income declared to be sufficient for their successors, of nearly seventy-eight thousand pounds in the one case,
and nearly fifty-four thousand in the other. But even these flagrant instances are nothing to that of the
Bishop of Durham. For Doctor Maltby received his see subject to the new arrangement. Doctors Blomfield
and Sumner might plead a technical right against a moral obligation; but the present Bishop of Durham,
presented after the date of the ecclesiastical commission, occupied the position which their successors will
occupy, and was absolutely not entitled to more than eight thousand a-year. Yet this fortunate prelate,
after paying back to the commission something more than eleven thousand a-year by way of reduction of his
income to the equitable point, is shown to have retained, in 1847, twenty-six thousand pounds; in 1848,
twenty-three thousand pounds; in 1849, nine thousand; and in 1850, twenty-seven thousand. Taking the
returns least open to question, it would seem that during the two septennial periods that have elapsed since
the establishment of the commission, Doctor Maltby has received and retained eighty thousand pounds
sterling over and above the hundred and twelve thousand pounds which it was intended by parliament that
he should receive and retain.

Nor is it simply the rapacity which has thus clutched at and seized fast these enormous amounts of what,
if they believe the gospel they are appointed to preach, they must hold to be the root of all evil, that is to
be laid to the charge of these holy and right reverend men. It is in proof that this very bishop of Durham
assured the commissioners, fourteen years ago, that there was not the least prospect of the revenues of the
see clearing twenty-two thousand a-year in future; whereupon, this assurance being believed, and the bishop's
moving picture of his probable impoverishment having had its due effect, the commissioners were induced
to lower, by the amount of a thousand a-year, the annual deduction to be paid from that see to the fund;
and the prudent bishop quietly profited, thenceforward, to the amount of between fifteen and sixteen
thousand a-year in place of his stipulated eight thousand. Further, it is matter of very strong suspicion
(for everything in relation to the see of London is a mystery, and Sydney Smith appears to have been
nearest the truth when he averred that the real amount of its revenues was only known to the man
who received them) that the returns made to parliament by Bishop Blomfield are deplorably inexact,
and that the income-tax commissioners have grave reason to complain of inadequate sums set down in
their books as representing the bishop's incomings. Is it uncharitable to assume that this charge may
be true, when, on Doctor Blomfield's own showing, it is manifest that for years he has been retaining
annually more than double the sum which he declared fourteen years ago was amply sufficient for a
bishop of London to enjoy? or, in other words, to borrow Sir Benjamin Hall's figures, has been pocketing
five times more than the salary of the prime minister, and a hundred and fifty-one times more than
the income of the most industrious, most meritorious, and most zealous clergyman in the parish where
he mainly resides! But if we may concede that doubt still rests on such a case as his,—in others, where
the letters of the bishops themselves are evidence against them, such a plea has not a pretence to rest
upon. What are we to say of the bishop of Gloucester, while renewing a lease to his own benefit for
three lives which by every moral consideration of propriety or decency ought to have passed into the
hands of the commission for the uses of the Church, and while conscious at the same time of retaining
the sum of nearly a thousand pounds in excess of his stipulated income and exclusive of the manor so leased
—what are we to say of his pleading with the commissioners against an assessment of seven hundred a-year,
in terms that might only be justifiable if actual destitution were impending over him? What are we to say of the
bishop of Worcester, while conscious of the retention of nearly eleven thousand pounds in excess of the
seven years' income which the act of parliament meant him to receive, memorialising the commission to the
effect that he apprehended a defalcation of income that would "utterly prevent him fulfilling, as he would
wish to do, those offices of charity and hospitality that belong to his position in the church;" claiming that
a lower deduction than their assessment should be made, or that nothing but "judgment and a writ of
execution" should compel him to submit to it; threatening to bring down upon them even his brother Pepys
the chancellor; and at last, when driven to desperation by the apparent firmness of his hard-hearted
creditors, exhibiting what he calls the "hardship and injustice" of compelling him to do right, by example
of the instances in which other right reverend brethren had been allowed to do wrong!! "It appears," he
says, "by the returns presented to the House of Commons last session that the average receipts of the
bishop of Durham, for the last seven years, have been £11,792, instead of £8000; those of the late bishop of
Ely, £6772, instead of £5500; while the bishop of Salisbury, who is not taxed at all, has received yearly
£7450, and the bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, £5600, besides his commendams. Granting, therefore, that
the revenues of the see of Worcester have improved, is it fair that I should be denied the benefit of such
improvement when it has been thus allowed to other bishops ? " Is it fair! Was ever pistol presented to
the head with more touching entreaty?

On any authority but that of Dr. Pepys himself, such an appeal would be too monstrous to be credible.
Yet such is the spirit displayed generally, with differences only in degree, by almost all the occupants of
the Episcopal bench in England at this time. And be it remembered that these men are not grasping for the
sake of the Church, but directly against the interests of the Church. The thousands and tens of thousands
which they thus greedily seek to retain, are so many units, tens, and hundreds deducted from the hard-working
clergy. Every shilling they have kept in excess of their legitimate incomes ought to have gone in relief of
that spiritual destitution in their respective dioceses as to which they are always piously declaiming. The
highest ministers of a gospel which tells them to live as those whose treasures are in heaven, lodged in
palaces, set on high as examples of Christian faith, and modesty, and charity,—these are the men with
whom, in exact proportion to the incomes grasped for themselves in excess of the incomes recommended
as enough for their successors, the solemn responsibility rests of the souls that are yearly perishing for
want of religious aid. Do we resort to language too high-flown in contrasting the actual conduct of these
right reverend persons with their abstract claims? Why, in the recent debate on Lord Redesdale's silly
motion for the revival of convocation, the bishop of London in express terms asserted the claims of the
order to which he belongs to be, in this realm, the depositary of the faith once delivered to the Saints; while
his brother of Oxford put forth the more lofty pretension, on the part of himself and the other occupants
of the episcopal bench, of representing nothing less than the apostolic synod which was divinely assembled
and miraculously endowed in Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost.

In no spirit of irreverence may it be remarked upon this, that nothing short of really miraculous endowments