- To
a theoretical education add practical education. A cur? and with
still more reason, a canon, an archdeacon, a bishop, was not a passing
stranger, endowed by the State, wearing a surplice, as little
belonging to his age through his ministry as through his dress, and
wholly confined to his spiritual functions: he managed the revenues of
his dotation, he granted leases, made repairs, built, and interested
himself in the probabilities of the crops, in the construction of a
highway or canal, while his experiences in these matters were equal to
those of any lay proprietor. Moreover, being one of a small
proprietary corporation, that is to say, a chapter or local vestry,
and one of a great proprietary corporation of the diocese and Church
of France, he took part directly or indirectly in important temporal
affairs, in assemblies, in deliberations, in collective expenditures,
in the establishment of a local budget and of a general budget, and
hence, in public and administrative matters, his competence was
analogous and almost equal to that of a mayor, sub-delegate, farmer-
general or intendant. In addition to this he was liberal: never has
the French clergy been more earnestly so, from the latest cur?s back
to the first archbishops.
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