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When, by the destruction of monasteries, the poor had been deprived of the charity of those religious houses, after some other ineffectual attempts for their relief, it was enacted, by the 43d of Elizabeth, c. 2. that every parish should be bound to provide for its own poor, and that overseers of the poor should be annually appointed, who, with the church-wardens, should raise, by a parish rate, competent sums for this purpose.
We all met, however, in the evening, and partook of a substantial dinner, to which, according to a custom which has prevailed from time immemorial, the church-wardens of the parish and the foreman and treasurer of the inquest of the preceding year were invited.
One mouth in each front had been closed by bygone church-wardens as superfluous, and two others were broken away and choked a matter not of much consequence to the wellbeing of the tower, for the two mouths which still remained open and active were gaping enough to do all the work.
The Roman Catholic service has long since given place to a Protestant one, and the band of officiating priests has dwindled down to one clergyman while the value of the estate has increased perhaps fiftyfold. At the present moment, the sum which the estate originally produced is paid over to the church-wardens, who are at times a little puzzled as to what to do with it.
Thus it plainly appears that church-wardens had a feast jointly with the minister at the parish expense, at least whenever a stranger preached. A village pastor was examining his parishioners in their Catechism. The first question in the Heidelberg Catechism is this: "What is thy only consolation in life and in death?"
For this they were even more harshly dealt with; an order was issued from the Star Chamber, that no person should print a book against the queen's injunctions, upon the penalty of fines and imprisonment; and authority was given to church-wardens to search all suspected places where books might be concealed. Great multitudes suffered in consequence of these tyrannical laws.
My father took bribes, and imagined they were given to him out of respect for his spiritual qualities; the boys at the high school, in order to be promoted, went to lodge with the masters and paid them large sums; the wife of the military commandant took levies from the recruits during the recruiting, and even allowed them to stand her drinks, and once she was so drunk in church that she could not get up from her knees; during the recruiting the doctors also took bribes, and the municipal doctor and the veterinary surgeon levied taxes on the butcher shops and public houses; the district school did a trade in certificates which gave certain privileges in the civil service; the provosts took bribes from the clergy and church-wardens whom they controlled, and on the town council and various committees every one who came before them was pursued with: "One expects thanks!" and thereby forty copecks had to change hands.
We cannot but observe to your Grace, that, in the English act of the fourth year of Queen Anne, for the better collecting charity money on briefs by letters-patent, &c. the ministers are obliged only to read the briefs in their churches, without any particular exhortations; neither are they commanded to go from house to house with the church-wardens, nor to send the money collected to their respective chancellors, but pay it to the undertaker or agent of the sufferer.
The vestry was searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before Caleb's last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed. The house was searched-the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was explored.
Their duties included, it is true, the care of the parish church and the provision of other material requirements for religious services. But they also included many things which were quite clearly temporal or civil in their nature. The almost invariable custom was for the body of the parishioners at a vestry meeting in Easter week to choose two church-wardens for the next year.
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