INTRODUCTION. Ixvil 



farmers, who frequent the rooms of this Society; and with 

 whom, of courfe, the Secretary and the Members of its 

 Committees have frequent intercourfe. All agree in la- 

 menting that, becaufe the legiilature originally thought pro- 

 per to fan£tion that particular mode of fubfiftence, for the 

 minifters of a national church ; the confequence ihould not 

 only be a continued check on improvements, but a rankling 

 animofity in the minds of farmers againft the claimants, to 

 the injury of a national worfliip : That the original plan, ha- 

 ving become long fince altered, by the gradual fale, gift, and 

 lay-pofTeffion of the greater part of the tithes of the king- 

 dom, the burden fhould not be fuffered to remain from age 

 to age, where every plea of clerical fupport is out of the 

 queftion ; — and where the whole fruit is evil, by the perfonal 

 intereft of one lay-man being oppofed againft that of ano- 

 ther; while the nation, inftead of the polTibility of profiting 

 at all by the conteft, muft be doomed to fuffer, till the eni- 

 barraffmcnt Hiall be removed. 



Under thefe common views of the fubje^l, many are of 

 opinion that an alteration in the mode of tithing, fo far as 

 concerns the clergy, might take place, on the principles of 

 feveral writers in thefe volumes, or, in other words, by a corn 

 rent. Others have preferred, on account of greater fimpli- 

 city, a pound rate on the rent of the land ; the legiilature to 

 prefcribe a proper teft of truth, as to the reality of the rents, 

 to which teft the claimants in all cafes of fufpicion may have 

 recourfe. Others have propofed that agricultural focieties, 

 and other bodies, fhould apply to parliament for obtaining 

 an a(Sl to compel the fale and purcliafe of aii, ihe tithes iu 

 the kingdom, on a fair valuation by a jury ; and out of the 

 produce of the appropriate tithes, the eftablilhiueni of a 

 fund, under the guarantee of government, for the more equal 



an4 



