er, he is needed.

It is, surely, a sad necessity that this ministerial "office and work"
should be so often confused with finance, doles, charities, begging
sermons, committees, etc. In all such things he is, indeed, truly
serving and ministering; but he is often obliged to place them in the
wrong order of importance, and so dim the sight of the laity to his
real position, and not infrequently make his spiritual ministrations
unacceptable. A well-known and London-wide respected Priest said {133}
shortly before he died, that he had almost scattered his congregation
by the constant "begging sermons" which he hated, but which necessity
made imperative. The laity are claiming (and rightly claiming) the
privilege of being Church workers, and are preaching (and rightly
preaching) that "the Clergy are not the Church". If only they would
practise what they preach, and relieve the Clergy of all Church
finance, they need never listen to another "begging sermon" again. So
doing, they would rejoice the heart of the Clergy, and fulfil one of
their true functions as laity.

The Parson.

This is one of the most beautiful of all the clerical names, only it
has become smirched by common use.

The word Parson is derived from _Persona_, a _person_. The Parson is
_the_ Person--the Person who represents God in the Parish. It is not
his own person, or position, that he stands for, but the position and
Person of his Master. Like St. Paul, he can say, "I magnify mine
office," and probably the best way to magnify his office will be to
minimize himself. The outward marks of {134} respect still shown to
"the Parson" in some places, are not necessarily shown to the person
himself (though often, thank God, they may be), but are meant, however
unconsciously, to honour the Person he represents--just as the lifting
of the hat to a woman is not, of necessity, a mark of respect to the
individual woman, but a tribute to the Womanhood she represents.

The Parson, then, is, or should be, the official person, the standing
element in the parish, who reminds men of God.

_Clergyman._

The word is derived from the Greek _kleros_,[7] "a lot," and conveys
its own meaning. According to some, it takes us back in thought to the
first Apostolic Ordination, when "they cast _lots_, and the _lot_ fell
upon Matthias". It reminds us that, as Matthias "was numbered with the
eleven," so a "Clergyman" is, at his Ordination, numbered with that
lo