now, however, grant to alien friends, resident in this country, a certificate of neutralization; which confers on the grantee, on his taking an oath of allegiance, all the rights and capacities of a natural-born British subject.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE CLERGY.

THE people are divisible into two kinds; the clergy and the laity the former will be the subject of the following chapter.

This body of men, being set apart from the people, in order to attend to the service of God, have large privileges allowed them. A clergyman cannot be compelled to serve on a jury; nor can he be chosen to any temporal office; as bailiff, constable, or the like. During his attendance on divine service he is privileged from arrest, the infraction of this privilege being an indictable misdemeanour. But as they have their privileges, so also they have their disabilities. Clergymen are incapable of sitting in the House of Commons, or of being councillors or aldermen in boroughs. They are not allowed to farm more than eighty acres, nor to be a partner in any trade or dealing for profit, unless it be carried on by the other partners. No spiritual person can be a director or managing partner; but he may carry on the business of a schoolmaster or be a director or partner in any benefit or insurance society, and he may buy or sell to the extent incidental to his occupation of land, but not in person or at a public market.

In the constitution of our ecclesiastical polity there are divers ranks and degrees.

I. An archbishop or bishop is elected by the chapter of his cathedral church, by virtue of a licence and nomination from the crown. Election was, in early times, the usual mode of elevation to the episcopal chair; and in this the laity as well as the clergy participated; the king reserving the right of confirming the election, and granting investiture of the temporalities. Hence the right of appointing to bishoprics is said to

have been in the crown of England, in Saxon times: because confirmation and investiture were in effect a donation. The popes, however, excepted to the granting these investitures, by the delivery of a ring, and pastoral staff or crosier: contending that this was an attempt to confer spiritual jurisdiction: and long and eager were the contests thus occasioned. At length, the Emperor Henry V. agreed to confer investitures per sceptrum and not per annulum et baculum; and when the kings of England and France consented also to alter the form, and receive only homage from the bishops for their temporalities, the court of Rome was practically successful. Our King John was prevailed upon afterwards to give up, to the monasteries and cathedrals, the free right of electing their prelates, whether abbots or bishops: reserving only the custody of the temporalities during vacancy. But the ancient right of nomination if it ever existed, was, in effect, restored to the crown by the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20; which enacts that the king may send the dean and chapter his congé d'élire, to proceed to election; which is always to be accompanied with a letter containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect; disobedience to which recommendation involves the penalties of a præmunire.

An archbishop is the chief of the clergy in a province; and has the inspection of the bishops of that province, as well as of the inferior clergy. In his own diocese, he exercises episcopal jurisdiction; as in his province he exercises archiepiscopal. As archbishop he, upon receipt of the sovereign's writ, calls the bishops and clergy of his province to meet in convocation; and to him all appeals are made from inferior jurisdictions within his province. During the vacancy of any see in his province, he is guardian of the spiritualities thereof, as the crown is of the temporalities; and he executes all ecclesiastical jurisdiction therein. If an archiepiscopal see be vacant, the dean and chapter are the spiritual guardians, ever since the office of prior of Canterbury was abolished at the Reformation. The archbishop is entitled to present by lapse to all the ecclesiastical livings in the disposal of his diocesan bishops, if not filled within six months; and he has a customary prerogative, like the royal corody, when a bishop is consecrated by him, to name a clerk or chaplain of his own to be provided for by such suffragan

bishop. The archbishop of Canterbury has also, by statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21, the power of granting dispensations in any case, not contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the law of God, where the pope used formerly to grant them; which is the foundation of his granting special licences to marry at any place or time; and on this also is founded the right he exercises of conferring degrees, in prejudice of the universities.

The authority of a bishop, besides the administration of certain ordinances peculiar to that order, consists principally in inspecting the manners of the clergy, and punishing them if necessary, by suspension and deposition, his jurisdiction over the laity being obsolete. For this purpose he has several courts under him, and may visit at pleasure every part of his diocese; his chancellor being appointed to hold his courts for him, and to assist him in matters of ecclesiastical law. The clergy can now only be prosecuted under the Church Discipline Act, which enables the Bishop to issue a commission, and on its report to proceed either personally or send the case by Letters of Request to the court of the province. But in certain cases where complaint is made of non-obedience to the Rubric on the details of Divine Worship, the offending minister is to be prosecuted under the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1875.

It is also the business of a bishop to institute and induct to all livings in his diocese, to execute writs of sequestration issued by the high court, and to license, and, if necessary, withdraw, subject to appeal to the archbishop, the licence, and regulate the stipend, of curates.

Archbishoprics and bishoprics may become void by death, deprivation for any very gross and notorious crime, and also by resignation; which may be made with the reservation of a pension out of the emoluments of the see.

II. A dean and chapter are the council of the bishop, to assist him in affairs of religion, and also in the temporal concerns of his see. When the rest of the clergy were settled in their parishes these were reserved for the celebration of divine service in the cathedral; and the chief of them, who presided over the rest, obtained the name of decanus or dean, being probably at first

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appointed to superintend ten canons or prebendaries. All deans were formerly elected by the chapter, but are now appointed directly by the crown. The canons or prebendaries, constituting the chapter, are sometimes appointed by the crown, sometimes by the bishop, and sometimes elected by each other.

Deaneries and prebends may become void, like a bishopric, by death, by deprivation, or by resignation. Also I may here mention once for all, that if a dean, prebendary, or other spiritual person, be made bishop of a see in England, all the perferments of which he was before possessed are void; and the crown may present to them in the right of the prerogative royal.

III. An archdeacon is usually appointed by the bishop himself; and has a kind of jurisdiction in his archdeaconry, originally derived from the bishop, but now independent and distinct from his. He therefore visits the clergy; and has his separate court for punishment of offenders by spiritual censures, and for hearing causes of ecclesiastical cognizance.

IV. The rural deans are very ancient officers of the church, but almost grown out of use. They were deputies of the bishop, to inspect the conduct of the clergy, report dilapidations, examine candidates for confirmation, and to exercise in minuter matters, an inferior degree of judicial and coercive authority.

V. The next, and the most numerous, order are parsons and vicars. A parson, persona ecclesiæ, is one that has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, persona, because by his person the church is represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to protect and defend its rights by a perpetual succession. A parson has the freehold of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But these are sometimes appropriated; that is to say, the benefice is annexed to some corporation, either sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; a contrivance which seems to have sprung from the policy of the monks.

At the first establishment of parochial clergy, the tithes were distributed in a fourfold division; one for the bishop, another for the fabric of the church, a third for the poor, and the fourth for the incumbent. When the sees became amply

endowed, the bishops were prohibited from demanding their share; and the division was into three parts only. And hence it was inferred by the monasteries, that a small part was sufficient for the officiating priest; and that the remainder might well be applied to the use of their own fraternities, subject to the burden of repairing the church, and providing for its constant supply. And therefore they bought all the advowsons within their reach, and appropriated the benefices to the use of their own corporation. The tithes and the glebe they kept in their own hands, without presenting any clerk, they themselves undertaking to provide for the service of the church.

Thus were most, if not all, of the appropriations at present existing originally made; being annexed to bishoprics, prebends, and religious houses, including nunneries and certain military orders, all of which were spiritual corporations. Under Henry VIII., the appropriations which belonged to those religious houses, were given to the king. And from this have sprung all the lay appropriations or secular parsonages in the kingdom; they having been afterwards granted by the crown.

These appropriating corporations were wont to depute one of their own body to perform divine service in those parishes of which the society was the parson. This officiating minister was called vicarius or vicar, and his stipend was at the discretion of the appropriator; who was compelled from time to time, by various statutes, to make a proper provision for him; which endowment has usually been by a portion of the glebe, and a particular share of the tithes which the appropriator found it most troublesome to collect, and which is therefore generally called privy or small tithes. But no particular rule having been observed, some vicarages are liberally, some scantily, endowed and hence also the tithes of many things, are in some parishes rectorial, and in some vicarial rights. The distinction, therefore, of a parson and vicar is this: the parson has for the most part the whole right to all the ecclesiastical dues in his parish; but a vicar has generally an appropriator over him, entitled to the best part of his profits, to whom he is in effect perpetual curate, with a standing salary.

The method of becoming a parson or vicar is the same. Το both there are four requisites: holy orders, presentation, insti