Slike strani
PDF
ePub

and they may, after inquiry, as in the act mentioned, dissolve a united school district. They can also order one school district to contribute towards the expense of schools in other districts. It is not required as a condition of admittance into any public elementary school that any child shall attend or avoid any Sunday school or place of religious worship, or that he shall attend any religious instruction in the school or elsewhere against the wish of his parents, or that he shall attend the school on any day set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which his parent belongs. Religious instruction or observance must be at a fixed time, either at the beginning or end of the meeting of the school. The school must be open at all times to any of the inspectors appointed on the recommendation of the education department. No religious catechisms or formularies distinctive of any particular denomination are to be taught in the school. In every school district sufficient amount of accommodation in public elementary schools, available for all the children resident in the district (s. 5) whose efficient education is not otherwise seen to, must be provided; and where there is in any district an insufficient amount of such accommodation, a school board is to be formed, whose duty it is to supply the deficiency, and, if they fail to supply it, the education department can do so instead.. The school board it horoughs is to be elected by the persons on the burgess roll; in a parish out of the metropolis, by the ratepayers. The manner o election is given in the act, and also the method of electing th metropolitan school board. The school boards may delegate t a body of managers any of their powers except that of raisin money, though they retain their responsibility. The schoo boards may fix the amount to be paid by each child, not to excee ninepence a week. Each child must pay something, though i cases of poverty the payment may be made by the school board fo a renewable period, not exceeding six months (s. 25), such pay ment not to be deemed to be parochial relief; payment also may t remitted for six months. The school board may provide, by buik ing or otherwise, sufficient school-houses, and may also purchase take on lease any land. Compulsory power to purchase land ca be exercised, and the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, incorporated with this act. The board may contribute to, an build and maintain, if desirable, certified industrial school The expenses incident to the working of this act are to be paid o of one fund called the school fund, and all moneys, however raise are to be paid into the hands of a treasurer, and form part of t school board exchequer. Fees of scholars, the parliamenta grants, and moneys raised by loan, form the school fund. deficiency is to be made up by levying a rate (s. 54). No parl mentary grant is to be made to any school board in respect instruction in religious subjects, and no grant is to exceed income of the school for that year, derived from other sourc

A

Every child in good health, who is not under efficient instruction in some other manner, and who is between the ages of five and thirteen years, can be compelled to attend school at the time fixed in accordance with the rules of the act, if there is a public elementary sebool within three miles of the residence of the child; and the school board has power to impose a penalty for a breach of this mle. This penalty can be recovered in a summary way, but it I must not exceed with costs 58. for each offence.

CHAPTER II.

The Clergy.

THE elergy is a term used in contradistinction to the laity, and comprebends all persons in holy orders and ecclesiastical offices. As spiritual persons are not expected to be entangled in temporal affairs, the clergy enjoy peculiar privileges; they cannot be compelled to serve in war, on a jury, nor to appear at a court-leet or view of frank pledge neither can they be chosen to any secular office, as sheriff, bailiff, constable, or the like. They are incapable of sitting in the House of Commons. In going and returning from parochial duty they are exempt from turnpike tolls.

:

The 1 & 2 W. 4, c. 45, empowers bishops, deans, and other eeclesiastical persons to augment the incomes of poor vicarages and curacies, by reservations out of rectories impropriate, and tithes belonging to them. Ecclesiastical corporations, colleges, &c., holding impropriate rectories or tithes, may annex the same to any. church or chapel within the parish in which the rectory lies, or the tithes arise: but such augmentations not to be granted to any benefice exceeding £300 in yearly value, or so as to raise any benefice to a greater amount than £350, or £300 exclusive of surplus fees. Power is also given, with consent of ordinary and patron, to rectors and vicars to charge their benefices for the benefit of any chapel of ease, or district church or chapel.

By 6 W. 4, c. 20, no ecclesiastical person, or master or guardian of any hospital, to grant a renewal of any lease for two or more lives, until one of the lives shall have dropped, and then only for the lives of the survivors and additional life, not exceeding three in the whole. In leases for forty years no renewal to be granted until fourteen years of such leases have expired; leases for thirty years, ten must have expired; leases for twenty-one, seven; and in leases for years no renewal for life or lives. Certain leases may be granted conformably to usual practice. Not to prevent eccleiastical persons effecting changes under certain conditions; nor grants under acts of parliament; nor for same term as preceding leases.

By 5 & 6 V. c. 27, incumbents are empowered, with consent of bishop and patron, to lease lands belonging to their benefices for fourteen years, with a saving of covenants respecting cultivation and improvement. In certain cases leases may be granted for twenty years.

By 5 & 6 V. c. 108, ecclesiastical corporations, both aggregate and sole, with some exceptions, may grant leases for long terms of

years.

By 1 & 2 V. c. 106, no spiritual person shall farm above eighty acres without consent of the bishop, and then not beyond seven years, under a penalty of 40s. per acre. Neither can he engage in trade to buy and sell for profit or gain, but this does not extend to keeping schools or teaching; nor in respect to buying or selling in course of such educational employment; or to selling anything really bought for the use of the family; or to being manager of any benefit, life, or insurance society; or to dealing in cattle for the use of his own lands. Illegal trading subjects to suspension, and for a third offence to deprivation.

Though a clergyman is liable to penalties for trading, his contracts are valid, and he is subject to the bankrupt laws. He may be a member of a banking co-partnership, but cannot, if beneficed, or doing ecclesiastical duty, be a director, 4 V. c. 14.

It has been held that any person may prosecute a clergyman for neglect of clerical duty; but the Church Discipline Act, 3 & 4 V. e. 86, provides that in any case of a clerk in holy orders being charged with an offence against the ecclesiastical laws, or against whom there may exist scandal or evil report, the bishop of the diocese may, on the application of any party, or if he think fi on his own mere motion, issue a commission consisting of five persons, of whom one shall be his vicar-general, an archdeacon, o rural dean, to inquire into the grounds of such charge or report Fourteen days' notice previous to the issue of the commission mus be given to the clergyman accused, and the charge against hin stated.

Clergymen are in general liable to all public charges imposed b parliament, unless specially exempted; as in certain cases from the duty on horses. They are liable to the poor rate for thei tithe and glebe; and if not compellable to take parish apprentices they are chargeable towards putting them out.

The clergy are divided into various ranks and degrees; as arch bishops, bishops, deans, canons, and prebendaries; archdeacon rectors, vicars, curates, and parish clerks when in orders.

An archbishop is the chief of the clergy in a whole provinc and has the inspection of the bishops of that province, as well the inferior clergy, and may deprive them on proper cause.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is styled the metropolitan ar primate of all England, and enjoys by custom the privilege crown the kings and queens of the realm. He has also the pow

A

te grant dispensations in any case; to grant special licenses to marry at any time or place; and to exercise the right of conferring all the degrees which are taken in the universities; but in this case the graduates of the universities, by various acts of parliament, and other regulations, are entitled to many privileges not extended to a degree of the primate or a Lambeth degree.

A bishop has power and authority, besides his sacred functions, to inspect the manners of the people and clergy, and to reform them by ecclesiastical censure; for which purpose he has courts ander him which are holden by his chancellor. It is also the business of the bishop to ordain, admit, and institute priests; to grant licenses for marriage, consecrate churches, and confirm, suspead, or excommunicate. Archbishops and bishops are nominally eeted by the dean and chapter, but virtually appointed by a age delire of the crown.

A dean and chapter are the council of the bishop, to assist him with their advice in affairs of religion. The chapters consisting of canons or prebendaries, are sometimes appointed by the sovereign, sometimes by the bishop, and sometimes elected by each other. Deaneries and prebends may become void, like a bishopric, by death, deprivation, or resignation.

An archdeacon has an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, subordinate to the bishop, through the whole of his diocese, or some part of it. All archdeacons have equal jurisdiction.

The most numerous class of ecclesiastical persons are parsons and ricars of churches. A parson is one that has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church; he is sometimes called rector or governor of the church. During his life, he has in himself the freehold of the parsonage, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues.

The distinction between a parson and a vicar is this: the parson has usually the sole right to all ecclesiastical dues in his parish; but the vicar has generally an appropriator over him, entitled to the best part of the profits, to whom he is, in effect, perpetual curate, with a fixed stipend. A vicar is a name that was unknown till the reign of Henry III., before which the rector provided a curate, and maintained him on an arbitrary stipend.

The method of becoming a parson or a vicar is much the same; holy orders, presentation, institution, and induction, are necessary to both. No person is eligible to any benefice unless he has first been ordained a priest, and then he is called a clerk in orders. No person can be admitted a deacon in England till he has attained the age of twenty-three complete, nor be admitted a priest before the complete age of twenty-four.

Curates are the lowest degree in the church, being in the same state that a vicar was formerly, an officiating temporary minister, instead of an incumbent entitled to the tithes of the parish. By 1 & 2 V. c. 106, s. 85, where an incumbent does not duly reside,

the bishop is empowered to grant a certain fixed salary to the curate, out of the proceeds of the benefice; such salary shall in no case be less than £80 per annum, or the annual value of the benefice if the gross value does not amount to £80, and not less than £100 per annum, or the whole value if the value shall not exceed £100, in any parish where the population shall amount to or exceed 300 persons, and so on in proportion.

The bishop may refuse institution to a clerk, on the ground of heresy, gross immorality, or insufficiency in point of learning.

Induction is performed by mandate from the bishop and consists in giving the clerk corporal possession of the church; as by holding the ring of the door, or tolling a bell, which is meant to give the parishioners notice to whom the tithes and dues are to be paid.

By the "Clerical Disabilities Act, 1870" (33 & 34 V. c. 91), a priest or deacon in the Church of England, at any time admitted, may, after having resigned every preferment held by him, execute and enrol a deed of relinquishment in the Court of Chancery, in the form and manner prescribed in the act, and deliver an office copy of the enrolment to the bishop of the diocese in which he last held a preferment, and give notice to the archbishop of the province in which such diocese is situate. Six months after such office copy shall have been delivered to a bishop, he or his successor in office shall, on the application of the person executing such deed, cause the deed to be recorded in the registry of the diocese, and thereupon the person executing the deed shall become incapable of officiating in any manner as a minister of the Church of England, and of holding any church preferment, and he shall be discharged and free from all disabilities, disqualifications, and restraints to which he had been liable before as a minister of the Church of England.

By 32 & 33 V. c. 111, provision is made for the relief of arch hishops and bishops, when incapacitated by age or other infirmit for the due performance of their episcopal duties. By s. 2, on a representation being made to her Majesty, that any archbishop o bishop in England is desirous of resigning, by reason that he is in capacitated by age or some mental or permanent physical infirmit from the due performance of his duties, it shall be lawful for he Majesty, if satisfied of such incapacity, and that such archbisho or bishop has canonically resigned, by order in council to declar such preferment to be vacant, and the vacancy to be filled up in a respects as if such archbishop or bishop were dead. Provision i then made by the act as to the future residences and proportions part of the incomes of the retiring prelates.

35 & 36 V. c. 8, provides for the resignation of incapacitate deans and canons, on application to the bishop, and directs the there shall be paid to a retiring dean or canon, out of the incom of the deanery or canonry, and as a first charge thereon in th

« PrejšnjaNaprej »