preventing parents from defrauding[1] their children to enrich the Church; but there can be no reason to fear that any serious inconvenience would follow even from the total exemption of the Church from its operation. The time and the causes of danger are gone by.
Again, an augmentation of the number of our bishopricks, is a measure earnestly to be desired, not only for the good of the Church in general, but specially for that of the most neglected districts. The chief impediment to it, has been a jealousy of Churchmen and of Church influence, which opposes any increase in the number of spiritual peers. That this jealousy is most unfounded is obvious from the fact, that our prelates are not now more numerous than in the reign of Henry the Eighth, while the temporal peers have been multiplied nearly eight times. A wholesome influence then exerted on our government might relieve the Church from that
- ↑ St. Augustine being censured for refusing the inheritance of one Januarius, who had made the Church his heir, explained his motives in a sermon (No. 355), in which he says, "I am ready to receive good and holy offerings; but if any one disinherits his son in anger, would it not be my duty to appease him, and reconcile him to his son, if he were living? And how can I wish him to be reconciled to his son, if I am desiring his inheritance? What I have often advised is this: if a man has one son, let him put Christ in the place of a second; if two, in the place of a third; if ten, in the place of an eleventh; and that I will receive."
