_I have lifted up my voice against one relic of the past which is most certainly doomed because it has been allowed to exist a great deal too long already; it is a_ survival _which I am deeply convinced is answerable for much of the corruption that hurts us, much of the offence taken and given, much of the laxity and very much of the deplorable want of discipline existing among us_. _The legal status of the beneficed clergy, in virtue of which they are freeholders for life in their several benefices, does not quite stand alone. The Parish Clerk, too, has a freehold in his benefice, and, after formal admission to it, he may retain it without fear of being turned out of it as long as the breath remains in his body. These freeholds in an office have been swept away in every other department of the public service, though they died hard and cost a good deal to abolish. The buying and selling of “places” and reversions or next presentations to them was as common in the State as in the Church not so very long ago. The odious system was swept away for ever by the simple expedient of making every public servant removable at pleasure for negligence, misconduct, inefficiency, or even less. It is only among the holders of ecclesiastical preferment that the old abomination survives. Because it survives, other things survive too which ought not to be tolerated. The first and foremost of these is the open sale of the right to present a clerk in orders to a cure of souls. But that is the least mischievous consequence of the present system being retained. There are other consequences which are far more serious. Among them is the almost entire want of movement and change, in the lives of the country clergy; the absence of fresh interests and of the invigorating stimulus of a new career, however humble, with new associations to give a zest to the performance, it may be, of the old duties, but discharged now among those who do not know all that you have to say, and are not yet tired of the sound of your voice, or at any rate thinking they would like to hear another. The rule in our country parishes is that where a man is set down at first, there he dies at last. Exchange of benefices is, I admit, more common than it used to be, partly because the benefices themselves are less valuable and less jealously kept in the patrons’ hands than they were; but even now exchanges are not often made and are not “negotiated” without some difficulty. To begin with, before two clergymen can change their cures, however much they may themselves be agreed, it is necessary that the consent of two patrons and two bishops should be obtained as a preliminary; and this is not always to be got for the asking. If a patron has bestowed preferment upon a clergyman with whose ministrations he is contented and something more, he is not too willing to part with him. If he has been so unfortunate as to have given the living to the wrong man, there may be very good reasons why he should