“Let not a hundred humble pastors starve, In this or any land of Christendom, While one or two impalaced, mitred, throned, And banqueted, burlesque if not blaspheme The holy penury of the SON OF GOD.” { 26b}
The Rector of Christchurch, Lisson Grove, lately advocated the claims of the Diocesan Church Building Society. No doubt it is time that something should be done for the Poor of this District, but I am clearly of opinion that it would be wise to postpone any efforts in this direction, until the cheap experiment of Free Libraries had been tried in St. Marylebone.
Such an Institution in Lisson Grove would to the Ojibbeways especially be a _Home of Refuge_, or what I should term a SCHOOL CHURCH.—Good Books are the best of Missionaries. Parcels of hundred volumes each at five pounds per parcel, can be purchased of _C. Mudie_, 511, New Oxford Street; but CURATES are not so easily obtained. No Institutions, no contrivance, no expenditure, can multiply this sacred crop. As one of the Laity of the Bishop of London’s Diocese I own I demur to additional “Buildings” unless I have some voice in reference to the Incumbents, &c. It is time the Laity “assisted” “Parochial Extension” in other ways besides money contributions. Why do the Bishops and dignified Clergy persist in IGNORING Laymen in their Ecclesiastical arrangements? Why regard them as mere machines for extracting gold or silver? Before I can reply to the Bishop of London’s Letter to the Laity of the Diocese, I respectfully request a satisfactory answer to this question. Will your Lordship aid the Laity in their just claim to a seat in Convocation? The Laity are not excluded from Convocation in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, and if the laity of the Church of England are to be rigidly excluded, Church Building appeals will command little, or no attention.
The Laymen of 1860 are not the unlettered men of twenty years since, and to deny them any deliberation as to the qualification of Curates or Incumbents, reading or preaching capabilities, appears to me very bad policy on the part of our Ecclesiastical superiors.
