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But discords soon begin to divide the reformers: hatred of clerical privilege and the desire to fill the empty coffers of the State dictate the first acts of spoliation. Tithes are abolished: the lands of the Church are confiscated to the service of the State; monastic orders are suppressed; and the Government undertakes to pay the stipends of bishops and priests.
From all this gross sum of his Majesty's revenue, the salaries of the governor and royal Audiencia are paid, as well as the stipends of prelates and ecclesiastical prebendaries, the salaries of the magistrates, and of the royal officials and their assistants; the pay of all the military officers and regular soldiers; his Majesty's share of the stipends for instruction, and the building of churches and their ornaments; the concessions and gratifications that he has allowed to certain monasteries, and private persons; the building of large vessels for the navigation to Nueva Espana, and of galleys and other vessels for the defense of the islands; expenses for gunpowder and ammunition; the casting of artillery, and its care; the expense arising for expeditions and individual undertakings in the islands, and in their defense; that of navigations to, and negotiations with, the kingdoms in their vicinity, which are quite common and necessary.
The bishops get from £800 to £2,000 a year, but there are very few clergy whose stipends exceed £600, and the majority live and die without getting any higher than the £350 to £400 stage. Nor have they here the social compensation which they enjoy in England. There is no Established Church, and their position is not many degrees superior to that of the ministers of other denominations.
There are several other parishes in the suburbs of Sydney. A third new church is likewise mentioned, among those in progress at Sydney, in the Bishop of Australia's Charge, delivered in 1841. It may be noticed, that the sum mentioned applies only to stipends and allowances of the Clergy, and does not include sums voted for building purposes.
The financial arrangements that had been made at the first for carrying on the Church's work were unjust and inadequate. A portion of the third part of the benefices was all that had been assigned for the support of the ministry, and even this had not been fully or regularly paid, so that in many parishes the ministers' stipends had to be provided by their own people.
The Erastianism in these acts seems screwed up yet a little higher, by Act 7th, Sess. 5th, Parl. 1st, 1695; where, after appointing a new day to such ministers as had not formerly obeyed, it is ordained: "With certification that such of the said ministers as shall not come in between and said day, are hereby, and by the force of this present act, ipso facto, deprived of their respective kirks and stipends, and the same declared vacant, without any further sentence."
And, one after another, under the mild coolness of Honoré's amiable disregard, their indignation trickled back from steam to water, and they went on drawing their stipends, some in Honoré's counting-room, where they held positions, some from the provisional government, which had as yet made but few changes, and some, secretly, from the cunning Casa-Calvo; for, blow the wind east or blow the wind west, the affinity of the average Grandissime for a salary abideth forever.
I have not been able to obtain information from which I can state with anything like correctness what may be the average income of ministers of the Gospel in the Northern States; but that it is much higher than the average income of our parish clergymen, admits, I think, of no doubt. The stipends of clergymen in the American towns are higher than those paid in the country.
Thence-forward Noureddin ceased not so to apply himself to the duties of the Vizierate, that he left not the Sultan day or night and the latter increased his stipends and allowances till he amassed great wealth and became the owner of ships, that made trading voyages for his hand, as well as of slaves and servants, black and white, and laid out many estates and made irrigation-works and planted gardens.
It is a reasonable proposal, and if bishops must dispute about stipends instead of preaching the kingdom of God, then they are bound to face it. The sooner they do so, the more graceful will the act be. From these personal apologetics the bishop took up the question of the exemption, at the request of the bishops, of the clergy from military service.
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