priest in fever time, falls sick himself, and,
having paid out of his wretched pittance for
performance of his duty, returns sick and thin to
work, divides his few shillings so that they may
yield him a mere bit of daily bread till quarter
day, and then faints with hunger in his pulpit
because the quarterly cheque had not arrived
punctually ; when these things happen, and are
only types of a great class of sufferings borne in
most cases silently with pious resignation, somebody
must speak out. So Mr. Jervis felt ; and,
having heard what facts he has at last ventured
to proclaim, and nobody has ventured to deny,
our duty is to add to their publicity.

We shall suggest no remedy. We shall impute
no wrong to anybody. The first step towards the
removal of an evil is distinct acquaintance with it.
It is true that we cannot say in the face of the
Ecclesiastical Commission that there is the best
possible distribution of the Church revenues;
but we know that no one person is answerable
for the present state of a long-standing grievance.
We honestly believe, also, that many—
and we know that some — of our bishops are in
no mean degree active as brother-clergymen in
yielding private and unostentatious help out of
their better means to the poor clergy of their
dioceses. That the torture of the distress
suffered by the lower ten thousand of the English
clergy should have been so long and so well
concealed by its victims, is a matter for the
admiration of all men, whatever their religious
creed. What we know was not told for the
public ear by those whose stories, with all due
reserve, are now for a wise purpose made known
to us.

Let us look at a part of the case submitted to
the Clergy Relief Society by a gentleman in the
twentieth year of his ministry, of whom a
competent witness says: " He is a man of strong,
active, and in every respect superior order of
mind; indeed, there are few men of whose
abilities I entertain so favourable an opinion.
He is an excellent scholar. In classical literature
I believe he has few superiors. As a
Christian minister he is fully alive to the
responsibilities of his office, and is diligent in the
discharge of his duties."

This learned, active, suffering minister of the
English Church says: " Now everything is gone,
with the exception of our cow, a few hundred of
meal, and a scanty supply of potatoes. This is
our only provision: on this we support life day
by day. To heighten all this suffering, my three
youngest boys lie sick and weak, spent by a
wasting sickness, and no relief to all this sooner
than May next. ... I have just £60 to
feed, clothe, and educate five children. Our
state baffles description; I could not tell you
all. Day by day I carry with me a troubled
mind — ever engaged. I spend sleepless nights,
and the thoughts of my family are ever before
me; I am truly miserable. I can hardly endure
to look at them — hungry and naked. The
gloomy prospect presents itself, that in a few
short weeks our stock of provisions will be
exhausted, and we must either starve, or turn
abroad upon the world as paupers. No credit
is to be had ; and everything is gone that would
afford relief. I could not see my little children
flock round their mother and cry for bread,
while an article remained that would supply
their present want. Such is the state to which
I am reduced, after twenty years of faithful
service. Clothing would be most acceptable ;
I am almost ashamed to appear in public, and
my wife has for some time been prevented going
to church. At night we feel the want of blanketing,
and are obliged to use our clothes as
covering."

Another clergyman, whose wife lay dangerously
ill, secretly begged of the fund clothes for
his six girls, his letter being accompanied with
a testimonial from his archdeacon. This poor
gentleman asked that his application should not
be made known in his own part of the country.
"For," said he, "I am surrounded by rich
persons, who look upon poverty as a crime. They
know that I am struggling, and very poor, but
an appeal to public charity would seem like a
deep sin in their eyes. I know that a poor
clergyman in this neighbourhood, whose child
actually died from want of necessary food, was so
snubbed and cut for appealing to these rich
folk, or rather because a friend appealed for
him, that he was obliged to give up his incumbency
and take a curacy near London."

It is best that these cases should be told in
the words of the sufferers themselves. The
resigned tone, the spirit often painfully subdued
by suffering, the querulous note of occasional
impatience, or of sickness of the body, as well
as of the heart, it is better that a reader should
be left to feel than that a writer should endeavour
to describe.

A poor vicar says: " If I could only now get
£7 or £8, it would save us from a great deal of
misery. I have six little children, and a sickly
wife. We do not know what to do."

A well-bred English lady, in the depth of
suffering, wrote by the death-bed of her first-
born child the narrative that follows: "My
husband has been twenty-three years in this
diocese. The small property he had on entering
the Church has been taken from him by
treachery, years since. We have had ten children:
six have been taken away by consumption.
The long illness and loss of a specially beloved
daughter caused my husband to have an
apoplectic and paralytic seizure, which entirely
prostrated his already weakened constitution. For
two years he was unable to take duty of any
kind. Our income is not £120. We have lost
two children within the last twelve months: one
of these, our eldest son, has left a destitute
widow and infant entirely dependent upon us, as
the widow is ill and unable to work. We have
been in the greatest danger of losing our house,
and had it not been for the archbishop, the
Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, and Porteus
Fund, we should have lost everything. Last
spring my husband ruptured a blood-vessel, and
for weeks his life was despaired of; anxiety has
caused a fresh rupture, and since Christmas he