^3 
 
 FEIEND or THE CLERGY 
 
 COEPOEATION. 
 
 TREACHED AT 
 
 j^ J. L SOUL S' CHURCH, 
 LANGHAM PLACE, 
 
 WEDNESDAY, ^rARCH 23rp, isn9, 
 BY THE VERY REV. 
 
 K. CHRNEVIX TRENCH, D.D. 
 
 DTAN OF WKSTMINKTKK.
 
 This Corporation was founded in the year 1850, for allowijig Pornianout 
 Pensions, of not less than 30/. and not exceeding 40/. per aunum, 1o the 
 Widows iind Orplian Unmarried Daughters of Clergymen of the Established 
 Chnreh, and for affording Temporary Assistance to Neeessitons Clergymen and 
 their Families througliout England, Wales, and Ireland ; since which period the 
 Committee have been enabled to distribute — 
 
 To 100 Ladies elected Pensioners, the sum of . £1 1,3:2.") 15 
 To 289 Clergymen in great temporary distress . 1518 17 
 
 To 175 Widows of Clergymen ISll S 
 
 To ] 70 Paugliters of Clergymen 1120 
 
 £22,085 
 
 There are at the present time SS l;adies Pensioners on the Funds, and 130 
 Applicants for Admission. 
 
 The urgent appeals for Special aid are most numerous and distressing, -upwards 
 ol four hvndred beiug now })efore the Committee, wlio very earnestly solicit 
 your assistance to enable them to carry out the benevolent intentions of the 
 Corporation. 
 
 The Committee venture to direct your attention to the accompanyiug 
 Sermon, by the Very Kev. Dr. Treuch, Dean of Wc^tmiustcr, as the l)cst appeal 
 they can lay before you. 
 
 Tin: Rev. .loiix E. Cox, M.A., F.S.A. ) 
 James JS. Goben, Esq., M.A. \ 
 
 ITi'-xnY Be A:\rALr,, Socrcton/. 
 
 Life SuBSfiarTiox, £10 lO.f., conferring the j)rivilcge of Two Votes at 
 every Election of Pensioners. Annual SunsrBirTii)X, £1 \s , with Two Votes 
 at cacli Election for the current Year. 
 
 Opfices of the Corporation, J, St. Mautin'.s Placp, Lonpon, \\ .V.
 
 S E E M O N. 
 
 1 CoK. ix. 11. 
 
 " IF \vc have sown uiitcj yon spiritual tliiiii:;M, is it a yroat thing it' \vc 
 shall reap your carnal things?" 
 
 tSi'. Paul is, thvougliout this Uha-i)ter, assci-ting tlic right and reasoii- 
 abhiiess whicli tliore is in that rule of the Churcli everywhere laid 
 down by him, uaiiicly, that they who preacli the Gospel should live 
 by the Gospel — that they who have voluntarily renounced other 
 means of livelihood, to the end that they uiight give themselves wholly 
 to the ministry of God's word, to reading, to exhortation, to prayer, 
 shoidd in return be furnished b}' the Church with an adequate niain- 
 tenauce ; for '"' who," he asks, " goeth a warfare at his own charges ? 
 who plauteth a vincy;ird and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or, who 
 feedeth a llnck, and eateth not of the milk of thelloukf' — or, as he 
 again inrpiii'cs, in the words of my text — " If we have sown unto you 
 s[)iritual things, is it a great tiling if wo shall reap your carnal 
 things V 
 
 And it seems to me, my Christian brethren, that these words Iayin<T 
 down as they do the Church's rule, as asserted by the great Apostle, — ■ 
 Christ, iudeetl, liad asserted it before, when He declai'ed "the la- 
 bourer is worthy of his hire' — must at once so commend theuiselvea 
 to us, both frcmi the authority with which they come, and from tlieii' 
 conformity to sound reason, and tliat innate sense of justice, whicli is 
 implanted in all our hearts, that I need spend no time, waste no words 
 in proving to you that to be a duty Avhieh wc shall at once recognise 
 as such — namely, that all who minister at the altar should have pro- 
 vision made for them, enabling them to live by tlie altar which thdy 
 serve — not sumptuously, not splendidly, no one would require this ; 
 but still, always assuming due prudence to bo used on their part, with 
 a freedom from sordid cares, from pinching want — with a modest, 
 yet suthcieut su]»ply f -r the just needs of their earthly life.
 
 How far it was ever tlin.s in one Engli.sli Churcli, wlictliei' slic ever 
 apin'oaelied very neaily to this ideal, may well be a question — is, in- 
 deed, more than doubtful. And yet it is only too certain that she is 
 farther removed from it now than ever in times past she has been ; — 
 that the whole coui*se and tendency of things is, to remove her from 
 it further and furtlier still. I mean in this way. It is ftxmiliar to us 
 all that there has been, during the last thirty years, an immense in- 
 crease in the number of our Clergy, though one falling very far short of 
 the relative increase of the population. But, with this multiplication of 
 the Clergy there has been no corresponding multiplication of the means 
 at the disposal of the Church for their sustenance and support. 
 Something may have been done by a more equal distribution of her 
 revenues ; by suppressing certain offices and dignities, which seemed 
 to many as luxuries which she ought not to indulge in, while jirimary 
 necessities coidd only be inadequately supplied. Souiething, too, has 
 been done, but far too little, by the liberality of those to whom God 
 has given the awful responsibilities of a stewardship of this world's 
 wealth. But, when all is put together, when all is counted up that 
 has been derived from these and all other sources, it still remains true 
 that the accession to the nnmher of the Clergy is very far larger than 
 the accession to the means for that Clergy's support — that we have, 
 and must have, a far greater pro})ortion of poor Clergy, of those who, 
 ministering in the Church, will yet be most inadequately furnished 
 from the Church's revenues, now than we had thirty or forty yeai-s 
 ago — and that the number of these, so far from diminisluug, will go 
 on increasing eA'ery day — and the claims on this and kindred societies 
 will become more and more urgent, and more and more numerous, 
 with every year. 
 
 We must look this fact in the face. The question, indeed, has 
 come to this — Shall we have for this immensely gi'owing i)opu- 
 lation, expanding and multiplying on every side, who will perish 
 in their own corrujitiou, if left to themselves, if the healing powers 
 of the Gospel of the Grace of God are not bi'ought to bear upon 
 them through the ordinances of Christ's Church, shall we have 
 for theui a poor Clergy, or no Clergy at all ? Woxild to God these 
 were not the only alternatives. Would to God that our unhappy divi- 
 sions, and the sejiaration of so lai'ge a portion of our brethren from 
 the national Churcli, had not rendered it impossible that the nation, 
 as a nation, should step in to meet and supply these needs of the 
 Churcli, which indeed are her own needs, the nation's needs no less 
 than the Church's : for the nation, the Btate, requires oi-derly, moral, 
 virtuous citizens, to fulfil their duties to her, and she will only find 
 
 % J'
 
 8iich ill tlio.so wlio have bci'U lirrit trained in tlie knowledge and le.ii'of 
 tlio Lord. Would to Llod that the large hearts \\liicli have been given to 
 some of our princely projtrietors of the .soil, of our great niercluiuts and 
 manufacturers, had been given to all — that those solemn responsibilities 
 involved in the stewardship of this earthly mammon had been more 
 cdearly acknowledged by them — that ampler portions of this en- 
 trusted wealth had been consecrated to tlie honour of Almighty tUn], 
 and the due maintenance of his service and worsliiji for evei'. 
 
 Nov do I despair of a better day in this respect arriving. Who 
 would have belicAed thirty years ago that within the space of thirty 
 years so many Churches, almost all of them decent, very many of 
 them fair and comely, a,nd not a few beautiful and glorious, should 
 have risen in our land I A more diiiicult task remains — the 
 endowment of our Churches; more costly, having less at the 
 moment to sliow in return tor the sacrifices made ; and }et 
 I cannot despair of the day arriving when the great, the noble, 
 the wealthy of our land, yes, and all of us who have any su})er- 
 fluities and abundance, shall be stricken with a wholeso)iie shame, 
 with the sense of an injustice conuuitted, wherein we have a 
 share, so long as our Church continues to present such a s[)ectaele 
 as now on too manj^ sides she displays — a time Avhen we shall 
 count it inconsistent with our Christian profession to live in our 
 ceiled liouses while His house lies waste; while t\iey who minister in 
 His word and sacraments^ instead of being accounted worthy of double 
 honour, receive oftentimes a scantier subsistence than tlie liii'od ser- 
 vant who waits at our tables; and when one mighty movement shall 
 be made through the land to redress this wrong, to I'cpair this injus- 
 tice. Why should not such a day arrive? Is anything impossible 
 with God I One breath in power of His life-giving S])irit on nur dead 
 bones, and the spirit of love and self-sacrifice, which such an midcr- 
 taking would require, wimld be ours. No need, then, of such meetings 
 us ours — of siich Societies as that whose claims T am ])leading before 
 you to-day. But till that lu^ped-for day arrives, we shall not be able 
 to do without them; fiU then, they must step into the gap, ami fill it 
 as best they may. 
 
 There is one fact, of which I need hardly remind you, which 
 l-enders this the more needful. We, of the Eeformed English Church, 
 believe that a nuirried. Clergy, a Clergy, that is, of which every 
 member is free to marry, of which the larg(M' ])ortiou iire married, is 
 one which accords Ijest with the i)raetice of piimitive antiijtiity — with 
 the scheme and groundiilan of tlie Church as laid down in the N(!W 
 Testament, above all, in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul ; for \> u
 
 6 
 
 l>elir\ r tliat " maniivgc i.-j lionouiahle in all," aiiil not least in these who 
 llius will be cnabloil to be a wholcsoinc pattern to others in those 
 holiest relations of life, the husband's and the father's ; Avhieh ])atteru, 
 by a compulsory celibaey, snch as that of Home, they would be de- 
 barred from the opportunity of allordiag — that in a thousand delicate 
 ministrations of love and tenderness, for which female hands are 
 litted the best, he will find that help and assistance from wife and 
 from daughters, which no other could have sup^ilied as well, even if 
 they had attempted to supply it at all. But accepting this, a mar- 
 ried clergy, as most consonant with the practice of the eai-ly Church, 
 with the mind of the Spirit as declai-ed in Holy Scripture, and indeed, 
 not merely accepting it, but demanding it as we do (for England 
 would not for an instant tolerate any other than a mai'vied clei'gy), wo 
 must accept it with its consequences; and must not wonder or repine 
 if one of these consequences is that their widows and their orphans are 
 often claimants of that bounty, or, as I have sought throughout this 
 discourse to put it, of that justice, which you are invited to render to 
 them this day. 
 
 For you will not, I am sure, say, you will not for an instant think 
 that this too frequent destitution in which these are left is, excejit in 
 rarest instances, the result of any improvidence on the part of the 
 husband and the father — of any selfishnes,s, leading him to squander 
 on self and upon the present that which ought to have constituted a 
 provision for the comiiig time and for those whom at any moment he 
 might leave behind, but wliom he preferred to impose as a burden on 
 the Chureh and on the charity of others. Alas ! there was no room for 
 this improvidence, not so much as the temptation to this scltishncss. 
 Where should he have found the means of making the slenderest pro- 
 vision against the future, who could hardly with utmost effort keep 
 grim and gaunt poverty from his door in the present ?— who upon an 
 income little, if at all, exceeding that of many of our artisans, was 
 exi)ected to maintain the appearance of a gentleman — and who not 
 merely was expected, but who did joyfully out of his own deep 
 ]>overty eontiuunlly cause the riches of his liberality to abound toward 
 others who seemed to him yet pooier and needier than himself. 
 
 As little, my brethren, 1 beseech 3'ou, say to yourselves that 
 those who fell behind in the race of life, those who occupied these 
 Immblest and worst-endowed posts in our Church, were the slothful, 
 the sluggish, the inefficient, the ill-eiptippedyy/- their work, the care- 
 less ill the work — who anywhere would have been the lowest ami the 
 last. Believe nothing of the kind. In respect of the outward visible 
 niaiks of .success, if it is true in any calling and profession, it is
 
 truest in tliis high calling of oiivs, tliat, as regiirds wliat the voilj 
 stylos success, the race is not to the swift nor the battle to tlie strong 
 — God showing how little stoi'e He sets on these vulgar objt^cts of 
 GUI' ambition, in that so often He causes the worthiest and the best 
 to miss them — in that so often not merit, not labour, not long years 
 of service, bnt chance and accldtmt, the favour and capi'ice of men, 
 are the disposers and dispensers of them. None should be readier 
 to own this than those to whom aiiy portion of these things have 
 fjillen; for they can hardly avoid knowing, though the world in general 
 may not know, how many there are, toiling out of sight, unnoticed, un- 
 rewarded, with their record indeed upon high, bnt little or no recoi-d 
 here, nncheered by the applause of men, for they are content with 
 the pr'aisc of God, who in this their obscurity, neglected, forgotten, 
 overseen, are yet doing most effectually the Church's work — knitting 
 1)y their laboiu-s, their self-denials, their patient continuance in well 
 doing, the affections of the masses of our people to her, approving 
 her to be indeed what she claims to be — the channel of priceless 
 blessings to the sonls, and, in a secondary sense, to the bodies also, of 
 men. How many such are at this moment in our England, in this 
 huge metropolis, in onr crowded manufacturing towns, in remote 
 waste agricultural villages, spending and being spent, counting not 
 their lives dear to them, wearing out those lives in the slow yet sure 
 maityrdom of labours far above their strength; how many, the leaven 
 of our lump, the salt of our eartli, the seekers of our sti'ayod, the 
 liinders up of our bruised, tlie honlcrs of our sick — whose work, what 
 it has been only the last day will declare — that day which shall declare 
 the good no less than the evil, and when these, the obscure of earth, 
 the unrewarded of men, these, that have turned many to ri^•ht^•o^sue!~•^^ 
 ?hall shine like stars for ever in the firmament of heaven. 
 
 Many such men, I believe, have left behind them those v,ho were 
 far dearer to them than their own lives, have bequeathed the care of 
 these to us who remain. They died in faith. To the eye of sense it 
 might seem as if they were leaving tlieir beloved to a cold heartl(>ss 
 world, henceforward exposed to the pitiless blasts of adversity, without 
 shelter or defence. But they heard in the deep of their souls such 
 words as these: — 'Leave thy fatherless children, 1 will ]>reserve 
 them alive, and let thy widows trust in Me ;' — they heard and Ijelieved. 
 And how, my Christian brethren, does God fulfil these promises which 
 He makes to his servants? Is it not by putting into the hearts of others 
 of his people a spirit of love, of tenderness, of com]ia.ssion, so that 
 they find rio ehoicer task than to puur the oil and wine of con- 
 solation into the bleedinr' wounds of those who v/nnld el^e lie
 
 neglecteil, dowii-troiUlen, iiucared-for on tho broad highway of tlie 
 world ? 
 
 This task, so pi-ecioiis in God's sight, the Society for which I am 
 speaking this day — The Friend of the Clergy Coi-poration — haa 
 undertaken, according to the measiire of its power to fulfil. I am 
 sure you nujst api)rove of thejorm which the relief administered by 
 it h.as assumetl; that having, alas! such very limited funds at its 
 disposal, it dispenses them now, I believe, exclusively in the form of 
 pensions to the widows and unmarried daughters of Clergy — and I 
 am no less confident that no other assistance could be half so welcome, 
 or half so cheering as this is, to the hearts of them for whom jn-i- 
 jnarily these benefits are intended. For how many a man wlio 
 accepts for himself, with a firm heart, the trials, however sharp, which 
 povei'ty and adversity may bring; yea, and bravely accepts these for 
 ins beloved ones too, so long as he is with them to cheer, to strengthen, 
 and to sustain, does yet shrink in spirit, and his heart fail and quail 
 within him, as he pictiires to himself the time when his sheltering 
 arm sliall be withdrawn, and they left to the cruel bufFetiugs of 
 fortune Avithout the shield of his protecting love. 
 
 And then further, you will, I am sure, count it well and wisely 
 done, that this Society, narrow as its income is, does not make its 
 pensions excessively small ; that, on the contrary, none are less than 
 30/., and, with the age of the pensioners, rise to 40/. a year. In tlie 
 attempt to make our benefits spread over as large a surface as possible, 
 they may, while they gain in superficial extent, so lose in depth as 
 almost to cease to be benefits at all. This Society has avoided this 
 mistake, and will help efiectually when it helps at all. It is only sad 
 to hear, that last year there were one lumdred and thirty candidates 
 for the four additional pen.sions, which were all that it was possible to 
 add to those that had l)een previously granted. I will not waste 
 woi'ds in commending this good work to you. Assist, sustain it if 
 you can, not with the transient gift of a day, but with the continuous 
 support of years. That is, indeed, given to God which is given to his 
 orphans, his widows — and given out of a true love to Him, will return 
 many times more into your own bosoms. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Savill & Edwards, Printers, 4, Chandos- street, Covent- garden.
 
 
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