CATHEDRAL APPOINTMENTS BILL. (Hansard, 3 May 1853)

The BISHOP of SALISBURY

said, he wished to state on what grounds he was able to give his assent to the second reading of this Bill. He looked upon it, in conjunction with other measures, as a means of effecting what, he trusted, would be a wise and effectual reform in our cathedral establishments. He had long and earnestly desired to see such a reform brought to pass, and had, according to the humble measure of his ability, lost no opportunity of advancing it. But in speaking of the reform of our cathedral establishments, he wished to guard himself against being supposed to concur in the views of those who represented these institutions as labouring under a degree of corruption with which they were not chargeable, or as being in the possession of wealth which it was altogether a mistake to suppose that they possessed. The instances of gross abuse occasionally brought before the public were merely the dying embers of a bygone system, the recurrence of which was now effectually guarded against by efficient legislation. For example, he thought he might now say that the evil of pluralities, and with it that of non-residence, was absolutely abolished in the Church. With respect to the allegations as to the great wealth of our capitular establishments, he would remind their Lordships that a former Act, passed in Her present Majesty's reign, took from them so large a part of their revenues, that he was satisfied that what remained would be barely adequate for the support of those objects for which our cathedral bodies were instituted, and which, he was sure, their Lordships would desire to see carried out far more efficiently than they 1023 were now. Nevertheless, he was ready to admit that those institutions stood in need of a full and comprehensive reform. Looking upon them as great institutions for promoting the worship of Almighty God, and for diffusing the blessings of a religious education, and endowed for those purposes with large revenues, he admitted that the Church did not find those great results flowing from them which might have been reasonably anticipated, and of which he thought they were capable under a better administration. For himself, he cheerfully tendered his thanks to the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) for the Commission of Inquiry into the institutions in question, which was issued at the instance of the Government of the noble Earl. For if further inquiry into this subject was needed—and he held that it was—a Commission was the best mode of obtaining it; and he thought that the present Commission was constituted in such a manner as to command general confidence. The former Commission of ecclesiastical inquiry was said to consist too exclusively of members of the episcopate; but that objection had been avoided in the Commission which had been recently issued, and which comprised, among its members, men carefully and wisely selected from the episcopal bench and the capitular bodies, who were capable of giving a great deal of important information touching the subject-matters of their investigation. It also included noble Lords of this, and hon. Gentlemen of the other House of Parliament, of undoubted attachment to our Church, men fully alive—some of them too much alive, he might sometimes think —to the supposed defects in her institutions. He trusted, therefore, they might expect from a Commission so constituted a careful, searching, and, he would even add, a severe inquiry, a calm and deliberate consideration of the information they might obtain, and comprehensive and effectual— and to be effectual they must be bold—recommendations of reform. It would not be suitable for him now to go in detail into the nature of the reforms which he hoped to see introduced; but one or two leading points he might refer to. And, first, he would suggest that there should be a constant residence of all members of capitular bodies at their cathedrals, and that those persons should be forbidden to hold benefices for the cure of souls at a distance therefrom. This was no new opinion on his part. It was a view he had advo- 1024 cated fifteen years ago; and which he had put in practice on the only opportunity he had ever had of exercising patronage of this kind. The only residentiary stall which had ever been at his disposal, now twelve years ago, he had given on the express condition that the holder of it should reside constantly at the cathedral, and not take other and distant preferments with it. And the result of that appointment had entirely fulfilled his best hopes. The gentleman in question, the Rev. Walter Kerr Hamilton, had, for twelve years, exhibited a model of what the resident Canon of a Cathedral might be, bringing into it a new spirit, effecting in it many practical reforms, and being himself as constantly and earnestly engaged in the duties of his calling as any clergyman in a laborious parochial charge. He would also name a careful consideration and development of those institutions for religious education which were more or less found in connexion with those cathedral establishments. He would name, too, a full investigation into the state of all parishes of which capitular establishments held the impropriate tithes —a matter which he thought was greatly overlooked in the former inquiry, but which lay at the foundation of any satisfactory reform. For, himself, and he trusted also for the members of the Church at large, he might say, that though there were many things in the former Act of Cathedral Reform they could have wished otherwise, and which they had been obliged at the time to oppose, they nevertheless did not wish now to interfere with what the Legislature had already done, but to look upon the provisions of the former Act relating to those institutions, as past and done, and with which it would not be wise to interfere. He considered it to be the duty of the present Commission to repair the omissions of the former one, and to recommend in what manner the funds—he would say the very moderate funds—now remaining to the cathedral bodies might be employed most for the advantage of the Church. And he believed the capitular bodies themselves would not be unreasonably opposed to the carrying into operation of such recommendations as a Commission constituted as he had stated might make. Those bodies might think they had not been over-tenderly dealt with, and might therefore not be altogether disposed to look at further legislation with respect to themselves in so favourable a light as their Lordships might wish; but if his feeble voice 1025 could reach any among them, he would earnestly entreat them to look favourably at any proposition coming from the quarter he had named, even though such a proposition might in some respects be distasteful to them, remembering that they were bound to make those institutions efficient in the greatest possible degree for the high and holy purposes for which alone they had been constituted in their established state, and entrusted with the revenues committed to them. He might be permitted to say, that the capitular body with which he was connected were prepared to view this subject in the same light in which he himself looked upon it, and to give their co-operation to a wise and well-considered reform, based on the principles which he had endeavoured to sketch out to their Lordships. They had shown this, first, by giving the most full and accurate information in answer to the inquiries addressed to them — information which would supply all that could be needed in this respect as regarded this chapter; and, secondly, at a meeting of the dean and chapter, which he attended at their request, they resolved unanimously to make suggestions to the Commissioners respecting their own body, calculated to carry out such views as he had now expressed. He was sure, therefore, that the Chapter of Salisbury would give their assistance for such an object; and he had good hope that such would also be found to be the case with other capitular bodies. And it was in this hope that he the more readily gave his assent to this Bill.