the
Committee of the Incorporated Church Building Society in 1889, and with
the co-operation of their legal advisers a statement was issued clearly
pointing out the advantages and the disadvantages of the several modes of
procedure possible. With the permission of the Church Building Society's
Committee, I add in Appendix X a summary of the conveniences and
inconveniences of the several Acts. The Minister and Churchwardens are
not a corporation with perpetual succession under the common law, though
often supposed so to be because they are specially so made for the
purpose of carrying out the Schools Sites' Acts. The advisers of the
Church Building Society on the whole recommend that a conveyance should
be made to individual Trustees, "which will be good according to the
ordinary law of mortmain as a charitable conveyance, the only real
objection to this being that if the conveyance be a gift, without price
paid, it will fail if the grantor dies within twelve months." A form of
such conveyance has been settled for the parish of Staines. This form
has been printed by the Church Building Society, but they recommend that
it should be amended by adding a power, to be used if a consecrated
Church is eventually built on the land, to revoke the trusts and convey
the land and building for the purpose of a Church to any person or body
lawfully authorised to accept such conveyance. If the Staines form is
not adopted, it is on the whole recommended that action should be taken
under 43 Geo. III, cap. 108. {50}

I pass on to another point. On a vacancy occurring in an incumbency
either through the resignation or death of the Incumbent, certain duties
of considerable importance devolve upon the Churchwardens. During the
vacancy they are in charge of the temporalities of the incumbency, and
therefore it is necessary that a sequestration of the living should be
issued, empowering them to do such things as are necessary in connection
therewith. Application should at once be made with reference to this to
the Bishop's Registrar. It is then their duty to see that Church
property, whether in connection with the fabric, endowment, or glebe,
suffers no loss during the vacancy. They have also to provide for the
services in Church and any occasional duty which may arise. A
newly-appointed Incumbent does not become legally responsible for this
until he has been instituted, or collated, as the case may be. But it
would be well always