Being such as we are, men of flesh and blood as others, and occupying the frightfully impregnable position which we do; fenced about with all sorts of legal safeguards which put us above our parishioners on the one hand, and out of the reach of our bishops on the other; having, as we have, an almost unlimited power of turning our benefices into sinecures while we reside upon them, or of leaving them to the veriest hireling to serve while we are disporting ourselves in foreign travel almost as long as we should choose to stay away;--I know no more splendid testimony to the high and honourable character of the English clergy than that which would be wrung from their worst enemies who should fairly consider what the law of the land would allow of their being if they were so disposed--and what, in fact, they are. It is because as a class they are so animated by a high ideal; because as a class their conscience is their law; it is, therefore, that, in spite of legal safeguards which in their tendency are corrupting and demoralizing, as a class they are incomparably _better than they need be_. The clergy of the Church of England constitute the one protected interest in the universe that does not languish. Nevertheless, _C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre_. These things ought not so to be. * * * * * How then are the evils inseparable from the present state of things to be remedied? They are evils which do not appear on the surface where the clergy themselves are conscientious, high-minded, and zealous, throwing themselves into their duties with self-denying earnestness, and hardly aware of how much they might abuse their powers if they were so disposed. They are very real and scandalous evils in the case of the careless, the worthless, and the immoral; that is, exactly in the case of those whom we can least afford to leave as they are. I can see no other plan for utilizing to the utmost the resources already at our disposal than by sweeping away altogether this archaic anomaly of the parson’s freehold. We are all a great deal too tenacious of vested rights, a great deal too reluctant to deal harshly with those who have accepted any office under certain conditions expressed or implied, to allow of our disturbing the present occupants of the benefices, or to bring them under any new _régime_. As long as the existing beneficed clergy choose to retain their hold upon their benefices, obviously they must be left undisturbed; as they are freeholders, so they must continue to be, and practically irremovable; but, as they drop off either by death or voluntary resignation, let the freehold be vested in other hands. Let us follow the main lines upon which the Endowed School Commissioners pursued their revolution in the case of the educational reserve fund, learning experience by their blunders, their failures or their _fads_. And when we do so, where shall we find ourselves?