This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

22THE EPISCOPALIANSbishop in a colonial parish, they often would not even have seen a priest. Althoughthe number of Anglican clergy serving in the colonies increased markedly in thedecades before the American Revolution, there was always a shortage of trainedministers. Vestries frequently had to employ clerks to read the services and tocarry out other ministerial duties that required a priest. In Virginia, clerks playedan especially important role. Since a priest could usually lead worship at onlyone of the congregations in his parish each Sunday, clerks were needed to conductservices at the parish’s other churches. Many parishes also recruited their clergyfrom among these lay readers, and men who followed this path into the ordainedministry rarely had trouble dealing with their vestries or parishioners. 20Clergy who served in the southern colonies (from Maryland to Georgia) werefinancially supported by revenues from taxation. In Maryland, for example, thesheriff collected a tobacco tax and paid it directly to the minister. By 1767 theaverage annual salary for a rector in that colony was about 275 pounds, whichwas the highest salary for Anglican clergy in America. In 1696 the VirginiaGeneral Assembly adopted a uniform salary for clergy (16,000 pounds of tobaccoa year), and this figure remained unchanged over the next 80 years. Since tobaccowas an export crop whose value depended upon European market prices, clergycould never be certain what their yearly salary would actually be worth. SouthCarolina paid its clergy out of a general treasury, and by 1765 the annual stipendfor clergy there was 110 pounds. 21Many clergy outside the South were aided by the SPG, which proved to beespecially helpful to the growth of the church in New England and the middlecolonies. The Society supplied countless Bibles, prayer books, catechisms, devotionals,and books of sermons, and it enabled congregations to pay a livingwage to their clergy. Parishes in the northern and middle colonies also raisedfunds for their work through pew rents (making payment a prerequisite for votingin parish elections), subscriptions, and lotteries. Burial and marriage fees addedto the ministers’ support, as did income they earned through tutoring, operatingschools, farming, and even practicing medicine. 22The colonial Anglican clergy were, by and large, a conscientious, learned, anddevout group of men, but on occasion, a powerful planter wishing to oust hisrector would not hesitate to besmirch his parson’s good name. After about 1750,Presbyterian and Baptist antagonists in the South also added their voices to thecriticism, presenting a picture of a lazy, drunken, and immoral Anglican clergy.Although there were, indeed, cases of clerical alcoholism, insanity, graft, andsexual misconduct, recent research has demonstrated that the image that prevailedfor many years of a wholly dissolute Anglican clergy was highly exaggerated.As one southern minister remarked, a single moral slip “seldom misses of beingimproved into a scandal & prejudice against . . . the church & whole order of theClergy.” 23 As a group the SPG clergy were generally superior to ordinary parochialclergy. The Society carefully selected and supervised its clergy, and thedemanding life of a missionary tended to attract only the most idealistic andcommitted clergy. (For example, John Wesley, the great evangelical leader and