more permanent, are called perpetual curates, and are appointed by the impropriator of the tithe in a parish which has neither rector nor vicar. The name of priest is, in general, confined to the clergy of the church of Rome ; in the church of England, the corresponding term is a " Clerk in Orders." A parson (persona ecclesite) denotes a clergyman in of a parochial church. Deacon is, in not a layman, as in Calvinist countries, but a clergyman of limited qualifications, entitled to baptize, marry, and bury, but not to give ..the sacrament. " Readers" are not regular clergy men, but laymen of good character, licensed by the bishop to read prayers in churches or chapels where there is no clergyman. See Adolphus on the British Empire, Vol. I.
A clerical education in England is of much less length than in Calvinist countries; in Scotland, Holland, Switzerland, or the North of Germany, af ter going through a course of classics and philoso phy, a second course is required for theology solely, but in England the former is sufficient. The degree of bachelor of arts requires an examination and a university residence of three or four years • but to qualify for the acceptance of a curacy, a certificate of attending a single course of lectures in divinity is all that is necessary The number ofchurch livings in England and Wales is very great, being fully 10,500. From this multiplicity of benefices, and from the general small• ness of the incomes, have arisen two irregularities,— pluralities and non-residence,—both forbidden by the ancient statutes of the church, but both long sanc. tinned by usage. Many clergymen hold livings with out doing duty at any of them; others do duty in one or in two that are adjacent to each other, and have a curate for the more distant; while curates frequently do duty at two and sometimes at three distinct places of worship. To prevent, or at least to lessen the abuse of non-residence, an act of Par. liament was passed in 1813, directing that every non-resident incumbent should nominate a curate at a salary of not less than L.80 a-year, unless the en. tire living should be less. The effect of this act was to reduce the number of non-resident clergy.. men by 800 fully; they had previously been about 4700; but in 1815, the official return to Parliament of the incumbents in England and Wales was as follows : The rental of England and Wales was, by a late return, discriminated as follows in regard to tithes : Tithe free in Coto, • - L.7,904,379 Tithe free in part, . . 856,185 Free on payment of a haus, 498,823 Subject to tithe, . . 20,217,467 Total, L.29,476,854 A part, and by no means an inconsiderable one, of the tithes of England, is held by laymen ; but as the church has other sources of income, its total reve nue is computed at nearly L.3,000,000 ; but the ab
sorption of large sums by several of the prelates (as the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, and London), and the accumulation of the best livings among a few individuals of influence, reduce the annual average income of the curates, or most numerous class, to little more than L.100 a-year.
Tithes necessarily fluctuate with the state of afri culture, and, during the distress of 1815, the de ci ency in this respect became alarming. It was then that the clergy felt what they should have felt long before, that tithe was an unsuitable and impolitic source of revenue. Application was made to Parlia ment, and the subject was for some time under seri ous discussion; but the rise of corn, in 1816 and 1817, prevented any other measure than an act founded on a Committee Report of 18th June 1816, authorizing the possessors of tithes (laymen as well as clergymen) to grant leases of them for a term not exceeding fourteen years.
A late return to Parliament (June 1817) specifies the incomes of those benefices where there is no parsonage-house, or at least none that forms a suit able residence.
A prior and more comprehensive return had stated the number of churches and chapels for the establish ed faith at 2533; and as these were inadequate (the members of the established church being about five millions, or half the population of England and Wales), an act was passed in 1818, and even pecu niary aid given by government, for the erection of a number of additional churches. The previous at tempts to raise the requisite funds by the issue of briefs and voluntary subscriptions, had exhibited a miserable specimen of misapplied labour; the ex pencee of the collection, and of the patent and stamps, absorbing more than half the money received from the subscribing parties. • A prebend is a provision in land or money given to a church in prcebendum, that is, for the support of a clergyman whose title may be either prebend ary or canon. Advowson (advocatio) is the right of presentation to a living, and was first vested in those laymen who were founders of, or benefactors to liv ings. A living is held in chewed= when, to pre vent its becoming void, it is committed (comma dater) until conveniently provided with a pastor. Modes (modes deciteandi) is a composition for tithes; it may be either perpetual, or during the lives of the contracting parties. The lay impropriators of tithe, so frequent in England, date from the dissolution of monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. ; patrons were then allowed to retain the tithes and glebe in their own hands, without appointing a clergyman ; iu cases of such appointment, the clergyman was called henries, or representative of the patron.