Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/135

 This he might do, although fully persuaded that prayers for departed souls were vain and sinful. But would this clause justify the confiscation of his endowment, if it should chance that his family became extinct a few years after his death? We should see that the first and main object of the foundation was the glory of God and the salvation of men, and that this object might still be fulfilled, although another part of the founder's will had become obsolete. And why should we judge of more ancient foundations by a different rule? Men gave their lands, as they declared in the deed of gift, "for the glory of God," and they charged what they so gave with the maintenance of masses: if reformation had been desired, this condition would have been repealed; but this would not have gorged that fatal covetousness which, by confiscating the endowments, ran headlong into the guilt of sacrilege.

But again, was all the confiscated property of the nature above described? Our daily experience can answer. Were the tithes (now impropriated) of much more than half the parishes of England given to superstitious uses? Were the glebe lands and glebe houses of our poor vicarages (now in the hands of laymen) superstitious and unholy things? This part at least of the spoil was taken strictly from the parochial clergy. It is no answer to say, that these endowments were first impropriated to religious houses, and then went with the rest of their