And what a screech would there not be among the clergy of the Church, even in these reforming days, if any over-bold reformer were to suggest that such an approximation should be attempted?
Let those who know clergymen, and like them, and have lived with them, only fancy it! Clergymen to be paid, not according to the temporalities of any living which they may have acquired, either by merit or favour, but in accordance with the work to be done! O Doddington! and O Stanhope, think of this, if an idea so sacrilegious can find entrance into your warm ecclesiastical bosoms! Ecclesiastical work to be bought and paid for according to its quantity and quality! But, nevertheless, one may prophesy that we Englishmen must come to this, disagreeable as the idea undoubtedly is.

Most pleasant-minded Churchmen feel, I think, on this subject pretty much in the same way.
Our present arrangement of parochial incomes is beloved as being time-honoured, gentleman-like, English, and picturesque.

We would fain adhere to it closely as long as we can, but we know that we do so by the force of our prejudices, and not by that of our judgement.
A time-honoured, gentleman-like, English, picturesque arrangement is so far very delightful.

But are there not other attributes very desirable--nay, absolutely necessary--in respect to which this time-honoured, picturesque arrangement is so very deficient?
How pleasant it was, too, that one bishop should be getting fifteen thousand a year, and another with an equal cure of parsons only four! That a certain prelate could get twenty thousand one year and his successor in the same diocese only five the next! There was something in it pleasant, and picturesque; it was an arrangement endowed with feudal charms, and the change which they have made was distasteful to many of us.

A bishop with a regular salary, and no appanage of land and land-bailiffs, is only half a bishop.