nd admonished by them when he does amiss; and if he does
not amend in half a year, they may turn him out and nominate another.

This practice is believed to have existed in Willenhall since the time of
James I.

The power of the parishioners to elect their own clergymen, though not
common, exists in various parts of the country; as at Hayfield and
Chapel-in-le-Frith, both in Derbyshire; and in this more immediate
locality at St. John's Deritend, Birmingham, and at Bilston and Bloxwich,
nearer still.

In London the only example where the elective principle is employed in
the choice of a parish priest is presented by Clerkenwell. But
wheresoever a vacancy of the kind has to be filled by popular election,
with all the accessories incidental to the turmoil of Parliamentary
electioneering, all the bitterness of party strife, the parish is
inevitably divided into two or more factions; while the clergyman upon
whom the lot eventually falls must for a long time afterwards be regarded
as the nominee of one of them, rather than the spiritual director of the
whole body of the people. He succeeds to his high office as a victor in
a great parochial struggle which cannot fail to leave behind it those
feelings of rancour so harmful in matters sacred.

The only remedy for this state of things seems to be the voluntary
surrender of their privilege by the parishioners; or the provisions of a
special Act of Parliament.

As to the soundness of the general principle of a people being consulted
in the choice of their spiritual pastor, there can scarcely be two
opinions. But where the danger lurks in a case like that of Willenhall
is the assumption of our English law--an assumption quite unwarranted in
any country where freedom of conscience exists, and with us one of the
penalties for maintaining an established State Church--that every
parishioner is a Churchman.

Now, as a matter of fact, votes are recorded at these elections by
Romanists, by Dissenters of various shades of opinion, by those who are
unattached to any religious denomination, and by many who never, at other
times, take a great interest in Church of England affairs. At the last
election even trustees of Nonconformist chapels were empowered to vote if
they were householders, and the trust in respect of which they qualified
had been constituted by a properly executed deed. So it can scarcely be
claimed that the choice of minister rests solely with those most
conc