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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 ROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cliargedeliverediOOcampricli 
 

 CJI ARGE 
 
 DELIVEKED IN KOVEMBER, MDCCCLVIII. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE CLEEGY 
 
 DIOCESE OF LONDON, 
 
 AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, 
 
 BY 
 
 AECHIBALD [CAMPBELL, 
 LORD BISHOP OP LONDON. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1858. 
 
LONDON : 
 R.CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STRBET HILL. 
 
TO 
 
 THE CLERGY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE DIOCESE OF LONDON 
 
 f lis €\np 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 3Y 
 
 THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND AND SERVANT 
 
 A. C. LONDON. 
 
 FuLHAM Palace, 
 
 17th Nov, 3858. 
 
Almighty God, giver of all good things, who by thy Holy Spirit 
 hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church ; Mercifully 
 behold us thy servants ; and so replenish us with the truth of thy 
 doctrine, and adorn us with innocency of Ufe, that, both by word 
 and good example, we may faithfully serve thee in our Of&ce, to 
 the glory of thy Name, and the edification of thy Church ; through 
 the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth 
 with thee and the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen. 
 
C3^ 
 
 CHARGE 
 
 My Reverend Brethren, 
 
 I HAVE been reminded by some of you that 
 this 17th day of November is the 300th anniversary 
 of the accession of Queen Ehzabeth, and of the 
 close of that reviving effort of Romanism, which so 
 sorely tried this Church and nation during the five 
 years of her sister's reign. I have been reminded 
 also, that it was long the custom to honour this day, 
 in token of thankfulness for the great results secured 
 to us when God's overruling providence placed and 
 maintained Queen Ehzabeth on the throne. Certainly 
 these results can scarcely be too highly prized. We 
 of the Church of England cannot be too grateful for 
 that aid, which the reign inaugurated this day brought 
 to the estabhshment of our Protestant institutions. 
 And having unknowingly fixed this day, some months 
 ago, for the present meeting, I should be sorry indeed 
 if in any way this Visitation interfered with the desire 
 of any of you to thank God in the midst of your 
 people in the ordinary service of th*? Church, for the 
 
 iwS6?5S0 
 
blessings of our reformed faith, or to stir their 
 hearts, not in a controversial but a loving, tolerant, 
 yet earnest spirit, to a due appreciation of these 
 blessings. But what can be a fitter employment for 
 the day thus full of associations with the history of our 
 Church, than that we, the clergy of the greatest Diocese 
 of England, should be thus solemnly assembled ? 
 
 This, my reverend brethren, quite independently of 
 any reminiscences of distant date, is for us a very solemn 
 meeting — solemn whether we look to the present, to 
 the past, or to the future. This vast assemblage 
 within this honoured house of God, now used for the 
 first time for such a gathering of the whole Clergy of 
 the diocese — the occasion of our gathering — viz. my 
 first opportunity of seeing you all together face to 
 face as your Diocesan — the object of our meeting, to 
 take account of the way in which Christ has been 
 served by us hitherto, and to endeavour to strengthen 
 each other's hands while we join in prayer and give 
 forth or receive words of advice and encouragement 
 uttered in Christ's name :— all these things combine 
 to mark this present day. On my part it must be a 
 day much to be remembered. Let me in all sincerity 
 bespeak your prayers, while overpowering thoughts 
 rush into my mind, as I try to realise the position in 
 which I stand to you, and to the vast multitude of the 
 human souls which compose this diocese. God grant 
 that by all of us, as we are thus gathered together, this 
 may be felt to be a day of spiritual refreshment. 
 
And as to connexion with the past period of our 
 lives, how do such solemn days of meeting, recurring 
 at rare intervals, send our thoughts backward. Life 
 has had comparatively but few of such days for each 
 of us in our ministerial career — the days on which 
 we were each of us ordained — first Deacon, and then 
 Priest — the day on which we first entered on a new 
 sphere, in a new cure of souls, or bade farewell to a 
 loved flock after years of pastoral intercourse : These 
 have been days, when, in past times, God's Holy Spirit 
 has striven to awaken in us a deeper sense of our over- 
 whelming responsibilities. And many of you, my 
 reverend brethren, must this day recall past Visitations 
 in this diocese, and words of advice spoken to you from 
 this chair by him, who since you last met has gone to 
 render up the account of his long Episcopate. Suffer 
 me, before we go further, to cast a look backwards on 
 the work which has been doing amongst you during 
 the last thirty years, by the good and great man 
 whose place has now fallen to me. I would not have 
 such words regarded as the mere customary and 
 commonplace acknowledgement of what is due to 
 departed worth. Bishop Blomfield's was no comnion- 
 place character. Men like him have often great faults, 
 as well as great excellences ; and when they have not 
 such faults, they are quite sure to be supposed to have 
 them, by persons from whom they differ in principle 
 or in practice, and with whom they must be brought 
 into some sort of conflict by the very activity of their 
 
 b2 
 
4 
 
 characters. Great works, in trying times, are seldom 
 accomplished by men whose chief characteristic is 
 mere amiableness and courtesy ; though, certainly, he 
 whom we speak of could not have been deficient in 
 any essential of these Christian qualities, or he would 
 not have lived, as he does now, in the affectionate 
 remembrance of so many even of those who at times 
 opposed him. When a man with great intellectual 
 powers, of indomitable industry, with a deep sense 
 of his responsibilities, for whom rest has no charms 
 apart from duty, finds himself in a position which 
 calls forth all his energies, and sees by the hght of 
 a daily deepening conscientiousness the endless series 
 of works which summon him in God's name to be up 
 and stirring, it is not likely that, as he never spares 
 himself, he will be very sparing of others. And in 
 the rough conflict of life, while he is brought necessarily 
 into collision with sentiments and principles different 
 from his own, such a man, even while compassing objects 
 which all must agree in honouring, cannot expect to 
 be wafted on his course by the complacent praises of 
 those whom he is often obhged to thwart. Often also 
 a man of influence, one of whose chief characteristics 
 is activity, seeins: with great acuteness dangers which 
 must be met, and impatient of delay in meeting them, 
 will seek the objects he has at heart by some course of 
 immediate energetic action, which persons greatly in- 
 ferior to himself, not understanding as he does the 
 necessity for immediate change, will think themselves 
 
justified in severely criticising, and that not without 
 some show of reason, for a better course might perhaps 
 have been devised by longer consideration, had there 
 been time for delay in the pressing emergencies that 
 called for action. Thus such men as he, whom we all 
 to-day unite in honouring, will often be regarded as 
 rash, when indeed a full knowledge of the circumstances 
 under which they acted will show, that at the time of 
 acting they were right. Great men of the peculiar 
 character I have spoken of must be content to be 
 criticised, and often harshly judged. While they are 
 living, they are sure thus to suffer : it will usually be 
 different when they are dead. And as we look back 
 to-day on the twenty-eight years of the Episcopate 
 of my venerated predecessor ^ how must all paltry 
 discontented criticism be lost in the thought of that 
 vigorous intellect — that deep conscientiousness — that 
 untiring activity — that ever watchful readiness — that 
 grand munificence, which so mainly contributed to 
 change the face of this diocese and of the Church of 
 England during the last thirty years. The 198^ 
 Churches which he consecrated — the Colonial Episco- 
 
 ' Bishop Blomfield was consecrated Bishop of Chester in 1824: 
 translated to Loudon in 1828 : resigned the See of London in 1856. 
 
 ^ 198 in all : 169 in the present diocese of London : the remaining 29 
 in that part of the diocese which has since been transferred to Rochester. 
 To shew what has really been effected by these effurts, I have caused a 
 Table to be prepared, setting forth the number of adults who worship on 
 Sundays in the New Churches thus consecrated, and the number of 
 children under instruction in the week-day schools connected with each. 
 I wish the Returns had in all instances been such as to give full informa- 
 tion on these points. Vid^. Appendix A. 
 
pate spread far and wide mainly through his instru- 
 inentaHty — to recount these things is but to go over 
 a thrice-told tale of the great works which he accom- 
 plished. Who shall say how far your late Bishop w^as 
 an instrument in God's hands for carrying our beloved 
 Church safely through a period of great trial, and 
 raising her to a position of unexpected usefulness and 
 honour? Who that remembers the dangers which 
 beset our Church twenty-eight years ago, can fail to 
 be thankful for that brilliani: course of Christian use- 
 fulness which he was privileged to run? And now 
 that he is gone, the thought of all the good he did 
 must give force to many words of advice, which in 
 times past he spake to you from this chair. May 
 the example of his untiring exertions stimidate us all 
 to ever fresh labours, for Christ's sake. 
 
 And when we look on to the days which are coming, 
 it is a serious thing to reflect how nmch the cause of 
 our national Church, and, with the Church, of true 
 Christianity in this great empire, depends on the use 
 we make of the admonitions we have received in the 
 days that are gone, and of our meeting here now, and 
 of that serious time for examining into the fruits of our 
 ministry, w^hich the questions of a Diocesan Visitation 
 are calculated to suggest, both to him who asks, and 
 to those who answer them. Indeed it is not too much 
 to say that we stand now at the entrance of a new 
 period in our ministerial Hfe. I may be supposed, by 
 two years of preliminary experience, and by attentively 
 
perusing the answers you have kindly sent to my 
 long list of queries, to be placed now on somewhat 
 of a vantage-ground for meeting the great duties 
 which, while life and health are spared, must thicken 
 round me. Short is life at the longest, and he who 
 begins an Episcopate is not far from ending it. You 
 will pray for me, that while the day lasts, I may 
 labour as in my Master's sight. And you, my reve- 
 rend brethren, whatever be your age or standing in the 
 ministry — whether you are but young men entering on 
 your work, or fathers in the Church of Christ, ap- 
 proaching the period when the weakly body calls for 
 rest — ^you will not fail all to remember, that, different 
 as may be the duties of the young and the aged pastor, 
 still they are duties which are ever new, and which 
 ever open up new opportunities for serving the Lord 
 we love — whether it be the fresh activity of ardent 
 youth, or the mature and firm guidance of our middle 
 strength, or the fatherly counsels and mild example 
 of declining age, which we have to devote to Christ, 
 that we may bring blessings on our people's souls. 
 
 And now, to enter more formally on the business 
 of our meeting, let me first say a few words as to 
 those queries which I have submitted to you. They 
 have been many and minute. You will not, I trust, 
 think them too minute, when you remember how 
 important it is that I should have a thorough acquaint- 
 ance both with the secular and the spiritual state of 
 your parochial arrangements. As to secular matters, 
 
8. 
 
 I must not forget that a responsibility devolves on 
 me, from that position which is assigned to me in the 
 legislature ; and how I am bound to watch, so far as 
 in me lies, as your Parliamentary representative, over 
 the laws by which at once you are secured in the 
 possession of your rights, and the people for whom 
 you labour are secured also both in their right to com- 
 mand your services, and in the enjoyment of fit places 
 of worship in which you may minister to them. You 
 know, that in these two matters many changes have of 
 late been taking place : I mean, first, in the remune- 
 ration of the clergy, and their consequent power of 
 devoting themselves to their spiritual calling, without 
 the necessary interruption of other secular pursuits, 
 by which, if inadequately provided for, they must be 
 forced to eke out a living ; and secondly, in the nature 
 and amount of the funds by which our places of 
 worship are maintained in due repair. These changes 
 have been wrought, some by distinct Acts of legis- 
 lation, and others by more silent causes operating 
 indirectly. You know, also, that other changes in 
 these matters are looked upon as imminent. Those, 
 therefore, who have a public part to act, are called 
 to be well informed, and ready to meet any misrepre- 
 sentations which may go abroad on each of these 
 two points. 
 
 The secular questions I have addressed to you 
 have all their distinct bearing on these two points. 
 And, as to my inquiries respecting your spiritual 
 
9 
 
 functions, you will scarcely deem that they can be too 
 minute. I trust God has given me sufficient large- 
 ness of sympathy that I may be able to appreciate 
 your abundant efforts for your people's souls, even 
 when the exact mode in which you seek to win 
 them is not such as I should myself have chosen. 
 The Church has reason to thank God for your 
 great labours of many kinds. A Bishop is scarcely 
 worthy of his office in the Church of Christ, if 
 his heart is not gladdened by symptoms of earnest 
 zeal for the good of souls, even though its efforts 
 be not squared according to the model he might 
 himself have preferred. If he is well fitted for 
 his office, he cannot know too much of what his 
 clergy are doing. If there be any lack of zeal in any 
 of them, it is right that he should know it, that he 
 may stimulate and encourage them against the diffi- 
 culties that hem them in, and amidst which their zeal 
 may be languishing. If he is to be the friend and 
 guide of the zealous, both he and they will rejoice 
 that he should have a full understanding of the nature 
 of the efforts they are making, of the measure of suc- 
 cess with which God has blessed them, and of any 
 obstacles to their usefulness too great for their power, 
 which perchance he may be able in his position to 
 help them in removing. I trust, therefore, that there is 
 no danger, lest the minuteness of my questions may be 
 misunderstood, as if it sprang from any love of prying 
 or of over-governing, when my real motive is only the 
 
10 
 
 better to encourage that confidential interchange of 
 advice and good feeling, which binds together a 
 Bishop and his Clergy when they are deeply interested 
 in each other's work. 
 
 Of the secular questions forced upon us, the first, 
 I have said, refers to the remuneration of the Clergy. 
 There has, as you know, been much discussion lately 
 on this subject. The clergy of the metropolis 
 have been great sufierers by improvements which 
 it has been thought right to make for the good 
 of the public health.* Many cases of great individual 
 hardship have thus occurred ; and how these are to 
 be met I know not, for it seems hopeless to look now 
 for compensation from Parliament, however willingly 
 all allow that it was unjust to make no provision for 
 it in the first instance. Improvements of another 
 kind, also, have had a similar result. A multitude 
 of great parishes have been subdivided, and those 
 who know how much the incomes of the clergy in 
 the metropolis depend on fees, will understand that 
 this cannot be done without the incumbent of the 
 Mother Church suffering. Conscientious men are 
 unwilling to complain of this. As to the ordinary 
 surplice-fees, an attempt is usually made to secure 
 
 * The Returns state that exclusive of the seventy parishes in the City 
 and Liberties, forty-seven other parishes in the Diocese have suffered by 
 loss of burial fees. Your answers do not enable me to speak with so 
 much accuracy as I could have wished on this point ; but you have 
 stated to me, that, while St. Giles-in-the-fields has lost £700 per annum, 
 others have lost in various proportions from £350 downwards. 
 
11 
 
 the interests of the incumbent actually in possession 
 at the time of the subdivision, though his successor 
 finds the income greatly diminished ; but if, as in so 
 many cases, the income of the incumbent depends on 
 seat-rents, the falling-off in income consequent on 
 parochial subdivision is felt at once. No complaint, 
 I say, is made ; zealous men are unvrilling to place 
 their own pecuniary advantage in any antagonism 
 with what they believe to be for the good of souls. 
 But still it is right that the public should fully 
 understand the difficulty, and the silent change 
 which is thus being wrought. The more con- 
 scientious the clergy are — that is, the more readily 
 they acquiesce in measures thought to be for the 
 public good, and bestir themselves to multiply the 
 means of grace — the more must they under the present 
 state of things be left exposed to the evils of a 
 diminishing income, and the cares which straitened 
 circumstances necessarily imply. I know that the 
 wealthy Laity of this metropolis deplore this state 
 of things; I know that when the late Select Com- 
 mittee of the House of Lords on Spiritual Destitu- 
 tion, probed this matter, many of the Peers who 
 sat on the Committee were startled by the disclo- 
 sures made. Such persons feel for the men of educa- 
 tion who are thus brought to labour in their diffi- 
 cult and honoured calling, with means of living far 
 below the most moderate expectations of those who 
 follow other learned professions or engage in trade. 
 
u 
 
 Perhaps none are more imperatively called to direct 
 public attention to such hardships than we the Bishops, 
 who, being ourselves so amply provided for, know at the 
 same time better than other men, what are the wants 
 and difficulties of our brethren. 
 
 But it is not on the ground of individual hardship 
 that I would rest this case, especially in speaking now 
 to you the Clergy. It may be well that your claims 
 should be pleaded before others, if by any means a 
 hope of lightening your difficulties may be found ; 
 and I trust, informed by your answers, 1 shall not 
 fail in pleading them on every fit occasion: but for 
 yourselves it is well that I should duell on this point 
 for totally different reasons. It is certain that in our 
 large towns there is a gradual diminution going on of 
 all those outward helps which used to prop up a parish 
 clergyman's position, and you are gradually being 
 thrown more and more upon the legitimate influence 
 of your own character for eloquence, for learning, for 
 intelligence, for active benevolence, and above all for 
 holy zeal, if you are to maintain that position which is 
 indispensable for your leavening the different grades of 
 that society in which Christ has appointed you to 
 move In speaking to the Laity, I would urge that it 
 would be a miserable policy to allow the Clergy to 
 sink under these difficulties of narrow means, and the 
 continual carking cares of an underpaid respectable 
 position. I would urge that it will be a bad day for 
 England, when the office of the ministry passes into 
 
13 
 
 the hands of a class less educated and refined : that 
 especially in our large towns, and most of all in this 
 metropolis, if the cause of Christ is to be adequately 
 maintained, we require men of every variety of intel- 
 lectual endowment to meet the subtle progress of an 
 intellectual infidelity. And I would point out on the 
 fitting occasion, as I do not shrink from hinting to 
 you, that I believe means may be found to provide in 
 the metropolis some palliation at least for this daily 
 increasing difficulty, by the right use, for our own 
 benefit, of those surplus funds of our suppressed 
 cathedral dignities, which recent Acts of Parhament 
 have devoted to parochial purposes. I shall not, I 
 trust, be found wanting in urging, on the fit occasion, 
 the wisdom of that recommendation made by two 
 Select Committees of the House of Lords this last 
 Session — ^whereby ecclesiastical property in the hands 
 of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, arising from land 
 or houses in this metropolis, was declared to be justly 
 applicable to the spiritual wants of the metropolis itself 
 before it is thrown into any common fund to be dis- 
 tributed in small doles throughout the kingdom. 
 The members of these Committees felt, I presume, 
 that to provide for the spiritual wants of the metro- 
 polis would be conferring a boon on the whole king- 
 dom, of which this metropolis is the heart ; as, on the 
 other hand, to neglect the masses of the metropolis, 
 is to work ruin in the state. They felt that even to 
 provide the most moderate stipends for the body of 
 
14 
 
 clergy required in London, would make great demands 
 on the largest sum to which it ever can be expected 
 that the lands connected with the suppressed offices of 
 the metropolitan cathedral can amount ; and they felt 
 also, I presume, that something ought if possible to 
 be done, to prevent the incomes and position of the 
 metropolitan clergy from sinking lower and lower. 
 Therefore they made the recommendation I have 
 alluded to.^ And I am glad to have this opportunity 
 of assuring the clergy of the diocese, while we are 
 speaking of secular matters, that when an opportunity 
 arises, I will not fail to urge what these Committees 
 have recommended, and what seems to me to be a 
 claim founded alike in justice and in sound policy. 
 
 All this I am glad to have an opportunity of saying 
 to you. But still I must not forget that in speaking 
 to you on this topic, at this time, and in this place, 
 I am bound, not so much to hold out hopes of any 
 temporal aid, but rather, so to speak, that I may urge 
 you to use those other means of maintaining your 
 influence which are independent of the adventitious 
 props of fortune ; that holding a high character 
 amongst your people for gravity, for learning, for self- 
 denial, for love of gospel truth, for untiring zeal, you 
 may be honoured by them in your spiritual capacity, 
 whether you be depressed or raised in outward worldly 
 circumstances. After all, the Church's wealthiest 
 have been its least truly prosperous days ; and, 
 
 * See Appendix B. 
 
16 
 
 though we do not desire to see the outward helps we 
 have alluded to withdrawn, God's w^ork, which we 
 have to do, is not dependent on these. 
 
 The queries I have addressed to you have certainly 
 elicited plain proof that the emoluments of the parochial 
 clergy of this diocese are very small; indeed that,looking 
 to endowments, strictly so called, they are totally and 
 ridiculously inadequate, even on the most moderate 
 scale of payments, to secure for the great body of our 
 parishes the services of men who may meet the wants of 
 the people committed to them. The Church, it is true, 
 has at no time entirely depended for its temporal suste- 
 nance upon endowments. What other aid the clergy 
 can legitimately gain from fees and seat-rents is rightly 
 to be taken into account ; but, even with these adjuncts, 
 the returns I have received show that very much is 
 wanting. It is very common to tell us, when this is 
 stated, that we forget how large a mass of the popu- 
 lation does not belong to the communion of the 
 Church. I have endeavoured, in the queries sub- 
 mitted to you, and by comparing your answers with 
 information derived from other sources, to learn 
 something of the truth as to this matter. But the 
 most direct information I can attain is this — that accord- 
 ing to the Registrar-GeneraFs Report in 1851, which 
 calculated the whole population of the Diocese of 
 London to be 2,143,340, there were, amongst us, 
 1,881,994, for whom all the various places of worship 
 not in connexion with the Church of England afforded 
 
IG 
 
 no accommodation/ The population of the diocese 
 is now stated on authority Ho be 2,422,300. 1 shall 
 not much err in assuming, that there must be now 
 amongst us nearly 2,000,000 unprovided for by any 
 other communion, and for whose care the state holds 
 us, the clergy of the Established Church, alone of all 
 ministers of religion, to be responsible. For the cure 
 of these souls we have 885 licensed pastors ; that 
 is, every clergyman, from the youngest and most 
 inexperienced to the weakest and most failing old man, 
 would, if the charges were equally divided, be respon- 
 sible, on the average, for more than 2,000 souls ; 
 and the average annual income of each parochial 
 clergyman, on which to maintain himself and his 
 family, and purchase such assistance as interruptions of 
 health may render indispensable, is at the most £140/ 
 It is well that hitherto the clergy are not generally 
 entirely dependent on their professional income, but, 
 in so many instances, bring with them of their private 
 means far more than they receive, to enable them to 
 
 ' Fide Religious Worship, England and Wales, Abridgement, p. 112* 
 Table E. 
 
 '^ Fide Report of Diocesan Commission, 1858, p. 5. 
 
 ' In this calculation allowance is made for the rent of a house for the 
 incumbent of eaeh parish, where there is no parsonage. According to 
 the Visitation returns, the sum total for the maintenance of the clergy of 
 the diocese (nett income), derived from parochial sources of all kinds^ 
 including pew-rents and fees, and also private subscriptions towards 
 curates' salaries, amounts as nearly as I can state, to £117,000 a-year at 
 the most. Besides this the Pastoral Aid Society contributes £2,525 
 a-year to curates' salaries in the diocese, the Curates' Aid Society 
 £3,260. 
 
17 
 
 meet the demands which the many calls of their paro- 
 chial position make upon them. The answers to our 
 visitation queries have brought this remarkably before 
 me. Those who legislate for the Church will do well, 
 by resisting all attempts to lower the social position 
 of the clergy, to secure, so far as they can, that this 
 peculiarity may still continue to be a characteristic of 
 our clerical system. I am not aware of any other 
 country in which it is to be found. On the laity 
 generally let us trust that the effect of the disclosures, 
 recently made known to them through the Report of 
 the House of Lords Committee, may be to stir up 
 that zeal which, it must be owned, they are not slow to 
 exhibit when rightly appealed to, that the numbers of 
 the clergy may be multiplied, and the overpowering 
 burden of their duties lightened. Not trusting too 
 much to such assistance, though feeling perfectly 
 warranted in expecting it from the experience of the 
 past, I must point out to you in this Charge, my 
 reverend brethren, how I think you will best be able 
 to meet your responsibilities in the actual position 
 in which you now find yourselves. 
 
 But before I proceed, I must allude to the other 
 secular point to which my queries have been 
 directed — the means available for the maintenance of 
 the buildings of our churches and their worship. So 
 far as I can gather from your answers to my queries 
 there are 61 of your churches fortunate enough to 
 have, in lieu of rates, some endowments in money, 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 land, or houses, from which they are partially if not 
 adequately supported ; there are 113 parishes in which 
 Church-rates are raised in the legal way ; that in all 
 the rest, the fabrics and worship are maintained more 
 or less from voluntary sources ; either from an allo- 
 cation of the seat -rents, sanctioned by law, or from a 
 voluntary appropriation of seat-rents, or simply by the 
 offertory or subscriptions. Before Bishop Blomfield's 
 new Churches were erected, the number of Churches 
 in the diocese entitled to be supported by the ancient 
 system of rates, could not have much exceeded 200. 
 
 I fear I must not deceive you into any expectation 
 that in those parishes in which Church-rates have been 
 lost they are likely to be recovered, though certainly 
 signs are not wanting of the inhabitants of newly-con- 
 stituted parochial districts being more ready now to 
 contribute to the maintenance of their own particular 
 church, than they were formerly to the distant Mother 
 Church of the undivided parish. The feeling of Par- 
 liament does not seem to warrant the hope of our 
 recovering what is lost. We know not what plan the 
 Government may devise for settling this difficult and 
 embarrassing question of Church-rates. I believe, 
 indeed, that if what was hinted at last summer by the 
 Head of the Government be adopted, the landed 
 proprietors of England will not be found unwilling 
 of their own accord to tax their property by an annual 
 rent-charge fairly calculated, that they may keep up 
 what the vast majority of them happily regard as the 
 
19 
 
 most valuable institution in the country. I fear, how- 
 ever, that in the towns we could not expect to share 
 very largely in the advantage of such a commutation : 
 since in so many instances in towns other arrange- 
 ments have already become habitual, and people feel 
 also that in towns the churches, from the overwhelm- 
 ing amount of population, are not able to provide that 
 full accommodation for the poor which is secured 
 in the country, and for which the landed pro- 
 prietors think it no hardship to be obliged to pay. 
 I do not mean that there is any substantial equity 
 in considering the holders of property in towns 
 free from a burden of this kind. Common reason 
 tells us that the owner of a large manufactory is 
 as much indebted as the owner of a large landed 
 estate, to the labourers by whose industry his capital 
 is made productive, and is therefore bound to con- 
 tribute his full share of whatever is required to 
 secure for them the means of instruction, whether 
 secular or religious, and of worship. And it is 
 nothing but the barest justice that persons, whose 
 income is derived from the high-rented dwellings of 
 the poor in the squalid lanes of our crowded cities, 
 should contribute to secure for their tenants the means 
 of frequenting that house of God, in which alone in 
 their life of hard toil they may be taught, in the only 
 true and safe sense, to regard themselves as equal to 
 their brother men. But I am afraid in this matter, 
 besides what is just, it is very necessary to be looking 
 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 to what is feasible. And I should be deceiving you if 
 I said that I had any good hope of such an impost 
 being laid by Parliament on the owners of house 
 property in towns or voluntarily adopted by them. 
 
 The Government measure is as yet unknown. No 
 one can say what is likely to be the result of the 
 fresh discussions which must soon arise on this vexed 
 question. For myself, once for all, I must repeat what 
 I have elsewhere maintained, that I know no argu- 
 ment which has been adduced which proves, that there 
 is any injustice in men being liable to a tax imposed 
 for the maintenance of a great public Institution, even 
 if they do not themselves approve of that institution ; 
 and I see, certainly, no greater hardship in Dissenters 
 and Roman Catholics contributing to the maintenance 
 of our Churches, than in our paying our proportion of 
 the taxes which are charged with the maintenance of 
 Maynooth — or, to take a more appropriate case, in 
 the great Episcopalian landowners of Scotland being 
 bound to maintain the established Presbyterian 
 worship. Men, however, have irritated themselves 
 into the belief that they have a grievance in Church- 
 rates, and it is politic, it is Christian, fully to con- 
 sider their feehngs. Moreover, I suppose it is granted 
 that, whatever may be said of the justice of the present 
 Church-rate, it has great inconveniences, and there- 
 fore we are quite ready for any good alteration of it 
 which can be suggested ; and we wish this alteration 
 to be made in the most conciHatory spirit towards 
 
21 
 
 those who are not members of our Church. How 
 far these alterations may with safety be carried, the 
 Government, we are led to believe, is now considering. 
 Even supposing that the alterations were to go very 
 far, I should feel no fear myself that the churches of 
 this great and wealthy metropolis would be allowed to 
 fall in ruins, or the seemly dignity of their services be 
 curtailed, because we were thrown more unreservedly 
 on the hearty loyalty of that great mass of persons 
 who love the time-honoured institutions of our Church, 
 because they feel it has brought many blessings on 
 their own and their fathers' souls. I cannot say, 
 however, that I should be equally free from alarm in 
 remote or very poor places. Indeed, as I have already 
 stated, I cannot look upon this otherwise than as 
 a poor man's question. The Parish Church ought to 
 be everywhere, and, thank God, still is in many 
 parishes, and always in the country, the inheritance 
 of the poor. It is their right to have it maintained 
 for their use, not merely by the voluntary exertions of 
 those who are charitably disposed to aid them, but by 
 some provision of the law. And I do most earnestly 
 trust that whatever settlement is devised, nothing 
 will be done to sacrifice the rights and feelings of the 
 great majority of the people, both rich and poor, in 
 order to satisfy the unreasonable demands of a politi- 
 cally influential few. I must say unreasonable 
 demands, for I cannot allow any man's objections to 
 Church-rates to be reasonable, who, when a compro- 
 
2 
 
 mise is proposed, not contented with an immunity 
 being secured to himself and his fellow- dissenters, 
 protests against the impost being levied by authority 
 of law, even on those who are actual members of the 
 Established Church, and feel no hardship in the 
 payment. 
 
 The present state of this question, is, I grant, a 
 very anxious one ; but still, my reverend brethren, 
 let us not exaggerate the difficulties before us. To 
 my mind, the one great lesson which all these 
 inquiries into secular matters connected with our 
 Church forces upon us is this — that the days are 
 gone by when the Church of England can look to be 
 propped up by the adventitious aid of secular autho- 
 rity, if it be not true to itself, and to its heavenly 
 Master, and to the souls He has committed to it ; and 
 yet that it is not therefore less prosperous and strong. 
 If we, the Clergy, are true to our vows, the temporal 
 aid which the laity can give, both privately and by 
 law in their national corporate capacity, will not, I 
 feel confident, be refused to us. But, above all things, 
 it is important for us to understand that our true 
 strength is not temporal. The Church, as a spiritual 
 institution, the Church of Christ, can never perish ; 
 and this our own national development of the Church 
 of Christ — with its own peculiar institutions, dear to 
 true-hearted Englishmen from the historical associa- 
 tions of the centuries of England's most real greatness ; 
 which has been bound up with so many crises of 
 
23 
 
 the nation's history in times past ; which men love 
 because it maintains the faith in which their fathers 
 lived and died, and in which they desire to rear their 
 children ; to which all the Protestant nations of the 
 earth look as the great bulwark of that at once 
 reasonable and loving Christianity which commends 
 itself only the more to right-minded men, the more 
 they love freedom and the more they are educated — 
 I say, this our great national devolopment of the 
 Church of Christ, is in no danger if we, its ministers, 
 are what we ought to be. If we are faithful to its 
 reformed teaching, considerate of our people's feel- 
 ings, zealous, wise, and self-denying, our national 
 Church will be sure to grow and flourish, rooted in 
 our people's hearts. On the one hand, no claims of 
 a zealous priesthood will avail us without our people's 
 love ; on the other, no influence, even of learning or 
 of intellect, however they may be admired in their 
 way, will command our people's love, if they see us 
 fail in zeal for Christ. But with their love gained by 
 faithful adherence to our heavenly Master, we shall 
 be sure to stand. And thus it all comes round to 
 the same point : a deep responsibility, my reverend 
 brethren, is laid on you and me : who is suflicient for 
 these things ? All of us ; even the weakest of us, if 
 we seek earnestly in singleness of purpose our heavenly 
 Master's help, and are guided by His Word. 
 
 Sufier me, then, dismissing for the present further 
 matters of secular moment attaching to our Church 
 establishment, to lay before you now some thoughts 
 
24 
 
 as to the way in which our great mission may be best 
 fulfilled, whether we receive the adventitious aid we 
 seem entitled to, or learn to do without it. How 
 shall we clergy of the Church of England, taking 
 her as she is, using the means which are already open 
 to us, best do our duty to our Church and our 
 heavenly Master ? 
 
 I think the impression is gaining ground, that we 
 have had of late almost enough legislation for the 
 Church. What we want rather, is to take things as 
 we find them now ordered, and make the best of 
 them. What we want is, that our machinery, such 
 as it is, be worked in the best possible way, rather 
 than to be striving perpetually after new experiments 
 for altering it. After all, the Church's usefulness far 
 more depends upon the conscientious discharge of 
 duty, than even upon the apphances of our ecclesi- 
 astical arrangements being adapted to the best possible 
 theory. 
 
 And here, in offering practical hints to my brethren, 
 I would turn first to the very beginning of ministerial 
 usefulness. We want, I think, a considerable improve- 
 ment in the training of our candidates for ordination 
 — not in the theory, but in the practice. You may 
 say this is not your business : you are thankful to 
 obtain the assistance of the young men ordained, 
 such as it is, after their training is over, when they 
 have passed my examination as approved for their 
 work. But your part and mine goes hand in hand in 
 this matter. Such as you require your curates to be. 
 
25 
 
 such your Bishop must secure that they are, before he 
 sends them to you. He may, indeed, take care that 
 they possess qualifications of which you cannot be 
 supposed to take cognizance in offering them a title ; 
 but still, considering how pressing are the claims of 
 your parishes, the Bishop will not long be able to 
 maintain a higher standard than you think necessary, 
 if, therefore, you form a low estimate of what is re- 
 quired in a curate ; if you are contented with a young 
 man who can read audibly (though I am free to con- 
 fess there are many who can scarcely do this) ; and if 
 you do not care whether his preaching be spirit-stirring 
 and real, and are not anxious as to whether or no he 
 has a true sympathy with the poor, and understanding 
 of their wants ; or if you treat learning as a thing not 
 necessary, provided the young man be willing to go 
 through a certain amount of routine work, you will do 
 even more, than a Bishop careless in his examinations 
 could do, to lower the standard of ministerial qualifi- 
 cation. You need not be afraid that you will be unable 
 to obtain curates if you require a high standard. My 
 experience tells me, that in this metropolitan diocese, 
 we may have the choice of the best young men in the 
 kingdom. There is no difficulty in finding candidates 
 for orders here. I have certainly more applications 
 than we can meet, both for ordination and for employ- 
 ment in the diocese. To be sure, our field of labour 
 is boundless, but our means of providing remuneration 
 for the labourers is very limited ; and generally for 
 such curacies as we have, we may obtain the very best 
 
26 
 
 candidates. Young men desire to begin their work in 
 the greatest sphere of pastoral labour which the world 
 offers. Now, as no man can be ordained without a 
 title, let candidates for ordination in this diocese 
 understand that you form a high estimate of the intel- 
 lectual, moral, and spiritual qualities required in one 
 to whom you offer a title. Thus co-operating with the 
 Bishop, you will react on the Universities; and the 
 various appliances which our great theological schools 
 possess for giving a thorough training to the young 
 candidate for orders will become more efficient. No 
 system of professorial training, or preliminary disci- 
 pline, can indeed give a young man the highest qualities 
 required for the ministry ; but faults may be amended 
 which are found at present to be sorely in the way of 
 pastoral usefulness : young men may be taught to 
 compose and speak with force and fluency ; a thorough 
 acquaintance with Scripture may be communicated ; 
 and useful hints may be given for the difficult duty of 
 reaching, both in public and private addresses, dis- 
 tressed and ignorant human souls. There is really a 
 great fault somewhere, if these obvious qualifications 
 are not attended to by the teachers in our theological 
 schools. It is your business and mine to consider how 
 much the fault rests upon ourselves. Such as we re- 
 quire our young curates to be, such the Universities 
 must make them. I fully believe that candidates for 
 ordination have of late years greatly improved; but 
 there is still room for improvement, especially in dis- 
 tinct training for their work. 
 
27 
 
 I know it is a favourite theory with some in the 
 present day, that we need a lower order of clergymen 
 of a more homely type, with less of Latin and Greek. 
 For my own part, I totally disbelieve in this theory : 
 learning and refinement will never stand in a pastor's 
 way, if he adds higher qualities : and you do not 
 multiply the chances of securing the higher qualities 
 by dispensing with learning and refinement. Impor- 
 tant as it is at times to receive into the ministry those 
 who have shown a remarkable aptness for the work 
 as scripture-readers, or in that zealous activity for the 
 cause of Christ which is often (I rejoice to say) to 
 be found amongst our young men in trade ; and gladly 
 as I allow that many most valuable men have been 
 thus received; still these ought, in this diocese, to 
 be exceptional cases. I should deeply deplore any 
 change by which our clergy were to be less able, in 
 point of intellect and information, to hold their own 
 in any position which may be allotted them. In this 
 age we want our clergy to be better, rather than 
 worse, educated, and that not in matters only which 
 are strictly connected with theology. An improve- 
 ment in their mere technical professional knowledge 
 would be dearly purchased by any decline in their 
 general liberal education. But what I plead for now 
 is, that our schools of theology, especially in our great 
 Universities, should be induced by us to add more pro- 
 fessional knowledge and some more distinct professional 
 training to their sound general education. It will be 
 
28 
 
 well that our united voice should be heard imploring 
 the Universities to take this matter into their serious 
 consideration. If we insist, as we ought to do, on the 
 requisite qualifications, our young men will be sure 
 to gain them by residence with private clergymen, or 
 in theological training colleges — if the Universities do 
 not take the pains to give them — and so far the Univer- 
 sities will sufier. My distinct conviction is, that the 
 great Universities can do this work far better than any 
 private institution. There will probably always be 
 cases in which it is well that young men should be 
 removed from the scene of past temptations during 
 the immediate training for orders ; and arrangements 
 ought to be made for receiving such elsewhere. But, 
 usually, it would be far better to have our full pro- 
 fessional training for our young clergy, where they 
 ought to be able to have access to many men of real 
 weight, learning, and experience — where the very 
 number of teachers must be the best safeguard against 
 the exclusiveness of narrow sects — where noble libra- 
 ries are at their command, and where, I am certain 
 also, experience has shown that abundant opportunity 
 may be found in the parishes of the University town 
 or surrounding country, under proper regulations of 
 discipline, for a quiet gradual introduction to some 
 acquaintance with pastoral work.^ Our Universities 
 
 ^ I would refer to Mr. Champney's evidence (Lords' Report on Spi- 
 ritual Destitution, 1858) on the way in which undergraduates used to 
 aid him in his Oxford parish, and the benefit they thence obtained. 
 (Vide Appendix C to this Charge.) 
 
29 
 
 have received many improvements of late : I trust it 
 will not be long before they remove every reasonable 
 complaint on this ground, and become great theo- 
 logical schools. 
 
 In another point, also, it occurs to me to mention, 
 that more rests with you in the direct training of the 
 young clergy even than with me. Fortunately, in this 
 diocese, the Deacon's probationary office is generally a 
 reality. It very rarely happens, and never with my free 
 consent, that a Deacon has the sole charge of a parish 
 amongst us. He is, as he ought to be, a mere assis- 
 tant to the Priest, learning his work, serving an ap- 
 prenticeship. All who have had the blessing of being 
 trained during the diaconate under a faithful and 
 able clergyman, of mature age, will know the great 
 advantages they gained from such an initiation. I 
 trust all of you, my reverend brethren, who give titles 
 to young Curates, will remember the great responsi- 
 bility under which you lie, by your advice and good 
 example, and gentle but firm discipline, to make this 
 year of apprenticeship what the Church's rule intends. 
 And you the Deacons, who may be here present, 
 if you feel (as which of you cannot but feel?) your 
 great insufficiency, so use well the office of a Deacon, 
 that you may profit by this year, during which, after 
 entering on a near practical acquaintance with much 
 work, you are still waiting for your full responsibilities. 
 So much as to the first steps in the ministerial 
 office. 
 
30 
 
 And now, supposing the young presbyter launched 
 at last on his full responsibilities, how shall he best 
 meet them ? He has brought with him, doubtless, 
 from college, his peculiar sympathies with one or other 
 of the marked schools of opinion which now, as in all 
 ages of our Church, divide, though they need not sepa- 
 rate, its members. A reverent lover of antiquity, and 
 feeling his devotion aided by becoming ritual observ- 
 ances — or rejoicing rather in the freedom of the gospel 
 system and its ready adaptation to the soul's ever- 
 varying wants — a man afraid of the temptations of 
 secular learning and free inquiry, or convinced that the 
 love of truth is akin to the love of the God of truth, 
 and that Christ's gospel demands the full exercise of all 
 our intellectual powers — he will, if he is endowed with 
 but ordinary humility, have kept his own tastes in the 
 background while he was the deputy of another. But 
 the time comes when he feels himself entitled to 
 follow more distinctly his own bias, and endeavour 
 unrestrained to impress his own character on his 
 people : and here is a time of great danger. 
 
 First, it would be foolish as well as useless to 
 attempt to conceal or overlook the fact, that there 
 are Churches in this as in other dioceses in which 
 ritual observance is carried to an unwise extreme. 
 None, indeed, but those who are afflicted with a 
 morose Puritanism will deny, that architecture, and 
 music, and the decorative arts, may well be used 
 in the cause of the Gospel. Our worship, also, will 
 
31 
 
 be none the less spiritual because that part of it, 
 which is necessarily ceremonial, is clothed with the 
 grave comeliness which recommends itself to persons 
 of refined minds. When our Church purified itself 
 from the corruptions of Romanism, it raised no 
 protest, such as some other reformed Churches have 
 raised, against the system which had come down 
 from remote antiquity, of enlisting on the side of 
 Christ the majestic or lovely beauty of the arts — 
 if by any means the eye, as well as the ear and 
 the intellect, might become a help to the soul's 
 spiritual emotions. Witness our great cathedrals, 
 with their majestic services, which our Reformers, 
 instead of demolishing that they might build con- 
 venticles in their place, but purified of the dross, the 
 hay, and the stubble, and the tawdry decorations of a 
 sensuous worship, that the fine gold of the Gospel 
 might hereafter be encased in such a chastely simple, 
 but beautiful setting as well accorded with its purity. 
 Who has not felt, in rigid Presbyterian countries, 
 that a mistake has been made in this respect ? In- 
 deed the most rigid Puritans have now learned that 
 there is no connexion between want of taste and 
 the pure Gospel; and those who wish a national 
 Church to be really national, will always be very 
 cautious that there shall be as little as possible in 
 its forms or in its teaching harshly to check those 
 aspirations of the heart and intellect, which, as they 
 have nothing in them that is sinful, will (many 
 
32 
 
 not unnaturally expect) receive their highest de- 
 velopment at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 when all creation is made fit to welcome Him 
 its King. And as great Universities, where science 
 and literature are nourished, and beautiful Cathedrals 
 where Christian worship is offered up with splendour, 
 have always been regarded as integral parts of our 
 reformed national system; so it is of course well 
 that the buildings and the worship of our quiet Paro- 
 chial Churches also, without falling into any foolish 
 mimicry of Cathedrals, should be beautiful of their 
 kind, and that their music should be refined as well 
 as solemn and hearty. As the sermons which are 
 preached within them will lose nothing of their heart- 
 stirring Gospel force by being well composed and 
 well spoken, so will our distinct acts of prayer and 
 praise lose nothing of their spirituality because their 
 adventitious accompaniments are beautiful as well as 
 grave. 
 
 I shall not, then, be misunderstood, as if I were 
 saying anything to depreciate that attention to the 
 outward aids of our worship, which is a good 
 thing in its way, or as if I were ungrateful to those 
 who have been the revivers of a better ecclesiastical 
 taste in this age, when I point out that some 
 amongst us do harm by carrying their love of the 
 externals of worship to an extreme. It is in my 
 judgment carried to an extreme in all cases in which 
 men's minds are led to dwell on such things rather 
 
33 
 
 than on those spiritual afifections, those revealed 
 theological truths and sound practical principles 
 which are the essence of the Gospel, while these 
 things are at the best but its helps. Thus, if any 
 man's love of what he deems the beautiful in wor- 
 ship leads him to think more of good singing than 
 of faithful preaching; or if he resolutely insists on 
 his own views as to the form of worship in violation 
 of the plain Christian duty of obedience to those 
 set over him in the Lord; or when it is obvious 
 that by so insisting he casts a stumbling-block in 
 his people's way, instead of drawing them to Christ ; 
 in these cases we must pronounce that zeal for the 
 outward helps of religion is carried to a dangerous 
 extreme. 
 
 I am, of course, aware, that persons who are thus 
 misled intrench themselves behind some supposed 
 bulwark of duty, persuading themselves that some so- 
 called catholic authority outweighs all other con- 
 siderations ; but they are not the less blameable for 
 their personal disobedience, and for the pitfall into 
 which they cast the flock which Christ has given them 
 to feed, because they have persuaded themselves, in 
 their folly, to overlook the plain distinctions between 
 right and wrong. I shall say nothing more on the 
 subject of disobedience, because I verily believe that 
 in this diocese the number of persons who for 
 such matters of ceremonial would disobey the delibe- 
 rately expressed injunction of a regularly constituted 
 
34 
 
 authority, is very small. But suffer me, my reverend 
 brethren, to point to the other danger. It is a great 
 responsibility which any man incurs, who irritates the 
 parish in which he lives by an excessive ritualism. 
 We dare not, indeed, make the popular opinion the 
 measure of what is right for us even in such matters ; 
 but there is a basis, at least, of truth in the dislike 
 with which the sound English feeling of the middle 
 and lower orders in this country regards what they 
 perhaps unreasonably connect in some way with popery. 
 I speak to our younger clergy especially on this sub- 
 ject. Their consciences may acquit them of any 
 hankerings after Rome, though with the experience 
 of the past secessions of many like them, I am 
 justified in urging them to be very scrupulous and 
 conscientious in taking themselves to task, before they 
 declare that they are free from the enticements of this 
 subtle adversary; but still, whether they are safe 
 themselves or no, that love of a showy and almost 
 tawdry worship, which manifests itself at times 
 amongst us, and which common people invariably 
 connect with Rome, ought much to be guarded 
 against. Why should any clergyman wish to make 
 his Church sucli that a common man, placed suddenly 
 within it, would not be able to say whether he was in 
 a Church of England, or a Romish place of worship ? 
 I believe there is danger to our souls in encom^aging 
 thesie tastes j which insensibly break down the barriers 
 by which the wisdom of older times has separated us 
 
35 
 
 from a corrupt form of faith. I believe also, there is 
 great danger to your people in these unwise approxi- 
 mations to a bad system ; and of this I am certain 
 beyond all doubt, that the injury is great which such 
 clergymen as I have spoken of, would, through their 
 unwise innovations, if unchecked, inflict on the 
 national Church of this country, by alienating from it 
 the affections of the great mass of the community. 
 They may gain the goodwill of a few men, and still 
 more women, of eccentric tastes, chiefly amongst the 
 upper classes. Excessive floral decorations, and con- 
 tinual bowings and genuflexions, and candles lighted 
 in broad day, and peculiar scarfs and vestments, and 
 the other mimicry of the outside of Rome, may be 
 acceptable to a few of the laity, but the mass of 
 religious persons amongst common-sense Englishmen, 
 look upon such things as folly at the best. The great 
 body of the educated cannot endure them, because 
 they are trifling with holy worship and miserable 
 taste; while the common sort of the well-disposed 
 and religious are not only irritated by them, but 
 rendered suspicious, not without ground, that some- 
 thing really dangerous lurks behind. I am quite 
 aware that the sensitiveness of our people on such 
 matters is at times unreasonable, also that good and 
 pious clergymen are at times thwarted by persons, 
 who, influenced, I fear more by a love of popularity 
 than any zeal for souls, exaggerate every cause of 
 offence, and take a pleasure in the strife they are 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 raising. And I know that young and ardent spirits 
 amongst us are apt to be made reckless by such 
 opposition, and to plunge only the more determinately 
 into extremes ; but he who thinks quietly with him- 
 self of the value of the souls entrusted to him, will, 
 I am sure, be ready to waive his own tastes and 
 inclinations in such matters, in deference to the ex- 
 pressed wish of those set over him in the Lord — who 
 warn him, as I do this day, that it is a great wrong 
 to the Church of England to continue such practices, 
 the prolific cause of strife. 
 
 If any of you find that some of your people have 
 set their hearts on the kind of ritual observances 
 here spoken of, and are alarmed from thinking that 
 there is no alternative offered them between such a 
 ceremonial as I have described, and the nakedness of 
 an austere worship with which they feel they cannot 
 be content — then a wise and faithful pastor will, I am 
 sure, not be disappointed, if he sets himself down in 
 a prayerful spirit kindly and gently to direct the 
 thoughts of such weak brethren, to what is truly 
 beautiful and solemn in our ordinary Church system 
 as sanctioned by our living authorities. His people 
 thus wisely guided will, I am sure, find in such quiet 
 and chaste worship a far truer exponent of calm 
 reverent faith than could ever be gained by straining 
 after some spurious imitation of what is only found 
 in its full proportions in the gaudy worship of Rome. 
 
 Here perhaps it may be expected that I should say 
 
37 
 
 something of the principles on which I act in this 
 diocese in reference to the arrangement and decoration 
 of churches which I am called to consecrate, or 
 allow to be altered. Happily, the decision of the 
 highest Ecclesiastical Court of Appeal has now settled 
 many of the disputed points with reference to such 
 matters — matters very unimportant in themselves, 
 but not unimportant when we consider the undue 
 interest attached to them by many earnest minds. 
 For certainly in religion, whatever a man regards 
 as important, becomes really important in its effects 
 on his character, while he so regards it, however insig- 
 nificant it may be in itself. Now I will take as an 
 example, to illustrate my practice, the use of the 
 cross in church decoration. There is no doubt now 
 that a bishop may lawfully sanction it. The words of 
 the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council are ; — " Upon the whole, their Lordships, after 
 ■' the most careful consideration, have come to the 
 " conclusion that crosses, as distinguished from cruci- 
 " fixes, have been in use as ornaments of Churches 
 " from the earliest periods of Christianity ; that when 
 " used as mere emblems of the Christian faith, and not 
 *' as objects of superstitious reverence, they may still 
 " lawfully be erected as architectural decorations of 
 " Churches." But, lest these words should be so 
 interpreted as, under the plea of innocent decoration, 
 to introduce what may tend to superstition, or give 
 reasonable offence to the feelings of the paiishioners — . 
 
m 
 
 seeing that the line which separates in this instance 
 the thing allowed from the thing deprecated, is so 
 narrow that it cannot be defined in any general rule — 
 reference is immediately afterwards made in the judg- 
 ment to the discretion of the living authority, the 
 Ordinary, on whom the responsibility is thrown of 
 deciding, in each particular case, whether there is any 
 attempt, while the letter of the law is observed, to set 
 at naught its spirit ; and the following clause is there- 
 fore added : — " Their Lordships hope and believe that 
 " the laws in force respecting the consecration of any 
 " building, and which forbid any subsequent alter- 
 " ation without a faculty from the Ordinary, will be 
 " sufficient to prevent any abuse in this respect/' 
 Now, whereas the whole tenor of the judgment is 
 to point out that it is a communion-table, and not 
 an altar in the Romish sense, that the law commands 
 to be erected in our churches; and it is distinctly 
 laid down that a cross attached to the table is 
 inconsistent both with the spirit and the letter of 
 the law; it is, I apprehend, the duty of the Ordi- 
 dinary to do his best to prevent the law from being 
 evaded in this matter. Obviously, a cross standing on 
 the communion-table being unlawful, may, in order 
 to evade the law, being removed one inch backwards 
 and separated by an imperceptible line from the table, 
 be so attached to the wall as to present to all eyes 
 the very same appearance which it had while it 
 violated the letter of the law; or the same effect 
 
might be produced in the eyes of all who looked at the 
 table from a few yards distance, by sculpture or even 
 painting. Against anything which has the appearance 
 of being an evasion of the law, in this and kindred ques- 
 tions, it is the Ordinary's duty to use his influence. And 
 generally, with regard to all decorations, that they may 
 not, while keeping within the letter of the law, set at 
 naught its spirit, and, becoming excessive, impart an 
 un-English character to our worship, and foster that 
 sort of undue ritualism and gorgeous ceremonial of 
 which we have been complaining — the Ordinary ought 
 to regard himself as invested with a discretionary power 
 to check eccentricity in deference to the feelings of 
 the Church. Especially in these days, therefore, when 
 there is so much sensitiveness on such matters, I 
 should strongly advise the persons who are invested 
 with authority in each particular parish where changes 
 are intended, in order that they may not be blamed 
 or misrepresented as if they wished to introduce any 
 excessive or improper decoration, and that they may 
 be safe in keeping within the law — always, if they 
 have any doubt, to take the Bishop's or Archdeacon's 
 advice before they give their consent to the intended 
 changes. If this be omitted, many difficulties will be 
 very likely to arise. Similar innovations in a totally 
 different direction, with respect, for example, to placing 
 the communion-table in the centre of the church, might 
 be, and indeed, unless I am misinformed, in another 
 Diocese have been attempted — -innovations which, 
 
40 
 
 ^ 
 
 without violating the letter of the law, might greatly 
 alter the character of our worship. Against all these 
 we have a safeguard in the discretion of the Ordinary. 
 Holding these questions to be very unimportant in 
 themselves, and not worthy, except from their effects 
 upon the weaker brethren, to occupy the attention of 
 men charged with the ministry of souls, I am sure 
 I can promise for myself that, using the discretion 
 vested in my office, I shall always be ready to give 
 my best advice when consulted on such matters, 
 taking care that all kindly attention may be paid, so 
 far as the spirit of our Church permits, to the wishes 
 and feelings both of those who love, and of those who 
 dread elaborate arrangements of ceremonial worship. 
 But secondly, we must not, my reverend brethren, 
 deceive ourselves into supposing that the differences 
 in our Church can be resolved altogether into these 
 questions of ceremonial. I do, indeed, trust and be- 
 lieve, that, in the essentials of Christian doctrine we 
 are far more agreed than at times we are disposed to 
 think. Good men, who love the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and are taught of His spirit, are kept by Him, with 
 all their differences of sentiment and speculation, won- 
 derfully one in heart in the unity of the one Essential 
 Faith. It would be a poor account to give of Christen- 
 dom, if men belonging to many diverse portions of the 
 Church of Christ did not feel themselves continually 
 thus drawn together. And if this holJs of mem- 
 bers of separate communions, shall it uot be much 
 
41 
 
 more true of those who, subject to the same govern- 
 ment, using the same forms, and assenting to the 
 same Articles, gather together habitually to worship at 
 the same table of the Lord? Yet it is right that, 
 steadily facing the difficulties which beset us, we 
 should call to mind, in a spirit of mutual forbearance 
 indeed, but very seriously, and without any careless- 
 ness of latitudinarian indifferentism, that many of the 
 questions in dispute amongst us are of deep moment 
 from their direct effect on our own and our people's 
 souls. In pointing now to difficulties of this kind 
 which beset a young pastor, I would especially refer, 
 as an example, to those questions as to the authority 
 and claims of the ministerial office, which have in 
 these days grown to an importance such as has 
 scarcely ever before attached to them in our Church 
 since the Reformation. 
 
 On this matter I must be explicit. First, then, let 
 us not forget in approaching such questions, that no- 
 thing can exceed the solemnity of the words in which 
 it has been thought proper in the Church of England 
 to confer the full rights of the office of the Presbyter. 
 Also let us not forget, that these words of ordination 
 have always in our Church been interpreted by a large 
 and influential body — by many, indeed, of our most 
 honoured Divines — as conferring the right, derived 
 from Christ Himself, not only to administer His Holy 
 Sacraments and preach His Holy Word in the con- 
 gregation, but also to speak of pardon with authority 
 
42 
 
 in Chrisfs name in the Church's service in a way in' 
 which other men cannot speak, for the comfort of dis- 
 tressed souls. We have no right, my reverend 
 brethren, to forget that such has been the language 
 of some of our best divines, whether we ourselves — 
 using, as we are fully entitled, our individual liberty 
 — assent to it or no. I do not say that the state- 
 ments which we meet with in these divines on this 
 subject of the Presbyter's office applied, for example, 
 especially to Absolution, are very definite or clear. I 
 do not mean that from the very first you will not find 
 powerful objections made in our Church to such state- 
 ments, as tending, when scrutinised by the light of a 
 rigid logic, to foster notions of priestly power which 
 are untenable and untrue. The learned and pious 
 men who have advanced these high claims for the 
 ministerial office, pleading that their views are the 
 natural and obvious explanation of certain expressions 
 in our formularies, have, it is certain, been satisfied to 
 leave the matter in some degree of vagueness, con- 
 tending, perhaps, after all, when we sift their state- 
 ments, only for this undoubted truth — that as Christ 
 has appointed the ministry of His Church, so it is in 
 all its offices, not merely in its preaching and in its 
 sacraments, a ministry of consolation, capable of dis- 
 tilling the balm of comfort in Christ's name into 
 repentant souls through every reverent word it speaks 
 while fulfilling its pastoral mission. Now, the claim 
 of such authority as attaching to the Presbyter's 
 
4a 
 
 office — though, as I say, good men in the Church 
 have often thought that it was exaggerated by those 
 who put it forward ; and though there have, accord- 
 ingly, always been two schools amongst us, one up- 
 holding it, the other pointing out that there is danger 
 in making much of it — the claim, I say, of such 
 authority for Presbyters of the Church of England has 
 hitherto been usually expressed with guarded mode- 
 ration, even by those who thought most highly of it. 
 Isolated passages may be adduced from our great 
 divines upholding the Priest's absolving power ; but 
 any dangerous application of such passages is guarded 
 against by the whole tenor of those more moderate 
 sentiments which we find breathing through the 
 works quoted when we view them as a whole. 
 
 At the risk of being tedious, I think it right to 
 enter somewhat at length into this matter. The 
 silence of the Church of England Formularies as 
 compared with the fulness of the Church of Rome 
 in treating of systematic Confession is itself, to my 
 mind, an irrefragable argument to show that the 
 mind of our Church is quite against the practices 
 now sought to be introduced. 
 
 In the Tridentine Catechism, the subject of Con- 
 fession is distinctly treated of in all the sections of 
 Part II. from XLV. to LXXXIII. The following 
 may be taken as showing how a Church which en- 
 joins private Confession makes arrangements for its 
 due observance. 
 
44 
 
 LVI. De Coeremoniis ad Confessionem adhihendis} 
 
 Sed quemadmodum confessionem a Domino Salvatore institu- 
 tam esse Fideles docendi suntj ita etiam monere eos oportet 
 quosdam ritus et solemnes caDremonias Ecclesise auctoritate 
 additas esse, quae etsi ad Sacramenti rationem non spectant, 
 ejus tamen dignitatem magis ante oculos ponunt, et confi- 
 tentium animos pietate accensos ad Dei gratiam facilius con- 
 sequendam praeparant. C^m enim aperto capite ad pedes 
 sacerdotis abjecti, demisso in terram vultu, supplices manus 
 tendentes, aliaque hujusmodi Christianae humilitatis signa 
 dantes, quae ad Sacramenti rationem necessaria non sunt, 
 peccata confitemur; ex his perspicue intelligimus, tum in 
 Sacramento coelestem vim agnoscendam, tum ^ nobis divinam 
 misericordiam summo studio requirendam atque efflagitandam 
 
 I would refer also to the Tridentine Decrees them- 
 selves. Chapters V. VI. VII. Session XIV. are de- 
 voted distinctly to Confession.^ The Vllth chapter 
 treats of those cases which are not to be dealt with by 
 the priest himself, but reserved for a higher authority. 
 Besides those which are reserved for the Pope, it is 
 well to observe the control reserved for each Bishop 
 in his own Diocese. The following also is to be 
 noted : — 
 
 Sessio XXIII. CAP XV. NuUtis Confessiones avdiat nisi ah 
 
 ordinario approhatus.^ 
 Quamvis Presbyteri in sua ordinatione £l peccatis absolvendi 
 potestatem accipiant ; decernit tamen sancta Synodus, nullum, 
 
 ' Vide Catechismus Rom. ex Decreto Cona Trid. Mechlinise, 12ino. 1831, 
 p. 270. 
 
 2 Concil. Trident. Canones et Decreta. Mechlinise, 8vo. 1826, p. 120. 
 « Ibid. p. 218. 
 
45 
 
 etiam Regularem posse confessiones ssecularium, etiam Sacer- 
 dotum, audire, nee ad id idoneum reputari ; nisi aut parochiale 
 beneficium, aut ab Episcopis per examen, si illis videbitiu* esse 
 necessarium, aut ali^ idoneus judicetur, et approbationem, quae 
 gratis detur, obtineat; privilegiis, et consuetudine quacumque, 
 etiam immemorabili, non obstantibus. 
 
 And now contrast the silence of the Church of 
 England. Let me remind you how even that slight 
 sanction which appeared to be given in the First 
 Book of Edward VI. of 1549, was removed when 
 this Book was revised, and the second substituted 
 for it in 1552.^ The Rubric in the Visitation for 
 the Sick in the First Book stood thus — 
 
 " Here shall the sick person make a special confession, if he 
 feels his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After 
 which confession the Priest shall absolve him after this form: 
 and the same form of absolution shall be used in all private 
 confessions." 
 
 In the Second Book, the words " the same form of 
 absolution shall be used in all private confessions" 
 are expunged. And it is important to note that at 
 the same review the Book was relieved from another 
 Romish practice in this same service. The Visita- 
 tion of the Sick, as set forth in 1549, retained a 
 form of extreme unction : in 1552 this was expunged, 
 together with the authority for using a form of private 
 confessions. 
 
 The passage as to extreme unction expunged from 
 the book ran thus^ : — 
 
 1 Vide Cardwell's Two Liturgies of Edward VI. Oxford, 1852, p. 363. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 366, 
 
46 
 
 ." ^ If the sick person desire to be anointed, then shall the Priest anoint 
 him upon the forehead or breast only, making the sign of the cross, 
 saying thus, 
 
 " As with this visible oil thy body outwardly is anointed, so 
 our heavenly Father, Almighty God, grant of bis infinite good- 
 ness that thy soul inwardly may be anointed with the Holy 
 Ghost, who is the spirit of all strength, comfort, relief, and 
 gladness. And vouchsafe for his great mercy (if it be his 
 blessed will) to restore unto thee thy bodily health and strength, 
 to serve him ; and send thee release of all thy pains, troubles, 
 and diseases, both in body and mind. And howsoever his good- 
 ness (by his divine and unsearchable providence) shall dispose 
 of thee ; we, his unworthy ministers and servants, humbly 
 beseech the eternal Majesty to do with thee according to the 
 multitude of his innumerable mercies, and to pardon thee all 
 thy sins and offences committed by all thy bodily senses, 
 passions, and carnal affections ; who also vouchsafe mercifully 
 to grant unto thee ghostly strength, by his Holy Spirit, to 
 withstand and overcome all temptations and assaults of thine 
 adversary, that in no wise he prevail against thee; but that 
 thou mayest have perfect victory and triumph against the 
 devil, sin, and death ; through Christ our Lord : who by his 
 death hath overcomed the prince of death ; and with the Father 
 and the Holy Ghost evermore liveth and reigneth, God, world 
 without end. Amen. 
 
 Then followed the 13th Psalm. 
 
 Thus at the same review of the Prayer Book all 
 authority was withdrawn for practising extreme 
 unction, and for using a form of private absolution : 
 the Church was being further reformed, and was 
 dropping some more of those ancient practices of the 
 unreformed Church, which had at first been retained. 
 At this same revision, also in the Communion Office, 
 
47 
 
 that other passage was expunged which contained the 
 words in the address to communicants *' reqxiiring 
 such as shall be satisfied with a general confession not 
 to be offended with them that do use to their further 
 satisfying the auricular and secret confession to the 
 Priest."^ 
 
 I shall now give one quotation to illustrate how 
 our Divines henceforward treated the subject. The 
 Vlth Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, which 
 has all the weight of his great authority, though most 
 of its chapters were probably transferred by accident 
 to their present place from some other portion of his 
 works,^ speaks very highly indeed of the power of the 
 clergy in this matter. Besides § 17, chap. VI, the 
 whole of the IVth chapter expresses in strong terms 
 the High Church view of Confession and Absolution ; 
 and yet it is only in exceptional cases that he advises 
 recourse to be had to the clergy : How does he sum 
 up the whole ? ^ — 
 
 " In sum, when the offence doth stand only between God and 
 man's conscience, the counsel is good which St. Chrysostom 
 giveth : ' I wish thee not to bewray thyself publicly, nor to 
 accuse thyself before others. I wish thee to obey the Prophet, 
 who saith, Disclose thy way unto the Lord, confess thy sins 
 before him, tell thy sins to him that he may blot them out. If 
 thou be abashed to tell unto any other wherein thou hast 
 
 ' Vide Cardwell, Ibid. p. 278. Cf. Brief Enquiry into the Law of the 
 Church of England, hy Benj. Shaw, Esq. 
 
 2 Vide Keble's Edition : Oxford, 1836. Vol. I : Editor's Preface, § 8, 
 
 p. XXX. 
 
 3 Book VI, ch. IV, § 16, p. 66. 
 
48 
 
 offended, rehearse them every day between thee and thy soul. 
 I wish thee not to confess them to thy fellow-servant, who may 
 upbraid thee with them ; tell them to God, who will cure 
 them ; there is no need for thee in the presence of witnesses to 
 acknowledge them ; let God alone see thee at thy confession. 
 I pray and beseech you, that you would more often than you do 
 confess to God eternal, and reckoning up your trespasses desire 
 his pardon. I carry you not into a theatre or open court of 
 many your fellow-servants, I seek not to detect your crimes 
 before men ; disclose your conscience before God, unfold your- 
 selves to him, lay forth your wounds before him, the best 
 physician that is, and desire of him salve for them.* If hereupon 
 it follow, as it did with David, * I thought, I will confess against 
 myself my wickedness unto thee, Lord, and thou forgavest 
 me the plague of my sin,' we have our desire, and there re- 
 maineth only thankfulness, accompanied with perpetuity of care 
 to avoid that, which being not avoided we know we cannot 
 remedy without new perplexity and grief Contrariwise, if 
 peace with God do not follow the pains we have taken in seeking 
 after it, if we continue disquieted, and not delivered from anguish, 
 mistrusting whether that we do be sufficient ; it argueth that 
 onr sore doth exceed the power of our own skill, and that the 
 wisdom of the pastor must bind up those parts, which being 
 bruised are not able to be recured of themselves." 
 
 I have no doubt that practically the great body of 
 our divines have assented to the view of the Church 
 of England doctrine which is well set forth in the 
 Second Book of Homilies, in the second part of the 
 Sermon on Repentance. This important passage I 
 pray you now to excuse me for recalling to your 
 memory by quoting it at length; it is well that you 
 should ponder on the words as speaking the mind of 
 
49 
 
 our reformed Church. The first part of Repentance 
 having been described as the contrition of the heart, 
 the Homily goes on,* — 
 
 " The second is, an unfeigned confession and acknowledging of 
 our sins unto God, whom by them we have so grievously offended, 
 that, if he should deal with us according to his justice, we do 
 deserve a thousand hells, if there could be so many. Yet if we will 
 with a sorrowful and contrite heart make an unfeigned confession 
 of them unto God, he will freely and frankly forgive them, and 
 so put all our wickedness out of remembrance before the sight 
 of his majesty, that they shall no more be thought upon. Here- 
 unto doth pertain the golden saying of the holy prophet David, 
 where he saith on this manner : ' Then I acknowledged my sin 
 unto thee, neither did I hide mine iniquity : I said, I will con- 
 fess against myself my wickedness unto the Lord, and thou 
 forgavest the ungodHness of my sin.' These are also the words 
 of John the evangelist : * If we confess our sins, God is faithful 
 and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to make us clean from 
 all our wickedness.' Which ought to be understood of the con- 
 fession that is made unto God. For these are St. Augustin's 
 words : * That confession which is made unto God is required by 
 God's law ; ' whereof John the apostle speaketh, saying, ' If we 
 confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our 
 sins, and to make us clean from all our wickedness.' For with- 
 out this confession, sin is not forgiven. This is then the chiefest 
 and most principal confession that in the scriptures and the 
 word of God we are bidden to make, and without the which we 
 shall never obtain pardon and forgiveness of our sins. Indeed, 
 besides this there is another kind of confession, which is needful 
 and necessary. 
 
 "And of the same doth St. James speak after this manner, 
 saying, * Acknowledge your faults one to another, and pray one 
 » Oxford Ed. 1832, p. 486. 
 E 
 
50 
 
 for another, that ye may be saved.' As if he should say, open 
 that which grieveth you, that a remedy may be found. And 
 this is commanded both for him that complaineth, and for him 
 that heareth, that the one should show his grief to the other. 
 The true meaning of it is, that the faithful ought to acknowledge 
 their offences, whereby some hatred, rancour, grudge, or malice, 
 have risen or grown among them one to another, that a brotherly 
 reconcihation may be had, without the which nothing that we 
 do can be acceptable unto God, as our Saviour Jesus Christ doth 
 witness himself, saying, 'When thou offerest thine offering at the 
 altar, if thou rememberest that thy brother hath aught against 
 thee, leave there thine offering, and go and be reconciled ; and 
 when thou art reconciled, come and offer thine offering.' It may 
 also be thus taken, that we ought to confess our weakness and 
 infirmities one to another, to the end that, knowing each other's 
 frailness, we may the more earnestly pray together unto 
 Almighty God, our heavenly Father, that he will vouchsafe to 
 pardon us our infirmities, for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, and not 
 to impute them unto us, when he shall render to every man 
 according to his works. And whereas the adversaries go about 
 to wrest this place, for to maintain their auricular confession 
 withal, they are greatly deceived themselves, and do shamefully 
 deceive others : for if this text ought to be understood of 
 auricular confession, then the priests are as much bound to 
 confess themselves unto the lay-people, as the lay-people are 
 bound to confess themselves to them. And if to pray is to 
 absolve, then the laity by this place hath as great authority to 
 absolve the priests, as the priests have to absolve the laity. This 
 did Johannes Scotus, otherwise called Duns, well perceive, who 
 upon this place writeth on this manner ; * Neither doth it seem 
 unto me that James did give this commandment, or that he 
 did set it forth as being received of Christ. For first and 
 foremost, whence had he authority to bind the whole church, 
 sith that he was only bishop of the church of Jerusalem? 
 
51 
 
 Except thou wilt say, that the same church was at the begin- 
 ning the head church, and consequently that he was the 
 head bishop, which thing the see of Rome will never grant.' 
 The understanding of it then is as in these words : ^ Confess your 
 sins one to another : ' a persuasion to humility, whereby he 
 willeth us to confess ourselves generally unto our neighbours, 
 that we are sinners, according to the saying : * If we say we 
 have no sin, we deceive oui-selves, and the truth is not in us.* 
 And where that they do allege this saying of our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular confession to stand on 
 God's word, ' Go thy way, and show thyself unto the priest j 
 do they not see that the leper was cleansed from his leprosy, 
 afore he was by Christ sent unto the priest, for to shew himself 
 unto him ? By the same reason we must be cleansed from our 
 spiritual leprosy, I mean our sins must be forgiven us, afore 
 that w^e come to confession. What need we then to tell forth 
 our sins unto the ear of the priest, sith that they be already 
 taken away 1 Therefore holy Ambrose, in his second sermon 
 upon the hundred and nineteenth Psalm, doth say full well, 
 * Go shew thyself unto the priest.' Who is the true priest, 
 but he which is the priest for ever, after the order of Melchise- 
 dech ? Whereby this holy father doth understand, that, both 
 the priesthood and the law being changed, we ought to acknow- 
 ledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins, but our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ, who, being our sovereign bishop, doth 
 with the sacrifice of his body and blood, offered once for ever 
 upon the altar of the cross, most effectually cleanse the spiritual 
 leprosy, and wash away the sins of all those that with true con- 
 fession of the same do flee unto Him. It is most evident and 
 plain, that this auricular confession hath not his warrant of 
 God's word, else it had not been lawful for Nectarius, bishop of 
 Constantinople, upon a just occasion to have put it down. For 
 when anything ordained of God is by the lewdness of men 
 abused, the abuse ought to be taken away, and the thing itself 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 suffered to remain. Moreover, these are St. Augustin's words : 
 ' What have I to do with men, that they should hear my con- 
 fession, as though they were able to heal my diseases? A 
 curious sort of men to know another man's life, and slothful to 
 correct and amend their own. Why do they seek to hear of me 
 what I am, which will not hear of thee what they are 1 And how 
 can they tell, when they hear by me of myself, whether I tell 
 the truth or not ; sith no mortal man knoweth what is in man, 
 but the spirit of man which is in him ? Augu^tin would not 
 have written thus, if auricular confession had been used in his 
 time. Being therefore not led with the conscience thereof, let 
 us with fear and trembling, and with a true contrite heart, use 
 that kind of confession that God doth command in his word ; 
 and then doubtless, as he is faithful and righteous, he will for- 
 give us our sins, and make us clean from all wickedness. I do 
 not say, but that, if any do find themselves troubled in con- 
 science, they may repair to their learned curate or pastor, or to 
 some other godly learned man, and shew the trouble and doubt 
 of their conscience to them, that they may receive at their hand 
 the comfortable salve of God's word : but it is against the true 
 Christian liberty, that any man should be bound to the number- 
 ing of his sins, as it hath been used heretofore in the time of 
 blindness and ignorance." 
 
 I feel myself justified then in asserting that, as our 
 formularies give no authority for a systematic private 
 confession, so a fair-minded student of the great 
 Church of England divines would not rise from a care- 
 ful perusal of their writings with a conviction that our 
 Church has put forth for its Presbyters those arrogant 
 claims of priestly authority which Protestants justly 
 regard are the reproach of the Church of Rome. But we 
 live now in an age given to reckless extremes. And I do 
 
53 
 
 not hesitate to say, tliat there is great danger lest some 
 of our young clergy especially — and some also who are 
 old enough to know better, often led away by their 
 juniors — claim for themselves priestly rights which 
 are both alien to the whole spirit of our Church's 
 teaching, and have no warrant whatsoever in the Word 
 of God. My reverend brethren, it is my firm belief 
 that there is danger amongst us lest a mode of teach- 
 ing may gain ground which, as it would so exalt the 
 sacraments administered by the clergy as to turn 
 them into superstitious charms, would make the 
 clergy themselves spiritual despots over the laity. 
 You know that, at this moment, a deep alarm per- 
 vades the country lest the habitual estabHshment of 
 the Confessional, as a means of priestly influence, may 
 be employed to give men who thus unduly magnify 
 their office, an influence subversive of the legitimate 
 exercise by individuals of the duties of the Christian 
 conscience, and dangerous to the peace of families. I 
 believe that this alarm is exaggerated. Comparatively 
 very few persons wish to introduce the Confessional 
 into our system ; and the authorities of the Church, I 
 am persuaded, are quite alive to the danger. 
 
 Suffer me, as I am indeed in duty bound, to state my 
 own views on this painful subject. A clergyman of this 
 Diocese — a man of high character and greatly es- 
 teemed by myself as well as by his own friends 
 — has addressed to me a published letter on Con- 
 fession and Absolution, with reference to the case 
 
^4 
 
 of his Curate, whose licence I felt myself bound 
 lately to withdraw. The only very distinct im- 
 pression I have derived from this letter is, that the 
 author of it thinks it his duty to state, in a manly 
 and straightforward manner, that he views this sub- 
 ject very differently from me : That he claims for him- 
 self the right of admitting his people to confession in 
 a more systematic way than, I believe, has hitherto 
 ever been sanctioned by the authorities of the Church 
 of England, even in days when the Presbyter's office 
 was most highly magnified ; and thus of introducing 
 into his parochial arrangements a practice, which in 
 my judgment is by no means conducive to the good 
 of souls : that he puts forward what are called very 
 high — in my opinion, more justly called very exag- 
 gerated — views of priestly power : that he has formed 
 also a very different estimate from myself of the 
 social aspects of this question ; and that he is very 
 naturally and generously anxious that his Curate 
 should not suffer in public estimation for doing that 
 under his authority, which, I cannot but think, if he, 
 the superior, had exercised sufficient control, never 
 would have been done at all. There are minor 
 matters in this letter; and both in the letter and 
 its appendix there are what appear to me some 
 inacciu'acies of statement regarding myself, which I 
 am sure are not intentional, and which, therefore, as 
 they simply concern myself, are not worth dwelUng 
 on. The general purport of the whole letter as I 
 
55 
 
 understand it, I say, is, that the author claims for 
 himself the right of admitting to confession, with 
 certain exceptions to be judged of by his own dis- 
 cretion, any of his people who present themselves ; 
 that, as I understand him, whether I think it right 
 or no, he proposes to receive them in the vestry, in 
 his surplice, to require them to make their confession 
 on their knees before a cross, repeating forms of 
 words in use amongst persons of his school, before 
 absolution is pronounced. He does not, so far as 
 I understand his letter, at all clearly intimate whether, 
 when persons so present themselves, he will subject 
 them to a series of minute questions as to their 
 thoughts and actions, which most men of calm 
 judgment amongst us regard as dangerous alike to 
 the questioner and the questioned. I believe fully 
 that he would not himself have recourse to this 
 system of questioning; I trust he is ready to use 
 his influence to discourage it in others. Neither 
 do I distinctly learn from his letter — though this 
 may be from my own fault — whether the writer 
 intends by himself or his Curates to urge upon his 
 people, that confession is a duty which it is dangerous 
 for them to neglect. Yet this is an important point ; 
 for obviously, though a clergyman may in theory 
 allow that, while the Church of Rome insists on 
 confession, the Church of England leaves it volun- 
 tary — he may yet practically so preach on its 
 benefits, and so urge his people to avail themselves 
 
56 
 
 of it, that with sensitive minds the effect may be 
 much the same as if it were insisted on as com- 
 pulsory. I am ready, however, to beheve that the 
 author intends to intimate that some caution will be 
 exercised by him in this respect. 
 
 Now, my reverend brethren, with reference to the 
 practice thus avowed and defended, I will first state 
 my own views ; and secondly, how far I shall think 
 myself justified in interposing by my authority to 
 prevent evil effects. 
 
 I would remark, before we go further, with respect 
 to the whole of that department of the pastor's office, 
 in which he has to deal with the individual souls of 
 his people suffering under a sense of sin in the private 
 ministering of spiritual consolation, that this is almost 
 the most difficult, as it is the most dehcate part of bis 
 functions. It would be very unlike the tact and 
 prudence usually displayed by the authorities of the 
 Church of Rome, if they allowed any priest to be a 
 confessor without special ficence. And our own Church 
 warning us distinctly that the private adviser of his 
 people's souls must be discreet and learned, holds out 
 no encouragement to every raw young man, the moment 
 he has received Priests' orders, to embark on duties for 
 which he is not fitted by age, character, and experience 
 of life. 
 
 But, moreover, there is a good deal of confusion in 
 men's minds as to the questions at issue between the 
 advocates and opponents of Confession, which it is well 
 
57 
 
 to clear up. We who disapprove any approach to the 
 introduction into the Church of England of the Con- 
 fessional, as it is technically called, of course do not 
 forget the injunctions of our Prayer-Book, which call 
 upon us all to make public confession of our sins daily, 
 as w^e approach to receive comfort from hearing the de- 
 claration, which the Minister is authorized by the rules 
 of the Church to pronounce, of God's willingness to 
 pardon and absolve all those that truly repent and 
 unfeignedly believe His holy gospel. Neither do 
 we shut our eyes to the fact that, previously to their 
 receiving the Holy Communion, those persons — who, 
 having tried, find that they cannot by self-examina- 
 tion and confession to Almighty God, with full pur- 
 pose of amendment of life and endeavours after re- 
 cojiciHation with those whom they have offended, 
 attain to a full trust in God's mercy, and quiet their 
 own consciences, but require further comfort or counsel, 
 — are exhorted to seek the aid of some discreet and 
 learned Minister of God's word, that they may open 
 their grief, and, having the comfort of being distinctly 
 assured of God's willingness to pardon them, may 
 receive ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of 
 their consciences and avoiding of all scruple and 
 doubtfulness. 
 
 Neither again do we forget further, that the pastor 
 who visits any member of his flock labouring under 
 dangerous sickness, if he finds the sick man to be 
 troubled in conscience with any weighty matter, is 
 
58 
 
 directed to move him to make special confession of 
 his sins, that thus opening his heart, he may, if he 
 seems truly penitent, have the consolation of hearing 
 from his pastor's mouth before he dies, that God of His 
 great mercy in Jesus Christ is ready to pardon him ; 
 and be assured that, great as his sins are, he is not 
 excluded from the benefit of dying in communion with 
 that Church which is Christ's body ! We are for- 
 getful of none of these points. The passages which 
 treat of Confession and Absolution in our Prayer-Book 
 speak, I believe, in this language of the comfort which 
 is in store for the repentant sinner's soul, when either 
 publicly in the congregation, or alone before God, or 
 calling in the aid of his spiritual adviser, he confesses 
 his sin, and begs God for pardon and reconciliation. 
 God forbid that in this controversy one word should 
 ever escape from us, which seems to throw an obstacle 
 in the way of the overburdened soul, either in health 
 or in sickness, opening its griefs to a trusted pastor. 
 God forbid also that we should deny that much good 
 may be done by discreet pious men when their aid is 
 thus invited. My reverend brethren, on this subject 
 it is right that I should speak with great seriousness. 
 Let each of us ask ourselves whether we are quite 
 alive to our duties, and by God's help are becoming 
 equal to them, in this momentous intercourse which is 
 often required between pastors and their people's souls. 
 Beware lest in the din of unhallowed controversy we 
 allow words to be lightly spoken which may encou- 
 
69 
 
 rage the ungodly or careless pastor to feel contented 
 with his want of power, arising from his want of 
 spiritual-mindedness, to minister any consolation to 
 distressed sinners. 
 
 It is the duty, moreover, of the ministers of Christ, 
 according to their Ordination vows, seeking " for His 
 sheep that are dispersed abroad, and His children that 
 are in the midst of this naughty world," to use both 
 '' public and private monitions and exhortations as well 
 to the sick as to the whole within their cures, as need 
 shall require and occasion shall be given." And we 
 dare not with exactness define the amount of plain 
 speaking as to sin, which, in such monitions, may be 
 necessary to arouse a slumbering conscience. A 
 pastor, in his dealings with sinners' consciences, must 
 indeed be very discreet and very reverent, but also 
 he must not flinch from being faithful. We bear all 
 this distinctly in mind, though it is certain that these 
 weighty matters have not unfrequently been forgotten 
 in the exciting discussions which this subject of the 
 Confessional has of late raised. 
 
 Moreover, 1 would observe, for myself, that it is no 
 wish of mine to insist on other people adopting my 
 own opinions as to the exact nature of the Presbyter's 
 office, and thus to narrow those bounds of a wise 
 comprehensiveness, according to which the Church of 
 England has always allowed her children, if they 
 chose, to believe that some very especial blessing and 
 comfort to the penitent soul is to be derived from 
 
60 
 
 listening to the promises of God's mercy, pronounced 
 by his minister on those Umited occasions, when alone 
 the formularies have authorised him officially to 
 pronounce them as Absolution. What I do utterly 
 disapprove of, and what I feel constrained most 
 strongly to protest against, is something very different 
 from the common pastoral intercourse which is in- 
 dicated in the three passages of the Prayer-Book I 
 have cited, and which the Church always must uphold. 
 It has been said that I have not explained myself 
 when I have spoken against a systematic introduction 
 of the practice of Confession, as opposed to such 
 common pastoral intercourse. But I really believe, 
 even those who make this objection will, when they 
 reflect, allow — all men of common discernment must 
 know and distinctly recognise — the difierence between 
 the pastoral intercourse I have spoken of, and that 
 which is now endeavoured to be set up amongst us, 
 under the name of the Confessional. If any clergyman 
 so preaches to his people as to lead them to suppose that 
 the proper and authorised way of a sinner's recon- 
 ciliation with God is through confession to a Priest, 
 and by receiving priestly absolution — if he leads them 
 to believe (I use the illustration I have found employed 
 by an advocate of the Confessional) that as the Greek 
 Church has erred by neglecting preaching, and the 
 Church of Rome by not encouraging the reading of 
 the Scriptures, so our Church has hitherto been much 
 to blame for not leading her people more habitually 
 
61 
 
 to private auricular confession — if he thus stirs up 
 the imagination of ardent and confiding spirits to 
 have recourse to him as a mediator between their 
 souls and God, and when they come to seek his aid, 
 receives them with all the elaborate preparation which 
 is so likely unduly to excite their feelings, and for 
 which there is no authority in the Church's rules of 
 worship — taking them into the vestry of his church, 
 securing the door, putting on the sacred vestments, 
 causing them to kneel before the cross, to address 
 him as their ghostly father, asking a string of ques- 
 tions as to sins of deed, word, and thought, and 
 imposing his penance before he confers absolution — 
 then the man who thus acts, or — even if some of 
 these particular circumstances are wanting — of whose 
 general practice this is no exaggerated picture, is 
 in my judgment unfaithful to the whole spirit of the 
 Church of which he is a minister. And if it so chance 
 that the person thus brought under his influence be a 
 female, and the questions which he asks — perhaps with 
 the best intentions, but, under such circumstances, with 
 the most deplorable want of sound discretion — include 
 minute inquiries into sins of impurity, he cannot be 
 surprised if his conduct is condemned as bringing 
 grave scandal on the Church. My reverend brethren, 
 I know that I carry you and the Church of England 
 with me, when I express my strong disapproval of 
 such practices. I do most earnestly trust that the 
 zealous, self-denying men, who have felt disposed 
 
62 
 
 incautiously to encourage such practices, will seriously 
 consider with themselves, and before God, that they 
 are not acting as they ought. Depend upon it, real 
 faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, such as the Church of 
 England holds to be the effectual cause of the soul's 
 salvation, is not strengthened by teaching our people 
 thus to lean upon the unauthorised mediation of man. 
 And let me say plainly, also, to any who may be 
 engaged in the attempt to introduce such a system 
 amongst us, that I rejoice to have a full conviction 
 that they are labouring in a hopeless task. The over- 
 whelming majority of our pious and intelHgent clergy, to 
 whichsoever of our acknowledged schools of theological 
 sentiment they belong, as well as of our laity, is deter- 
 mined to resist it. We may be ready to admit that the 
 clamour raised respecting the Confessional is often un- 
 wise ; but quite independently of any clamour, there 
 stands a firm resistance of good and thoughtful men, 
 who know and value the character of our reformed 
 Church, and love it for its apostolical and Bible teach- 
 ing, whom no sophistry on this subject will be able to 
 mislead. If there were any probability of those who 
 advocate these innovations succeeding in their attempts 
 to indoctrinate the body of the clergy, their success 
 would but be ruin ; they would soon find themselves 
 deserted by all but a very small minority of their 
 flocks, and our Church would soon become a church 
 of clergy without laity. But there is no such proba- 
 bility. We, the clergy, know wherein our strength 
 
> 63 
 
 consists. We trust to hold our ground from enjoying 
 the confidence of our people while we teach them 
 Christ's truth ; we feel that we shall justly lose their con- 
 fidence if we strain after the unwarranted influence of 
 a mediatorial priestly power. 
 
 I cannot but earnestly trust that the discussions on 
 this subject which have lately arisen, and even the 
 improper heat which has been excited, will be over- 
 ruled by God to make men more cautious how they 
 trifle with any of these dangerous weapons, by which 
 some of our clergy have been disposed of late vainly 
 to think that they might strengthen themselves while 
 borrowing from the armoury of Rome. 
 
 But if any will not be stayed by mild remonstrance 
 and affectionate warning, those invested with authority 
 in the Church must use the other means of influence 
 which they find their position gives them to prevent 
 evil. How that influence shall be wielded in par- 
 ticular cases, it must rest with the Bishop's own dis- 
 cretion to decide, whether in some less penal form, or 
 necessarily by severe examples of discipline, such as 
 it has greatly pained me of late to feel myself con- 
 strained to use against a zealous and pious and truly 
 well-meaning, but mistaken brother. All I can dis- 
 tinctly intiuiate on this public occasion is, that if what 
 I deem a dangerous systematic invitation and admis- 
 sion of their people to Confession is endeavoured to be 
 maintained by any clergyman in this Diocese, I shall feel 
 myself bound to watch his proceedings very carefully, 
 
64 
 
 and shall hold him most deeply responsible for any 
 evils that ensue ; considering carefully, in each parti- 
 cular case, what power the law gives me to correct 
 what is amiss. One thing I wish to add, that if I have 
 abstained hitherto from giving in any church distmct 
 directions on this subject, it has been because I have 
 received no assurance that my directions are likely 
 to be obeyed. Clergymen who seek to introduce this 
 bad system, may indeed express a general readiness to 
 follow my advice as to the mode in which they will 
 carry it into practice, thus endeavouring to gain for it 
 the aid of my authority. On such terms I am not 
 likely to give advice. What I do advise and urge is, 
 that they abstain altogether from seeking to introduce 
 amongst their people any systematic and habitual 
 confession, such as I have described. Believe me, 
 my reverend brethren, our Church has not erred in 
 being so guarded and cautious in this matter. There 
 is within the limits of her calm and reverent piety, full 
 opportunity to satisfy all the really spiritual longings 
 of the faithful soul, while she leads it to direct personal 
 intercourse with the Lord Jesus Christ. Other long- 
 ings, which her system has made no provision to satisfy, 
 we shall be right to scrutinise very carefully, before we 
 think well of them ; putting on the guise of religion, 
 they may be but some subtle forui of the yearnings 
 of the unregenerate heart. Be it yours, in such 
 matters, gently to restrain and guide the morbidly 
 sensitive, and to teach your people daily better to 
 
65 
 
 understand and appreciate the blessings offered in the 
 authorized system of our own reformed Church. 
 
 I have spoken, my reverend brethren, strongly, 
 because, as I have said, if there were any prospect of 
 such attempts as I have described making much pro- 
 gress amongst us, the danger would indeed be great. 
 But I am reminded, while I speak thus strongly, that 
 I must be very cautious not to encourage strife. I know 
 that the most zealous of our brethren, for whom in such 
 matters we apprehend danger, do love the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. I would beseech them, therefore, for the Lord's 
 sake, to listen to the affectionate voice of warning. If 
 we act towards them wisely, if we kindly and consider- 
 ately point out their danger, and encourage them in 
 w^hat is good, while we carefully guard against anything 
 which may unnecessarily and uncharitably grate against 
 their feelings, we shall not, I think, entreat in vain. 
 And I beseech all of you, the vast majority, who totally 
 disapprove of such things, to be very forbearing.^ 
 Good men, we cannot but trust, in God's good time 
 will be recalled by God Himself. If the path in 
 which they have wandered is one full of danger, the 
 best way to recall them from it is, by addressing 
 them always in the spirit of Christian love. There 
 is much in their zeal and self-denial which we all 
 admire. The Lord grant that His Holy Spirit may 
 teach them the real truth. 
 
 My voice is uplifted now to warn the younger 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. viii. 9—11. 
 
66 
 
 clergy against being misled by imperceptible degrees — • 
 first through a taste for ceremonials of worship, inno- 
 cent enough in themselves, however frivolous; and 
 secondly, by an exaggerated estimate of their minis- 
 terial power — into courses which may injure many 
 souls, and, if persisted in, break up our national 
 Church. But now let us suppose a young Clergyman 
 free from such dangers. He has no taste, say, for 
 either follies or grave errors of this description. Is he 
 therefore safe ? Not safe, indeed. We note, thirdly, 
 that he may have come from College, imbued, as he 
 ought to be, with a taste for intellectual pursuits, and 
 here, in this very point where lies his excellence, he 
 may find his trial. Beware lest any man spoil you 
 through the deceit of an empty philosophy.^ It is not 
 to be denied that there is in this age a great danger 
 of what we may call intellectualisra, as contradistin- 
 guished from a sound and vigorous exercise of the 
 intellect. Students in our Universities, wearied of the 
 dogmatism which ruled unchecked there some years 
 ago, are very apt now to regard every maxim of 
 theology or philosophy as an open question. Diffi- 
 cult questions there undoubtedly are, connected prin- 
 cipally with the exact limits and nature of inspiration, 
 which cannot in this age be avoided by men of 
 inquiring minds. But I have no fear of such 
 questions, if they are approached in a reverential, 
 truth-loving, prayerful spirit.^ There are exceptions 
 
 1 Coloss. ii. 8. » Cf. John vii. 17. 
 
67 
 
 of minds peculiarly formed ; but, as a general 
 rule, I have no fear of a man becoming sceptical, 
 if he has not a secret love of the independence 
 of scepticism, and a sort of self-sufficient appreciation 
 of the supposed superiority to the prejudices of ordi- 
 nary mortals, which an enlightened scepticism seems 
 to imply. If a young clergyman is a man of prayer, 
 if daily living amongst sinful and dying men, he 
 enters with a loving spirit into all their wants, and 
 tasks himself, as in God's sight, to find those remedies 
 for their weakness which alone can avail them when 
 life fails ; if, having a reverential sense of God's 
 presence, he seeks to be taught of God, I cannot 
 myself fear that he will be beguiled by the dan- 
 gerous temptations of a sceptical and would-be 
 intellectual age. The deep things of God will be 
 impressed upon his soul by the deepening experience 
 of Hfe; as cares and sorrows gather round him he 
 will learn the more to love in his heart of hearts the 
 Gospel of his Lord and Saviour. But let him beware 
 in his early days how he trifles with intellectualism, 
 lest his whole nature be corrupted, and a shallow 
 half-behef come to be all that he has to ofier either to 
 his people or his own soul, instead of deep-rooted 
 love and faith. 
 
 And fourthly, are there not dangers also to be 
 guarded against by those who are most free from such 
 errors? Dangers for the firm believer and fervent 
 preacher of the great orthodox and Protestant doc- 
 
 p2 
 
68 
 
 trines of our Church, who understands and upholds 
 the simplicity of the Gospel as much as for the 
 ritualist and the intellectualist ? I cannot too dis- 
 tinctly state, that I believe it is from its maintenance 
 of these doctrines, and of the simplicity of our Pro- 
 testant faith and worship, that our Church has its 
 firm hold on the religious mind of this country. It 
 is because our system is the system of the Bible — the 
 same simple gospel which St. Paul, and St. John, and 
 St. James, and St. Peter preached — that it is mighty 
 through the Holy Ghost to win its way into the 
 heart. It is this which will give it power over men's 
 souls; this which will fill our churches, and this 
 which, whether it fills them or no, has the promise 
 from God that it will in time leaven the whole world. 
 But let all of us, who hold this treasure in earthen 
 vessels, be very cautious, very much on our guard 
 before God, lest from any fault of ours the treasure 
 thus committed to us be tarnished. Love is the great 
 Christian grace, as well as faith : * the best ornaments 
 of the Church of England, as well as the most 
 approved servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, are those 
 who maintain the true doctrine in the comprehensive 
 spirit of all-embracing love. A censorious spirit, a 
 narrow exclusiveness, which would limit the terms of 
 Christian communion beyond what the Lord has 
 appointed, is not the spirit of Christ. Our own 
 Church is constructed on a very wide basis of com- 
 
 1 1 Cor. xiii. 13. 
 
69 
 
 prehensive charity. And we shall miss at once 
 the spirit of our own Church and of Christ's Gospel 
 if we are looking too much to the points in which 
 earnest and faithful Christians differ, rather than to those 
 in which, thanks be to God, with all their differences, 
 they heartily agree. A young clergyman, if he takes 
 my advice, will be on his guard against becoming a 
 party man ; for a narrow party spirit, such as 1 now 
 speak of, does stand greatly in the way of the form- 
 ation of the highest Christian character, and the life of 
 the highest Christian usefulness. 
 
 But after all, fifthly, my reverend brethren, let us 
 suppose a man to be ever so safe from these dangers of 
 ceremonial or doctrinal ritualism, or of intellectualism, 
 or of a narrow exclusiveness — the greatest of all 
 dangers remains, that he may not be animated by a 
 genuine love of souls poured into his heart by the Holy 
 Ghost. Ah ! my reverend brethren, here, after all, 
 is the great difficulty — no correctness of belief — no wise 
 arrangement of our forms of worship — no cleverness 
 in dealing with our people's prejudices — no large- 
 hearted appreciation of their wants, will avail without 
 that genuine love of Christ and the souls for which 
 He died, in which, alas, all of us must feel our great 
 shortcoming. Let us seek all of us by every means 
 to have our own genuine hearty religious feelings and 
 character deepened and strengthened — by prayer, by 
 the right use of the Sacrament of the Lord's body 
 and blood — by accustoming ourselves to holy medita- 
 
70 
 
 tion — by the study of God's Word. Alas, the very 
 routine of our sacred duties — the very privilege of 
 being brought in our daily work so near to God, and 
 having His truth so constantly on our lips, is in this 
 matter a snare to us. And of all our wants none is 
 so pressing, as that we become year by year more 
 and more a praying, faithful, loving hearty body of 
 servants of our heavenly Lord. In our daily life let 
 us strive each of us to keep near to Christ, and then 
 we shall most effectually preach Christ, both by 
 the example of our ordinary lives, and by our 
 ministrations. 
 
 But leaving such holy topics, commending this 
 need of refreshing grace for all of us as the great sub- 
 ject of our prayers, I must pass on now to point out 
 those outward helps which a pastor who loves Christ 
 amongst us may find ready to his hand to aid him in 
 labouring for his people's souls. 
 
 A man, say, is placed in a large metropolitan parish. 
 It is true that a small parish is sometimes as difiicult 
 to manage as one that is large. I do not think 
 the pastor of any of these small rural parishes, a few 
 of which are to be found even in this Diocese, has 
 an easy task. A rustic population requires a peculiar 
 style of preaching, if we are to gain access to their 
 hearts. And they require also to be dealt with in 
 a peculiar way in all our ministrations amongst them. 
 I strongly advise every one who has to do with the 
 smallest rural parish to look upon his work as very 
 
n 
 
 difficult, to determine in addressing his people to lay 
 aside the conventionalities of that style of preaching, 
 which sometimes makes essay-like sermons uttered 
 from village pulpits but at best the sound of a 
 pleasant voice, or, it may be, a mere weariness, to the 
 rustics who gather Sunday after Sunday to hear a 
 half-hour's discourse, of which they can carry away 
 nothing but the text. When a man sets himself to 
 prepare a sermon or to preach, I beg him ever to 
 remember that the measure of his being a good or a 
 bad preacher, must be his conveying distinct ideas to 
 the understanding, and calling up religious feelings in 
 the hearts of the people (of whatever class they are) 
 to whom he is speaking. To preach Christ effectually 
 to a village congregation — to see that the members of 
 a village parish, men as well as women and children, 
 receive that degree of kindly individual advice and 
 guidance, to which, from its manageable size, they are 
 entitled — and to see that our village schools, with their 
 peculiar difficulties, are the best possible of the kind — 
 I think there is no man, however great his ability, who 
 will not find this a task requiring much energy for 
 its due fulfilment, and making large demands upon 
 his time. And when we take into account the great 
 temptations which beset him to indolence — to a per- 
 functory discharge of duties, which at the first glance 
 seem very easy — to a discontented mind, if he allows 
 himself to dwell on the dangerous thought that he is 
 thrown away in so narrow a sphere — I think we shall 
 
n 
 
 allow that the village pastor has much need to be on 
 his guard, to brace himself by often looking very 
 carefully at his responsibilities, in a prayerful spirit, by 
 that light which is reflected from the thought that the 
 Lord loves all souls, and has died for the very souls, 
 which one by one the narrow limits of his village mini- 
 strations have so brought within his influence; that 
 the everlasting state of each of them does, far more than 
 in a wider sphere, depend upon the zeal with which 
 the pastor seeks them one by one. 
 
 And if these difBculties beset the pastor of a village 
 parish, they are certainly found even in a greater 
 degree in those city parishes amongst us, the popu- 
 lation of which, it seems, has sunk below that of 
 villages, and which, to all other discouragements of a 
 small congregation and a narrow sphere, add this 
 further difficulty — that the arrangements of ihe. Church 
 are all made on a scale commensurate with a state 
 of things which has passed away, and the clergyman 
 in a large building amid empty pews, finds himself 
 ministering to tens at the most, in a place built for 
 hundreds. But on the disheartening difliculties which 
 attend this anomaly of our city parishes, and the 
 hopes we may have of remedying it, I would speak 
 hereafter. At present, let us suppose a pastor placed 
 in a large metropolitan parish with a superabundant 
 population. 1 pass over difficulties arising from the 
 varieties of rank and education in those whom he is 
 appointed to teach. I have only time, on this matter. 
 
73 
 
 to give to all in passing that one piece of advice 
 already given in speaking of a village — which I am 
 sure the experience of those many reverend fathers in 
 the ministry whom I see around me will approve and 
 commend to their younger brethren — that whether we 
 preach to rich or poor, men or women, learned or 
 unlearned, men of fashion, lawyers, merchants, trades- 
 men, or day-labourers, the only measure of our 
 preaching being good is, whether in all sincerity, 
 while we do not neglect the understandings, we are 
 reaching the hearts of those we speak to, telling them 
 truths respecting Christ and their souls, which we 
 have mastered in our own experience — speaking to 
 them because we have something to say, and that in 
 our Lord's name, something which intimately concerns 
 their hopes in life and death, as we know that it con- 
 cerns our own. After all, human beings, with all their 
 diversities of rank, education, and character, are more 
 alike than we might suppose. They have all been much 
 alike in infancy, they will all be alike in the weakness 
 of their decay. It is one of the most marvellous parts 
 of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that it suits the wants of 
 all. If we are speaking to them sincerely what we our- 
 selves know of the GospeFs healing power, we shall 
 not speak in vain. And as to those other parts of our 
 ministry which are independent of our preaching — has 
 not our Lord and Master given us in his Church, 
 prayer, and the Sacraments, and solemn psalms of 
 praise, which have a heavenly and almost miraculous 
 
u 
 
 adaptation to the infinitely various wants of every 
 diversity of our race ? 
 
 But in applying these Gospel remedies to men's souls 
 the one great difficulty which presents itself to the 
 clergy in our larger metropohtan parishes, is the 
 vastness of our population. How is this to be met ? 
 After all our parochial subdivisions into new districts, 
 and all our erection of new churches, I still find it 
 stated in your returns that we have four parochial 
 districts of 30,000 and upwards— one of 28,000— 
 and others varying from 15,000 to 21,000.^ 
 
 Indeed, when some time ago, wishing to consult 
 the incumbents of the larger London parishes on a 
 matter of importance, and feeling it necessary to have 
 some principle of selection, lest the multitude of coun- 
 sellors might be too great for wisdom, I directed 
 those only to be summoned, the population of whose 
 districts exceeded 10,000, the largest room I could 
 command in my house was very speedily filled ; and I 
 found afterwards that, many as we were who met, 
 several others had been omitted who on this numerical 
 principle of selection ought to have been invited to 
 come. Now what is a man to do when he finds him- 
 
 * Take e.^. St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, returned to me as 19,000 
 
 Haggerstone „ 
 
 30,000 
 
 St. James, Clerkenwell „ 
 
 28,000 
 
 St. Luke's, Old Street 
 
 15,000 
 
 St. Dunstan's, Stepney „ , 
 
 40,000 
 
 St. George's in the East „ 
 
 30,000 
 
 Poplar „ 
 
 35,000 
 
 Christ Church, Spitalfields „ 
 
 21,000 
 
75 
 
 self with an overwhelming population ? The answer is 
 ready at hand ; bestir himself at once to have a new 
 church built, and the district subdivided. Funds flow in 
 wonderfully when the work is taken in hand — and our 
 invaluable Diocesan Church Building Society will give 
 all information and such aid as its limited funds allow; 
 and the Duke of Marlborough's Act is ready to make 
 the incumbent a district rector, and surround him with 
 the rights of a complete parochial staff. That this is 
 the object ultimately to be aimed at, I have no doubt ; 
 that our overgrown parishes will never be in a right 
 state till they are reduced to manageable dimensions, 
 and every five or six thousand persons in the metro- 
 polis have a Church of their own as the centre of their 
 religious activity, and a pastor of their own, with his 
 legitimate endowment and means to support his 
 curates. But that this object may be sought wisely, 
 and at last wisely and well accomplished, I would 
 venture to suggest one or two hints. 
 
 From the evidence laid before the Select Committee 
 of the House of Lords on spiritual destitution, by 
 persons whose opinion is of great weight, it is my 
 impression that a town parish of 6000 persons will, as 
 a general rule, be better worked by one incumbent, 
 with a sufficient staff of curates, than if it were divided 
 into some three independent parishes. I think that 
 the government of one man of mature judgment, 
 directing several assistants, is the best mode in itself 
 of administering a parish, and the most accordant 
 
76 
 
 certainly with the graduated system of our Episcopal 
 Church. A rector with his three or even four curates, 
 aided by district visitors and other lay agents, ought to 
 be able thoroughly to work a London parish. To 
 have clergy in due proportion to our need, we require a 
 great increase in their number. And I believe this is 
 the first want. We shall have the new churches 
 requisite very soon, if we first aim at the requisite stafi* 
 of clergy. With rare exceptions this plan, where it 
 has been tried, has been found efiectual. I appeal to 
 our most experienced parish priests. Temporary 
 churches, hired rooms, increased services in the 
 churches which we already possess, and a hearty 
 appeal to those who have pews to abandon all claim 
 over them at certain convenient hours, that they 
 may be thrown open unreservedly to the poor — 
 if these means of multiplying our church accommo- 
 dation are adopted, the clergyman, with his staff" 
 attached to one mother Church, will find abundant 
 exercise for his own and his curates' energies. I con- 
 fess, in the present state of our parishes, it seems to 
 me usually to be but a waste of strength when we see 
 three or more clergymen in the same church at one 
 service, knowing as we do that they might be leading 
 the labouring poor to worship God elsewhere, in some 
 school-room or hired chapel, and thus taking the most 
 effectual steps to ensure their attendance hereafter at 
 a regular church. 
 
 The Select Committee of the House of Lords 
 
11 
 
 (p. xiv.) has drawn attention to the possibility of 
 making the existing accommodation more available 
 for the poor, by having our churches open for services 
 in which all rights of pew-renters shall cease. A 
 Bill was actually drawn last session by a member of 
 the government to accomplish this object, but owing 
 to the lateness of the season was dropped for the 
 present. In connexion with this subject I would ask 
 you to consider how great is the number of unoccu- 
 pied seats in our London Churches at every service, 
 owing to the present arrangement of pews. How 
 many pews are empty, or nearly empty, at least for 
 one of the three services every Sunday, from their 
 being regarded as the property of persons who are not 
 present to use them. In the west end of London 
 how great is the number of families having pews, who 
 do not reside in town for above a few months of the 
 year. Even without fresh legislation could not some 
 effort be made to devise a system by which unoccu- 
 pied seats might be regarded as available for the 
 poor? I feel convinced that an increased staff of 
 clergy working amongst the poor might have good 
 hope of bringing them to their parish churches, if we 
 could devise any system by which we might make 
 them feel that they would be welcome when they 
 came. The Diocesan Church Building Society has 
 very wisely determined to give stipends to missionary 
 curates in districts where it is expected that new 
 churches may ultimately be raised. The Additional 
 
78 
 
 Curates* Society and the Pastoral Aid Society have 
 in this view very strong claims on our support. Our 
 first and immediate work, depend upon it, is to increase 
 the numbers of the clergy; and our new parishes, 
 where requisite, must follow as a matter of course. 
 
 But I have stepped over a preliminary difficulty. 
 You may invite your people — ^you may have clergy 
 for them — but what if they will not come? They 
 may require a great awakening first. The effect of 
 years of dead insensibility has to be met. How shall 
 this be done? Truly, the shaking amongst the 
 dry bones must come from the Spirit of the Lord ; 
 but we must use the instrumentality of human agency 
 — and this seems the right place to introduce to your 
 notice an association in which I am greatly interested, 
 the Diocesan Home Mission. I believe it has been 
 blessed of God during the last year for stirring the 
 hearts of many who had hitherto slumbered. The 
 history of its first year's operations at once shows its 
 usefulness ; and how inevitably, if rightly conducted, 
 it will lead to new parochial efforts wherever it has 
 done well its mission work. For what is the question 
 addressed to us by those clergy who have availed 
 themselves of the mission ? We have, they say, called 
 forth by your aid a craving after religious ordinances 
 in our poor people — but now that your desultory 
 missionary efforts cease, how are these cravings to be 
 satisfied ? The answer is, by new curates labouring to 
 keep up what is begun — by new churches and fresh 
 
79 
 
 divisions of parishes ; all of which you can claim from 
 a vantage-ground when you can state that your people 
 are themselves anxious for them. Who does not know 
 how spirit-stirring is the addition which those who 
 plead the cause of the heathen in distant lands are 
 often able to make to their appeal, when they say the 
 people themselves are calling to you — " Come over 
 and help us '' ? Depend upon it, the labouring 
 classes of this kingdom will not want clergy and 
 churches, if a spirit goes abroad amongst them which 
 urges them to proclaim aloud their w^ant. They AviU 
 be ready themselves to contribute of their poverty, and 
 their example will stir up the rich. 
 
 But, in case of any mistake, I must explain in 
 detail what the Diocesan Home Mission is, of which 
 I now speak prominently, regarding it as the centre 
 of many isolated efforts. It is about a year and a 
 half since I summoned in London House that 
 meeting of the Incumbents of our most populous 
 parishes to which I have already alluded, that we 
 might consider whether any steps could be taken 
 for adding somewhat of a missionary machinery to 
 our ordinary parochial work. I felt strongly that, 
 labour as they may in their regular ministrations, 
 the clergy of our densely-peopled districts must 
 find a mass of their parishioners whom they are 
 quite unable to reach, far less to influence. I felt 
 strongly that the very arrangements of our churches 
 under the parochial system, as it at present exists 
 
80 
 
 amongst us in what we may call monster parishes, 
 opposed a difficulty in the way of gathering together 
 the great body of the labouring poor to hear the 
 Word of God. I felt, also, that men whose spiritual in- 
 terests had long been neglected, who had been taught 
 for generations that the parish church was no place 
 for them — that to call it their church was a mere 
 mockery, seeing that there was no place for them 
 if they came to it — I felt that such men, who might 
 indeed have been trained in early youth in some Sun- 
 day school, but had lost all intercourse with their 
 clergy since their childhood — being occupied all the 
 week in some laborious calling, and too tired on 
 Sundays to make any difficult eflPort to obtain the 
 blessings of religious ordinances, for which they 
 had indeed no taste — that men who had learned 
 to take their views of life and its ends, and society 
 and the way in which its various ranks fulfil their 
 duties, far more from newspapers of the most doubt- 
 ful class, and the conversation of their fellows in the 
 ale-house, than from any influence of the Church 
 or its ministers — I felt, I say, that such men were 
 scarcely prepared to enter into the lengthened and 
 highly spiritual services of our usual worship, even 
 if they could be induced to frequent our churches, 
 and room could be found for them at our customary 
 meetings within the sacred walls. I felt that such 
 men did indeed require to be specially addressed, 
 and that some special machinery was needed if they 
 
81 
 
 were to be made to feel that onr Church and its 
 ministers care earnestly for their sonls. I was 
 strengthened in this opinion by what I learned from 
 the most experienced and laborious of the clergy, 
 whose parishioners were to be counted by tens of 
 thousands. My own experience of seven years in 
 a manufacturing town, full of such working men, 
 had led me to think highly of their intelligence and 
 acuteness, and of those generous impulses of a manly 
 spirit by which they seem ever ready to receive the 
 advances of those who are able to show" that they 
 are really in earnest to meet them as their friends, 
 and are anxious for their good and the good of their 
 families. I knew from my own experience that 
 the parochial system, standing quite alone, is unable 
 to meet many other wants of our complicated and 
 highly artificial state of society. I had seen, e.g. 
 when a regiment of soldiers is stationed in a popu- 
 lous town, that it is almost a mockery to expect 
 that any of the parochial clergy, unassisted, can 
 meet their spiritual wants — that wherever there is 
 a large hospital, gathering together many sick per- 
 sons within its walls, it must, if the patients' souls 
 are not to be neglected while their bodies are nursed, 
 be considered as in some sense extra-parochial, and 
 have a missionary chaplain of its own — that where 
 there is a union workhouse there is a distinct field 
 of pastoral labour which the clergyman of the parish 
 in which it is locally situated, if he has any consider- 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 able population of his own parishioners, cannot under- 
 take. I had seen in a Cathedral city how gladly the 
 parochial clergy hailed any assistance in these depart- 
 ments of labour from the comparatively unemployed 
 Cathedral staff, rejoicing that others should, under 
 proper superintendence, perform work of this mis- 
 sionary kind, locally, indeed, within the limits of their 
 districts, but in truth quite beyond the sphere of their 
 settled pastoral ministrations. I know that without 
 such adventitious aid external to the parochial system, 
 young soldiers can not be prepared for confirmation, 
 and sick soldiers can not be visited, and patients in 
 infirmaries must die without the Church's offices of 
 prayer and consolation, and the afflicted poor, sepa- 
 rated by poverty from their homes, must feel home- 
 less indeed without a friend to console and advise 
 them. As I knew all this, and felt strongly that our own 
 case was not essentially unlike these, taking counsel 
 with a large body of the clergy representing every 
 phase of opinion in the Church, I determined that 
 for the benefit of the masses of our labouring poor we 
 ought to make an effort to add some fresh missionary 
 machinery to our common work, and I was assured 
 that we could do this easily, without any rude inva- 
 sion of the parochial system. 
 
 It was felt also, that, besides the reason here 
 alleged for such an effort — viz. the difficulty of meet- 
 ing the teeming masses of an intelligent working 
 population, from the very fact of their numbers — 
 
83 
 
 there was need of fresh machinery to endeavour 
 to arouse their slumbering consciences, and revive, 
 by the help of God's Spirit, any good impressions 
 received in childhood, but long effaced by the chill- 
 ing influence of a hard depressing hfe. I could 
 not but rcQiember how, when a curate in a small 
 village in Oxfordshire, I had marvelled at the ex- 
 citement raised in a quiet and dull place, by the 
 gathering of the Methodists in a fine summer's day on 
 the common, under the shadow of the old trees ; how 
 the voice of their preacher, sounding through the still- 
 ness of a listening crowd, and the burst of their 
 hymns pealing far and wide through the village, had 
 seemed well suited to attract and rouse the hearts of 
 many who never entered within the church to join ir 
 its measured devotion and listen to its calm teach- 
 ing. How much has the thought of late filled the 
 hearts of devout and attached members of the Church 
 of England, that, if such exciting meetings, conducted 
 by ill-instructed men, do often lead to excitement and 
 nothing more, and alienate those they influence from 
 our Church's teaching, rather than draw them within 
 her walls — the fault has, in past times, rested not 
 entirely with these ill-instructed teachers — but that 
 the clergy have been unwise, and greatly to blame in 
 neglecting obvious means which God had placed 
 within their reach for rousing the better feelings of 
 thoughtless souls, and enlisting what was so often 
 employed against the Church, as a useful aid to her 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 sound practical Gospel teaching. He who has visited 
 Wales knows what a hold Methodism has gained on 
 the Welsh people, and how it has withdrawn their 
 affections from our Church : — who has not at times 
 asked himself why those simple hymns Avhich echo 
 along the hill-side, and those stirring appeals which 
 thunder in men's ears, whether they will come to 
 church or stay away, might not have been made 
 by godly ministers of the Church of England, to 
 keep her people wdthin her fold, and teach them 
 that excellent way of Christ's gospel, from which 
 there is so much danger of their wandering, if they 
 are left to any chance teacher, however uninstructed ? 
 I knew that hearts had been yearning to have 
 this truth proclaimed for many years — that it had 
 been proclaimed — that the days when there was great 
 fear of the Church of England dying of her dignity 
 were, thank God, past, and that in almost all our 
 great towns the parochial clergy, with the full con- 
 currence of their Bishops, had now for several 
 years been trying on the summer evenings to add 
 such missionary labours to their settled work. But 
 it was obvious that, if this work was to be done 
 thoroughly, we must have new machinery ; and men 
 must be led to look upon the work as one to which to 
 direct their chief efforts. The ordinary parochial 
 minister was already tasked up to his strength, and 
 there must be missionary services to supplement his 
 efforts. Labourers, well trained in God's service and 
 
85 
 
 accustomed to such work, who could be spared at 
 intervals from a distance, must come to aid him, and 
 refresh themselves by speaking to his people of the 
 gospel which their own hearts loved. And men must 
 be accustomed to train themselves for such inter- 
 course with labouring people as the distinct office 
 assigned to them in the Church, preaching wherever 
 they could find a congregation in that plain homely 
 language which reaches a labouring man's heart. 
 Experience had shown that this could be done, 
 by God's help, as effectually by clergymen of the 
 Church of England, as by any set of teachers. Their 
 liberal and refined education, well used, was no im- 
 pediment, but might be a great help for this depart- 
 ment of Christ's service. Missionary clergy were 
 wanted for the overwhelming population of this 
 Diocese. As in the distant valleys and hill-sides of 
 other dioceses, where rough men are drawn together 
 by hundreds, to have their dwelling-place for a time 
 at the mouth of some mine, while it is being worked — 
 or, more fleeting still, an army of railway labourers 
 passes along a line of railway in the course of its 
 formation, making their encampment now in this 
 parish, now in that — and the parochial clergy in both 
 cases will, to meet the wants of this sudden influx of 
 sojourners, rejoice if they can be aided by men sent to 
 do a missionary's work in the temporary encampment 
 — so in our London parishes, in Whitechapel, in 
 Spitalfields, in Deptford, indeed everywhere, there is 
 
86 
 
 similar work to be done. Part of the population is 
 very fluctuating, and that which is stationary cannot 
 wait till churches are built and parishes formed. Let 
 missionary efforts be directed to this work at once, 
 and churches and parishes, and all their due ap- 
 pliances for regular worship and instruction, will follow 
 in God's good time. 
 
 But these efforts must be saved from degenerating 
 into irregularity. They can be conducted as well 
 according to the strictest rules as in violation of them. 
 The Council of the Diocesan Home Mission determined 
 from the first to adopt every safeguard; and, feeling 
 that their business was to aid, not in any way supersede 
 the ministrations of the parochial clergy, laid down 
 as one of their first rules — that in each parish they 
 would act in each case only with the sanction of 
 the Incumbent — and subject to such approval they 
 have, as most of you are probably aware, directed 
 their efforts to two distinct objects. They have during 
 the last year originated and paid all the expenses 
 attendant upon a number of special services for the 
 labouring poor. The condition on which they have 
 lent their aid in any district has been, that the church 
 placed at their disposal shall for the particular occasion 
 be thrown perfectly open without distinction to all 
 comers, and the working people have been usually in- 
 vited to come in their working dresses. The selection of 
 the preachers is always made by the Bishop, who, in 
 every case, submits the list for the approval of the In- 
 
87 
 
 cumbent of the Church in which the services are to take 
 place. The success with which God has blessed these 
 efforts, so far as it is right to speak of success after 
 only a single year's trial, must be judged of from the 
 report of the Council of the Diocesan Home Mission. 
 Several prelates, and many others of the ablest 
 preachers in England, have kindly placed their services 
 at my disposal on these occasions, and we have cer- 
 tainly cause to thank God, that during the past year 
 a large body of the labouring poor in this metropolis, 
 who have not heard the Word of God for many a long 
 day, have, and that sometimes under very touching 
 and remarkable circumstances, been attentive listeners 
 and apparently hearty worshippers in our churches, 
 while it is not too much to say that a feeling of 
 ajffectionate regard seems to be growing amongst this 
 class both to the Church and its ministers, who thus 
 show that they are very desirous to do their duty to 
 them in Christ's name. 
 
 In its other department the labours of the Diocesan 
 Home Mission are intended to be carried on, not by 
 the voluntary aid of clergymen who can spare a day 
 occasionally from other occupations, but by paid Mis- 
 sionary Curates. The expense of this department is, 
 obviously, very considerable — and as yet only one 
 such missionary has been appointed, at a salary of 200/. 
 a-year. I rejoice, however, to say that an individual, 
 who has desired his name to be concealed, has very 
 lately placed a subscription of 300/. a-year at my 
 
88 
 
 disposal for this purpose, and I expect, speedily, to 
 appoint and license two other such missionaries. The 
 sphere of the missionary clergyman already appointed 
 is Whitechapel and Spitalfields — where he w^orks with 
 the full sanction of the respected incumbents of 
 these parishes. His duty is to gather the people 
 together wherever he can find them ; and his time 
 being free from the interruptions of many of the 
 ordinary details of a parochial clergyman's life, he 
 is engaged continually in seeking the wandering 
 sheep of Christ's fold. I consider it a great privilege 
 to have been enabled to bear some part in inau- 
 gurating a work of this kind, Avhich the wants of the 
 age loudly call for. I entreat your prayers upon its 
 efforts, that they may be blessed to the gathering in 
 of many souls. 
 
 But here it is obvious to remark, that the two 
 objects thus aimed at might have been attained with- 
 out the machinery of a new Diocesan Society. I 
 grant this. No one acquainted with the London poor 
 is ignorant of the labours of the City Mission, and of 
 our own Church of England Scripture Readers' Society. 
 I am quite aw^are also, that, besides what has been 
 done by a union of churchmen and dissenters, and by 
 the employment of the lay agency of the Church, home 
 missionary efforts have been begun in other instances 
 within our own communion, and various attempts made 
 in this direction, each more or less marked, according 
 to the liberty which our National Church allows, by 
 
89 
 
 the peculiarities, on one side or the other, of those 
 zealous persons who have originated them. I trust, 
 under God's good guidance, controlled so far as they 
 may be by the superintending hand of the Diocesan, 
 they will be all found to work together for the good 
 of souls. When earnest men turn their thoughts to 
 any new field of mhiisterial labour, there will of course 
 be great diversity in the ways in which they think it 
 best to work. We must be prepared to be consider- 
 ate of each other's peculiarities ; and the zeal of each 
 particular school amongst us, provided it keeps within 
 the limits of the law, working heartily and faithfully 
 for God, must in a National Church be allowed to de- 
 velop itself after its own peculiar form, so far as it 
 may be permitted to do so without any compromise of 
 Christ's truth. Such, certainly, is the principle which I 
 have proposed to myself as well in the general adminis- 
 tration of this great Diocese as in this particular field, 
 — viz. our Home Missionary labours. I wish to be 
 very explicit on this point as to the general principle 
 [ have followed in permitting or sanctioning these 
 various efforts; and perhaps no better opportunity 
 than the present may occur for stating it in this 
 address. 
 
 When persons have come to me to propose any 
 work of Christian usefulness in the Diocese, which 
 has commended itself to the hearty approval of any 
 considerable number of earnest and honest members 
 of oiu' Church — if it has seemed to me to aim, on the 
 
90 
 
 whole, at good ends, and to be undertaken zealously 
 and in good faith, and to have some fair prospect of 
 advancing Christ's work, I have not hesitated to give 
 my sanction to it, though its arrangements and mode 
 of action might be very different from what I should 
 myself have suggested. I trust I have not failed on 
 all fitting occasions to express my own views, and to 
 endeavour to find the means of organizing efforts, 
 which I could not only thus permit or sanction, but 
 in which I could myself cordially co-operate and 
 personally take a part. Thus the Diocesan Home 
 Mission, in every portion of its work, has my unhesi- 
 tating approval, and represents the very mode of 
 action which I personally prefer, as most likely to be 
 blessed of God for the attainment of its good ends : 
 but I am quite aware that both in this and in other 
 parts of our work, other minds — preferring some 
 other mode of action — may not be able cordially 
 to co-operate with what I wish. 1 have thought, 
 then, that it was the duty of my office to present no 
 obstacle to the fair development of each man's zeal, 
 provided I believed him sincerely desirous of dedi- 
 cating it to the service of the Church, in which I am 
 entrusted with authority : and if persons, differing 
 widely from myself, through respect for my office, 
 have thus requested me to allow them to put them- 
 selves under my protection, and professed their will- 
 ingness in turn to have their peculiarities restrained by 
 my authority, I have not thought myself at liberty to 
 
91 
 
 decline. I believe this to be the spirit of St. Paul's 
 rule.^ I cannot but fear that if I adopted a con- 
 trary course, many would be driven to unwise and 
 even dangerous extremes, of whom there is hope that 
 they will now dutifully allow themselves to be re- 
 strained and guided. Of course, I thus sanction 
 nothing of which I am not convinced that it is, on 
 the whole, good, if properly conducted, and w^ell 
 worth trying. It may be, T shall find in time that 
 such a restraining or guiding influence as I look 
 for is very difficult to be maintained ; but, at present, 
 I feel it my duty to give the principle I have adopted 
 a fair trial. I do not feel any anxiety lest my own 
 decided convictions and inclinations be misunderstood, 
 because I am thus willing that others should have a 
 fair opportunity of testing their principles. This Metro- 
 politan Diocese is a world in itself, and its schemes 
 of Christian usefulness must suit all tastes. Let all 
 zealous efforts, honestly undertaken with the view of 
 advancing our Church's means of reaching souls, be 
 fairly tried. Properly watched and guarded, they will 
 soon show whether or not they are likely to advance 
 God's glory. Do what we will, some things, which 
 as individuals we do not like, cannot be stopped from 
 working, and they had better work under proper 
 control. They may be blessed of God ; if they are not 
 of Him, they will come to naught. 
 
 Now there are many honest and zealous efforts 
 
 1 1 Cor. ix. 19, 22. 
 
92 
 
 bearing on the various departments of Home Mis- 
 sionary work, taken in its widest sense, towards which 
 I stand in the position I have now indicated. Some 
 of them are directed to the particular departments 
 of that work in which the Diocesan Home Mission 
 labours. With respect to some of them, I wish, for 
 various reasons, to remain perfectly neutral; some I 
 have permitted ; some I have more directly sanctioned, 
 on the distinct understanding that a power is to be 
 conceded to me to control them ; and there are others, 
 also, as I have said, with which I fully and heartily 
 sympathise. No one, I think, looking into the matter 
 carefully will have much difficulty in classifying the 
 degrees of connexion in which such efforts stand 
 to me as the Diocesan. Besides the Diocesan Home 
 Mission which I have earnestly recommended to you, 
 there are, I say, on every side of us, amongst the 
 poor and destitute many such zealous efforts making, 
 both of what is called a High and what is called a 
 Low Church character. We have, e.g. the St. Paul's 
 Mission College scheme, described in the evidence 
 given before the Select Conunittee of the House of 
 Lords ; and again, representing a very different phase 
 of sentiment in the Church, we have had the Exeter 
 Hall Services. On these last I feel it right here to 
 say a few words 
 
 As at first established, these services seemed to be 
 eminently blessed. I greatly regret that the Incum- 
 bent of the parish in which Exeter Hall is situated, — 
 
93 
 
 taking, as I conceive, a very mistaken view of his 
 responsibilities, though acting, I cannot doubt, from 
 thoroughly conscientious motives — should have thought 
 it his duty to oppose what at first, on my request, 
 he sanctioned. I regret this opposition the more, 
 because in none but the most technical sense can 
 a great building, erected for the use of the whole of 
 London, be regarded as belonging to that parish in 
 which accidentally it is placed ; and therefore the 
 opposition on the part of the Incumbent to the 
 services there held, was, in my estimation, not only 
 unfortunate from its exhibiting a clergyman as resisting 
 his brother clergy of his own Church, who, under the 
 sanction of their Bishop, sought by those special 
 ministrations to win souls hitherto neglected, but 
 also because it seemed to advance a claim on the 
 part of our town incumbents of a right to exercise 
 a control over public buildings in their parishes, 
 to which I thought they could have no moral, even 
 if they had a technical legal right. And so strongly, 
 as it appears, was this felt, that by the unanimous 
 consent of the bench of Bishops a Bill was introduced 
 into the House of Lords by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, and accepted without a division by the House, 
 authorising Bishops to establish such services for 
 missionary purposes in populous districts. It was 
 argued that incumbents are entrusted with the cure 
 of souls in parishes, not to be an impediment in the 
 way of the Gospel being preached to them, but to 
 
94 
 
 advance their spiritual interests; and if, therefore, it 
 should be found that the exclusive rights of the 
 parochial system interfered with the very purposes for 
 which it was instituted, they should be obliged to give 
 way. By this Bill the whole initiative of such services 
 was placed in the hands of the Bishop. Others, 
 as you know, had proposed in a previous Bill, 
 which was withdrawn, that the initiative should be 
 in private hands, but that the Bishop should have 
 the power to interfere if he disapproved. But it 
 was felt that such an arrangement might give rise 
 to unseemly contentions, if services were encom^aged 
 to be first begun before it was ascertained whether or 
 no they would be stopped ; and that it would be far 
 better to have the question clearly settled in the first 
 instance, whether the services were to go on or no, by 
 placing the initiative in the hands of the Bishop, to 
 whom representations of the necessity of the case 
 were encouraged to be privately made. But this Bill 
 — which, had it become law, would have carried the 
 operations of such missionary efforts far beyond what 
 is contemplated by our Diocesan Home Mission, and 
 which, it was felt, might have been a great boon in 
 many remote mining and manufacturing districts, 
 where the parochial system, as it at present exists, is alto- 
 gether powerless — was, as I understand, so ill received 
 in the House of Commons that it was withdrawn. It 
 was, in fact, exposed to attacks from two sides — from 
 those who disliked such missionary efforts altogether, 
 
95 
 
 and from those who were jealous of the initiative being 
 placed in the Bishop's hands. It had occurred, also, 
 as appears by their subsequent proceedings, to the 
 original promoters of such a measure, that it was not 
 wanted ; for they were advised, that the law allowed 
 them to have preaching in such buildings as Exeter 
 Hall, whether the Incumbent consented or no. And, 
 accordingly, the Exeter Hall services were recom- 
 menced, confined to preaching and such prayers as 
 would be offered up at any of the week-day religious 
 meetings in that Hall. Whether this were, under 
 all the circumstances, a wise step, I am not pre- 
 pared to say. I was not consulted respecting it, and 
 have in no way given it my sanction, though I have 
 refused, as at present advised, to forbid my clergy 
 from thus officiating. One branch of the Legislature, 
 and the whole Bishops of the Church, so far as their 
 opinion was made known in Parliament, have pro- 
 nounced that some such services were needed ; and I 
 dared not take upon myself the responsibiUty of placing 
 any obstacle in the way, provided, as their promoters 
 contended, the services were not contrary to law. I 
 shall rejoice if it be found that God's blessing has 
 attended these addresses. I wish that the Incumbent 
 and the promoters of these services could have been 
 induced to act heartily together, and then all dissen- 
 sion, and even the appearance of irregularity, might 
 have been avoided, and I cannot doubt they would 
 have done unmixed good. 
 
96 
 
 And here I would take this opportunity of pub- 
 licly acknowledging the great good which has been 
 achieved by other isolated efforts in various parishes 
 where special services of a Missionary character have 
 been held for the labouring poor, at which the 
 churches have been thrown perfectly open, the services 
 being undertaken solely under the control of the clergy 
 of the particular parish in which they were held. I 
 desire here publicly to record my thanks to the clergy, 
 and to the churchwardens who have seconded them, 
 for all such efforts, in Islington, in Clerkenwell, in St. 
 Pan eras, and in many other parishes. I rejoice in 
 the preaching on the steps of the Royal Exchange, 
 in which kind aid was lent to us by the highest civic 
 authorities. I trust that every year these efforts may 
 be multiplied, and as to those of them which are 
 conducted in our churches, that the persons who 
 enjoy the blessing of being regular attendants at 
 church will be more and more ready, as they have in 
 many instances proved themselves during the past 
 year, to waive their own rights to their pews for the 
 benefit of their poorer brethren's souls. Neither do I 
 forget the great blessings we have enjoyed during the 
 past year from the ministrations on Sunday evenings 
 in our noble Abbey. To the Dean and Chapter of 
 Westminster Abbey all thanks are due for the trouble 
 and expense at which they have laboured to fit up their 
 building for the class of worshippers of whom I have 
 now spoken. No one can have seen the thronging 
 
97 
 
 multitude, eager apparently for the word of life, in 
 that vast building, or seen the doors besieged long 
 before they were opened, without feeling that God 
 had stirred up an excitement which it would be sin in 
 us, his ministers, to allow to subside, without earnest 
 efforts to direct it to the permanent improvement of 
 men's lives and the saving of their souls. 
 
 But, perhaps, the greatest effort of this kind in 
 the Metropolis is that which in some sort we are 
 inaugurating to-day. This space beneath the dome 
 of this great Cathedral has been prepared with the 
 seats you now occupy, that it may be the scene of 
 ministrations on the Sunday evenings to a vast mass of 
 those for whom our ordinary churches offer no accom- 
 modation. Two thousand five hundred seats are to 
 be placed here for the use of the poorest. The Church 
 of England at this, the centre of our Metropolitan 
 Diocese, is, we hope, by God's blessing, to exhibit 
 weekly the cheering spectacle of the gospel preached 
 by its chief ministers to the poorest of its people. 
 The old historical associations of the preachings at 
 Paul's Cross are to be transferred to this spot. God 
 grant that wisdom may be given to me to select fit 
 preachers, that the hearts of the people may be 
 stirred to avail themselves of these noble opportu- 
 nities, and the result may be a great outpouring of 
 His grace. 
 
 You may ask then, with all these other and more 
 isolated efforts, why remind us of the Diocesan Home 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 Mission ? I commend it to your attention, because 
 it is a systematic and united effort to carry on our 
 great missionary work, by a combination of the whole 
 Diocese. All isolated efforts in particular parishes are 
 necessarily confined. The efforts in our two great 
 cathedrals are indeed national and wide as the Church, 
 but they are efforts only to provide two central buildings. 
 The other great parts of this missionary work require 
 funds to defray the Missionaries' expenses, and other 
 machinery which the Cathedral movement does not 
 contemplate. As compared with parochial and other 
 isolated efforts, this Diocesan Home Mission partakes, 
 as it ought to do, of the wide national character of 
 our Church. By its constitution it has the Bishop for 
 its head ; and the selection of the Council having been 
 entirely confided to my hands, I endeavoured to enlist 
 the assistance and sympathy of all earnest Churchmen, 
 who, however they might differ in their opinions as to 
 points in which it is lawful for attached members of 
 our Church to hold varying sentiments, seemed to be 
 heartily of one accord in their love for the Church and 
 its ordinances, and anxious to extend its influence for 
 the salvation of the souls for which Christ died, by the 
 preaching of the great Gospel doctrines. I am aware 
 that some good men have made this comprehensiveness, 
 which I deem an excellence, an objection to the Mis- 
 sion. But I will not believe that we ministers of this 
 one great national Church of Christ, bound to aid and 
 sympathise with each other in the difficulties of con- 
 
99 
 
 tending with an ungodly world, can have so magnified 
 our points of difference as to be unwilling to co- 
 operate one with another in the work of saving souls. 
 At the risk of repeating myself I will press upon you 
 once again, that any, who are so taken up with the 
 tenets of their own narrow school as to separate them- 
 selves from other good and faithful Churchmen, 
 who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and are zealous to 
 have his Gospel preached, are forgetful of the com- 
 prehensive spirit of love on which this Church 
 of England has ever acted since the Reformation ; 
 while they say, " I am of Paul ; I of Apollos ; I of 
 Cephas," shall we not beseech them to say rather, 
 " I am of Him who is the Lord and Master of all 
 truly pious human teachers. I am of Him whom all 
 good men in the Church of England worship. I am 
 of Christ." Indeed, my brethren, the more we are 
 thrown together, the more we learn to appreciate each 
 other's self-denying labours of love — the more, while 
 we adhere faithfully to our own convictions, we make 
 a kind and charitable allowance for the feelings 
 and reasonings of those who differ from us — the 
 better shall we be able in the truest unity — the unity 
 of the Spirit — to do Christ's work. Is it not true 
 that there is scarcely one of us who does not feel that 
 it is an evil to be separated so much as we are even 
 from those good and earnest Christians who are not 
 members of our own Church ? How miserable would 
 it be, if with schemes of union with Christians of 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 other denominations on our lips, we should be found 
 wanting in love and forbearance to those who are 
 labouring not only for the same Lord as ourselves, 
 but in the very same portion of His vineyard, and with 
 -the very same tools. Por my own part, I rejoice in 
 every attempt which gives promise of making us, by 
 union in common efforts, a more united family in the 
 love of our one Lord. 
 
 And now I must say something of the City 
 Churches. We have spoken hitherto of our parishes, 
 with an overwhelming population, and of the efforts 
 which they claim. Strange that in their immediate 
 neighbourhood we should find others in which there 
 is said to be scarcely any population at all. The 
 statement usually made is as follows : the City of 
 London — that is, the city within the w^alls — occupies a 
 space about equal in extent to two-thirds of the parish 
 of Islington. The population actually resident in 
 Islington is returned to me as 100,000; that even 
 nominally resident in the City, as 54,000. In 
 Islington there are 22 churches ; in the City, 58.* 
 But, moreover, in many of the streets of the City, 
 dwelling-houses have nearly disappeared, and in their 
 place, warehouses have been substituted, a large pro- 
 portion of which is tenanted at night only by one 
 or two servants in charge of the premises. And it is 
 
 * Fide Appendix D. There are 58 City parishes within the walls, all 
 with small populations. There are now 18 City parishes without the 
 walls, many of them very populous : these appear to occupy the space 
 wliich lay beyond the ancient walls, bat within the outer barriers. 
 
101 
 
 difficult, in calculating the population, to distinguish 
 the numbers resident by day, from the small number 
 left at night. Further, of those who are actual resi- 
 dents in the warehouses during the week, a great 
 many generally avail themselves of the Sunday to 
 visit their friends in the country ; hence, from Satur- 
 day evening to Monday morning, the greatest part 
 of the City is uninhabited. There are indeed in 
 some of these parishes a few courts or alleys tenanted 
 by the poor, but the number of such poor parishioners 
 is very small. The result naturally is, that the clergy 
 of the City of London have little or nothing to do 
 on week days, and on Sundays their Church services 
 are attended by such scanty congregations, that a 
 feeling of hopeless inefficiency is apt to benumb the 
 preacher's energies ; and the work would in truth 
 be far more efiTectually done if there were fewer 
 clergymen to do it, and fewer churches. Add to 
 this, that the City parsonage-houses, in a great num- 
 ber of instances, have disappeared. It is very diffi- 
 cult, sometimes impossible, for the Clergy to procure 
 other residences in their parishes, or even within an 
 easy distance of them. It follows that a great many 
 of the City clergy, as by law entitled, avail them- 
 selves of the liberty of residing anywhere within two 
 miles of their church — a distance which, in London, 
 as may be supposed, altogether isolates their residence 
 from the parish. Several of these incumbencies are 
 very valuable, and the opponents of the present state 
 
102 
 
 of" things urge that thus, in an age which cries out 
 against non-residence and sinecures in the Church, 
 you have the worst kind of non -residence, and one 
 of the worst kinds of sinecure upheld by law, as the 
 normal state of our ecclesiastical arrangements in the 
 very centre of that diocese which might reasonably 
 be expected to set an example to the whole Church. 
 As to residence, it is urged that elsewhere, if the 
 incumbent is non-resident, you have a resident 
 curate in his place ; but here the incumbent being 
 really non-resident, nominally resides, and is therefore 
 under no obligation to supply a resident substitute ; 
 while, as to the office of the City clergy being a 
 sinecure — whereas, in sinecures properly so-called, 
 there is no cure of souls at all; and therefore, e.g., 
 no one suffers from the clergy of a cathedral not 
 attending to parish work — here, on the contrary, there 
 is a nominal cure of souls ; certain persons, however 
 few, are in each parish placed under their own incum- 
 bent, and therefore withdrawn from the pastoral care 
 of any other clergyman ; and yet circumstances make 
 it very difficult for anything like efficient pastoral super- 
 vision to be exercised, and the incumbent is encouraged, 
 •by all the circumstances with which he finds himself 
 surrounded, to look upon his pastoral work as by no 
 means the chief part of what the Church requires of 
 him, indeed as scarcely worthy of his attention. The 
 result, it is urged, is, that— first, there is great dis- 
 satisfaction amongst those who do live in the City — 
 
103 
 
 and I can testify that complaints have been sent 
 to me, that if a man is taken suddenly ill in the City, 
 or a child requires immediate baptism, you may go 
 half over London, and look for a clergyman, before 
 the emergency can be met — and, secondly, there is 
 great dissatisfaction, also, amongst those who are in- 
 terested in the condition of the parishes in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the City, where, perhaps, a parish of 
 some 15,000 poor comes close to another with 150 
 poor at the most ; and whereas one clergyman receives 
 some £800 a-year for nominally looking after the small 
 parish, there is no endowment at all and only a few 
 hardly-collected fees to remunerate him who is charged 
 with the laborious oversight of the 1 5,000 ; while 
 another parish close at hand may be returned as having 
 no poor at all, and a nett income of upwards of £1,300 
 a-year. What 1 have now given is the statement of 
 the case, as urged against the continuance of present 
 arrangements. 
 
 As you all know, this condition of things occupied 
 much of the attention of your late Diocesan. Schemes 
 were suggested to him, perhaps, somewhat too san- 
 guine in their expectations, and rather rashly devised 
 — which seemed to many likely to lead to the pulling 
 down of churches wholesale, selling the site of church 
 and burial-ground, and carrying off the proceeds of 
 such sales and the endowments of the churches to 
 meet the spiritual wants of teeming parishes elsewhere. 
 As there were many vested interests concerned, it was 
 
104 
 
 not unnatural if a clamour was raised. Exaggerations 
 had probably been made on the one side, and they 
 were, not unnaturally, met by exaggerations on the 
 other. It was represented, as if the Bishop, in his 
 eagerness to build new churches in populous places, 
 would respect no scruples, religious or secular ; w^as 
 prepared at one blow to desecrate the tombs of thou- 
 sands of families, and set a widely-spread example of 
 turning churches into common buildings, such as had 
 no parallel even in the days of revolution and anarchy. 
 The best answer to any such over-statements, would 
 be to look at the Bill which was actually introduced. 
 It might be that this Bill went rather too far. It was 
 considerably altered in passing through Parliament. 
 We are bound to believe that some improvements were 
 introduced into it ; but some other changes were 
 made, also, which have hitherto caused the law founded 
 on this Bill to be wholly inoperative ; and I fear it is 
 scarcely to be expected that by the Act, as it at present 
 stands, we shall be able to get rid even gradually of 
 the most acknowledged abuses. 
 
 There seems to be a very general ignorance as to 
 what is the law as it now entirely stands; I shall 
 therefore here enumerate the provisions of the Act 
 18 <& 19 Vict. cap. cxxvii. by which this matter is 
 regulated. The operation of the Act is Hmited to five 
 years from the date of its receiving the royal assent 
 (14th of August, 1855). Referring in the preamble to 
 the Acts 1 & 2 Vict. cap. 106, and 13 & 14 Vict. cap. 9, 
 
105 
 
 by which authority had been given for the union of bene- 
 fices in contiguous parishes under certain restrictions, 
 it provides that contiguous benefices may be united 
 without regard to the aggregate population or yearly 
 value. The mode in which this union may be effected 
 is by a representation being made to the bishop of 
 the diocese by the inhabitants of the parishes in 
 vestry assembled. This is the first step required. 
 The bishop is, on such representation, to make 
 inquiry into the circumstances, and if it shall appear 
 to him that the union is desirable, and that the patrons 
 are consenting, and that the patronage of any new 
 church or churches proposed to be erected under 
 this Act is to be vested in such patron or patrons as is 
 provided in the Act, then he is to submit a state- 
 ment to the Church Building (i.e. now the Ecclesiasti- 
 cal) Commissioners ; who, if they see fit, are to prepare 
 a scheme for the union, and for carrying out the other 
 purposes of the Act. If the endowment of the conso- 
 Hdated parish appear unnecessarily large, the Commis- 
 sioners are empowered, with the consent of the patron 
 or patrons of the parishes to be united, to transfer a 
 portion of such endowment to another benefice in 
 the same diocese. Public notice is to be given, that 
 parties interested may have opportunity of showing 
 cause why the scheme proposed should not take effect ; 
 but if no objections are raised, or the Commissioners 
 overrule such objections, then the scheme shall become 
 law on its being sanctioned by order of Her Majesty 
 
106 
 
 in council, the rights and interests of all existing 
 incumbents being preserved. As part of such scheme, 
 it is lawful for the Commissioners to provide for the 
 pulling down or removal of any existing church or 
 parsonage-house in either of the benefices proposed 
 to be united, and for the sale of the materials, 
 furniture, and site of the same; with this restric- 
 tion, provided they do not sell the Communion plate, 
 and neither sell nor let any burial-ground, nor the 
 site of any church in which interments have taken 
 place. 
 
 This Act I have stated has, in no instance that I am 
 aware of, been as yet put in force. We may be sur- 
 prised at this ; for at first sight it seems to meet most 
 of the difficulties complained of : but there is a great 
 obstacle in the way. The movement must in each 
 instance originate with the vestries of the parishes to 
 be united ; and experience seems to show that the 
 vestries are scarcely sufficiently interested in the con- 
 templated improvements, to make them take upon 
 themselves the responsibility of initiation. Some 
 change in the law in this respect is required before 
 anything efiectual can be done, and an opportunity 
 for fresh legislation is obviously presented by the 
 limit as to the time of its operation which will 
 cause the present Act soon to expire. 
 
 And, now, before we go further, as I have said 
 that there certainly has been exaggeration on this 
 subject, on both sides, I should wish to state calmly 
 
107 
 
 what I consider to be the real amount of the evil 
 thus calling for a remedy. I am by no means of 
 opinion that it would be a good state of our eccle- 
 siastical arrangements, if all the parochial cures 
 in London were equally onerous. Nay, I should 
 consider any change by which every incumbent 
 amongst us was obliged to have the oversight of 
 several thousands of souls, to be a real calamity. 
 In London, of all places in the kingdom, we require 
 a learned as well as a laborious clergy. A learned 
 clergy never can be maintained in any Church in 
 which every clergyman is to be overburdened with 
 laborious practical work. The changes which have 
 taken place in our ecclesiastical arrangements of 
 late years (ready as I am to allow the great benefits 
 that have on the whole resulted from them) have, 
 to my mind, been made without sufficient atten- 
 tion to these principles. Some have seemed 
 to think that the perfection of our Church will 
 be found when the whole country is subdivided 
 into parishes with two or three thousand souls, 
 and every clergyman is so occupied by the pastoral 
 oversight of his flock, that he cannot possibly, with- 
 out neglect, secure half an hour a day for the 
 study of theology, still less of general literature. 
 I totally differ from all such Church reformers. 
 I believe the influence of the Church will sink 
 rapidly if amongst its clergy we do not number 
 many names of men who can move the age by 
 
108 
 
 their literary and intellectual, while others move it 
 by their direct pastoral influence. Sitting in this 
 Cathedral, and speaking as comparatively a young 
 man of one advanced in life, I may be allowed 
 without any appearance of flattery, to point to our 
 Decanal chair as a proof how valuable are posts of 
 comparative leisure provided for our clergy, that those 
 amongst them whom God has blessed with high 
 intellectual powers may produce great works of 
 theological literature. I am not satisfied that all 
 such men should be collected in our Universities; 
 neither, indeed, do I see that our Universities, with 
 all their late improvements, have as yet provided 
 a sufficient number of posts for such men ; and 
 if they had, I should by no means be ready to 
 surrender them all to two sister Dioceses, and 
 leave this centre of the Church of England and 
 of our social and political life, where learned men 
 of all other professions congregate, without its fair 
 share of learned clergy. I am aware that you 
 cannot make men learned by giving them leisure 
 for study, but it is certain that it is very difficult 
 for them to become learned without it. Now, 
 since the principal part of the revenues of this Cathe- 
 dral has been appropriated by Parliament to other 
 purposes, we must be contented if we find any- 
 where amongst us such situations as may advan- 
 tageously be held by clergymen of studious habits 
 without their neglecting any direct calls of prac- 
 
109 
 
 tical duty. We want also situations, in which men, 
 who, from advancing age or other circumstances are 
 not equal to the toil of an overwhelming parish, may 
 pass their time more quietly, but not, therefore, 
 less usefully for the Church ; aiding by their advice 
 and quiet example when they can no longer endure 
 the tear and wear of that incessant public life in 
 which the pastor of an overgrown parish is involved. 
 In an age of much excitement, amid the din of 
 perpetual outward activity, we more than ever 
 require to have some quiet spots. Now, as a 
 matter of fact, our City parishes in their present 
 state, in some degree at least, meet our wants 
 in these particulars. We are glad to point, amongst 
 our City clergy, to names well known for learning; 
 and we have quiet influences emanating from the 
 City, which will sooner or later be felt over the 
 whole Diocese and the whole Church. I would in 
 no wise do away with, I would strive by every means 
 to foster this peculiarity of our present ecclesiastical 
 arrangements. All this may be preserved, and yet 
 the anomalies which give so much ofience may be 
 removed. But if this end is to be attained, we require 
 some amended state of the law, making it more easy 
 to originate the desired improvements, and carry 
 them into effect. 
 
 In the first place, then, I would have arrangements 
 made by which all those clergy whom we retain for 
 the City shall be obhged to reside within its limits. 
 
110 
 
 The claims of a moderate parish close at hand will be 
 no obstacle, but rather a help to other pursuits. If 
 possible, it would be well that they should reside 
 each actually within his own parish, but at times it 
 may be quite as useful, as has already been done in 
 some instances, that a parsonage house should be 
 purchased close to the parish, where one cannot be 
 found within its actual hmits. This may be effected 
 very extensively by borrowing money under the exist- 
 ing Acts, if, where it is necessary, the incomes of the 
 City clergy are, by a union of benefices, made suffi- 
 cient to bear such a charge. Let it not be supposed 
 that the City is an ill-chosen spot of residence for 
 a learned man. We have in Sion College an ample 
 library close at hand. The marvellous din of life 
 which echoes along the great thoroughfares is not to 
 be heard in those picturesque old courts with which 
 this great storehouse of historical associations abounds. 
 And though we may sigh for pleasant gardens to 
 surround our homes, we are not without peaceful 
 places of deep retirement in the very centre of the 
 City, and half-an-hour will at any time bear us or our 
 families to fresh fields and the bosom of green woods. 
 This, then, is one great chauge wanted — a power to 
 be vested in hands likely to exercise it — which shall 
 originate such changes as will justify the Bishop in 
 requiring a parsonage-house to be provided for each 
 parish. 
 
 In the second place, I would see that the popu- 
 
Ill 
 
 lation of each parish was such as to give the pos- 
 sibility of a fair congregation in the parish church. 
 If a man has to preach two sermons every Sunday, he 
 will preach with much more effect to a congregation of 
 hundreds than of units. It will be better for him, 
 morally, intellectually, and spiritually better for his 
 people's souls. What so deadening as these weekly 
 ministrations, at present so common, to thirty or 
 forty people in a large church in a dark winter's 
 day. And if the increase of the size of your flocks 
 by the union of parishes makes the pastoral work 
 more real, it still need not be overwhelming. I 
 would avoid anything which could make our City 
 parishes like those in Whitechapel, Shoreditch, St. 
 George's-in-the-East, or Clerkenwell. Each City parish 
 ought to be a model in all its arrangements to 
 the surrounding parishes of the Diocese. It may 
 easily be so without overtaxing the energies of its 
 pastor, if its population — I mean its resident 
 population — do not exceed 1,500 or 2,000, and its 
 income by union of benefices be made such that 
 the incumbent can, where necessary, secure the aid 
 of a resident curate. I calculate that, if no parish 
 in the City fall short of 1,000, and none exceed 2,500 
 parishioners, we should have about thirty parishes, 
 instead of fifty-eight. These, thoroughly well man- 
 aged, with a resident clergyman for every 1,000 or 
 1,200 — who can say how great would be the influence 
 they might exercise on the whole Church? Sup- 
 
112 
 
 posing these thirty parishes to be thus constituted, I 
 calculate that by union of benefices the emoluments 
 of the smaller livings, many of which are at present 
 very small, might be raised, if not to be enough for 
 the maintenance of a clergyman and his family, at 
 least to be far better than they are at present, even 
 after deducting the necessary expenses of a curate's 
 salary, and the mortgage for building or purchasing a 
 parsonage-house. 
 
 There remain many other questions connected with 
 the parishes of the City which require adjustment, re- 
 specting, e.g. the many parochial charities, and their 
 management ; but with these we are not here directly 
 concerned. Some satisfactory settlement of these 
 matters I cannot but hope may be obtained, if not 
 through the Charity Commissioners, by some special 
 Act of Parliament, if the laity of the City, and espe- 
 cially their representatives in the Corporation, direct 
 their attention to a work in which they would be sure 
 to be seconded in any wise reform by the clergy, who, 
 I know, greatly feel the evils of the present assign- 
 ment of our City charitable endowments. 
 
 The arrangements, then, which I am anxious to 
 see at once made for the City parishes, without at 
 all infringing on the principle I would desire to 
 see usually observed, might well include the union 
 of some small parishes with the large parishes by 
 which they are environed. Thus I think it w^ould be 
 well to unite St. Botolph's, Aldgate, with its 16,000 
 
113 
 
 souls, with some one or two of the fairly endowed and 
 scantily peopled parishes to which it lies contiguous. 
 The first thing to be done is to secure a better appli- 
 cation of the existing endowments of the clergy and 
 churches for the benefit of the City and its imme- 
 diate neighbourhood, to be effected by a union of 
 benefices. But such a union would, of course, leave 
 several, perhaps as many as twenty-eight, churches 
 useless. The question arises. What shall be done 
 with these? Provided no building which is archi- 
 tecturally beautiful, or venerable from its associa- 
 tions, be removed, I see not why the churches, where 
 not needed, may not be gradually taken down as 
 they cease to be used. In some cases, the sites, for 
 the health of the City, ought to be left unoccupied, 
 and generally I am of opinion it would be well, 
 following the precedent of what was done after the 
 Great Fire, to leave the sites of the burial-grounds 
 untouched, both out of respect for the reverent 
 associations which families attach to the tombs of 
 their fathers, and because free space and air is much 
 wanted in a crowded town. But I would not con- 
 tinue the difficulties placed Ijy the present law in 
 the way of disposing of the actual sites of the 
 churches. I should allow the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners, or her Majesty in Council, to be the judges 
 whether the fact of a church having at any time been 
 used for an interment should for ever be a bar to its 
 removal. 
 
114 
 
 The change in the existing law required to effect 
 all this is not great. The limit in the operation 
 of the Act to five years ending with 1860 would be 
 removed. The action of the Bishop in initiating a 
 scheme of improvement would not be confined, as at 
 present, by requiring the change to originate in each 
 case with the vestry of the particular parish interested. 
 The Bishop ought to be empowered to lay his scheme 
 before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and if a check 
 is wished to be placed on their action by requiring 
 the consent of the vestry, it ought to come at a later 
 point in the process. Moreover, I would empower 
 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, on the representation 
 of the Bishop of the Diocese, and of the chief civic 
 authorities, to prepare at once a general scheme 
 applicable to the whole City for such a union of 
 parishes and erection of parsonage-houses as I have 
 described; such scheme to be put in force gradually 
 when the consents demanded by the present law are 
 obtained : and I would strike out the clause of the 
 present Act which prevents any church from being 
 removed and disposed of which has ever been used 
 for sepulture. With these provisions a better state 
 of things would soon be introduced, changes being 
 gradually carried into effect as vacancies occur through 
 the death, promotion, or resignation of existing in- 
 cumbents. To expedite the desired arrangements, 
 a power might be given to the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners to grant to a clergyman resigning any such 
 
 1 
 
115 
 
 benefice a pension out of its funds, so long as he 
 continued without other benefice with cure of souls 
 equal in value to that which he had resigned. These 
 simple changes in the present law would, I believe, 
 in a very few years make the parochial arrangements 
 of the city of London what they ought to be, and pro- 
 vide also a considerable increase to be made available 
 for the spiritual wants, if not of London generally, at 
 least of the parishes in the immediate vicinity of the 
 City. 
 
 I'his is a rough outline of the plan which, after long 
 and serious consideration, and after perusing carefully 
 the minute returns which the City clergy so kindly 
 sent to me in the beginning of this year, I feel dis- 
 posed to advocate. I have already invited the atten- 
 tion of the clergy convened in the Hall of Sion College 
 to this subject; and I should feel obliged by any 
 suggestions which would enable me to mature a 
 scheme before Parliament meets. I need not say, also, 
 that on such a subject the opinions of the laity are as 
 valuable as those of the clergy, and that their approval 
 and co-operation is indispensable before anything 
 effectual can be done.' 
 
 And now, my reverend brethren, I have detained you 
 much longer than I could have wished. In this meeting 
 
 * Tliis subject of the City Churches is treated of in the Report of the 
 House of Lords' Committee on Spiritual Destitution, p. xiii, and in tlie 
 evidence laid before that Committee by the Rev. M. Gibbs, the Rev. C. 
 Hume, and the Rev. A. R. Campbell, my chaplain, who was called to 
 slate the substance of the Returns made to me by the City clergy. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 of what we may, I think, call the greatest Diocese of 
 the world, the variety of the topics that demand our 
 attention, even if we confine ourselves to matters 
 purely practical, is overwhelming. We cannot, at 
 such a meeting, even mention one-half of the matters 
 that press upon us. There is, for example, the 
 management of the poor in our workhouses, and the 
 alleviation of the state of the sick and aged inmates of 
 these refuges, by kindly intercourse with Christian 
 pastors and other friends. There is the visitation of 
 our hospitals. There are the provisions which may be 
 made for training a truly faithful band of nurses, both 
 for the poor and for the rich — the rich, who are as 
 helpless as the poor when the day of serious sickness 
 comes. There are our reformatories. There are our 
 refuges and our penitentiaries for fallen women — a 
 subject, this last, of deep importance when we are be- 
 stirring ourselves to see if anything can be done to 
 meet that great evil which eats into the heart of 
 society like a canker, and when, thank God, pious 
 women — ladies in birth, position, and refinement — 
 are found ready to devote their lives, if by any means 
 they may make a woman's sympathy available to 
 remedy this worst form of woman's suffering. There 
 is that very hopeful symptom of a Christian influence 
 being likely to bring down a blessing on our marts 
 of trade — the fact, viz. of so many of our ware- 
 houses and great shops where many young persons 
 reside, assuming more and more the character of large 
 
117 
 
 Christian families, sanctified by morning and evening 
 prayer, and by many efforts on the part of those who 
 preside over them, not only to provide innocent and 
 instructive relaxation, but access to many Christian 
 privileges for their people. There is the subject of 
 the means within our reach for promoting a better 
 observance of the Lord's Day, so as to make it more 
 truly a day for the best species of relaxation, and of 
 religious refreshment for the thousands who are hard 
 pressed with toil all through the week. There is the 
 necessity of making separate efforts to alleviate the 
 toil and raise the position of distinct portions of our 
 people, who like cab-drivers and omnibus-men are 
 obliged, from the very size of our metropolis, to be 
 occupied in the pubHc service far more than is good 
 either for their bodies or their souls. There are our 
 district- visiting associations, and all the other helps 
 devised to aid in bringing under pastoral influence the 
 many portions of that strange fluctuating population, 
 which finds its way to London, not only from every 
 distant town and village in the United Kingdom, but 
 from every port of Europe and America, from Africa, 
 from China and the islands of the Indian seas : so 
 that, looking to the variety of languages spoken 
 amongst the most needy in our streets, the gift of 
 Pentecost is almost as much required in our home as 
 in our distant missionary work. Above all other sub- 
 jects, there is the general topic of the education of our 
 people. Let men talk as they please of the question 
 
118 
 
 whether education should be secular or religious — it 
 has always happened hitherto, and so far as we can 
 see will always happen for the time to come, that 
 practically on you the clergy must fall the principal 
 burden and privilege of the education of the poor. 
 There is no other set of persons in the kingdom who 
 have the leisure or the desire to give themselves and 
 their time to its details and discouragements — a difficult 
 burden this, but lightened by the greatness of the 
 privilege, for truly most pastors feel that not the least 
 hopeful part of their work is that which deals with 
 education. I have endeavoured in the queries I have 
 submitted to you to elicit important facts as to the 
 number of persons, young and adults, who are assisted 
 by you in their early or mature education, the means 
 at your disposal through adult schools, evening classes, 
 reading-rooms and libraries, to make that education 
 real, and after the weakness and thoughtlessness of 
 childhood is past to continue its humanizing influences 
 amid the rough hardening business of a labouring 
 life. On this subject let me remind you that an 
 inquiry into the best mode of national education is 
 now being conducted by a body of Commissioners se- 
 lected by the Government from persons of almost every 
 shade of rehgious and political opinion. Some of you 
 may feel alarmed, as if such enquiries were directed 
 to make education less dependent on the clergy. I 
 for one shall be glad indeed, if the result is that the 
 laity learn to take a more real practical interest in its 
 
ill) 
 
 details. But, as I have said, I see no prospect of the 
 clergy ever being relieved from that deep responsi- 
 bility which the nation, whatever it may say in words, 
 always practically lays on them, leaving them, where 
 they are zealous, at once to collect the chief part of 
 the funds, and to conduct by far the greater part of 
 the practical administration of the schools within their 
 district. I would confidently ask whether the clergy 
 have not greatly gained rather than lost influence by 
 the national etForts made under the superintendence 
 of the Educational Department of the Privy Council ? 
 So it will always be — every effort to extend education 
 will extend their influence, if they are what a Pro- 
 testant clergy ought to be. But this subject of 
 education, and the general subject of the other means 
 you are using to encourage provident and self-reliant 
 habits amongst your poor people, in which I have 
 found much information in your answers to my 
 queries, I dare not further enter on now. Such 
 questions, and those others concerning the mode in 
 which you co-operate with your people in the great 
 efforts which they are making to improve the state of 
 the Church generally, and spread its truths over the 
 world, I can now only allude to, and thank you for 
 the information which you have in your returns 
 afforded me. The field indeed, as we have said, of 
 our ministerial work is infinite, and we must on such 
 an occasion as the present confine ourselves to a 
 few points. 
 
120 
 
 I think it right at a primary visitation to pass over 
 «s few pressing matters as possible, even if we can 
 only name them ; for it is a main part of our duty 
 at such a visitation to review the field of our work, 
 that we may consider how very wide it is. But I can 
 only now tell you how anxiously I shall look forward 
 to opportunities of co-operating with you in your 
 various attempts in this wide field, and how gladly 
 also I shall embrace any occasion which offers for 
 enabling us to take counsel together on these and 
 similar questions, and to arrange our plans. 
 
 Have we said this is an overwhelming Diocese ? 
 Still, from our local proximity a Bishop may here 
 see more of the body of his clergy than is well 
 possible elsewhere. This is a great advantage : I 
 trust neither you nor I may fail in using it aright : 
 I trust, by good arrangements, we may have more 
 opportunities of taking counsel together as we become 
 better acquainted. So long as this Diocese retains its 
 present dimensions, it will require much good arrange- 
 ment to enable us thus to work together ; but by 
 division and association much may be done. Even if 
 the diocese were only half its size, it must be through 
 our archdeaconries, and rural deaneries, and the boun- 
 daries of our ancient parishes, congregating the clergy 
 of particular districts into one whole, and our union in 
 the time-honoured corporations of this Cathedral and 
 of Sion College, that we must seek to co-operate. 
 I would now express my desire so to use these sub- 
 
121 
 
 divisions and classifications that you may be at once 
 separated and united into manageable detachments. 
 It is only by some such means that the clergy of 
 any diocese, most of all of this great diocese, can 
 take counsel together in what concerns their common 
 interests and duties. It is generally said that the 
 clergy in London know less of each other than in 
 country dioceses. The administration of the last 
 thirty years has, I think, made it not true that they 
 know little of their Bishop. I am convinced that it 
 will be our own fault, your fault and mine, if we are 
 not, each year that our connexion lasts, brought more 
 together in the interest of our common work, and the 
 sympathy of our common desire to accomplish all parts 
 of it well, as in the Lord Jesus Christ's sight. 
 
 Before I close let me say — I have spoken in this 
 Charge chiefly of the clergy : This is the custom of 
 our visitations ; but any principles I have endeavoured 
 to lay down are as important for the laity as for the 
 clergy; and we must not separate to-day without 
 acknowledging the aid we have received from those 
 laymen who, in various parishes, have discharged the 
 important and often difficult duties of churchwardens, 
 and who in particular, at this Visitation, have supplied 
 me with answers on which much of my future know- 
 ledge of the working of our parishes must depend. 
 We should fare very badly without the aid of 
 our churchwardens. They are the link in our 
 ecclesiastical system between the clergy and the great 
 
122 
 
 body of the laity. The mode of their election, even 
 when its results produce what looks like an anomaly, 
 is the standing nieaiorial of our connexion with the 
 whole body of the nation. It is a satisfaction to me 
 to believe that in most of our parishes, as is fully 
 acknowledged in the clerical returns, the church- 
 wardens are a great help to the clergy. Their office 
 cannot be allowed to become unimportant without a 
 deep injury to the Church ; I have now to thank them 
 for their kind aid. It is a wise arrangement that a 
 ]3ishop should have laid before him, at his Visitation, 
 both clerical and lay returns to his inquiries. Let us 
 never forget that there is some truth in the common 
 saying that there is a clergyman's and there is a lay- 
 man's mode of looking at almost every one of the great 
 questions of the day. The clergy and the laity will 
 each be likely to gain a clearer view of truth and duty 
 by taking into account the feelings and reasonings 
 which prevail in the class to which they do not them- 
 selves belong. Laity and clergy alike, we are all 
 engaged in one common work, and though w^e may 
 view it in different aspects, we require each other's 
 help in doing it, and we shall not, I trust, fail to 
 have each other's prayers. 
 
Almighty God aud heavenly Father, who, of thine infinite love 
 and goodness towards us, hast given to us thy only and most dearly 
 beloved Son Jesus Christ, to be our Redeemer, and the Author of 
 everlasting life ; who, after he had made perfect our redemption by 
 his death, and was ascended into heaven, sent abroad into the world 
 his Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Doctors, and Pastors ; by whose 
 labour and ministry he gathered together a great flock in all the 
 parts of the world, to set forth the eternal praise of thy holy Name : 
 For these so great benefits of thy eternal goodness, and for that thou 
 hast vouchsafed to call thy servants here present to the same 
 Office and Ministry appointed for the salvation of mankind, we 
 render unto thee most hearty thanks, we praise and worship thee ; 
 and we humbly beseech thee, by the same thy blessed Son, to grant 
 unto all, which either here or elsewhere call upon thy holy Name, 
 that we may continue to show ourselves thankful unto thee for these 
 and all other thy benefits ; and that we may daily increase and go 
 forwards in the knowledge and faith of thee and thy Son, by the 
 Holy Spirit. So that as well by us thy Ministers, as by them 
 over whom they are appointed thy Ministers, thy holy Name may 
 be for ever glorified, and thy blessed kingdom enlarged ; through 
 the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth 
 with thee in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, world without end. 
 Amen. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Appendix A. — page 5.* 
 NEW CHURCHES CONSECRATED BY BISHOP BLOMFIELD. 
 
 
 Largest 
 
 
 Popula- 
 
 average 
 Adult 
 
 Children, 
 in 
 
 
 Congre- 
 
 Schools. 
 
 
 gation. 
 
 480 
 
 9,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 6,000 
 
 1,300 
 
 400 
 
 9,500 
 
 1,700 
 
 420 
 
 10,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 600 
 
 3,000 
 
 1,080 
 
 350 
 
 5,000 
 
 1,100 
 
 320 
 
 1,000 
 
 300 
 
 100 
 
 7,000 
 
 200 
 
 700 
 
 4,500 
 
 500 
 
 180 
 
 10,500 
 
 1,000 
 
 620 
 
 
 
 400 
 
 — 
 
 15,000 
 
 — 
 
 250 
 
 — 
 
 180 
 
 — 
 
 1,600 
 
 300 
 
 140 
 
 8,000 
 
 450 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 500 
 
 — 
 
 _ 
 
 1,000 
 
 600 
 
 — 
 
 400 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1,000 
 
 — 
 
 1,580 
 
 170 
 
 165 
 
 8,000 
 
 500 
 
 — 
 
 Name of Church. 
 
 St. John's, Bethnal Green 
 
 St. Paul, Ball's Pond, Islington . . . 
 
 Holy Trinity, Islington 
 
 Holy Trinity, Kensington 
 
 St. Barnabas, Kensington 
 
 St. Peter, Hammersmith 
 
 St. John, Walthamstow ..... 
 St. Mary, Plaistow, West Ham . . . 
 
 Holy Trinity, Tottenham 
 
 Holy Trinity, St. Luke, Chelsea . . . 
 All Saints, St. Botolph, Bishopsgate . . 
 Holy Trinity, St. Giles-in-the-Fields . . 
 
 St. Mary, Ilford 
 
 St. John the Baptist, Hampton Wick 
 
 St. James, Enfield 
 
 St. Peters' ] 
 
 St. Paul's, I Marylebone .... 
 St. James, I ......... 
 
 St. John, ) 
 
 St. Matthew, Spring Gardens .... 
 Grosvenor Chapel, St. George's, Hanover ) 
 
 Square ) 
 
 St. John Whetstone, Finchley .... 
 St. Peter, St. Andrew, Holbom . . . 
 
 * The list of these churches in the order of consecration is taken from the House of 
 Lords' Report on Spiritual Destitution, 1S58. The other particulars come chiefly from 
 the returns to the Visitation Queries. 
 
126 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Name of Church. 
 
 St, Michael, Highgate 
 
 Christchurch, Bloomsbury .... 
 St. Paul, Mill Hill, Hendon .... 
 St. Michael in the Strand .... 
 St, John the Baptist, Leytonstone 
 
 Trinity, St. Bride's 
 
 St. Bartholomew, Little Moorfields . 
 
 St. Philip, Clerkenwell 
 
 St. John the Evangelist, West Ham . 
 
 St, Peter's, Islington 
 
 Jesns (Jhapel, Enfield 
 
 Holy Trinity, Hounslow 
 
 St, John's, Potter's Bar 
 
 Christ Churoh, Pancras 
 
 St. James, HoUoway 
 
 All Saints', Islington 
 
 St. Peter, Stepney 
 
 St. James, RatclifFe, Limehouse . . 
 St. John ihe Evangelist, Hillingdon . 
 St. Thomas, Arbour Square . . . 
 St. Paul, Lis!=ion Grove, Marylebone . 
 
 Trinity, Holborn 
 
 Christ Church, Enfield 
 
 St. Mark, Whitechapel 
 
 St. Stephen, Islington ...... 
 
 Christ Church, Hoxton, Shoreditch . 
 
 Christ Church, Chelsea 
 
 St. James, Shoreditch 
 
 St, Luke, Westminster 
 
 All Saints', Stepney ...... 
 
 Holy Trinity, Stepney 
 
 St, Saviour, Chelsea 
 
 Trinity Chapel, llford 
 
 St. Peter, Walthamstow 
 
 Christ Church, St. George's East . . 
 
 St. Peter's, West Hackney 
 
 Holy Trinity, Twickenham . . . . , 
 St. Peter, Bethnal Green ....-, 
 
 St. Philip, Hackney 
 
 St, James, ditto, Clapton 
 
 St, Andrew, Bethnal Green . . . . , 
 
 St. Mary, Spitalfields 
 
 St, Philip, Bethnal Green 
 
 St. Jame.s the Less, ditto 
 
 St. Thomas, Duustau W 
 
 St, James, Homsey 
 
 St. Thomas, Charterhouse 
 
 All Saints, Pancras 
 
 St Paul. Wilton Place ....... 
 
 Christ Church, St, Margaret'n, Westmr, 
 
 
 Largest 
 
 
 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 average 
 Adult 
 
 Children 
 in 
 
 Congre- 
 
 Schools. 
 
 
 gation. 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 800 
 
 460 
 
 NoDist. 
 
 400 
 
 220 
 
 1.100 
 
 400 
 
 130 
 
 3,400 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 1,550 
 
 400 
 
 — 
 
 3,000 
 
 80 
 
 
 
 4,000 
 
 300 
 
 — 
 
 8,400 
 
 500 
 
 200 
 
 10,000 
 
 900 
 
 340 
 
 10,000 
 
 950 
 
 670 
 
 900 
 
 250 
 
 110 
 
 4,000 
 
 600 
 
 280 
 
 9.^0 
 
 180 
 
 80 
 
 10,000 
 
 600 
 
 680 
 
 3,300 
 
 1,400 
 
 800 
 
 17,000 
 
 800 
 
 700 
 
 — 
 
 1,200 
 
 1,100 
 
 12,000 
 
 660 
 
 190 
 
 1,300 
 
 100 
 
 140 
 
 12,000 
 
 600 
 
 820 
 
 9.000 
 
 600 
 
 430 
 
 13,500 
 
 600 
 
 360 
 
 530 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 16,000 
 
 100 
 
 400 
 
 8,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 260 
 
 8,200 
 
 360 
 
 290 
 
 5,000 
 
 600 
 
 350 
 
 12,000 
 
 700 
 
 600 
 
 9,200 
 
 150 
 
 300 
 
 11.000 
 
 300 
 
 300 
 
 10,000 
 
 600 
 
 420 
 
 8,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 440 
 
 2,000 
 
 100 
 
 78 
 
 880 
 
 400 
 
 80 
 
 13,500 
 
 1,000 
 
 1,300 
 
 10,000 
 
 960 
 
 120 
 
 3,000 
 
 320 
 
 290 
 
 8,000 
 
 300 
 
 300 
 
 5,500 
 
 600 
 
 260 
 
 — 
 
 500 
 
 120 
 
 10,000 
 
 100 
 
 190 
 
 5,000 
 
 300 
 
 90 
 
 14,000 
 
 300 
 
 450 
 
 6,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 400 
 
 2,560 
 
 250 
 
 — 
 
 860 
 
 300 
 
 186 
 
 9,500 
 
 500 
 
 1,600 
 
 9,000 
 
 500 
 
 280 
 
 15,000 
 
 — 
 
 600 
 
 7,000 
 
 750 
 
 100 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 127 
 
 Name of Church. 
 
 St. James's, "Walthamstow 
 
 St. James-the-Great, Bethnal Green . . 
 
 St. Jude, Chelsea 
 
 St. Earth olomew-the-Great, Bethnal Green 
 St. John, Kensall Green, Chelsea . . . 
 
 St. Michael, Tottenham ^ 
 
 St John, Netting Hill 
 
 ChristChiirch,St.Gile8-in-the-Fields(C.E.) 
 St. James, Norland, Kensington . . . 
 St. Michael, Chester Square .... 
 
 St. John, Wembly, Harrow 
 
 All Saints', Marylebone 
 
 St. Jude, Bethnal Green 
 
 St. John, St. Pancras 
 
 Holy Trinity, Paddington 
 
 Holy Trinity, Finchley 
 
 St. Andrew, Marylebone 
 
 St. John. Woolwich, (C. E.) 
 
 St. Mark, Marylebone 
 
 St. Paul, Whitechapel 
 
 St. Simon Zelotes, Bethnal Green . . . 
 
 St. Barnabas, Homerton 
 
 All Saints', Paddington 
 
 St. Matthias, Bethnal Green .... 
 
 St. Mark, Old Street, St. Luke .... 
 
 Holy Trinity, Shoreditch 
 
 St. I^Iatthew, City Road ...... 
 
 St. Jude, Whitechapel 
 
 South Hackney 
 
 Christ Church, Highbury, Islington . . 
 
 St. Paul, Camden New Town .... 
 
 St. Stephen the Martyr ...... 
 
 Christ Church, East Greenwich . . . 
 
 All Saints', Knightsbridge 
 
 All Saints', Harrow Weald 
 
 St. James, Upper Edmonton .... 
 
 St. Stephen, Hammersmith 
 
 St. Mary, St. George' s-in-the-East . . . 
 
 St. Stephen, St. Margaret's 
 
 St. Mary the Virgin, Soho 
 
 St. Thomas, Bethnal Green' 
 
 St. Thomas, Woolwich 
 
 Holy Trinity, Pancras 
 
 St. Mary, West Brompton 
 
 St. Matthew, Islington 
 
 St. Matthew, Great Peter Street . . . 
 
 Christ Church, Kensington, (C. E.) . . 
 
 Christ Church, Hampstead 
 
 St, Mary Magdalene, Pancras .... 
 
 Holy Trinity, Woolwich, (C. E.) . . . 
 
 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 1,050 
 6,000 
 4,000 
 11,600 
 4,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 5,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 645 
 
 3,000 
 
 12,000 
 
 16,800 
 
 4,300 
 
 1,690 
 
 7,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 4,500 
 
 7,000 
 
 5,500 
 
 10,000 
 
 15,000 
 
 9,300 
 
 3,400 
 
 6,200 
 
 8,500 
 
 2,500 
 
 3,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 Largest 
 average 
 Adult 
 Congre- 
 gation. 
 
 260 
 200 
 700 
 300 
 600 
 
 1,000 
 350 
 700 
 
 1,200 
 150 
 
 1,400 
 600 
 600 
 
 1,000 
 500 
 
 1,000 
 800 
 
 760 
 
 600 
 
 1,200 
 
 800 
 
 800 
 
 300 
 
 800 
 
 1,400 
 
 900 
 
 600 
 
 1,300 
 
 700 
 
 Children 
 
 in 
 Schools. 
 
 5,200 
 900 
 
 400 
 
 — 
 
 3.200 
 
 500 
 
 160 
 
 6,000 
 
 700 
 
 340 
 
 6,000 
 6,000 
 
 850 
 700 
 
 600 
 540 
 
 4,500 
 
 200 
 
 120 
 
 8,000 
 
 200 
 
 260 
 
 8,000 
 
 700 
 
 420 
 
 1,000 
 
 700 
 
 440 
 
 3,300 
 5,000 
 
 600 
 700 
 
 200 
 260 
 
 7,500 
 
 600 
 
 660 
 
 3,000 
 6,500 
 
 1,000 
 500 
 
 310 
 
 200 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
128 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Name of Church. 
 
 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Largest 
 average 
 Adult 
 Congre- 
 gation. 
 
 Children 
 
 in 
 Schools. 
 
 Christ Church, West Ham 
 
 Emmanuel Church 
 
 Holy Trinity, Vauxhall 
 
 Christ Church, Ealing 
 
 Christ Church, South Mimms .... 
 
 St. Matthew, Marylebone 
 
 St. Mark, Albert Street, Pancras . . . 
 St. Anne, Brookfield, Pancras .... 
 
 St. Gabriel, Pimlico . . . . . . . 
 
 St. Matthias, Stoke Newington . . . 
 Greenwich, St. John . . . . . . . 
 
 St. John the Evangelist, Limehouse . . 
 Holy Trinit>, Ruislip . . ... . . 
 
 St. Andrew, Islington 
 
 Christ Church, Forest Hill, Lewisham . 
 St.Mark,Tollington Park, Islington (C.E.) 
 Christ Church, Lee ....... 
 
 St. James, Hatcham, Deptford . . . 
 St. Andrew, Westminster . . • . . . 
 
 St. John, Drury Lane 
 
 St. Luke, Marylebone, (C. E.) . . . . 
 
 St. Jude, Islington 
 
 Christ Churcn, Paddington ..•.-.. 
 St. John, St Paul, Deptford .... 
 St, Saviour, Paddington ...... 
 
 St Stephen, Paddington 
 
 Holy Trinity, Hounslew . . . . . . 
 
 All Saints, Haggerstone 
 
 St. Saviour's Hampstead 
 
 All Saints, Hendon 
 
 St. John Isle worth, Isle worth .... 
 
 3,400 
 1,500 
 4,600 
 1,860 
 1,000 
 8,000 
 5,000 
 500 
 6,000 
 4,000 
 
 9,000 
 460 
 10,000 
 2,500 
 5,000 
 2,000 
 6,400 
 
 4,000 
 
 3,000 
 7,000 
 4,000 
 6,000 
 4,000 
 6,000 
 1,500 
 800 
 1,500 
 
 350 
 
 350 
 
 1,000 
 
 450 
 
 1,600 
 
 900 
 
 800 
 800 
 
 350 
 190 
 700 
 600 
 900 
 1,000 
 
 250 
 
 1,600 
 1,000 
 1,200 
 1,450 
 
 750 
 250 
 370 
 
 350 
 120 
 320 
 
 170 
 300 
 180 
 
 250 
 325 
 
 590 
 66 
 1,038 
 130 
 160 
 360 
 
 442 
 
 450 
 100 
 100 
 
 140 
 60 
 
129 
 
 Appendix B. — page 14. 
 
 In the Ecclesiastical Commission Bill as amended by the 
 Select Committee of the House of Lords, 1858, section 19, 
 local claims, as they are called— i.e. the claims of the spiritual 
 wants of the locality — are extended from tithes and lands, or 
 hereditaments, assigned in lieu of tithes (as provided 3 and 4 
 Victoria, c 113, sec. 67) to aU lands and hereditaments what- 
 soever, now vested, or hereafter to be vested in the said Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 Also, in the Report from the Select Committee of Ihe House of 
 Lords on Means of Divine Worship in Populous Places, p. xii. 
 we have the following remarks : — 
 
 " In looking to the sources from which we may anticipate aid 
 towards the relief of a large portion of the spiritual destitution 
 of the Metropolis, — The first which presents itself is the vested 
 and expectant interest of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 
 certain large estates formerly belonging to the Dean and Pre- 
 bendaries of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul's. Some of these 
 are of great value ; in particular the Prebend of Finsbury, 
 having an income already of <£7,000 per annum, and the 
 prospect of eight or nine times that amount when a still sub- 
 sisting lease of the property shall have expired in the year 
 1866. 
 
 " Other similar estates of much less but still considerable 
 value will eventually be available. These, taken together, 
 would afford great means of relief, if they were made primarily 
 applicable to the wants of the metropolis. It appears, however, 
 that under the existing law the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are 
 not authorized, in considering the various claims brought before 
 them for the relief of spiritual destitution, to give preference to 
 the places from which a revenue is received (from any source 
 except tithes). We are of opinion that the principle already 
 
 K 
 
130 APPENDIX B. 
 
 applied to tithes ought to be extended to property of other 
 descriptions. It seems to us that where church property has 
 become of great value from the population assembled upon it, 
 the wants of that population form in justice a first claim upon 
 the proceeds of the property ; and with respect to the metro- 
 polis we are of opinion that this holds true more especially. 
 The whole metropolis constitutes in fact one great community, 
 and it is the vast increase of this community in the last century 
 which has both given its present high value to the houses and 
 building land included in these estates, and is also the cause of 
 the great spiritual destitution of the metropolitan parishes. We 
 are therefore of opinion that the existing law should be so 
 amended as to direct the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to deal 
 with the property in question on the principle we have now 
 described, so far as this can be done without interfering with 
 charges and obligations created by Parliament, or already 
 incurred by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In making this 
 recommendation, we assume that in all cases, except those of 
 extreme destitution, the grants of the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners should only be made on condition of their being met by 
 private benefactions in the manner hereafter described." 
 
131 
 
 Appendix C. — page 28. 
 
 Keport of Select Committee of House of Lords, <fec. 
 p. 129. 
 
 Quest 169. — " Do you think it would be a good preparation 
 before entering into holy orders that such young men should 
 be required to learn the duty of visiting ? 
 
 Ans. — " I think, practically, we want the deacon, which we 
 have not in the Church of England. I think I can answer the 
 question from a fact : I had the charge for six years of the largest 
 parish but one in the City of Oxford. I had something like 
 sixty young undergraduates with whom I was acquainted ; I had 
 visitors out of those in every district, or nearly so, in the parish, 
 and teachers in my Sunday-school, in every class, with a towns- 
 man as a duplicate to take the whole class when the vacation 
 began ; and some of those clergymen have since come under my 
 own hand j one, particularly, was my own curate, and another 
 is occupying a most important and influential post at this time 
 in the metropolis. And those with whom I have come in con- 
 tact have spoken of the great advantages which they derive from 
 having acted as district visitors and as Sunday-school teachers 
 before their ordination, and during their undergraduate 
 course." 
 
132 
 
 Appendix D. — page 100. 
 
 Keturn of City Churches within the Walls made by the Clergy 
 in answer to the bishop's enquiry, january, 1858. 
 
 Name of Benefice. 
 
 St. Alban, Wood-street, and 
 
 St. Olave, Silver-street. . , 
 Allhallows, Barking ... 
 Allhallows the-Great, lo. All 
 
 hallows-tlie-less . . . 
 Allhallows, Bread-st. w. St. John 
 
 the Evangelist, Watling-st. 
 Allhallows, Lombard-street . 
 Al; hallows, London Wall . 
 Allhallows Staining . . . 
 St. Al phage, London Wall . 
 St. Andrew Hubbard w. St.Mary 
 
 at-Hill 
 
 St. Andrew Undershaft w. St, 
 
 Maiy Axe 
 
 St. Andrew's by the Wardrobe 
 w. St. Anne, Blackfriars 
 St. Anne and Agnes, w. St. John 
 
 Zachary 
 
 St. Antholin's w. St. John the 
 
 Baptist upon Walbrook 
 St. Augustin w. St Faith the 
 
 Virgin, tinder St. Paul's 
 St. Benet's Gracechurch w. St 
 
 St. Leonard, Eastcheap . 
 St. Beuet Sherehog w. St, Ste 
 
 pheu's, Walbrook ... 
 St. Beue't to. St. Peter, Paul's 
 
 Wharf 
 
 St. George, Botolph Lane, w. 
 
 St, Botolph, Billingsgate . 
 St, Catherine Col man . . , 
 St. Catherine Cree . . . , 
 
 Christchurch, Newgate-st., w 
 St. Leonard, Foster-laoe , 
 
 St. Clement, Eastcheap, w. St 
 St. Martin, Orgar ... 
 
 St. Dionis Backchurch . . 
 
 St. Dunstan's-in-the-East 
 
 St. Etlmund-the-King, w. St 
 Nicholas Aeons .... 
 
 St, Ethelburga ..... 
 
 St. Gabi'iel, Fenchurch, w. St, 
 Margaret Pattens . . . 
 
 St. Helen, Bishop.sgate . 
 
 St. James Within Aldgate . 
 
 St. James, Garlick-hythe 
 
 Patron. 
 
 Eton Coll. and St. Paul's 
 Abp. of Canterbury . 
 Abp. of Canterbury . 
 
 Abp. of Canterb. and ) 
 D. & C. of Canterb. \ 
 
 D. & C. of Canterbury 
 
 Lord Chancellor . . 
 
 Grocers' Company. . 
 
 Bp. of London . . . 
 
 Duke of Northumb. & 
 Trusts, of Advowson 
 
 Bp. of London . . . 
 
 Lord Chanc. and Pa- 
 rishioners of St. Anne 
 Bishop of London and ) 
 D. & C. of St, Paul's i 
 Crown and D. & C. of ) 
 St. Paul's . . . . j 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's . 
 
 D.&C.ofSt. Paul's and) 
 
 D. & C. of Canterbury ( 
 
 Lord Chancellor and ) 
 
 Grocer's Company . f 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's . 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's, \ 
 and Crown .... J 
 Bishop of London . . 
 Magd. C>>11. Camb. . 
 Governors of St. Bar- ) 
 
 tholomew's Hosp. & ' 
 
 D. & C. of Westmr. \ 
 Bishop of London, & ) 
 
 D.&C. of St. Paul's ) 
 D. & C, of Canterbury 
 Abp. of Canterbury . 
 Abp. of Canterbury ) 
 
 and Crown . . . f 
 Bishop of London . . 
 
 Crown &C.ty of Lond. 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's . 
 Corporation of Lond. 
 Bishop of London . . 
 
 1,000 
 
 2,001 
 
 35n 
 
 350 
 
 456 
 
 2,060 
 
 500 
 
 919 
 
 975 
 
 1,250 
 
 3,709 
 
 615 
 
 360 
 
 1,126 
 
 300 
 
 452 
 
 1,026 
 
 500 
 
 500 
 1,905 
 
 2,846 
 
 197 
 
 746 
 1,005 
 
 661 
 
 530 
 
 270 
 
 *800 
 
 491 
 
 :5I^? 
 
 
 £ 
 
 425 
 
 1,224 
 
 485 
 
 362 
 
 396 
 718 
 800 
 370 
 
 420 
 1,003 
 248 
 400 
 217 
 551 
 287 
 371 
 287 
 
 331 
 
 782 
 148 
 
 462 
 
 357 
 
 423 
 IGO 
 
 456 
 
 832 
 
 289 
 
 40 
 1.50 
 338 
 
 CSS 
 
 Glebe Home. 
 
 150 
 170 
 120 
 
 80 
 
 50 
 
 90 
 
 50 
 
 170 
 
 unk"- 
 250 
 480 
 400 
 
 50 
 200 
 
 48 
 400 
 125 
 
 120 
 
 80 
 100 
 
 1,403 
 
 110 
 
 70 
 290 
 
 79 
 
 100 
 
 150 
 
 120 
 
 200 
 
 60 
 
 None. 
 None. 
 None. 
 
 None, 
 
 None, 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 
 Good Residence. 
 
 None. 
 
 L arge House. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Good repair. 
 Two;unfitforRe5 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 
 Good repair. 
 None. 
 
 1 
 
 Unfit for R 
 
 New. 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 None. 
 
 Complete repair. 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 
 In repair. 
 
 None. 
 None 
 None. 
 
 Ililiabitcd cliU'tlv In- .It 
 
APPENDIX D. 
 
 13: 
 
 Name of Benefice. 
 
 Patron. 
 
 
 
 
 Glebe House. 
 
 . a.awrence, Old Jewry, zv. 
 
 St. Mary Magdalen, Milk-st. 
 St. Magnus the Martyr, London 
 
 Bridge 
 
 St. jMargaret's, New Fish-street 
 St Michael's, Crooked-lane . 
 Si 3Iartin, Ludgate . . . 
 Jt i'ilai-garet's, Lothbury. . 
 )t. Christopher le Stocks . 
 3t. Bartholomew, Exchange 
 
 5t Martin Outwich . . . , 
 
 5t. JIary bchurch, to. St. Lau 
 rence Pountney-lane , . 
 
 3t i\Iary the Virgin, Alder 
 manbury 
 
 ?t. ^lary, Aldermary, w. St, 
 Tliomas Apostle ... 
 
 % S within, w. St. Mary Bothaw ^ 
 
 Si ]\Iary Magdalene, Old Fish- ) 
 Btieet, w. St. Gregory by > 
 
 St. Paul ) 
 
 uy-le-Bow, to. St. Pancras, 
 er-lane, and Allhallows, 
 
 11 ney-lane 
 
 t. ^.lary Somerset, w. St. Mary) 
 ]\iounthaw j 
 
 t. '}.liivj AVoolnoth, and St. Mary ) 
 ^^ oolchurch Haw . . . . j 
 
 Matthew, Friday-steet, w. 
 
 St. Peter Cheap .... 
 
 Michael Bassishaw . . 
 
 Michael's, Coruhill . . 
 
 . ^Michaels, Queenhithe, and 
 
 Holy Trinity the Less 
 
 Michael's, Wood-street, w 
 
 Bt. Mary's, Staining. . . , 
 
 Mildred's, Bread-street, w 
 
 St. Margaret Moses ... 
 
 IMichael, Paternoster Royal 
 and St. Martin Vintry . , 
 St. Mildred, Poultry, w. St. 
 
 Mary's Colechurch . . 
 5i Nicholas Cole Abbey, w. St, 
 
 Nicholas Olave . . . 
 8i Olave, Hart-street, w. St, 
 
 Nicholas ad Macellas . . 
 
 Si Olave's Jewry, to. St. Martin 
 
 Ironmonger lane .... 
 
 . Peter's, Comhill . . , 
 
 St. Peter-le-Poer, 
 Fink . . . 
 
 w. St. Benet 
 
 Si Stephen, Coleman-street 
 Si Vedast, Foster-lane, w. St, 
 Michael's le Querne . , 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's, 
 and Ball. Coll. Oxfd. 
 
 Abp. of Canterbury ") 
 and Bp. of London. ) 
 
 n 
 
 Bp. of London 
 
 ord Chancell( 
 Bishop of London 
 
 Master and "Warden of 
 Merch. Taylors' Co. 
 
 Corpus Christi Coll., 
 Cambridge . . . 
 
 The Parishioners . . 
 
 Abp. of Canterbuiy & ) 
 D. & C.of St. Paul's ) 
 
 D. & C. of Canterbury j 
 and Rev. H. G. [ 
 Watkins . . . . ) 
 
 D. h C. of St. Paul's . 
 
 Abp. of Canterbury, 2 
 turns. Grocers' Co. 
 1 turn 
 
 Bp. of London & Duke l[ 
 of Buccleugh . .J 
 
 Lord Chancellor and 
 
 Sir P. Broke . . . 
 Bp. of London and ) 
 
 Duke of Buccleuch \ 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's . 
 Drapers' Company 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's & ) 
 D.&C. of Cantei'bury ) 
 Lord Chancellor and } 
 
 Parishioners . . . | 
 
 Lord Chancellor and 
 
 Exors.ofW.Stocketh 
 
 D. & C. of Canterbury ) 
 
 and Bp. of Worcester ) 
 
 Mercer' s Company and 
 
 Lord Chancellor . 
 Lord Chancellor and 
 
 D.& C. of St. Paul's 
 
 Four Trustees . . . 
 
 Lord Chancellor . . 
 
 Corporation of Lond. 
 
 D. & C. of St. Paul's 
 and Provost and 
 Fellows of Eton. . 
 
 The Parishioners . . 
 
 D.&C.of St. Paul's and 
 Abp. of Canterbury 
 
 800 
 
 803 
 
 1,246 
 300 
 
 245 
 517 
 500 
 
 880 
 
 527 
 
 2,318 
 
 unk"-* 
 unk"- 
 
 453 
 
 473 
 
 616 
 t- 
 1,452 
 
 207 
 
 258 
 
 430 
 
 600 
 
 592 
 
 900 
 
 358 
 + 
 876 
 
 3,936 
 644 
 
 £ 
 319 
 
 691 
 
 272 
 948 
 
 1,200 
 203 
 253 
 440 
 
 239 
 
 235 
 
 486 
 250 
 
 618 
 
 402 
 
 225 
 457 
 
 293 
 
 357 
 
 220 
 
 240 
 
 280 
 
 263 
 
 1,200 
 
 406 
 409 
 
 1,317 
 
 558 
 SO 
 
 60 
 
 250 
 
 160 
 100 
 
 60 
 100 
 60 
 100 
 
 144 
 
 180 
 
 600 
 40 
 
 400 
 
 114 
 
 80 
 200 
 
 60 
 
 60 
 
 10 
 
 25 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 180 
 
 120 
 
 350 
 
 None. 
 
 Good repair. 
 
 None. 
 Good repair. 
 
 Good repair. 
 Good repair. 
 ? 
 None. 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 iTwo; trying to 
 make one ha- 
 bitable. 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 
 Good repair. 
 
 Unfit. 
 Very old. 
 
 Unfit for Resid. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 Good repair. 
 
 Good repair. 
 
 Good repair. 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 X(»:ie. 
 
 Not above ^2 i 
 
 three parishes. 
 
 t No poor. 
 
 J No poor. 
 
134 
 
 The following is a Return made by the Clergy of the City Parishe 
 
 WITHOUT the walls. 
 
 I 
 
 
 Glehe House 
 
 St. Andrew's, Holbom .... 
 St. Peter's, Saffron Hill .... 
 Trinity, Gray's Inn Road . . . 
 St. Bartholomew the Great . . 
 St. Bartholomew the Less . . . 
 St. Botolph, Aldersgate .... 
 
 St. Botolph, Aldgate 
 
 St. Botolph, Bishopsgate . . . 
 St. Botolph, All Saints, Bishopsgate 
 
 St. Bride's 
 
 Trinity, Gough Square .... 
 
 Bridewell 
 
 St. Duustan's in-the-West ... 
 St. Thomas-in-the Rolls .... 
 
 St. Giles, Cripplegate 
 
 St. Bartholomew, Moor-lane . , 
 
 St, Sepulchre's 
 
 Trinity, Minories 
 
 6,910 
 
 8,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 3,500 
 
 800* 
 
 6,100 
 
 16,000 
 
 12,500 
 
 No Dist. 
 
 6,000 
 
 3,000 
 
 3,000 
 2,567 
 8,000 
 4,000 
 13,000 
 572 
 
 £: 
 950 
 300 
 234 
 542 
 
 30 
 369 
 150t 
 1,573 
 275 
 350 
 
 50 
 
 467 
 199 
 1,270 
 320 
 550 
 100 
 
 1,200 
 
 600 
 
 600 
 
 250 
 
 150 
 
 400 
 
 700 
 
 900 
 
 No Ret. 
 
 1,000 
 
 80 
 
 600 
 250 
 1,000 
 300 
 750 
 40 
 
 Good House. 
 
 None. 
 
 Good. 
 
 None. 
 
 Good. 
 
 Fit for Resid. 
 
 None. 
 
 Good. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 
 None. 
 None. 
 Good. 
 None. 
 Good. 
 None. 
 
 Including patients in the Hospital. 
 
 t A temporary addition from St. Olave's, Hart-street. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 K. CLAY, I'lUNlhU, UKLAl) SlKIiKT HILL. 
 
f 
 
 i