In Ireland the parish system has undergone consid- erable modilication. It is in. its present condition far more liberal than the Church of England parochial sys- tem, and may be fairly pronounced republican in char- acter. There is, first, in each diocese a committee of "patronage" or appointment, consisting of tlie bishop, with two clerical and one lay member, elected by the Diocesan Synod. Then in each parish the parishioners, who must be members of tlie Church of Ireland, elect three lay communicants to be nominators fir the par- ish. When a vacancy occurs, these two bodies form a Board of Nomination, in which the diocese, iu its three orders, bishop, presbyters, and laymen, and the parish, are both fairly represented. The bishop is ex officio president, and has both an ordinary and a casting vote. Provision is made for filling vacancies in both branches of this board. If the bishop should not be satisfied with
the fitness of the clergyman so nominated, he may de- cline to institute; but, if retjuired, must give him his reasons in writing. Provision is also made for an ap- peal in behalf of the clergyman so rejected. If no nom- ination is made to the bishop in three months after a vacancy, the appointment lapses to the bishop. If the nominators of any cure shall signify to the bishop, in writing, their desire to leave the nomination to him. he may institute any didy qualified clergyman whom he may think fit. A clergyman resigning cannot with- draw from the duties of his cure until liis resignation has been accepted and registered by the bishop and notified to the churchwardens. Nor can an incumbent be removed without his own consent, unless upon the decision of a competent tribunal. These regulations seem fairly to consider the rights of all parties. A parish cannot be kept vacant by its own perversity or negligence, nor any loyal parish unduly obstructed in its choice. A clergyman is not to be dismissed with- out canonical cause, and by authority, nor yet to be ob- truded upon an unwilling people. The bishop's ulti- mate responsibility and prerogative is recognised, and a fair opportunity given to keep_ the clergy emploj^ed, and to put the right man in the right place. There is besides a general sustentation fund, which is to become the chief support of the clergy, and is intended to give to the ministry an income irrespective of employment, so that congregations may not at their will withhold the pastor's salary.
In the United States the Protestant Episcopal Church adheres to the parish idea. The whole of each diocese is divided into parishes, and the spiritual wants of each geographical parish are confided to the local Church and its pastor. But the parish is of course purely ec- clesiastical. There were, however, in our colonial days parishes set off and named by the civil authority. These existed in South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland, al- most coeval with their settlement as colonies of Great Britain. We find notices of such parishes in Virginia as far back as 1029, in Jlaryland in 1692, in South Car- olina in 1708, created such by acts of the colonial as- semblies. When the Church was, in process of time, established in any of these civil parishes, the ecclesi- astical was made coextensive with the colonial parish. The power to divide these ]>arishes is acknowledged to reside in the Diocesan Conventions; and in several di- oceses (e. g. Virginia and Maryland) they have legis- lated fully on the subject. Most of the Episcopal par- ishes however are of the second class named, and sim- ply mean the congregation statedly worshipping in any given church. So intermingled are the congregations in large towns and cities, that legislation upon this sub- ject is both delicate and difficult. The 31st canon of 1832 thus speaks :
"No clergyman belonging to this Church shall ofHciate, either by preaching, reading prayers, or otlierwise, in the parish or within the parochial cure of nuotlier clergyman, unless he have received express permission for that pur- pose from the minister of the parish or cure, or, in his absence, from the churchwardens and vestrymen, or trus- tees of the congregation. Where ])arish boundaries are not detined by law or otherwise, each city, borough, vil- lage, town, or township in which there is one Protestant Episcopal church or conijregation, or more than one such church or conirregation^ shall be lield, for all the pur- poses of this canon, to be the parish or parishes of the Protestant Episcopal clergyman or clergymen having charge of said church or churches, congregation or con- ^neLrations. And in case of such a vicinity of two or more churches, as tliat there can be no local boundaries drawn lietween their respective cures or parishes, it is hereby ordained that in every snch case no minister of thus Church, other than the parochial cleruy of said cures, shall preach within the common limits of the same, in any other place than iu one of the churches thereof, withont the consent of the major number of the parochial clergy of the said churches."
In iMassachusetts law a parish signifies an ecclesiasti- cal society, without local reference — that is, those inhab- itants of a town who belong to one Church, though they live among people belonging to other churches. The
PARISH CHAPLAIN