Payment of stipend. Incorporation of former act. Licences to curates, and revocations thereof, to be Provisions relating to bishops to bishop may at any time revoke any such appointment and licence Provided always that such stipend or stipends shall not exceed in the whole the following sums; that is to say, if the population shall not exceed five hundred, the sum of 2007. yearly; if the population shall exceed five hundred but not one thousand, the sum of 3007. yearly; if the population shall exceed one thousand but not three thousand, the sum of 5007. yearly; if the population shall exceed three thousand, the sum of 6001. yearly: Provided also that such stipend or stipends shall not exceed in the whole two-thirds of the annual value of the benefice as defined in the last-mentioned act." Sect. 3. "Every stipend assigned under this act shall be paid by the sequestrator out of moneys coming to his hands under the sequestration, as long as the sequestration is in force, in priority to all sums payable by virtue of the judgment or the bankruptcy under which the sequestration issues, but not in priority of liabilities in respect of charges on the benefice." Sect. 2 of the last mentioned act incorporates and adopts for the purposes of sect. 1, all the provisions in 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, ss. 107, 108, and 109. And sect. 4 similarly adopts for the purposes of sect. 3, the provisions in 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, ss. 75, 76, 82, 97, and 102. : Sect. 102 of 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106 is as follows:Every bishop who shall grant or revoke any licence to any curate under this act shall cause a copy of such licence or revocation to be entered in the registry of the diocese; and an alphabetical list of such licences and revocations shall be made out by the registrar of each diocese, and entered in a book, and kept for the inspection of all persons, upon payment of three shillings, and no more; and a copy of every such licence and revocation shall be transmitted by the said registrar to the churchwardens or chapelwardens of the parish, township, or place to which the same relates, within one month after the grant of such licence or revocation thereof, to be by them deposited in the parish chest: Provided always, that every such registrar shall for every such copy transmitted to such churchwardens or chapel wardens as aforesaid be entitled to demand and receive from the incumbent of such benefice a fee of three shillings, and no more: Provided also, that in case the archbishop shall, on appeal to him, annul the revocation of any such licence, the bishop by whom such revocation shall have been made shall, immediately on receiving notice from the archbishop that he had annulled the same, make such or the like order as is herein before directed to be made on the revocation of a licence for non-residence being annulled, which order shall be binding on the registrar and churchwardens respectively to whom the same shall be addressed." With regard to the general authority of archbishops and bishops, it is enacted as follows: Sect. 107. "All the powers, authorities, provisions, regulations, matters, and things in this act contained, in relation to their own bishops in their dioceses, shall extend and be construed to apply to archextend to the archbishops in the respective dioceses of which bishops in they are bishops, and also in their own peculiar jurisdictions, as dioceses. fully and effectually as if the archbishops were named with the bishops in every such case." and bishops Sect. 108. "Every archbishop and bishop within the limits Power of of whose province or diocese respectively any benefice exempt archbishops or peculiar shall be locally situate, shall, except as herein other- as to exempt wise provided, have, use, and exercise all the powers and autho- or peculiar rities necessary for the due execution by them respectively of benefices, &c. the provisions and purposes of this act, and for enforcing the same with regard thereto respectively, as such archbishop and bishop respectively would have used and exercised if the same were not exempt or peculiar, but were subject in all respects to the jurisdiction of such archbishop or bishop; and where any benefice exempt or peculiar shall be locally situate within the limits of more than one province or diocese, or where the same or any of them shall be locally situate between the limits of the two provinces, or between the limits of any two or more dioceses, the archbishop or bishop of the cathedral church to whose province or diocese the parish church of the same respectively shall be nearest in local situation shall have, use, and exercise all the powers and authorities which are necessary for the due execution of the provisions of this act, and enforcing the same with regard thereto respectively as such archbishop or bishop could have used if the same were not exempt or peculiar, but were subject in all respects to the jurisdiction of such archbishop or bishop respectively, and the same for all the purposes of this act shall be deemed and taken to be within the limits of the province or diocese of such archbishop or bishop; provided that the peculiars belonging to any archbishopric or bishopric, though locally situate in another diocese, shall continue subject to the archbishop or bishop to whom they belong, as well for the purposes of this act as for all other purposes of ecclesiastical jurisdiction." Sect. 109. "In every case in which jurisdiction is given to the Where jurisbishop of the diocese or to any archbishop, under the provisions diction is of this act and for the purposes thereof, and the enforcing the given to bishops, &c., due execution of the provisions thereof, all other and concurrent all concurrent jurisdiction in respect thereof shall, except as herein otherwise jurisdiction provided, wholly cease, and no other jurisdiction in relation to to cease. the provisions of this act shall be used, exercised, or enforced, save and except such jurisdiction of the bishop and archbishop under this act, anything in any act or acts of parliament, or law or laws, or usage or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding." Sect. 132. "Nothing in this act contained shall be deemed, Act not to construed or taken to derogate from, diminish, prejudice, alter or affect powers of bishops. affect, otherwise than is expressly provided, any powers, authorities, rights, or jurisdiction already vested in or belonging to Procedure. Commencement and conclusion of the year. How months to be calculated. Certified any archbishop or bishop under or by virtue of any statute, canon, usage, or otherwise howsoever." With regard to the form of procedure sect. 111 as to the mode of appealing to the archbishop of the province, sect. 112 as to the service of monitions and sequestrations, sect. 110 as to the priority of sequestration under this act, and sects. 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, dealing with the recovery of penalties and their application, the recovery of fees and the duty of the registrar, will be found at length in the chapter on procedure under this act (c). Sect. 120. "For all the purposes of this act, except as herein otherwise provided, the year shall be deemed to commence on the first day of January, and be reckoned therefrom to the thirty-first day of December, both inclusive." Sect. 121. "For all the purposes of this act the months therein named shall be taken to be calendar months, except in any case in which any month or months are to be made up of different periods less than a month, and in every such case thirty days shall be deemed a month." Sect. 122. "In every case where by the provisions of this act copy of entry the copy of any licence is required to be filed or entered in the registry of the diocese, a copy thereof, certified by the registrar, shall be admissible as evidence in all courts and places whatever." to licence to be evidence. Statements, how to be verified. When exempt from payment of tolls. Sect. 123. "When authority is given by this act to any archbishop or bishop to require any statement or facts to be verified by evidence, or to inquire or to cause inquiry to be made into any facts, such archbishop or bishop may require any such statement or any of such facts to be verified in such manner as the said archbishop or bishop shall see fit; and when any oath, affidavit, or affirmation or solemn declaration is or may be by or in pursuance of the provisions of this act required to be made, such oath, affidavit, or affirmation or solemn declaration shall and may be made either before such archbishop or bishop, or the commissioner or commissioners, or one of them, of such archbishop or bishop respectively, or before some ecclesiastical judge or his surrogate, or before a justice of the peace, or before a master extraordinary in chancery, who are hereby authorized and empowered in all and every of the cases aforesaid, to administer such oath, affidavit and affirmation, or to take such declaration, as the case may be." Under the General Turnpike Act, 3 Geo. 4, c. 126, s. 32, no toll was to be demanded or taken, by virtue of any act, on any turnpike road, "from any rector, vicar or curate going to or returning from visiting any sick parishioner, or on other his parochial duty within his parish." And it was holden that this provision exempted a curate who, in going to perform duty in a parish, passed through a turnpike gate in another parish, from (c) Vide infra, Part IV., Chap. VII. payment of toll at such gate; and that a clergyman, who, during the vacancy of the living, was requested by the churchwardens to perform the duty of curate, and was authorized by a letter sent by the bishop's direction, but without licence under the bishop's hand and seal, to perform such duty, was a curate within the above enactment (d). A curate stands in the place of the parson for the purposes of Curate's nominating one churchwarden (e). power of church By the Stamp Act (54 & 55 Vict. c. 39), schedule, tit. "Licence," nominating a "licence to a stipendiary curate, wherein the annual amount warden. of the stipend is specified," is exempt from all stamp duty. (d) Temple v. Dickinson, 1 E. & E. p. 34 (1858); vide infra, p. 478. (e) Hubbard v. Penrice, 2 Stra., p. 1245. Licence exempt from duty. Office of How appointed. CHAPTER XVI. LECTURERS AND READERS. THIS chapter relates to: 1. Lecturers. 2. Readers. 1. Lecturers. In London and other cities there are lecturers appointed as assistants to the rectors of churches. They are generally chosen by the vestry or chief inhabitants; and are usually the afternoon preachers. There are also one or more lecturers in most cathedral churches, and many lectureships have likewise been founded by the donation of private persons, as Lady Moyer's at St. Paul's, and many others. A person holding a lectureship may be suspended for illegal trading, and for the third offence deprived, by s. 31 of 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, and generally falls under the same restrictions as other "spiritual persons" by that act, and is also subject to 3 & 4 Vict. c. 86. It seems generally that the bishop's power is only to judge as to the qualification and fitness of the person, and not as to the right of lectureship: As in The Churchwardens of St. Bartholomew's Case (12 Will. 3) (a), one Fishbourne left 251. a year for the maintenance of a weekly lecturer, and appointed that the lecturer should be chosen by the parishioners, and to preach on any day in every week as they should like best. The parishioners fixed on Thursday, and chose a lecturer every year and now Mr. Turton being lecturer, and the parish having chosen Mr. Rainer, the other would not submit to the choice, whereupon the churchwardens shut Turton out of the church. Afterwards the Bishop of London determined in his favour, and granted an inhibition and monition for that purpose. But by Holt C. J.-A prohibition must go to try the right; it is true a man cannot be a lecturer without a licence from the bishop or archbishop, but their power is only as to the qualification, and fitness of the person, and not as to the right of the (a) 3 Salk. p. 87, reported as Rex v. Churchwardens of St. Bartholomew's, 13 East, p. 421, note. |