A. controversy has been aroused of a type one had hardly expected ever io see in England again. Briefly it is that the Church should try to induce the clergy to remain unmarried, to which end a long memorandum has been sent to the two archbishops signed by Mr. Athelstan Riley, Lord Hugh Cecil and other well-known lay leaders of the extreme High Church party.
Partly the reason given is that as private incomes among clergy. grow scarcer, country livings become more dificult to fill: the days when the squire's younger son automatically went into a family living gre gone: mow he goes into trade. lermore it is argued the social class of the clergy is changing rapidly; the Church is no more a prerogative of the gentry but is more and more re-emited from national school boys, also without money. And it is suggested tha, parishes should be amalgamated, three or four under one clergy house containing a number of celibate clergy to serve them all.
The Archbishops shied off giving a direct answer. But many eminent men, the Bishop of Durham, the President of Magdalen etc. have been Jess cautious. They are dead against the scheme. They point out that it is precisely the country parishes which usually ask for a married parson and certainly need one, and they dwell on the enormous amount of indispensable work done by the vicar's wife, "work seldom recognized and never rewarded."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.