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I think there are FAR too many clerics running around. Do the gods need that many servants to be imbued with that much power?

Most holy men in the campaign setting won't be clerics at all, but adepts. And how many high level adepts will there be? Take your average priest. Does he even HAVE an adept level, or is he a commoner who preaches? What about your higher up church elders? Are they going to have a lot of adept levels, or are they more likely to be high level aristocrats?

The average person in the realm should never receive a single CLW spell. There are say a billion people on the planet. Over the course of a person's life, how many minor wounds (farm accidents, fist fights, falling down stairs, etc) will a person have? How many serious injuries? How about infections and poisonings? Now how many people, realistically, can cast healing spells? And how many per day? Are there even enough priests out there, assuming they are ALL clerics with access to more powerful spells, to make sure everyone stays in tip top shape? Doubt it.

So what do you end up with? Say there are only a handful of really powerful clerics in the realm. Even say there are a thousand of them. That means maybe a MILLION commoners per priest. What percentage of the masses will be able to get access to and preferential treatment by the clergy?

Now you start to see why the nobility are noble and the peasantry are peasants. The King has his cleric minister. So the King, his family, and his closest allies are, essentially, immune to injury and death. The million peasants he rule have nothing but herbs and skill. No wonder the peasants find it useless to rebel.

Now what does this mean to your cleric PC? Well, he has a gift from the gods. That means two things: he has a duty and responsibility to serve his god, which may include healing the poor and sick; he also has to make sure he doesn't rock the political boat! If he demonstrates power, there will be people out to get him! No wonder clerics adventure instead of sitting in their parish temple performing cure spells. If all they did was heal the poor, they'd end up victims of assassination. So out into the wild they go, to right wrongs and spread the faith. But they have to keep a low profile--and it may be painful to bear, but they need to avoid healing the masses in order to continue serving god. Heal one farmer, he tells a friend, and next thing you know, the King's elite forces are after you. It's hard to spread the word with your head on a pike.

But of course, people will know about magic and will try to find it. So as your cleric adventures, people will seek him out. When he preaches the gospel of his god, folks will come to hear the sermon. And most of those people will assume he is just a preacher. But some will wonder if he has the power...