the most eager
to swell it with their voices were not generally the most ignorant of
the real state of the Church, and the service it renders to the
community. _Reform_ is the word employed. Let us pause and consider what
sense it is apt to carry, and how things are confounded by a lax use of
it. The great religious Reformation, in the sixteenth century, did not
profess to be a new construction, but a restoration of something fallen
into decay, or put out of sight. That familiar and justifiable use of
the word seems to have paved the way for fallacies with respect to the
term reform, which it is difficult to escape from. Were we to speak of
improvement and the correction of abuses, we should run less risk of
being deceived ourselves, or of misleading others. We should be less
likely to fall blindly into the belief, that the change demanded is a
renewal of something that has existed before, and that, therefore, we
have experience on our side; nor should we be equally tempted to beg the
question, that the change for which we are eager must be advantageous.
From generation to generation, men are the dupes of words; and it is
painful to observe, that so many of our species are most tenacious of
those opinions which they have formed with the least consideration. They
who are the readiest to meddle with public affairs, whether in Church or
State, fly to generalities, that they may be eased from the trouble of
thinking about particulars; and thus is deputed to mechanical
instrumentality the work which vital knowledge only can do well.

'Abolish pluralities, have a resident incumbent in every parish,' is a
favourite cry; but, without adverting to other obstacles in the way of
this specious scheme, it may be asked what benefit would accrue from its
_indiscriminate_ adoption to counterbalance the harm it would introduce,
by nearly extinguishing the order of curates, unless the revenues of the
Church should grow with the population, and be greatly increased in many
thinly peopled districts, especially among the parishes of the North.

The order of curates is so beneficial, that some particular notice of it
seems to be required in this place. For a Church poor as, relatively to
the numbers of people, that of England is, and probably will continue to
be, it is no small advantage to have youthful servants, who will work
upon the wages of hope and expectation. Still more advantageous is it to
have, by means of this order, young men s