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In the six weeks of the first session, there were passed, the Probate and Mortuaries Acts, abolishing, reducing, or regulating fees, and the Pluralities Act, forbidding the clergy in general to hold more than one benefice, and requiring Residence a very inconvenient arrangement for papal nominees. The general value of the Act however was impaired by a schedule of exemptions.
A singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, because other pluralities have intervened and have tempted the ear into plural tendencies. Tautologies will occur, because the ear, in demanding fresh emphasis, has forgotten that the desired force has been already expressed.
As for the administration of their own order the clergy, under the lead of the parish priests, demand extensive reforms. There must be no more absenteeism; no bishops and abbots drawing large incomes and amusing themselves in Paris or Versailles. There must be no more pluralities, which are contrary to the decrees of the Council of Trent. Promotion must be thrown open to the parochial clergy.
Hers was the Great Primitive Church of the world, without Popes or Muftis sinecures, pluralities and hierarchies. Her servants spoke to the earth as the prophets of old, anxious only to be heard and believed. Full of this fanaticism, Ernest Maltravers pursued his way in the great procession of the myrtle-bearers to the sacred shrine. He carried the thyrsus, and he believed in the god.
I should have applied on that occasion earlier, had I thought you would not have acquainted me previous to the disposition. Your objection to pluralities is being righteous over-much. If there were any crime in the practice, so many godly men would not agree to it. I am, sir, Your faithful humble servant, ROGER THWACKUM."
The outcome of the elections gave the Democrats food for thought. Five out of nine congressional districts had chosen anti-Nebraska or Fusion candidates; the other four returned Democrats to Congress by reduced pluralities.
It was the complaint and lamentation of prelates, upon every least breath of a motion to remove pluralities, and distribute more equally Church revenues, that then all learning would be for ever dashed and discouraged.
One of the worst of these abuses worst both in itself and also as the fruitful source of many others was the glaring evil of pluralities and non-residence, an evil which was inherited from an earlier generation. It is perfectly astonishing to observe the lax views which even really good men seem to have held on this subject in the middle part of the century.
A Welsh bishop avowed that he had seen his diocese but once, and habitually resided at the lakes of Westmoreland. The system of pluralities which enabled a single clergyman to hold at the same time a number of livings turned the wealthier and more learned of the clergy into absentees, while the bulk of them were indolent, poor, and without social consideration.
For in this country the more important branches of the government are the executive and judges, and these, unlike the legislatures, cannot as a rule be divided, and therefore give no opportunity for the representation of minorities, and are necessarily elected by State or national pluralities and usually by majorities.
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