benefice exceeds £500, and either the population amounts to 3000, or there is a second church or chapel with a hamlet containing 400 persons, the bishop may require the incumbent to nominate an assistant curate, and, on his failing to do so within three months, may himself appoint one with a stipend not exceeding £150; subject to a similar appeal to the archbishop as in the case where the duties have been inadequately performed.[129] 4. An incumbent has an absolute discretion as to permitting or refusing any other clergyman, not being licensed as a curate to the parish, to officiate within his parish, with this qualification, that he has no right to permit any clergyman to officiate in his parish who by law is debarred from taking duty in the diocese. With regard to this, no unbeneficed clergyman has, strictly speaking, a right to officiate publicly in a diocese, either in church or elsewhere, without the licence or consent of the bishop, and his doing so is an ecclesiastical offence.[130] But if the bishop has not actually inhibited him from officiating, a clergyman may take merely temporary duty without obtaining the formal licence of the bishop.[131] If, without being either beneficed or licensed to a curacy in the diocese, he frequently takes duty therein, he should obtain a general licence from the bishop for the purpose. Canons 50 and 52 direct incumbents and churchwardens not to suffer any one to preach in their churches without showing his licence to preach, and require the names of strangers who preach with the date of their preaching and the name of the bishop by whom they were licensed, to be entered in a book for the information of the bishop of the diocese. 5. In some parishes provision has been made for the election or appointment of lecturers or preachers for the sole purpose of delivering lectures or preaching sermons. In any such parish the bishop, if he thinks fit, with the assent of the incumbent, may require the lecturer or preacher to perform other ministerial duties as assistant curate or otherwise, and may vary the duties from time to time. If the duties so prescribed are not performed, the defaulter may be removed from his office.[132] Footnotes [114] (1838) 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, s. 82. For the stamp duty on licences, and exemptions therefrom, see (1891) 54 & 55 Vict. c. 39, sch. "Licence." [115] 28 & 29 Vict. c. 122, ss. 1, 8; see ch. ii. § 6 (i.). [116] Johns, vol. i. p. 95; see Ex parte Carlyon (1903) _Times_, Dec. 19; s.c. nom. R. _v._ Bp. of Liverpool (1904) _Times_, May 4. [117] (1838) 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, s. 98; Poole _v._ Bp. of London (1859) 5 Jur. N. S. 522; (1861) 14 Moo. P. C. 262; 7 Jur. N. S. 347. [118] (1536) 28 Hen. 8, c. 11; (1838) 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, ss. 99-101; Dakins _v._ Seaman (1842) 9 M. & W. 777; (1885) 48 & 49 Vict. c. 54, s. 10. [119] 34 & 35 Vict. c. 45 (Sequestration Act, 1871).