APPENDIX.
73
and benevolent exertions of other Prelates and Ministers
of the Established Church, who are using their utmost
endeavours in favour of the distressed : when I observe
that in every parish the clergyman is the first to pro-
mote and to regulate the benevolent system of providing
relief to the poor man, by allotting to him a portion of
land for the comfort and enjoyment of himself and
family; when I see and know such things, I confess I
blush for the ignorance and weakness of some of my
countrymen who can be imposed upon and persuaded,
by wicked and designing men, that these Ministers of
the Gospel are eating the bread of idleness, and are
indifferent to the distresses of their pastoral flock. I
call it ignorance, and weakness, because I have too good
an opinion of the hearts of my countrymen, to imagine
that any thing but the grossest deception, could induce
them to listen to such false and cruel insinuations.
Can they be made to believe that the Primate of our
Established Church, and the Metropolitan Prelate of
London, enjoy sinecures, and appropriate their incomes
exclusively to their own enjoyment, when it is well
known that their whole time is occupied by constant-
attention to their spiritual concerns and their ministry,
and their purses open to every public call or private
complaint, which they are enabled to relieve ? I might
add, that no small portion of their time has been
occupied in discovering and reforming those abuses in
their church, which, by a long lapse of years, have
been overlooked, but will now be remedied, if their
enemies will place some degree of confidence in their
exertions. On one important subject, they have been
unceasingly employed, and they have had the candour to
acknowledge, that some alteration must be made, in
K