is by universal suffrage ; and all the members of the Protestant faith