But in this diocese we should look in vain for instances of pluralists enjoying excessive revenues, or such as are described to be unfitting the condition of a churchman. There are certainly many cases of two benefices being held by the same person; but they are in most instances very small ones, and such as are singly inadequate to the decent maintenance of a clergyman. The poverty of so many preferments is the real evil which draws other bad consequences in its train: and it is to their improvement, up to a moderate amount, that we must look for the reformation of our church in respect to pluralities. An Act of Parliament, which passed in the session of 1831, has materially facilitated the improvements of livings in the patronage of ecclesiastical persons or corporations, by enabling them to charge upon their estates an augmentation of the benefices with which they are respectively connected; an enactment of which several ecclesiastical patrons have already availed themselves. The property of the See of Gloucester is, for the most part, leased in such a manner that I could hardly effect any improvement in small livings by those methods, except such an one as would commence at a very distant period, and probably not till the present generation had passed away. It is my intention not to satisfy myself with prospective improvement, but to devote, from the present time, a tenth part of the revenue of my See to the augmentation of small benefices; employing the sums so allotted in the manner most required by the circumstances of livings, and most likely to produce other improvements in their condition. The smallness of the endowment of my bishopric occasions me regret only because the assistance which it is in my power to extend to this object, as well as to the building of churches, chapels, and school-rooms, and other matters essential to the cause of religion, cannot correspond with my own wishes, or with the real wants of the diocese. But even my example may perhaps not be without effect: I entertain a strong hope that all ecclesiastical corporations will adopt such measures as are within their reach for improving the smaller livings in their gift, either immediately or prospectively. I may here mention that the Dean and Chapter of Westminster have recently come to a resolution to augment, without any delay, all their livings which are below 2007. a year in value, so as to raise them at least to that amount. In this diocese, indeed, the greater part of the small benefices are in the patronage of laymen, who likewise possess the impropriations of the respective parishes. But it would be injustice to doubt the willingness of these persons, who enjoy so much of the original endowment of the church, to do something towards the better support of the minister, upon whom the whole spiritual care of the parish rests. They cannot surely feel indifferent to the proper maintenance of the individual whose time and abilities are devoted to the moral and religious instruction of their families, their neighbours, and their tenantry. If we regard an advowson merely in the light of property, the patronage even of a small living, upon which there is a suitable residence for the incumbent, is a desirable object to the proprietor of the neighbouring estates; while the value of a neglected and houseless benefice is no more than the small difference between the amount of its income and the stipend of an officiating curate. GROVE CHURCH. (From the Preface to a Sermon preached at its Consecration, by the Rev. E. Pusey, B.D., Canon of Christ Church, &c.)* GROVE is one of ten contiguous villages, which (chiefly from being hamlets to other villages) have, within the memory of man, until very lately, had no * A sermon like this, so thoughtful, so eloquent, and so Christian, could not have been heard without the deepest emotions by any congregation, more especially by such a congregation on such an occasion. May it be hoped that Mr. Pusey will give us, cre long, not one, but many of his discourses.-ED. resident minister among them. They lie within a little circle, and the amount of their united population is 3062. Service has indeed been performed in most of them; in some places every Sunday, in others, once only in the month; in almost every case, however, by clergy, engaged at different distances in cures, which might amply occupy their whole powers. However disposed they might be to bestow upon these places the leisure which their own more direct occupations might allow, the strongest, because the imperceptible, influence, arising from the daily and incidental intercourse of the minister, was necessarily lost. The diminished service of the Lord's day was then but one portion of the destitution of these neglected villages. In Grove, the chapel also had long been desecrated; but tradition pointed out a building, which, though now inhabited as a cottage, had been once hallowed for that purpose; and the neighbouring field bears the name of Chapel Close. Grove, however, containing 520 inhabitants, had continued an appendage to Wantage, which is situate at a mile and a half distant, and whose single church is inadequate for its own population of 2762 souls. Under these circumstances, the Rev. R. L. Cotton, the first clergyman who had undertaken a cure within this district, a man of the most singularly simple and unpretending habits, felt it his duty to endeavour to obtain for Grove the blessings of a resident minister. The plan comprised the erection of a neat church, calculated to contain 300 people; a small residence for the minister, and an income, if it might be, of 70l. per annum. God has thus far blessed the work. A simple and neat church has been built at the expense of 860l. What is further necessary for the performance of public service and the decencies of public worship, has been provided by different individuals. The parsonage-house is nearly completed for about 7501. The Dean and Chapter of Windsor (the possessors of the great tithes in the parish, and the patrons of the living of Wantage) have settled 201. per annum for ever for the endowment; and the dean of Windsor, the incumbent of Wantage, has added 10%. About 320l. additional subscription, with the assistance which is usually bestowed in such cases by the Governors of Queen Anne's bounty, will, it is hoped, provide the income contemplated. Of the whole sum hitherto collected for these purposes, (1539.,) 817. was contributed by the proprietors of land in the parish; 401. was raised by the sale of a few pews; 150l. was granted by the Church Building Society; the rest has been furnished by strangers, to whom a noble example had been set by the original founders, the Rev. R. L. Cotton, and Captain Cotton, his brother. The cure of the Church is at present provided for by the Christian liberality of the Rev. G. Lillingstone, of Worcester College, who had undertaken to do the duty gratuitously for the first three years; and now, being called elsewhere, has engaged, during that period, to furnish the annual sum of 50l. The sum of 301. will be sufficient to convert the desecrated chapel, which is at a convenient distance from the present Church, into a commodious room for a weekly and Sunday school about to be established,* The following remarks come from a correspondent on whose taste and judgment full reliance may be placed. "The sermon was excellent in itself, and derived additional impressiveness from the deep interest which the preacher evidently felt in the cause which he was pleading. It drew tears from the venerable Bishop, as well as from a great proportion of the congregation. It is most gratifying to contemplate such a work undertaken and completed by the quiet zeal of an individual (an individual of a gentle and retiring character) unconnected with the scene of his exertions, excepting by proximity of residence, and by Christian sympathy. A few years ago a similar instance of zeal for the Christian instruction of his neighbours was given by an exemplary incumbent of Sunningwell, in the building of a chapel at Kennington. Kennington Chapel is built in the Anglo-Norman or Saxon style of architecture, and executed with remarkably good taste. It holds about 150 persons, VOL. II.-Oct. 1832. 2 B CULTIVATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. THE following statement will be found interesting, as exhibiting the number of acres in cultivation in the United Kingdom, and the different purposes specified, for which they are employed in England and Wales, as well as the number of farms, and the annual amount of property derived from agriculture : Cultivated England.........25,632,000 Uncultivated Wastes, Capable of Scotland..... 5,265,000 Ireland .12,525,280 In England and Wales it is calculated that there are 3,250,000 acres employed in the cultivation of wheat. 1,250,000 in that of barley and rye. 3,200,000 47,000 17,300,000 ... ... ... ... ... ... 37,094,000 acres, total of England and Wales. BEER HOUSES. THE Worcester Journal, in an article under the above heading, says—“We trust that one of the measures of the new Parliament will be the repeal of the Beer Act. No act of the legislature (except, perhaps, the lowering of the duties on spirits) ever inflicted such grievous injury upon the morals of the people." It refers principally to their baneful influence on what has hitherto been considered as the most moral portion of our population-the peasantry-and says, "We could name several villages in our own immediate neighbourhood, where there were no public houses, but which are now blessed with two, three, or more beer houses. We wish the framers and supporters of the Beer Act could see the labourer, instead of taking his wages home to his family, spending a large portion of them in drinking with the dissolute and debauched; they would see his wife and family left to pine in poverty, and want of every kind, half clothed and half fed, and heated with that brutal indifference which a habit of drinking never fails to produce. They would farther see the man passing through the various gradations of crime, until at length he is consigned to a gaol, and his family to a workhouse. Does not the experiente of every magistrate supply him with a counterpart of this picture? And what increase of revenue can compensate the nation for this breaking down of the character of the people? We are not fond of asking candidates for pledges, and was completed for 3501. Many will, no doubt, be surprised to hear that a church, by no means deficient in architectural beauty, and even ornaments, can be erected for a sum so inconsiderable It may be added, that the Bishop of Salisbury, on his late visitation, consecrated three churches besides Grove, which is one among a thousand proofs of the carelessness of the church.-ED. but if we were disposed to do so, we should feel inclined to ask, "Will you vote for the repeal of the Beer Act? The man who would erase that Act from our Statute Book would be entitled to the thanks of his country." The Chester Chronicle says-"It is not generally known, that by one of the provisions of the Beer Act it is enacted that magistrates may convict an offender on each of any number of charges that may be brought against him, for keeping his house open and selling beer or ale before four o'clock in the morning, and after ten o'clock in the evening. The magistrates for the Nantwich division in this county recently convicted a beer seller for thirteen separate offences (forty shillings each) for retailing beer on one and the same evening." POOR ALLOTMENTS ACT.*-Cap. 42 requires Trustees of Allotments for the Poor under Inclosure Acts, in conjunction with the parish officers, to let portions of from one rood to an acre to industrious cottagers belonging to the parish, at a fair rent, the persons hiring to be bound to keep the land in due state of cultivation; a vestry to be held annually in the first week of September, of which ten days' notice is to be given, to let the land; the rent to be paid yearly; in default of payment or proper tillage, the tenant to be liable to quit at a week's notice, and in case of refusal, possession to be recovered by summary process before two Justices; and arrears of rent to be recovered in the same manner. The rents to be applied to the purchase of fuel for the poor. If the allotments are inconveniently situated, they may be let and others hired in lieu of them. No houses are to be erected on the land. "I have procured returns of the sums actually laid out upon the repair of 11 Cathedrals, and they give an average of 10421. per annum. This average is below the sum laid out annually upon some of our largest Cathedrals, but it is too high as a general culculation. I cannot, however, venture to reduce it, when I consider the contingency of such events as the fires at Westminster and York, and the falling of the west end of Hereford Cathedral. These calamities are now met by a large temporary sacrifice on the part of the Chapter."-Dr. Burton's Sequel to Remarks, &c. MISCELLANEA. THE CHOLERA IN PARIS.+ (From the French of A. Bazin.) Ir had been announced to us long before; we had traced its rapid and threatening march upon the map; and there was now no barrier between us and it except that narrow channel whose waves are charged alternately to carry away, or bring back to us, our restored or exiled kings. Yet its near neighbourhood alarmed us much less than those first reports from foreign countries, of which the terror was heightened by distance and novelty. It seemed as if our fears had exhausted themselves upon those first descriptions of its ravages, and the large catalogues of its earliest victims. It is not in the nature of the Parisian to dwell long upon an evil which he cannot see. Let them say what The Act from which this is extracted will be given in full in the next number. This paper is inserted as affording a practical illustration of the unspeakable misery of a people under affliction when they will not think of its Author, nor humble themselves before him. The picture is the more striking from the levity of the painter, though even he seems to have felt far more than most of his countrymen. they will, he still trusts to the healthfulness of his beloved city, to the pure air of its crowded streets, to the limpid waters of the Seine, fed by a thousand sewers, and the wholesome exhalations of its gutters and its drains. When the pestilence delayed its approach, he concluded, of course, that it had retreated before his patrols and his caricatures; and the danger soon vanished as completely from his mind as the passion of the last year, the insurrection of the past month, or the scandal of yesterday. We went on then as usual, in the same uniform yet unsteady course,-peaceful we may not call it—it wanted the repose and the security of peace; nor was it war, for then we might have enjoyed animation and renown. In legislation, we had just arrived at the rejection of the Divorce Bill; in finance, we were discussing a saving of 500l.; in diplomacy, we had reached the 56th protocol; the prosperity of the drama had been shewn by the closing of two theatres, and the consistency of our politicians by a sudden change from the oilskin hat to the bonnet rouge. In short, we were approaching the end of March, 1832, just looking out for the budding leaves, and hoping to escape for a while from the din of political discussion. It was in one of those sweet but treacherous days of spring, when a too early sunshine suddenly heats the blood, and then leaves it to be chilled by the sharp evening breeze, a season always fertile in colds and coughs, and the thousand evils attendant on a sudden check of perspiration; it was something of a fête too, for we have still preserved one form of Lent, the observance of that day which suspends its rigours. The whole population of Paris were swarming on its boulevards, eager to hear the children cry Carnival, and enjoying themselves amidst noise and dust and crowds, unmolested by a municipal guard, for the police were content on this occasion to leave the people to divert themselves at their own risk and peril. In the midst of this joyous crowd, about thirty or forty masks were playing a thousand antics to attract attention, and thrusting their obscene and paltry jests into the cars of the multitude around. The sky was clear, but a sharp north wind was withering every blossom on the almond trees. It was then, in the midst of that gay and reckless crowd, amidst such jests and noise and folly, that a fearful whisper was heard; one listening group caught from the other the dreaded name of Cholera. But, happily, the report was traced to the Moniteur, and, being official, was of course disbelieved. "And how, indeed," it was confidently asked, "should the Cholera, of which we had heard last at London, shew itself all at once in Paris, without being detected by the Custom House at Calais, or announced by telegraphic dispatch? We should have been regularly informed of its approach; it ought to have advanced by gradual stages; in fact, it has no right to make its appearance here.' Such were the loud and confident assertions of many who sought to assume a tone of courage; but no sooner did the government announce the measures which they thought right to take against the pestilence, than these same loud and confident boasters might be seen to tremble with fear. But how much worse was it on the following day, when the physicians, by order of government, published their directions for the preservation of health. What, in fact, is more likely to excite alarm than a list of cautions and preservatives? what surer way to agitate man's spirits than to entreat him above all things to be calm? The more you preach to him against fear, the more you increase his panic. It is only occupation that can furnish relief; but, at this moment, every occupation was, by some means or other, connected with the object of our dread. At home, it was our duty to attend to the prescriptions of the physician; our houses were to be purified with chloride of lime, the very smell of which seemed impregnated with Cholera; and we were haunted by the idea of Cholera in our flannel girdle and woollen stockings. Abroad, every shop window exhibited a list of preservatives or antidotes; if you sought amusement in reading, you were offered a history of the travels of the pestilence, or its murderous ravages, or its various characters, |