[p. 95]
|95| of the Church and a more suitable and more decent mode of collection given to them. In England, however, the nature of the original entitlement to the tithe has also otherwise received an essentially stunted and perverted turn; the destination for the subsistence of the teachers of religion and for the building and upkeep of the churches has predominantly passed over into the manner of a yield of private property; the spiritual office has taken on the character of a benefice, and its duties have been transformed into rights to revenues. Setting aside that a multitude of lucrative ecclesiastical posts, canonries, are wholly without official functions, it is only too well known how frequently it happens that English clergymen occupy themselves with anything other than the functions of their office, with hunting etc. and other idleness, consume the rich revenues of their posts in foreign countries, and transfer the official functions to a poor candidate for an alms which barely protects him against death by starvation. On the connection in which the possession of an ecclesiastical post and the drawing of its revenues stand here with the exercise of the duties of the office, together with moral conduct, an example dealt with in the courts some years ago gives a comprehensive idea. Against a clergyman named Frank, application was made in court to declare him, on account of madness, incapable of managing his property and to place it under guardianship; he had a parish with revenues of 800 pounds, besides other benefices of some 600 pounds (somewhat less than 10,000 Rtlr.); the legal action, however, was brought by his son, when the latter had come of age, in the interest of the family. The proof of the alleged insanity, publicly given over many days and through a multitude of depositions of witnesses, brought to light actions of this parson which he had, wholly undisturbed by any ecclesiastical authority, allowed himself to be guilty of in the course of
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