“What are your views as to the poverty of the clergy?”
“It will always be a satisfaction to me to remember that I had the honour of proposing the Queen Victoria Clergy Fund both to the London Diocesan Conference and Convocation as the best memorial of the Diamond Jubilee of the late Queen's reign, and it has succeeded fairly well. We raise the stipends of incumbents in London to over £200 a year, and we hand in upwards of £3,000 to the Central Fund annually. Many of the London clergy are very improperly paid, find difficulties about food and clothing, and bring up their families under circumstances of considerable hardship. The poverty of the clergy in the country is often greater. In some cases the endowments in London are barely sufficient for the spiritual wants of far smaller populations. The Church really needs endowing over again. More than half the benefices of the Church of England—upwards of 7,000—have incomes of less than £180 a year. I think this, as well as the general unsettlement of thought, has for the present considerably checked the supply of curates. Most of the individual clergy, particularly in London, are worthy of all respect and esteem; but, as a whole, the Church in the present day is wanting in cohesion and unity, and anyone who, in one direction or the other, disturbs the balance, incurs very grave responsibility.”
