Churchwardens Manual | Page 9

articles of Church furniture and belongings.
There should also be a report on the fabric of the Church, mentioning the character, date, and cost of alterations made, the date of consecration; if a modern Church the Act under which built. Any specially characteristic features of the Church should be mentioned.
The inventory of Church furniture should include Church plate, with copies of inscriptions and dates, Church linen, Service books of all kinds, furniture of the vestry, ornaments for the Holy Table, special gifts, brasses, lectern, everything in short that is moveable, the bells, with inscriptions, if any, and the rules for ringers, the parish register books, with dates carefully made of the first entry in each book. If there are any gaps in the registers it is well to mention them. Benefactions should be noted; also the nature of the tenure of the parish school, with an intimation as to where the trust deed is kept. A terrier of glebe lands, with any exchange noted, should be made. There should be a table of the customary fees charged, {35} and of any payments due to the Ecclesiastical Commission or to Queen Anne's Bounty, with the amount of any receipts due from any public body. It is clear that the more complete such a list can be made the more valuable will it be for future generations.
It would also be very useful to keep in connection with this inventory a complete list of the various services held, with the amount of the offertories and the purposes to which they are devoted.
Then with regard to insurance of the fabric. It is most important that this should be looked into. There is no excuse for any Church to remain uninsured. The premium for insurance is now fixed at such a low rate that the expense is really very small, and the Churchwardens should do all in their power to persuade the Vestry, if persuasion is necessary, to sanction the insurance of the Church for a proper sum. I have sometimes found, after making enquiries on the subject and having ascertained either that the Church was not insured, or, if insured, only for a very small sum, that the churchwardens always supposed it was "all right." Very seldom have any held back from doing their duty when it has been quietly pointed out to them. An Ecclesiastical Buildings Fire Office has been established on a sound basis, the offices of which are in Norfolk Street, Strand, London. It is doing a very large business, and whatever surplus profits accrue are appropriated to the support of Church work in the various Dioceses in proportion to the amount of insurances in each, and to such special objects as are recommended by the Bishop and Archdeacons. I may also mention Mutual Fire Insurance Offices, such as the Hand-in-Hand (New Bridge Street, London, E.C.) and the County Fire (Regent Street), which are old-established offices, and which periodically return to insurers a certain amount of the premiums paid on their policies in cases in which no fire has taken place during the preceding few years. Of this I am quite certain, that if an uninsured Church were unfortunately burned down, those in the parish interested in the erection of a new Church would have the greatest possible difficulty in raising the necessary funds, in the face of such a manifest want of due caution and forethought on the part of the proper authorities in past years.
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary for me to say that a strictly accurate record of every sixpence that is spent upon these and such like matters must be kept by the Churchwardens, so that at the close of their year, when they pass on the parish books to their successors, they may be enabled to lay before them a clear and detailed account of all the receipts and expenses of the preceding year, with vouchers for all payments, and to hand over the actual balance remaining after all liabilities have been met.
It is often supposed that Church Rates are abolished. But such is not the case. Compulsory Church Rates are done away with by 31 and 32 Vict., cap. 109, except in cases where the rates have been legally mortgaged, or are subject to private Acts of Parliament. Section 6, however, of the above Act states distinctly that "this Act shall not affect vestries, or the making, assessing, receiving, or otherwise dealing with any Church Rate, save in so far as relates to the recovery thereof"; and Section 9 authorises the appointment of trustees, the Incumbent, and two householders or owners or occupiers of land in the parish, to be nominated, one by the patron, the other by the Bishop of the Diocese in which the parish is situate. These trustees form a body corporate, and