AN ENEMY'S CHARGE.

A WELL-KNOWN ecclesiastical association,
having for its members the Rev. W. H.
Hale, Archdeacon of London; the Rev. W.
H. Hale, Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's;
the Rev. W. H. Hale, Master of the Charterhouse;
the Rev. W. H. Hale, Almoner of
St. Paul's; the Rev. W. H. Hale, Chaplain
to the Bishop of London; and the Rev. W.
H. Hale, Vicar of St. Giles's, Cripplegate,
has lately been made the subject of virulent
satire in a something purporting to be
a charge addressed to the clergy of the
archdeaconry of London, by W. H. Hale,
M. A. The Archdeacon of London
receives about three hundred a-year; the Canon
of St. Paul's, six or seven hundred and
a residence; the Master of the Charterhouse,
eight hundred and a residence; the
Vicar of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, two thousand
and a residence;—all which moneys flow
into one pair of pockets, and all which
residences are the dwelling of a single priest.
Now, taking hard advantage of the prejudice
and scandal that arise from this fact, the
enemy of the association —save a man from
himself!—depicts it in the shape of a great
Pluralist dissatisfied with his pecuniary position,
and addressing from the pulpit a large
body of Christian ministers, who come to him
for seasonable counsel, on the blessings of
filth as a source of lucre. For this is, in fact,
the substance of the charge to which we are
referring. Death and burial are its solemn
themes. The final aspirations of the Christian
are connected with his thoughts of some
departed souls; but, to his spiritual pastors,
the archdeacon is here represented as
commending him chiefly in the form of one
who is either a customer or dealer at
another shop while living, and as resolving
himself, when dead, into dust and gas, and
money. Only in a land where there is
L. S. D. instead of I. H. S. upon the pulpit-
front, and a great ledger on the pulpit-
cushion, could a charge like this have been
delivered.

When, in eighteen hundred and fifty, some
attempt was made towards the shutting-up of
over-crowded churchyards; "in the month of
December of that year returns were made,"
says the canon, "by the parishes and by
the clergy to the Board of Health, of the
amount of compensation which would be
required for the loss of their fees; and I have
it recorded in writing that the officers of
the Board of Health, after receiving the
returns from my own parish, intimated that
the board would act with the greatest liberality
towards individuals who should be affected
by the act, such as the incumbent"
(including the archdeacon, the canon, and the
master of Charter-house), "the clerk and
sexton. Thus far," it is said, "the legislature
seemed inclined to adhere to the original
purpose expressed in the appointment of the
select committee in eighteen hundred and
forty-two, respecting the rights of the clergy.
But, though many of the clergy" (not
including the archdeacon, the canon, and the
master of Charter-house), "have been
impoverished, and all have encountered loss
by the destruction of rights acknowledged by
the legislature to exist, all thought of remedying
the injury appears to be abandoned."
This is set forth as the text of the
archdeacon's charge, and he is represented by his
cruel satirist—in the absence of all hope of
compensation for the loss of intramural burial
fees—as striking out against those whom
he is contemptuously made to call the patrons
of the public health, and falling generally
into a state of combativeness, very ludicrous
to see. Thus he is even supposed to test the
gravity of his reverend audience by maintaining
that the abolition of intramural interment
is injurious in the highest degree to religion
and to morals, and that no proof has been as
yet adduced, that English churches and
churchyards, containing the bodies of the
faithful of many by-gone generations, are in
any way whatever sources of disease, or are
dangerous to the public health. If it were
possible to suppose this charge really offered
by an archdeacon of London to the London
clergy, it would be just as possible to
receive it in the light of something in a
much higher degree injurious to religion and
morals than the shutting-up of over-crowded
churchyards in the heart of a great city.
It is true that there are ill-paid clergymen in
London who have lost part of an almost
necessary maintenance by the loss of
churchyard fees. We heartily desire that
they should have their rights. But the great