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A CHARGE

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD.

A CHARGE

THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD,

AT HIS THIRD VISITATION,

NOVEMBER, 1854.

SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD,

CHANCELLOR TO THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, UORD HIGH ALMONER TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.

LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND.

MDCCCLIV.

A CHARGE,

ETC.

My Reverend Brethren and my Brethren of

THE LaLTY

On meeting you thus again officially, after a third interval of three years, I would first beg you to acknowledge humbly with me the mercy of God, Who has kept us through this past time, and allowed us again to meet together in this house of prayer. Death has, during these three years, been very busy round us ; but our time of service has been still continued — our day of grace prolonged.

Yet, at every place of our gathering through the Diocese we miss those who, when we last assembled, knelt and sat beside us, and from whose empty place there may well seem to come to us the sound of the midnight cry, and the warning voice — ' Be ye ready also ; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.' Of the Incumbents of the Diocese, no fewer than forty-three have been called to render up their great account since last we met. Of your more numerous body, my Lay Brethren, many more must have been taken. Oh ! that this thought might arouse us all to more active labours for God in our several spheres; for

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which of us may not be taken before again this Diocese is visited ; and we know that ' the night Cometh, when no man can work.'

When I met you last, I endeavoured, before I surveyed the present state of the Diocese, or the more general interests of the Church, to re- view our own Diocesan proceedings for the last three years; and as I have reason to believe that you were then interested in that review, I propose, in my present remarks, to follow the same course.

And, first, I will lay briefly before you the out- line of suchactsasareespeciall}' connected with my own ofiice. Since I last addressed you, I have been able, through God's mercy in preserving my health, to carry on to a considerable extent that plan which you, my Reverend Brethren, so cordially welcomed, of my ministering with you in your several parishes, and so making the episcopal ofiice really known in its true pastoral character amongst our scattered flocks.

I have thus taken part during these three years in more than 216 parishes. The hearty wel- come you have given me has made those, seasons amongst the happiest of my ministry. Never, I can assure you, am I so well pleased as when by any means I can strengthen your hands in your parishes, and join with you in your pastoral work. There are, I need not tell you, many accidents belonging to the circumstances of my office in the Church of this land whicli tend to withdraw its holders from that direct ministry of

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souls, and those spiritual cares, in which are indeed its truest functions and highest exercise. And we, in our own inner life, and our church round us, in the straitening of appointed channels of grace, are in great danger of suffering by our being thus drawn to commerce so largely with the outer and less spiritu il parts of our charge. From these it is a special blessing to withdraw into the greener pastures of your direct ministry of souls — to unite with you in those common acts of worship and spiritual communion, whence the smaller differences of our several opinions vanish as forgotten things, and we are, and feel ourselves to be, all one in Christ Jesus.

During the last three years, above 14,057 persons have been confirmed l>y me, and in the same space 150 candidates for the sacred ministry have been ordained by me to the Priesthood, and 199 to the office of a Deacon.

Turning from my own special charge to our common Diocesan action, we shall, I think, find that these three past years have been very far from a time of inactivity. In them have been pro- duced, or perfected, or strengthened amongst us, various plans and instruments of service, which will, 1 humbly trust, long prove blessings to the Church, and mark with no common stamp of im- portance this period of our Diocesan History. And first amongst these I may mention the opening, at Culham, of that Training School for Schoolmasters, to lay the foundations and complete the building of

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which so many of us have laboured long and hard. To God alone be all the praise, who put it into the hearts of his servants to contribute so liberally to this great work; but to the many donors, both amongst the laity and clergy, through whose aid these buildings were reared at a cost of 19,700/., I desire, on behalf of this Church and Diocese, to tender thus publicly my grateful acknowledgments. So far as we may venture at present to speak, we may trust that this large sum has not been spent in vain. We are now approaching the close of our second year's actual work, and we have already sent out as schoolmasters nineteen young men, who are winning in their several spheres a high esteem for their place of training. Of these, ten are employed within this Diocese ; three in the associated Diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, and six in other Dioceses ; two of these having been sent for preparation under our training for the posts they now fill. Besides those who have thus gone forth, we had, at the close of September, sixty-eight scholars in residence, and their conduct and attainments give us solid grounds ■ for hearty satisfaction.

In the class list of students in the training schools connected with the Church of England, to whom certificates of merit Avere awarded, after examina- tion by Her Majesty's Inspectors at Christmas last, thirty-three out of thirty-five of our students gained their certificates, a proportion larger than that attained by any School but two ; the one so small a School, that it could not fairly be judged of by the same measure as our own : the other one, which

sent up for examination only half of its eligible students. As the result of this examination, we received towards the expenses of the year, from the public grant, 1245/., three Schools only stand- ing before us ; namely, Battersea, Cheltenham, and St. Mark's, Chelsea, whilst the Diocesan Institution which stood next to us received 500/. less than our earnings.* It would be unjust not to notice this

* Tables extracted from Mr. Moseley's Report on Training ScJiools, for the year ending Christmas, 1858 : i. e., on the first and, as yet, only completed year of our operations. N.B. These tables are comparative, and show the relative results with respect to all Training Schools in the country.

I. Results of Ceetificate Examinations. Certificates of Merit. Class List of Students in Training ScJiools connected with tlie Churcli of ISngland, to lohom Certificates of Merit have been awarded hy the Committee of Council, after Examination before Her Majesty'' s Inspectors, at Christmas, 1853.

MALES.

	No. of	First	Second	Third	Total
Training School.	Candidates.	Class.	Class.	Class.	Certiiicates.
Battersea	84	3	33	31	67
Carmarthen . . .	27	1	3	14	18
Carnarvon . . .	10	1	2	5	8
Chelsea, St. ) Mark's . . . )	59	1	16	25	42
Cheltenham . . .	59	8	21	16	45
Chester	18		12	6	18
Chichester . . .	9		5	2	7
Durham	16	1	7	8	16
Exeter	25 44	2 2	9 11	7 24	18 37
Kneller HaU
Highbury	39		8	13	21
Oxford	35	i	13	19	33
Winchester . . .	18	1	6	8	15
Worcester . . .	23		6	12	18
York & Hipon	36	1	7	14	22

Here we are first in the ratio of certificates to candidates,

great success as a sterling proof of the ability and conscientious labours of our Rev. Principal and his assistants. In reviewing the detailed accounts of this Institution, I have observed with satisfaction the great number of applications for masters which have come from the Diocese and the increased proportion of pupils whom it has sent up. Few, however, of these are Queen's scholars, our Queen's

except Durham and Chester, the latter of which did not send in above half its students who were ehgible, and the former a col- lection of but sixteen, so small that it scai'cely comes into the comparison.

II. Amount of Public Gbants on the Accounts of Certificates and of Queen's Scholaeships, Christ- mas, 1853.

£ s. d.

Battersea 1963 15 0

Carmarthen 620 0 0

Carnarvon

Chelsea, St. Mark's 1345 0 0

Cheltenham 1540 0 0

Chester 680 0 0

Chichester 285 0 0

Durham 515 0 0

Exeter 705 0 0

KnellerHall

Highbury 758 0 0

Oxford 1245 0 0

Winchester... 615 0 0

Worcester 715 0 0

York and Ripon 750 0 0

From the first of these tables will be seen oui* success as com- pared with other Colleges in the general examination. From the second, the amount of public money we earned altogether towards our first j'ear's expenses. It is observable that in the second table we aioodi fourth, and the fifth in order are 500^. behind our earnino-s.

scholars having been draAvn ahuost entirely from other counties. This has arisen not from our Queen's scholars having gone elsewhere, but from their paucity amongst us, since we have in the Diocese only thirty-three Schools having pupil- teachers, and in them only forty-two pupil-teachers.* I would, therefore, once more remind the Managers of Schools of the great advantages now offered to them by the pupil-teacher system, under which they may obtain so much help in providing for the

* The following are the Church of England Schools for Boys in the Diocese in which Pupil-Teachers are employed, as given in the Report of the Committee of CouncQ for Education 1853-4 .—

BERKS.

Aldermaston.

Clewer.

Reading, St. Giles.

Speen .

Sunningdale.

Wallingford.

Wantage.

Windsor.

Old.

Park.

St. Mark's.

OXFOEDSHIEE.

Banbury.

Benson.

Bradwell.

Chipping Norton.

Chm-chill & Sarsden.

Cowley.

Cuddesdon.

Henley.

Ibstone.

Nuneham.

Lewknor.

Oxford, St. Mary's.

St. Paul's.

BUCKS.

Aylesbury. Brightwell. Claydon. Great Marlow. Stoke Pogis. Stoney Stratford. Upton cum Chalvey. Waddesdon.

Witney.

Number of Pupil-Teachers in the Church of England Boys' Schools in the county of —

OXFOKD. BERKS. BUCKS. TOTAL.

14. 18. 10. 42.

Total Schools having Pupil-Teachers, 33. Total Pupil-Teachers in Diocese, only 42. Total Schools Jiaving such, only 33.

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expenses of their Schools, whilst they open for their best pupils a useful career for life. The first point needful for thus raising your Schools is to provide them with certificated masters ; and though, if our students could have left us earlier, every one would have been already engaged, yet, from the Managers of the Schools who applied for them being unable to wait the completion of their full term, there will at Christmas next be several certificated masters ready for you.

In another way, the Culham Institution may materially aid your difli'erent Schools : your own schoolmasters may be received there for a season, and obtain, even in a short stay, much valuable in- struction as to managing their Schools. A difi'erent class of schoolmasters, moreover, may obtain great assistance from a visit to it ; I mean certificated masters who have training puj^ils under them ; for their duties towards these are new and undefined, and many of them difiicult. To these the Prin- cipal at Culham has paid special attention; and there are few masters who might not profit greatly by observations of his methods and oral consulta- tion with him on the difficulties of their charge.

During these three years, the Allied Training Institution for Schoolmistresses has been opened in the Diocese of Gloucester and Bristol ; and on that occasion, and at the consecration of its Chapel in February last, the representatives of this Diocese were received with a hearty Christian cordiality which gave no faint promise of that harmonious co-opera-

tion in this good work, which we trust to see long uniting these connected Dioceses. This School is now in full operation : seven pupils from the Diocese have been in it, two of whom are now eno;ao;ed with Schools in it.

We have been permitted also to complete another Diocesan Institution, to Avhich I look, under God's blessing, for the happiest results. The 1 5th of June, on which we formally opened the buildings which had been raised at Cuddesdon for assisting in the Theological and Pastoral Training of Candidates for Holy Orders, will long live in my memory, and I doubt not, my Brethren, in the memory of many of you also, as a day to be much and gratefully re- membered, and on which we dare not doubt that there was vouchsafed to our endeavours an abun- dant blessing from our God. Most encouraging was it to us that so large and so venerable a portion of the Episcopate of the English Church joined with us in holy communion, in prayer, in the ministry of the Word, and in public exhortation, on our day of solemn inauguration: most moving was it to our hearts to see amongst them, to name no others, where I might mention all, the still youthful energy which, on the other side of the globe, is gathering in Melanesia to the Lord ; and the silver hairs, but still, I thank God, unbent form, of almost our eldest Bishop : most cheering was it to me, and I acknowledge it anew this day with affectionate thankfulness, amongst the many trials of my office, and of these times, to see so many representatives

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of every district, and of all opinions, in this Diocese, assembled around me, to meet those Right Reverend Fathers of our Church in the services and actions of that eventful day.* You will rejoice with me in knowing that we have already within those walls eight students, who, having completed their university course, are now preparing there for the work of the ministry. I beseech you, my Brethren, in your hours of secret prayer, to remember us and them in your intercessions before God; that He may grant us wisdom, power, and love, and enable us to send out thence many faithful men to preach boldly the pure Word of Christ's Gospel ; to minister His Sacraments faithful!}", and to be, under Him, the blessed instrument in saving many souls. My experi- ence as a Bishop during these last nine years would have proved to me, had I needed such proof, that there is nothing that we more want than such institutions, where those who are soon to go forth to exercise, too often almost without assist- ance, the perilous ministry of souls, may pursue a course of sound theological study — may learn by practice, under wise direction, how to conduct their pastoral ministry, and may have opportuni- ties of retirement, thought, and prayer, which it would be hard for them to obtain elsewhere, and

* A full account of the proceedings- of the day is to be found in the Appendix to the Sermon of the Bishop of New Zealand, " A Little One shall become a Thousand." Vincent, Oxford ; Eivingtons, London.

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which are so peculiarly precious in the months which precede their ordination. Such a prepara- tion, if God vouchsafe His blessing to it, will, I am persuaded, be the best security we can afford to our young men against the peculiar dangers of the present time. To say nothing of other evils, and they are not few, arrogance, and its natural result, extreme opinion on any side, whether verg- ing towards the specious infidelity of latitudina- rianism on the one hand, or to the poisonous blight of Roman error on the other, are the natural con- sequences of men undertaking, without a careful theoloo;ical trainino;, the difficult work of the Christian ministry. Private imaginations, the con- ceits which are bred of the fancy, narrow minded- ness, a set of shallow opinions, self-willed rashness, ignorant obstinacy, party spirit, with its shib- boleths and its unchristian judgments, and its uncharitable speeches and all its injuries to souls — these are the natural fruits of men undertaking to be teachers of others, whilst as yet they know nothing, or next to nothing, of that whereof they affirm much, and that much confidently — of men going forth to teach and to speak, who are really dependant for their own views on the hasty and too often muddy current of popular opinion, as it streams thx'ough the various channels of the reli- gious journals and passing literature of the day. Our aim, my Brethren, will be to form in its strength and its simplicity, in those who come to us, the marked features of a devout, sober, earnest,

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practical, well-instructed Churcli of England piety ; to make them well acquainted, as the foundation of all other learning, with that pure Word of God which we acknowledge as our rule alike of faith and practice, and then to add to this such an acquaintance with that primitive antiquity to which our Reformed Church points as the best expositor of Scripture, and to those great lights of our own communion, Richard Hooker, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Andrews, and their fellows, as shall furnish them with armour they have proved, alike against the specious novelties of Geneva and the deadly subtleties of Rome.

Once more, I earnestly ask your prayers, and wherever you can give it, your co-operation in carrying out this great work; which we have undertaken with a trembling sense of our own insufficiency for its due discharge, but with an humble trust in God's mercy to accept for Christ's sake, and bless our undertaking.

Two other Diocesan Institutions, of which I spoke to you three years ago, have since been augmenting their strength, and preparing for a wider range of charitable action. At Wantage, five sisters are engaged in their work of Christian charity. Fifty-seven penitents have here come under our hands, of whom we trust that thirty-eight have, through God's mercy, been rescued from a life of sin. An arrangement of great moment has been concluded with the Managers of the Oxford Penitentiary, who are to

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pay 100/. a-year to the expenses of maintaining at Wantage ten penitents to be drafted into that house after trial from their own inmates. This enlarge- ment of its numbers renders new buildings neces- sary. The estimated cost of this will be 3000/., of which 1100/. is now raised, and 500/. more ex- pected ; whilst its conductors are earnestly appealing for aid in supplying the remaining deficienc}^ At Clewer, where we have now seven sisters and twenty-one penitents, funds have been raised for erecting the first portion of the buildings necessary to contain seventy-five or eighty penitents, with provision for receiving penitents of a higher class, and an infirmary and pro- bationary ward. Fifteen acres of land having been obtained for the purpose, the first stone of these buildings was laid by me on the 27th of last June. Here, too, help is required; as much as 3000/. more being needed for the completion of the work.

Out of seventy-seven who have been inmates in this house, we have good reason to believe that fifty- two have been rescued from the destroyer, and given back to life, ' sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind.'

To these institutions I look with a deep but hopeful anxiety. Many causes have prevented the growth amongst ourselves of those charitable and relief ious sisterhoods which, both amongst

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Romanists and the Reformed communions, have flourished and done good service in various parts

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of the continent of Europe. Great in many ways will be the gain to us, if our Church can pervade such institutions with her own spirit, and bring them under her rule, and thus provide in them fresh opportunities for her children's service, and carry out through them in new directions her works of mercy. We have just seen, in the need of such nurses for the wounded as our allies possess at Scutari, how great a practical want of our social system might be hereby supplied; and there is, moreover, floating at large amongst us an energetic spirit of exertion, which, if left simply to itself, is too likely to run into extravagance and folly; but which, under the rule and direction of the Church, may be a blessing to those in whom it dwells, as Avell as to those on whom it expends its strength.

But I do not disguise from myself, and I would not hide from you, the great difficulties which must be surmounted before we can see such institutions well ordered and indigenous amongst us. Rather would I state them freely to you, and seek the aid of your prayers, suggestions, and co-operation in overcoming these hindrances, and winning for our Church these new instruments in advancing the kingdom of her Lord. They are, then, such as these — first, in their very founda- tion we are met by the difficulty of finding dis- creet and sober-minded women to become the first members of such societies; both because they are new, and all novelties at first repel

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the cautious, and also because they are asso- ciated in the English mind with Popish errors and abuses, — and next in their conduct. For whilst, for the reasons just given, amongst the first mem- bers of such bodies the ardent and enthusiastic are likely to predominate, we have, from the freedom of our habits, and the very purity of our faith, peculiar difficulties in restraining or directing their impulses. The Church of Rome has no such difficulties ; for here, as elsewhere, her perversions of the truth are so craftily devised, that she can seize and make use of human frailty for her own purposes. She can preach freely the superior holiness of virginity and the ascetic life, and thus allure the enthusiastic to fill her sisterhoods. She can bind their inmates by vows of chastity and obedience, she can stimulate and yet govern their excited religious emotions, by her doctrine of the meritorious value of acts of devotion and submis- sion; and thus, however in so doing she may debase the souls of her children, she can make them the passive and efficient instruments of her sagacious counsels and determined will. We can use no such means, but must with the utmost clearness declare the simple gospel truth, that married life is every whit as holy and as accept- able to God as the service of our unmarried sisters ; that vows which the Lord has not commanded are dangerous and ensnaring, if not absolutely un- lawful; and that the duty of obedience can never supersede that highest jurisdiction of the indivi-

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dual conscience which is the necessary correlative of the inalienable and awful responsibility of pri- vate judgment. Here then are our difficulties, for overcoming which we need specially not only wise counsels, but also the candid judgments and active co-operation of the sober-minded, and the hearty prayers of all.

In another work, also, of great importance, God has graciously prospered our endeavours during the last three years. When, seven years ago, the Diocesan Church Building Society was founded, I pressed as strongly as I could upon the Diocese our need of many new churches and parsonage houses ; and our still greater need of so restoring and rearranging many of our old parish churches, as to o;ive back that birthrio;ht of a fittino- and com- modious place in them, of which many conspiring circumstances had, to a great degree, robbed our poorer brethren. The mode in which that appeal has been responded to is a matter for our deep gratitude to God. Our Diocesan Society has raised and expended, since its commencement, 9607Z. 55. But this alone would be a most in- adequate measure of the good which has resulted from these efforts; for this 9607/. 5s. has led to the expenditure of 110,000/. more within the Diocese from other sources. During the last nine years, thirty-five new churches, and nineteen parsonage- houses have been built, eighteen churches have been rebuilt, and seventy-two restored and en- larged; by which means additional accommoda-

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tion for more tlian 16,159 persons has Leon pro- vided, of which places 14,643 are free. Of these, eleven new churches have been built, nine re- built, and twenty-one restored, and ten parson- ages provided, or are in progress of formation, with- in these last three years.* Yet let no one think that our work, in this particular, is now done; so far from this being the case, the returns furnished me give us a list of fifty-seven new churches wanted, and very many still remain needing urgently that work of restoration which has already given a new impulse to the spiritual life of not a few of our parishes. AVhilst this is the case, the funds of our Association are so exhausted that, with no money in hand, and with

* The Churches built, rebuilt, and restored during the last three years, are as follows : —

Built. — Colnbrook ; Great Marlow ; Kidmore End ; St. Paul, Banbury ; South Banbury ; Eastbury ; Clifton (Deddington) ; Little Tew ; Eton ; Tyler's Green ; Milton under Wychwood, at the sole cost of J. H. Langston, Esq., M.P., and the Rev, Antony Huxtable.

Rebuilt. — Culham, and Horsepath (except the chancels) ; Lamborne-Woodlands ; Hedgerley ; Sandhurst ; Chalfont St, Peter (chancel and south aisle) ; Chaddleworth (chancel), at the sole cost of B. Wroughton, Esq.); Pishell, Salford.

Restored. — Oare ; St. Paul's, Oxford, a chancel added; Faring- don; Wallingford; Shottesbrook ; Winterborne; St. Michael's, Oxford ; Sonning ; Denchworth ; Wootton ; Marlston ; Kid- dington ; Dorchester ; Hurley ; Kirtlington ; Harpsden ; Great Rollright ; Forest-hill ; Aston Tirrold ; Swyncombe ; Steeple Barton ; Stanford in the Vale.

The Parsonage-houses are at Wardington ; Motlington ; Cud- desdon ; Speenhamlaud ; St Ebbes, Oxford ; Colnbrook : Cran- bourne ; Dorchester ; Liuslade ; South Banbury.

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an annual income of only 450L, we have already- promised grants to works now in progress to the amount of 5701.

To restore these funds, it has been proposed that a general effort should be made, by holding meetings throughout the Diocese; and I would very earnestly entreat you, my brethren, lay and clerical, to assist us in this work; by attending, and getting others to attend, the projected meet- ings, by obtaining annual subscribers, and by raising contributions for our funds. I cannot doubt but that we should at once double our annual income if the real claims of our cause on their attention were brought before the yeomen and gentry of our counties. For this is, indeed, a work of charity for these our brethren, and specially for their poorer brethren around their o-svn doors; and what greater blessings can we bestow on them than those of a resident ministry, and a fitting and commodious place within the House of God? In aiding this work we have, moreover, the satisfaction, which is too often withheld from us, of knowing that it is one as to which no difiPerence or division of opinions can exist; and that here, therefore, without the pos- sibility of any compromise as to our peculiar views, we may enter with entire heartiness upon the blessed and uniting work of common labours for our brethren and our Lord. To all Avho are willing to aid us here, our admirable secretary, the Rev. R. Gordon, of Elsfield, to whose able and

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untiring labours we are most deeply indebted for our past success, will gladly supply every necessary amount of information. Beyond our intended meetings the only remaining means of supplying the resources which we need will be by collections made within our churches. For this end, I shall be ready, next year, to issue a letter of pastoral invitation, if it meets generally the wishes of the Diocese. Touching on this subject enables me to thank you for the mode in which you responded to my last address, by which 1551/. 12-s. 8t/., raised from 433 parishes, was added to the funds for buildinof the Culham Training^ Colleofe.

I turn now to what we have been enabled to do as to another paramount duty of the Church — the providing for the education of the young of our o^yn communion. Of the great work effected, in the completion of our Training School for Masters, I have already spoken ; and, contemporaneously with this, many schools and masters' houses have been built throughout the Diocese. Besides some goodly structures, the sole work of private founders, I have before me a list of fifty-nine school-rooins, and twenty-seven schoolmasters' residences, with ac- commodation for 5,626 scholars, which have been built within the last few years, in forty-five places within the Diocese, at a cost of 22,542/., of which 1475/. were contributed by the J^ational Society. Further, an attempt has been begun in this year to increase the funds supplied by this Diocese for the Curate Aid Society ; and this effort

c 2

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will be continued, please God, in the ensuing spring. Most earnestly do I commend this admirable Society to your support. It must, by its consti- tution, be wholly free from every party bias, since it leaves to the incumbent, for whose parish the curate is to be supplied, the selection of his assistant. And it touches the very central heart of our wants, the deficiency of the pastoral ministry in our ill-endowed and overgrown parishes ; yet so small are its means, compared with the demands made upon it, that whilst it is enabled, at present, to make 332 grants, it has 264 appli- cations before it, to which, for lack of funds, it can grant nothing.

In these three counties it aids six parishes* with grants amounting to 290Z. a-year, whilst it gathers,

* The following parishes in the Diocese are aided by this Society : —

Shipton £30

Abingdon 30

Walton, Aylesbury 80

Chipping Norton 30

Windsor, H. Trinity 40

Beaconsfield 80

Total £290

The amounts received from the Diocese in Parochial Collections and Local Subscriptions since the year 1850, are as follows : —

£ s. d.

For the year ending Easter 1850 166 7 10

„ 1851 176 10 9

„ „ „ 1852 131 11 2

„ „ „ 1853 143 17 8

,. 1854 136 12 10

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I lament to say, from our Diocese, no more tlian 136/. 125. lOd.

One other institution Avas proposed last year, and is likely soon to be in active operation, the benefit of which you will all, I think, appreciate. It is termed the Clergy Provident Society, and its aim is to assist those clergymen whose total income does not exceed 300/. a-year to secure for their families the aid of ordinary life insurance, as well as to provide, by payments in times of health, for the receipt of two guineas weekly in disabling sickness.

And now. Brethren, let me turn your thoughts for a few minutes from the past, whilst I endea- vour, so far as the occasion and our time permits, to take with you a brief survey of our present state.

The first feature which has struck me in dwell- ing recently in thought upon this subject, is one for which we cannot too heartily thank God ; it is the amount of internal quietness and mutual confidence which He has granted to us, compared with our state three years ago. As to that which upon this subject immediately concerns myself, I cannot content myself without expressing before you this day, first, my humble praise to God, who has put it into your hearts, my Reverend Brethren, and my Brethren of the Laity, to render to me as your Bishop such unvarying assistance, and then my thanks to you, for your hearty support of the various plans I have brought before you for the

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good of the Diocese, for the liberality of your con- tributions, and the efficiency of your co-operation. And yet again I must heartily thank you for your kindness shoAvn on so many occasions towards me personally, for your charitable judgments, for your attention to my requests, for your generous aiFec- tion. Amidst the many toils and trials of a Bishop's office, no earthly support can be so great as that loving confidence of his Diocese, which God has graciously put it into your hearts so largely to extend to me. May He make me less unworthy of so great a mercy.

Of this first blessing the present peacefulness of our Diocese is, I believe, one of the natural conse- quences. The episcopal office is, by God's appoint- ment, so much the connecting bond of the Diocese, which without it inevitably breaks up into a set of petty principalities, under a multitude of accidental chiefs, that where the bond is firm between the Bishop and his Diocese, the Diocese becomes, as a consequence, itself more peacefully and firmly united. But further, this peacefulness may, I be- lieve, be traced to a second powerful cause, for which I have greatly to thank those most valuable though unrewarded officers of the Diocese, the Rural Deans. I have no doubt that to the better acquaintance with each other which has resulted from the Rural Chapters ; to the habits they en- gender of mutual consultation and action ; and above all to the real Christian harmony which results from the united worship, for which they

23

afford the opportunity, our present internal peace is to be in a great degree attributed; and this is borne out by the fact, that wherever the Rural Chapter is most flourishing, and its meetings best attended, there the union of the Clergy of the district is most complete. May God, my Brethren, multiply and increase amongst us this blessing of a city which is at unity with itself: may He enable us to guard against everything which in our conduct, our words, or onr thoughts as to one another, may mar this unity, and so grieve the Holy Spirit of Peace : may He keep us from party spirit, from forming or countenancing any sectional views within our common Church : may He keep us from uncharitable judgments and uncharitable language concerning those who, in things lawful, or in the various allowed shades they give to truths we hold in common, differ from us and from our own peculiar views : may He teach us, whilst we strive simply, earnestly, and without compromise, to teach truth as we see it, to be ready to make large allowances for others ; to believe that they may see some truths which we see not ; and to refuse, as the very principle of schism, to be banded into any school or party within the Church, witli separate interests to defend, party combinations to defend them, and party watchwords as the instru- ments of such a treasonable union. Of course, my Reverend Brethren, when I press thus earnestly upon you the great duty of cultivating unity amongst ourselves, I take for granted that in

24

tilings essential we are really one, and that between the far greater number of us disunion and suspi- cions (where unhappily they do now to some degree exist) rest on no deeper foundations than miscon- structions of each other's meaning, ignorance of our real agreement, and too exclusive an admission of our own view of common truths. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides; but as to the great majority of our body, every year more con- vinces me that this is the case. The grounds of our differences are often abstract difficulties, in- volved in the very system of Theism, which are absolutely irreconcileable by human intellects. Others are differences which far more concern the use of words than the ideas which those words so imperfectly symbolize, whilst others have no deeper root than in the different views which different minds, from their very constitution, must take of common truths. Now, if this be so, it follows that whilst we must state fully and openly, and act strictly upon our own views of truth, we may heartily co-operate and cultivate loving inter- course with our brethren, whose views in many respects we honestly deem defective or mistaken, and desire to see amended.

Let me for a moment illustrate my meaning by an outline sketch of what appears to me to be the rela- tions between the two chief schools of thought now within our Church. The one arose from a most blessed revival of earnest personal faith in Christ, which led those whom it possessed to protest with

25

all the energy of truth against a system which had too often taught men to be well satisfied with mere decency and an earthly morality, provided they had been baptized and continued members of the visible Church. The truth, given to these teachers to maintain, (and nobly, for the most part, in their earlier days, they maintained it,) was the need of the renewal of each individual soul, and of the gift to it of a true living faith in Christ, through God's Spirit working on it before it could be saved. But every truth, taken singly, is in danger of leading men into error ; and the danger accompanying this revival was, that men's minds should be fixed so exclusively on the energetic working of God's Spirit in the individual soul, which He renewed unto salvation, that the great truth of the peculiar Presence of God the Holy Ghost personally Avith the Church of Christ, and all the other truths which follow from this first, such as the Grace of Sacra- ments, and the responsibilities and the blessedness of membership in the Church, should be lost sight of, and men grow to think of that Grace of God alone as really present, which was visibly effectual. The absolute truth lies in the perfect harmony of these two facts in the Divine economy. But the posses- sion of absolute truth is a rare gift to such as we are ; and the one party, therefore, in maintaining the need of the effectual working of God's Holy Spirit on the individual soul, are ever necessarily in danger of practically losing sight of his Personal Presence with the Church ; the other, in maintain-

26

ing that Personal Presence, of leading men to rest their hopes -on that Presence, without experiencing in their own souls His converting and renemng power. Thus, when members of these different schools of thought contemplate the position of the other, they are tempted, the one, to charge their brethren with encouraging a lifeless formality, the other, with denying the Grace of Sacraments and the Church's Hidden Life. Yet surely there is for all faithful members of our Church, much as they may seem at first sight to differ, a true point of concord, in the common meeting-place of their respective truths. Surely if, instead of being ready to cast upon one another the mutual reproaches of infidelity to our common Church, we would, without compromising one iota of our conscientious belief, each recoo-nise the other's truth and then bend all our efforts to convey to them our own, we should have found out that master secret of Christ's blessed Gospel — how, in- deed, whilst ' we loved as brethren' to ' contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the Saints' — how, indeed, to ' speak the truth in love.' Or, take a matter of practice, in which the same difference of opinion is expressed and fixed, and by which it is too often embittered — I mean the conduct of our public services. On the one hand there is, as we are all aAvare, a strong tendency to multiply their number and to add to them as much of outward circumstance and beauty, of music and chanting, as the ritual of our Church allows.

27

On the other hand there is a strong tendency to resist all such services as innovations ; to maintain stiffly what is sometimes called the simplicity of our Protestant worship, to banish from it all that can appeal to the eye, or the ear, or the natural taste, to keep it as strictly as possible to reading God's Word, to preaching its great truths, and to a distinct utterance of the prescribed words of prayer and praise, upon absolutely prescribed occasions. Now from this diversity of practice there is too apt to grow up amongst us first estrangement, and then bitterness of feeling, mutual suspicion, and too often mutual reproach.

For it is easy on the one side to point to the Puritanical rejection of our ritual as savouring of the Popish Mass Book, to the verge of which this extreme simplicity approaches ; to impute to it an undervaluing of devotion; to charge it Avith re- ducinof all relio;ion to the intellectual admission of certain truths ; and to show by the undoubted ex- ample of others, how such a scheme of religion tends at no distant period to the disregard of the very truths which were at first idolized, whilst it conducts the worshipper by the downward steps of less frequent prayers, less venerated Sacraments, and colder and more merely intellectual worship, to the chill and misty flats of the Genevan heresy.

On the other hand, it is easy to brand as merely sensual all admission of the objects of the senses into the worship of God — to urge the facility with which often-repeated acts of public worship grow

28

into formality, and to point to the pealing anthems, long processions, sublime spectacles, and wreathing clouds of incense, with which the noblest paintings, the most melting strains of music, and the most perfect artistic skill have filled the greatest Christian Temple of the West, to show how fatally the spiritual worship of the humbled soul may dege- nerate into the gorgeous ceremonial of the Papacy.

But are these mutual reproaches, with all their consequent embitterment of party strife, just, charitable, or necessary ? Is there no meeting point where, for all members of our own commu- nion, both sections of our Church may rest, without any sacrifice of that which they deem the more ex- cellent way, and from which therefore, whilst they continue their o"\vn mode, they may yet sincerely respect in each other the true piety which leads them to an allowed variety of practice?

I have no doubt there is ; and that it lies not in any formal adjustment, for universal practice, of any fixed number of services, or amount of ritualistic development. As to these, our Church leaves to us — and, I believe, most wisely leaves to us — a wide liberty on either side ; and provided that this liberty be not exceeded, and that the feelings and habits of the body of worshippers in our Churches are tenderly regarded before any changes are made, neither party has any right to impute evil to the other. But for the point of unity we must go further than this mere absence of mutual reproach ; and we must, I believe, find

29

it — first, ill being willing to admit the danger which, from man's infirmity, must beset our o^^m practice. Secondly, in being equally ready to allow the truth, which, however mingled with human error, yet disposes our brethren to cling to their own practice. And, thirdly, and above all, in fixing more steadily our view on that great ob- ject of every faithful mhiistry — the true conversion to God and the building up in the Faith of Christ of souls which he has redeemed.

For there is a truth and a danger upon both sides. There is a truth : for we ought to conse- crate every faculty, both of soul and body, to God's direct service ; to ' praise Him upon the lute and harp, with the cymbals and dances,' as well as with the living breath of the heart's devotion ; and we cannot join together too often ' in magnifying our Redeemer and our God ; though seven times a day we praised Him for all His righteous judgments.' And yet, on the other hand, it is the secret ofifering of the heart in every worshipper which alone He will accept, and there maybe cases in which this may be offered to Him most purely in worship the least assisted by external additions, and where the pro- portion of secret to public devotions is the largest.

There is, too, on both sides, a danger. For a ritual rich in the externals with which the senses mainly are concerned may be acceptable to an unrenewed heart, and tend to deepen its self-deceiving slumbers. The mere frequency of services may have the same eff'ect; and, on the other side, a

so

worship in which the avenues of all the feelings of our nature are kept closed is in danger of growing merely intellectual, and infrequent worship chills the warmth of prayer, and strikes with a benumb- ing paralysis the very soul of devotion. Nor are these dangers to be averted by a simple adoption of the opposite system. For neither will the fewest or simplest forms destroy formality ; since that obsti- nate parasite can live and grow amidst the rigours of the Pole, as well as in the heat of the Tropics, and men can fix their self-righteous trust as easily on droning out the dull repetition of the coldest form as on joining in the richest and most gorgeous ser- vices; and so, ere this, reformers have found it easier to kill by outward treatment the devotion on which formality fastens than to get rid of the formality itself. Nor will the best appointed and most frequent services kindle in the unrenewed soul one spark of genuine devotion.

The safeguard from these opposite dangers is, indeed, to be found in our higher value for the common truth — that our whole ministry is vain, un- less, through it, as God's instrument, souls are con- verted to Him, and daily renewed to greater holiness. And in acting on this conviction we shall, even with allowed diversity of action, find unity of soul with our brethren. The most developed ritual and frequent services will lose their danger, and by degrees even cease to be objects of suspicion to all reasonable men, if those who conduct them are indeed full of a burning desire to save souls in the

31

simple Gospel way of Justification by Faith in Christ crucified; and services of the plainest sim- plicity will yet be kept free from aridity and chill, if they are full of love to the person of our Lord, and are offered in a ministry which is spending itself in passionate desires to bring souls to Him.

Blessed, my Brethren, were it for us here, and, oh ! most blessed for us at the day of His appear- ing, if, laying aside our party judgments and our uncharitable words, we bent the whole force of our spirits to win from Him this burning love for souls — this single-eyed resolution to count all else in vain until by His Spirit they were converted to Him. And if, leaving as far as possible the strifes of these busy times, we were more fully to devote our energies to dealing in detail with the souls committed to our charge — to awakening in them a deep and personal sense of sin — a real value in their own experience for the work of Christ's atone- ment, and a resolution never to rest until they had sought and found Him as their own Eedeemer, we should soon, my Reverend Brethren, know at once more strength and more unity in our high and arduous calling; we should find our own spirits kept, through God's help, in quietness and confi- dence amidst all the trials of these dangerous times. Suffer me to add to these general principles a word or two of more detailed caution. We should then, I am certain, secure more abundantly the blessing of the peacemakers, if we would lay down for ourselves the rule —

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I. Of never making or encouraging remarks upon another's ministry, unless charity or neces- sity require.

II. Of cultivating all lawful opportunities of free religious intercourse with our brethren in the ministry. Isolation breeds suspicion and estrange- ment; free religious intercourse engenders sym- pathy, confidence, and love.

III. Of avoiding meetings and societies within the Church, the bond of which is not her ministry, her work, or her objects, but peculiar and discri- minating views on these j for such must soon be- come, if they are not at first, the gatherings of partizans, which will infallibly injure our charity, and too probably divide the common body. The distinction is simple and important. Clerical meetings, for example, the mere bond of which is that you exercise in the same district a common ministry, and at which, with a due regard to official position in the Church, you meet your brethren of all shades of opinion, are a powerful instrument of union ; whilst such gatherings, if limited to those who hold, or suppose themselves to hold, the same peculiar views, and to which others are not bidden, become direct encouragements of a censorious spirit, and incentives to schismatical action.

No labour, no watchfulness can be too incessant and minute, in seeking to maintain around us and within ourselves a loving spirit. If it shall please God to give us this gift, great will be our service for Him; for as divisions in the religious

33

body of the nation are the great impediments to the nation's religious life and service, so are our suspicions and uncharitable judgments of each other in the Church the one master cause of our Church's weakness in her work. How can it be otherwise, when such words as these meet us in every page of God's Word — ' By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one to another.' 'Be ye all of one mind; love as brethren, having compassion one of another: be pitiful, be courteous.' That we have, as I believe, more of this brotherly union than we had is then first one of God's greatest gifts to us for the present, and next one of His best promises for the future.

With this greater peace amongst ourselves, I trust I do not err in believing that we are doing our work, upon the whole, with increasing dili- gence. There are, I believe, very few, if any, of our present body who are drawn away from their proper labours to those diversions, against which, in my first Charge, I felt it my duty to give you my emphatic warning ; and the returns which you have made to me show an increase in the number of our services, our celebrations of the Holy Eucharist, and, contemporaneously with these, of our worshippers and our communicants. I shall not, I trust, weary you by giving you a few of the figures which mark this improvement.

Whereas, then, in 1848, 191 places in the Diocese were returned to me as having only a

D

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single service on the Sunday, there are now, in Berks, but two parishes which have not double duty, in almost all cases with a second sermon, or catechising; and those two adjoin each other, and with a joint population of less than 500, are under one rector ; Avhilst in many there are three services upon the Sunday, and frequent week-day services. In Oxfordshire, there are only eleven parishes with very small endo^vments, and a population varying from sixteen to ninety, which have but one full service each on Sundays, with, however, a second in the adjoining parish; and fourteen others, all with endowments too small to maintain a single pastor, and sharing, therefore, the services of the clergyman with a neighbouring parish; and but four other cases ; whilst, in Buckinghamshire, there are but twenty-one parishes of the like small popu- lation and poverty of endowment, in which there are not at least two Sunday, besides other services. In the frequency, also, of adminis- tering the Holy Communion, there has been a marked increase. In 1848, there were 6 parishes in which that Holy Sacrament was administered only three times in the year; 238 in which it was administered only four times; and only 98 wherein it was administered monthly. There are now none in which it is administered less than four times; only 131 parishes in which it is ad- ministered so infrequently as that; and 233 parishes in which it is administered at the least once in the month, and upon the greater Feasts. There were then

35

but seven, there are now thirteen, churches where it is weekly offered to the faithful worshipper. More- over— which I think especially worthy of your notice — the average attendants at the celebrations have increased in number as these have become more frequent. The average attendance in 1848, in 112 places, where the administration was only four times in the year, having amounted to 1706; whereas, the average attendance at the same places, at the present more frequent celebrations, amounts to 1808 persons; so that, instead of the multiplication of the celebrations having — as some have feared it might, — diminished, it has directly increased the number of attendants at every cele- bration. I do not doubt that nothing but the laudable desire to introduce even salutary altera- tions as gradually as possible, has prevented a more universal increase in the number of the times of celebration. But I earnestly and aifectionately entreat you, my Reverend Brethren, to offer, at the very least, once every month, to the flock intrusted to you, this eminent means of grace.

To turn now to another point. Not only are Schools, as we have seen, multiplying in our Diocese, but they are also increasing in efficiency and rising in character. This I attribute in great measure to the results of that system of Diocesan School Inspection* which is every year

* See in the Appendix the General Instructions for the Direction of the School Inspectors.

D 2

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more completely pervading our parishes, and which has never failed, especially where uniformity in the subjects of instruction has been adopted by the School Managers, to raise very speedily the character of the School. To my Reverend Brethren of the Clergy who, without any other remuneration than the sight of the good which they have done, and the gratitude of their brethren and their Bishop, have undertaken and so efficiently dis- charged this important office, I desire here to tender my public thanks.

In another respect, moreover, I feel certain that I am not deceived as to the improved condition of this Diocese. Nothing can be more marked than the alteration which I observe in the conduct, manner, and demeanour of those whom you have at my recent circuits through your parishes brought before me for confirmation. Levity, once too common amongst us, has even in its slightest indications, I thank God, been of late the very rare exception to the manifest attention, feeling, and intelligence which have distinguished your candidates for that holy rite.

With this improvement as to our home interests, I am thankful to find, as could scarcely fail to be the case, an increased interest in the Church's general work: larger contributions, and, what I prize by far the most highly, multiplied parochial associations, for promoting the Church's missionary work, both in our colonies and amongst the heathen.

37

That I may not weary you with details, I will contrast the collections of only two years, to show you at a glance the amount of the increase within the Diocese.

In 1846 there was collected in it for the Church Missionary Society, 2267/. 9s. 2<i. ; and last year, 2815Z. Ss. dd. ; and for the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel irrespective of the collections under the Queen's Letter, in the same years, 1676/. 9s. hd. in 1846, and 2851/. 25. 8^. in the past year; to which, to complete the amount of the aid rendered to the Colonial Church, should be added the subscriptions to various Colonial Sees which have not passed through the hands of that venerable Society.

Compare for a moment with this state of things that which rather more than a century ago a Bishop of Oxford* had to lay before the Laity and Clergy of his Diocese, when he spoke to them as I now do to you, as the picture of the times — ' Men,' he says, ' have always complained of their own times, and always with too much reason; but though it is natural to think those evils the greatest which we feel ourselves, and therefore mistakes are easily made in cordparing one age with another; yet in this we cannot be mistaken, that an open and professed dis- regard to religion is become, through a variety of causes, the distinguishing character of the

* Archbishop, then Bishop Seeker, in 1738.

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present age. Christianity is now ridiculed and railed at with very little reserve, and the teachers of it without any at all.' . . . . ' Such is the dissoluteness and contempt of principle in the higher part of the world, and such the profligate intemperance and fearlessness of committing crimes in the lower, as must, if this torrent of impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal. And God knows far from stopping, it receives .... a continual increase.' Such was the scene round him who sat in this chair one hundred years ago ; such was his augury of coming destruction. Let us look around us, and with all our evils thank God humbly for the change, and take new courage to serve Him in the ministry of that Church which He has employed as His instrument to work this blessed change.

Yet whilst I notice with humble thankfulness to God these signs of good, I must not lead you, my Brethren, to suppose that we may safely rest contented with that to which we have already attained. Far otherwise. Every review of our work and of its present discharge should deeply humble us, and stir us up to far more diligent exertions. Look at it from which side we may, this conclusion must be forced upon us. Take, for example, the attendance of our people at the weekly service of the House of God, and see how far we can be satisfied with the results with which it supplies us as to their religious state. The popu- lation of this Diocese at the last census was returned

39

as 503,072. The returns and calculations of the compiler of the religious census give us 147,362 as having attended on the census Sunday our churches, from which estimates your own returns of your average congregations do not materially differ, leaving a fearful majority of 354,680 who on that day did not attend the appointed public services. From this number are indeed to be deducted the very young, the sick, the infirm, and the regular worshippers whose attendance on that day was specially prevented. But even after making all these deductions on the most liberal scale, how large a balance of living souls whom we ought to win for God still remains against us in the great account! It is indeed a matter of thankfulness to know that we may charitably hope that many of these (the same calculation would give as many as 91,977* in this Diocese,

* The proportion of these in the several counties which make up the Diocese is worthy of remark. The population of the thi'ee counties varies little, though Bucks is the least numerous and has the smallest town population. It stands thus : —

Oxfordshire 170,439

Berks 170,065

Bucks 163,005

But the numbers of the Dissenting Congregations are exactly reversed, standing thus : —

Bucks 40,953

Berks 27,102

Oxfordshire 23,922

It is worth inquiring to what this remarkable difference is to be attributed. Is it not in great measure that Bucks has been so long left to be the languid extremity of the former vast Diocese of Lincoln ?

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and not much short of half this number in one of its counties) were engaged in worshipping God, though in separation from us ; but to say nothing here, because I have already spoken elsewhere on the subject, of the errors which are likely to have swelled this number; — nor ao;ain to susf^^est that many of those who appear in this enumeration as attendants at the evenino- meetino;s of Dissenters had probably attended and been already counted in the morning congregation of some Church; — nor again, to urge (though it is most true) that we, as members of the Church of England, ought not to rest contented until these our brethren of the separation are brought to that more excellent way of worshipping the Lord which we doubt not that we possess, — it is surely enough for us to remember that, even with the addition of this whole number, without making any deduction from it, there would still remain a deficiency amongst us of 262,703 who paid that day no homage in any congregation to the Lord our God.

Nor can we doubt that the great mass of these would, if we questioned them, profess that they belonged to us. I have taken some pains to ascer- tain what is the relation between the whole number of those in your parishes who profess themselves members of the Church, and the averages of your congregations, and I find that, in a large number of parishes, the average congregation rarely ex- ceeds one-fourth of the professing churchmen of the parish. From which fact may, I think, be draAvn two important conclusions. First, that all

41

calculations of the relative numbers of Churchmen and Dissenters based upon attendance at church or meeting on a census Sunday must, however accurately they are taken, be utterly fallacious. For whilst, as we have seen, the ratio of the con- gregation in the church to the church-people of the parish is often not more than one to four, the Sunday's attendance at the meeting is so eminently the distinctive act in the religion of Protestant Dis- senters, that their ordinary congregations go far to exhaust their numbers. But then this follows, secondly, that remissness in attendance on public worship is a special sin of those who count them- selves our people, and that we therefore ought above all others to labour to rouse all our flocks to a truer faith and a more earnest piety ; to remove the many hindrances to the worship of the poor which the selfishness of wealth, or the decays of age, have brought into our churches ; and to win by all lawful means to our appointed services the awakened affections of our people.

Again, if we test our work by its effect on the education of the nation, we shall find, I think, no grounds for any enervating self-gratulation. No thoughtful observer of the present times will, I think, doubt that the report on the education census is correct in saying that ' good schools, on reason- able terms, for children of the middle classes, are more needed than any other.' But, alas ! how little are we doing to supply them ? And yet how readily this most important class of society would avail themselves of good schools, if we had them to offer,

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is sufficiently shown by the great and continued success of the Diocesan School at Cowley, with its 120 boarders.* To this, then, I would especially invite your thoughts, and beg you seriously to consider how we may proceed to wipe off this stain, and provide, for our great middle class, schools to which they may with full confidence intrust their children. In many places I believe that the germ of such institutions may be found in our existing endowed schools, if they can be purged from the abuses which now defeat their usefulness. In other cases, under the powers of the Charity Commis- sioners, two or three of these foundations might be consolidated into one such school. I shall gladly co-operate with any of you, my Brethren, clerical or lay, who will give your attention to the subject, and confer with me upon its details hereafter.

But, again, if we turn to those parochial schools, in which we are training the great mass of the population, we shall find, I think, in a calm

* The following advertisement, which appeared some time since in the county papers, will show at a glance the present state of this School : —

OXFORD DIOCESAN CENTEAL SCHOOL, Cowley, near Oxford.— Number strictly limited to 120 Boarders. J. M. C. Bennett, Head Master. Term commencing Michaelmas, 1854. — Notice is hereby given that all the Vacancies in Cowley School for the present Term are filled up. Parents wishing to enter their Sons at Cowley School are respectfully informed that names can now be received for the Tei'm commencing Christmas next, or for the Term commencing Easter, 1855. The cost for a Youth at Cowley School is 27Z. per annum, there being no extra charge for Books, Stationery, or Tuition.

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survey of this department of our work, abundant reasons rather for making fresh exertions than for resting in our labours. For, first, though the numbers in our various schools are large, yet they are not at all so many as they should be. To supply us with data for examining this proportion, let us compare the numbers in our schools with the figures supplied by what appears to be a reasonable calculation by the author of the Education Census, of the numbers who ought to pass under our hands. By the calculation of Mr. Mann, one-sixth of the population ought to be under instruction, whilst of this number one-third will be receiving private and the remaining two-thirds must depend upon the means provided for public education. Taking, then, the population of the Diocese at 503,042, one-sixth of this number, or 83,840 children, should be under education. But of these, one-third may be set down as the fit subjects for private education, leaving 55,892 for public education. The returns of the Education Census, which, in sj^ite of some remarkable errors,* appear on the

* The returns of the Oxford Union Education Census Div. III. p. 92, are strikingly inaccurate. The returns of the Census Report are : —

OxFOED Union. Excluding St. Clement's and St. Giles'.

No. of

Schools, Children.

Class III. Church of England 8 ''^^ { 387 females

Sunday Schools 5 563

whole to be tolerably accurate, give the total number of children receiving public education in the day-schools of the Diocese as 35,899, of whom 2242 are taught in schools supported by Dissenters, 3480 in schools unconnected with any peculiar religious teaching, and 30,177 in schools connected with the Church of England. Your own returns inform me that nearly 3000 more — that is, in exact numbers, 32,981 — are actually under education in your day-schools. Assuming, then, either of these numbers as correct, it aj)pears that a large number of children are growing up around us without any systematic education ; and though we may take to ourselves the comfort of knowing that Berks and

whereas the actual number of Schools and Children stands thus : —

No. of Schools.	Names.	Number on Book.	Total.
Boys.	Girls.
2 1 1 2 1 1 2 2 2 3 1	St. Aldate's	46 150 50 64 50 10 40	56 100 104 60 120 45 ) 16 infauts J 10 40 ) 40 infants J	102 150 100 154 124 120 111 20 130 120 35
St. Ebbe's
Trinity District St. Thomas
Floating Chapel ... St. Paul's
St. Mary Magdalene St. Michael's
St. Peter-le-Bailey . . . St. Peter in the East Holywell
18				1166

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Oxfordshire stand in the census calculations* amongst those counties in which the highest ratio of the population is under training, yet the actual deficiency in numbers should stir us up into greater efforts. But still more, my Brethren, should we be impelled to greater efforts if we duly estimated what is actually the amount of this education which we are able to give. This, at the very best, must, in our agricultural parishes, be of far too poor a quality from the early age at which the necessities of their parents, and their small value for educa- tion, take the children from us. How poor its quality is, few know better and few lament, I believe, more than we do. Nothing more convinces me of its insufficiency as an instrument for duly forming

* The actual ratio given in tlie Education Census stands thus : —

Proportion per cent, of Cliurcli Scholars to the Population in the following Counties.

Wilts 7-27

Southampton 6'87

Dorset 6-81

Hertford 6-67

Berks 6-48

Oxford 6-24

The county of Bvicks sta ds below several others as 5"10

— Census Report, p. 38.

Proportion per cent, of

Day Scholars to the County

Population.

*Westmoreland 15'4

*Rutland 14-8

Southampton 14'3

Hertford 140

*Huntingdon 14 '0

Kent 13-9

Oxford 13-8

Berks 133

after others Bucks 11-6

* The small population of these counties accounts in a great mea- sure for their standing so high in the list.

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either the intellectual or the spiritual life of our pupils, than the fact, that whilst the vast propor- tion of the labouring class are manifestly thus instructed by us, they emerge into manhood with so little distinctive mark of any specific religious training stamped upon their characters. Well may Mr. Horace Mann declare that, ' as in. many years past, four-fifths of all the children who have passed through these public schools must have been in- structed in the schools of the Church of England. At first sight it appears inevitable, that in course of time the mass of the population educated of necessity in Church of England schools, must gradually return to that community.'* And surely that the fact should be so different from this rea- sonable expectation, should be a matter for the gravest thought, and a ground for new exertions, to every one of us ; that, God helping us, we may so mend the whole system and practice of training in our schools, that our scholars may learn under our hands to love their Pastor and their Church, and may go forth to their several callings with the distinct character of Church of England religion stamped deeply on their daily life and habits.

If this, my Brethren, is our lesson from examin- ing carefully into the effects produced upon the scholars in our schools, is not the same conclusion brought even more forcibly home to us, if we turn from an examination of the mere numbers of those

* Education Census Report, p. 54.

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who in our several parishes would count them- selves our people, to the actual results of our several ministries upon their moral and religious characters. Deeply have I felt this, my Reverend Brethren, as I have mused over the thoughtful and practical answers which so many of you have given to me, as to the chief hindrances of your ministrations. Some of these are found by many of you in our present miserable ' beer-shop system,' that great demoralizer of our agricultural popula- tion, with the ' drunkenness' which it produces; some in ' Dissent,' that bitter legacy from old eccle- siastical corruptions and long habits of neglect, which so cripples, wherever it is strong, our eiForts ; some 'in the need of an increased episcopate;' many ' in the miserable dwellings of the poor;' ' the labour of women in the fields ;' ' the straw plaiting ;' ' in the early age at which the children are taken from our schools;' ' in the want of cor- dial lay support ;' ' in narrow means, with the need of curates, schoolmasters, and charity, which those narrow means render it impossible to supply ;' * in the length of our services ;' ' in the obstacles of a scattered population ;' ' inconvenient parish bounds ;' ' inadequate church room for the poor ;' ' pews ;' ' the irreligion of employers ;' ' the want of all discipline ;' ' the want of a corporate feeling in the Church;' 'the looseness of the times.' But many, too, in matters which most directly concern ourselves — ' in the want of more devotedness ;' ' in our own insufficiency ;' ' in the want of cordiality.

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and a possible uniformity of action amongst our- selves ;' ' in the straitening amongst us of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.' How real, and how full of matter for our thoughts and prayers, is such a catalogue as this with which you have furnished me ! Which of us, my Reverend Brethren, be he the most successful Parish Priest amongst us, does not, as in God's sight he reviews his work, count over anxiously his flock, and strive in solemn thought now to see them, and his own prayers and labours for them, as he will see them when he stands face to face with them before the Great White Throne, upon the awful Day of Judgment — which of us does not feel the poverty and insufficiency of all his efforts. And if this be indeed the truth as to the most laborious and successful Pastor, how fares it with too many amongst us? Are our people truly con- verted to God, really renewed by the Holy Ghost, and daily edified in the faith? Do they know and love their Lord and Saviour? Do they strive against sin as we would have them do ; or even as, through the power of God's grace, they would do, if we all were making full proof of our ministry ? My Reverend Brethren, I need not answer the question : we can answer it each one for ourselves. And that answer I trust will forbid the rising in any one of our hearts of the benumbing thought that if there be of God's grace, as I doubt not there is, some real improvement amongst us, we may therefore stand still. It will, I trust, stir us all up, first, to pray more earnestly that we may

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ourselves know in greater power the blessed truths of redemption through the blood of Christ, and sanctification through his Spirit, and then to give ourselves with a new devotion of every faculty of our souls and bodies, in our several parishes, to bring home the Name, and Atonement, and Work of our crucified and risen Lord to every soul com- mitted to our oversight.

Nor are these duties in any way confined to us of the Clergy. Far otherwise. You, my Brethren of the Laity, and very specially you who bear the weighty and important ecclesiastical office of Churchwardens, are bound herein to labour with us. Besides your immediate functions — -first, of attending the services of God in your parish churches, seeing that all in them is conducted according to rule, keej^ing order in them if need be, supporting your Pastor in his labours there, suffering no alteration whatever in the fabric or internal arrangements of the Church, to which the Ordinary has not consented (as to Avhich I must again press on you that every Churchwarden who permits such alterations to be made, exposes him- self to the danger of being compelled, at his own proper cost, to undo them) — besides, I say, all these immediate duties of your office, you are bound by the highest obligations to labour in your several stations, to aid with all your powers the Minister of God's Word in your parish. You have, many of you, the greatest conceivable means for marring or for furthering his work. Your example will

E

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be, to a great degree, copied by your workpeople and dependents. If they see you regular and devout in your attendance at Church and at the Lord's table — if they gather from your actions and ordinar}'- words, that you care for your oAvn souls and for theirs, that you love your Pastor, or at all events honour him for his office sake, the like spirit will spread down to them, and the blessings of an united well-ordered parish will be yours. And these blessings are, even as regards this world, so many and so great, that your reward will not even here be small. Better work, the labour of those who toil ' not with eye service as men-pleasers,' but as those who know that they are serving God, freedom from the destructive system of secret purloining, habits of sobriety, trustworthi- ness and decency, in those who serve you, will, with their love and gratitude, reward you here; and at the great day you will share the cro^vn of those who have turned many to righteousness. On the other hand, any neglect of your own religious duties will be copied fatally by those beneath you; a disorganised, unruly, dishonest parish will be here, with all the loss and suffering it inflicts on you, an earnest of your heavy reckoning at the bar of our Great Judge. I beseech you then affectionately, but with all ear- nestness, as the Chief Pastor of this Diocese, that you work with us as fathers, as masters, and as neighbours in this work of the Lord. There can be no more fatal mistake than to suppose that the

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spreading of the true faith of Christ is a matter merely for the Clergy. Christianity is so built upon and intermixed with God^s great natural and social appointments for us, that fathers with their children, and masters with their servants, have a charge from God, full as direct and certain, as have His o-svn ministers. Never, I pray you, forget this. But go back from this Visitation to work in these, your own immediate relations to those round you, the work of Him who died for you on the bitter cross. I need not enter here into any lengthened details, because my ta&k will be accom- plished, if I shall have persuaded you to take counsel as to the details of the work with your own Clergyman ; but I would suggest to you that some efficient moral oversight of the young men especially who are in your service, seeing where they are and how they are living during those hours when they are not actually working for you, must be a most important part of your duty towards them, if, as you are surely bound to do, you regard tliem not as mere animals out of whom you are to get a certain quantity of work, but as men with redeemed souls, your brethren in Christ, for all your intercourse with whom you must at last give an account. I cannot doubt, but that a very great part of the vice which ruins them and injures all of us, arises from the want of a master's friendly over-sight at these their leisure times ; and that if you would aid your Clergymen in giving them useful and improving entertainment

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for these times, so as to lead them from debasing habits of drunkenness, sensuality, or mere brute idleness, to which they too often betake themselves, from the mere want of some better employment, you would see in many cases great and immediate good resulting from such attempts.

Whatever brings them under your direct in- fluence in a kindly spirit is good for them, and there is, I fear, less of this direct influence than there was of old, when such servants lived more in their master's house, and shared his board. I say not now, how far it would be possible or expedient to restore those arrangements ; but what I press on you is to seek by some means suited to our present manners to secure the same advantages. If these young men saw that you were indeed looking to their comfort, and providing for their welfare, they would return you their confidence and affection, and you would thus become the instrument of benefiting them here, and in many cases of saving their immortal souls.

And now, my Brethren, suffer me to lead your thoughts for awhile from these matters, which more especially belong to our own Diocese, to others in which we share the general interests of the Church.

In taking such a survey, we are met at once by a subject of the utmost importance, which just now oc- cupies a large measure of attention, on Avhich, there- fore, you may naturally expect me, and on which some of you have privately requested me, to give you my judgment — I mean the teaching of our own

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Oliurclion the subject of the Holy Eucharist, and our own duties with regard to it. As to the circumstances indeed which have given a present prominence to this matter, or the particulars of the pending con- troversy, you will well understand my silence. But the doctrine in question, and the mode in which we should treat of it in our instruction to our several parishes, are so important, that no private feelings would justify my passing them over without notice. The teaching of the Church of England, then, as to this great mystery, in strict agreement with the Holy Scriptures and primitive antiquity, is, I ap- prehend, simply this. First, that there is a peculiar and supernatural presence of Christ with His peo- ple in that Holy Sacrament. That in it He does in and by the due reception of the consecrated elements convey to the faithful believer a real partaking of His body and of His blood, whereby the souls of His faithful people are nourished and refreshed. But, secondly, that He has not revealed to us the mode or conditions of that presence; which, being Divine and supernatural, is not to be thought of, or made the subject of argument, as if it either were governed by the laws, or involved the consequences of a material presence. To the many questions, therefore, which may be raised touching the conditions, or mode of this presence, our Church gives no answer; but protests against their dis- cussion as being curious and dangerous; as being likely to lead, and as having led those who enter- tained them, into many errors; and as, therefore,

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to be discouraged as attempts to be wise above what is written. As to one of these, indeed, because it specially threatened the faith of her own children, she has pronounced a distinct and emphatic censure ; condemning the Papal solution of the mystery in terms which apply to it alike in its grosser fonn of an undisguised belief in the transformation of the bread and wine into flesh and blood, and in that subtle refinement of the fancy, whereby — whilst the theory of a material change is still preserved — its grossness is veiled, for more educated intellects, by the declaration, that the substances of the bread and wine, in their highest essential being, are removed, and for them mira- culously substituted the essential substance of our Lord's body, whilst the accidents of that altered substance, such as taste, colour, shape, and the like, remain, through God's power, unchanged, so as to delude the senses. This doctrine of Transub- stantiation, — ^the fruitful source, or apt ally, in the Papal communion of so many and such dangerous superstitions, — our Church condemns in no falter- ing accents, as being unknown to primitive times, incapableof proof by the Holy Writ, but repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, as overthrowing the nature of a sacrament, and having given occasion to many superstitions. But this direct condemnation of the teachers of error is not her common course. Rather, for the most part, has she guarded the faith by a simple denial of the erroneous doctrine, or even by asserting, with

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authority, the distinct truth, which those who have maintained the error she condemns, have en- deavoured to disfigure, or deny. Thus in de- claring, that ' to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, partake of that sacrament, the bread which we break, is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing, is a partaking of the blood of Christ.' And again, ' that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper ;' and again that ' the wicked do not therein partake of Christ ;' and once more, ' that the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spiritual manner ;' she asserts those truths which are darkened by the confusing and erroneous doctrine of consubstan- tiation, and denied by the cold naturalism of the Zuinglian -theory, wliich resolves the reality of Christ's presence into the quickened apprehension of the devout worshipper ; but whilst she has thus authoritatively reasserted the truths which were in peril, she has not stepped aside to censure by name either the one error or the other.

This, then, being so, Ave may, I think, without difficulty, gather what should be our teaching as to this great mystery.

We should first, and above all, in opposition to the unbelief which is so natural to the heart of man, insist upon the reality and truth of that super- natural presence which our Lord is graciously pleased to vouchsafe in that Sacrament to the

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worthy receiver. Next, we should discourage, to the utmost of our power, all speculations as to the mode of that presence, the reality of which we in- culcate. Further, whilst we should distinctly con- demn every specific form of erroneous teaching, concerning the mode of that presence, which our Church has actually censured, we should watch against that dogmatical spirit which would lead us to anathematize all with whose statements ours do not exactly harmonize ; remembering the modera- tion and wisdom which has led our Church to seek to maintain undefiled the purity of the Faith, by an unreserved and uncompromising reassertion of the truth which heresy assails, rather than by a direct condemnation of the holders of error; and being on our guard lest we be rashly led, on the mere strength of our individual judgment, to multiply censures which she has advisedly withheld. Lastly, we should labour to lead our people from curious questions as to that which is eminentl}^ a mystery, to be received simply by faith, and not argued out by the subtlety of reasoning, to an humble and un- questioning belief in the working of the Power of God, and to earnest longings for the great spiritual blessings, which, if they come aright, will be vouch- safed to them in thus partaking of Christ. And if at any time we are forced to enter further upon this mystery, we should keep as closely as possible to the letter of Scripture, and to the inculcation of the doctrine as a revealed fact in its bearing upon prac- tice ; remembering, what is admitted even by

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Bellarmine, ' that though it is a matter of faith to believe that Sacraments are instruments whereby God worketh grace in the souls of men, yet that the manner how He doth it, is not a matter of faith.'* Surely, to turn our own minds, or the minds of our people, to such inquiries, instead of seeking simply that nourishment of our souls which the Lord is then imparting to us, is as if they whose bodies He was graciously feeding in the wilderness with the broken bread and the distributed fishes, had turned aside from that provision which He was making for their need, in order to ascertain whether, at the time of blessing, or in the breaking, or the giving, or the receiving, was vouchsafed the multiplication of the loaves and of the fishes ; on which, instead, it was their wisdom and their duty thankfully to feed.

Thus, for example, instead of speculating upon what is received by the unfaithful in the Lord's Supper, or dogmatizing thereon as to what may seem to some to be infallible inferences with res-ard

a

to a matter on which Holy Scripture is well nigh silent, and as to which, if the presence be, as we undoubtingly believe it is, indeed immaterial, we have no data for constructing an argument, we should remember that, though our Lord's promise is sure, and though, therefore, where the whole appointed rite is duly performed in all its parts,

* Qaoted by R. Hooker. See Note 22 to Eccles. Pol., V. 6 Edit. Oxford, 1836.

including equally the consecration of the elements, and their faithful recejDtion, the presence of the body and blood of Christ are certain to the faithful receiver, yet that we have no right to stop after the prayer of consecration, or at any other inter- mediate point in that which by the Lord's appoint- ment is one undivided whole, and to argue that at that time, that Divine Presence must have been granted, which is promised only to the act of duly giving and receiving, and not to any of its several parts. We shall, therefore, do well, as to this mysterious matter, to confine ourselves to assert- ing with our Church, that the ungodly are, in par- taking of the consecrated elements, 'in nowise partakers of Christ,' and yet, that, in eating that bread and drinking of that cup unworthily, they partake not of common food, but, as our church teaches again, ' to their own condemnation do herein eat and drink the sio;n or sacrament of so o-reat a thing,' as the Body of the Lord, and do that, for the doing of which of old many of the Corinthian Christians were ' weak and sickly, yea, and many slept.'

Suffer me before I leave this subject to sum up all that I would impress upon you in the words of one, whose devotion, sobriety, and learning, stamp him as a fit exponent of the views and temper of the English Church, and whom all posterity have consented to revere as judicious.

' The fruit of the Eucharist,' says Richard Hooker, ' is the participation of the body and blood

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of Christ. There is no sentence of Holy Scripture which saith that we cannot by this Sacrament be made partakers of His body and blood, except they be first contained in the Sacrament, or the Sacrament converted into them. ' This is my body,' and ' this is my blood,' being words of promise, sith we all agree that by the Sacra- ment Christ doth really and truly in us perform His promise, why do we vainly trouble ourselves with so fierce contentions, whether by consub- stantiation, or else by transubstantiation, the Sacrament itself be first possessed with Christ or no? A thing which no way can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand, because our par- ticipation of Christ in this Sacrament de^^endeth on the co-operation of His omnipotent power, which maketh it His body and blood to us, whether with change or without alteration of the element, such as they imagine, we need not greatly to care nor inquire.'*

* This passage was objected to by the Puritan authors of the Christian Letter, 34, as ' seeming to make light of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as a matter not to be stoode upon or to be contended for, cared for or inquired into.' Hooker's MS. note shows how far this was from his meaning : ' Not,' he says, ' to be stood upon or contended for hy them, because it is not a thing necessary ; although, because it is false as long as they do per- sist to maintain and urge it, there is no man so gross as to think in this case we may neglect it. Against them it is said .... It sufficed to have believed this, (the Communion of Christ in the Holy Sacrament,) and not by determining the manner how God bringeth it to pass to have intangled themselves with opinions so strange, so impossible to be proved true.' — Hookjee's Eccles. Fol., Book V. Sect., Note 22, Oxford Edit. 1846.

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And now, my Brethren, let me turn your thoughts to the general bearings of an event of the last three years, which I deem of the greatest moment to the welfare of our Church : I mean the practical revival which has taken place of the deliberative functions of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. On a matter of such moment, and so directly concerning yourselves, who may at any time be again called upon to exer- cise the important privilege of choosing your repre- sentatives in the Lower House, you will doubtless feel it right that I should give you my judgment and its grounds. Perhaps the easiest mode in which I can at all treat of this great subject Avithin the narrow limits which necessity prescribes to me here, will be to survey with you the chief objec- tions which have been urged against this revival, and to lay before you the answers by which their force appears to me to be removed.

The first argument, then, is no less than that all Church Councils are mischievous ; and that ecclesi- astical history proves that they have ever abounded in strife, and even stirred it up, when without them it would have subsided.

Now to this general objection this general answer ought, I think, to suffice : That we may gather from God's Word, as well as from primitive antiquity, that such Councils are a part of the con- stitution of the Church of Christ, as it was ordained by Him. For the government of the Church, which was manifestly entrusted first not alone to

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St. Peter, but, to the Apostles as a body, and after them to their successors, and not to any Pope or supreme earthly head, required that they in whom this charge of government was vested in common should meet for mutual counsel ; and again, their absolute rule was tempered by the requirement that, to give full validity to their decisions, there must be added to them the consultation of the Elders and the assent of the Brethren. This is the constitution of the Church as we find it in the record of the first Council of Jerusalem ; and thus it was administered by those who were inspired by God the Holy Ghost, and who had received personally their own commission from the Lord himself. And this first example was followed in the earliest times. Any difficulty which arose was settled not by the supremacy of Rome, but by the joint counsel of the Apostles and Elders and Brethren who came together to consult of the matter, nothing doubting but that God the Holy Ghost would aid and direct their counsels.

This answer is surely sufficient for every one who believes in the Inspiration of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, and believes further that God the Holy Ghost has not forsaken the congregation of Christ's people. Nor has the objection that Councils were times of strife any weight against this argu- ment. To a great degree they must from their nature have been so. They were held because there was a strife to settle; as well might it be argued that the presence of the Judge makes the

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litigation wliicli he settles, as that the Council caused the strife as to which it pronounced the judiiinent of the Churcli. I know indeed of no other colourable plea which can be urged for an objection which if it had prevailed of old would have forfeited for us the great doctrine of our Lord's divinity which was secured untlcr God's guidance by the Council of Nicani, save a few hasty words of St. Gregory Nazianzen, when sniartins: for the moment under recent wromr; words at variance witli all his own acts, with all his matured expressions of opinion, and which the temperate Joseph Milner* not unfairly terms ' ex- pressions of unbecoming acrimony against Councils in general' bred of ' disgust' at his own ' treatment.' But, this objection met, it is iu*ged next, that our Convocation is not a Council of the Church, but is a })urcly civil assembly, called together for the pur- pose of taxation, and having no real business now that the Clergy, as a separate estate, no longer tax themselves. I entertain no doubt, that a careful examination of yet remaining documents, will con- vince any impartial enquirer, that this objection is at variance with the early records of our Church. For no one will deny that we find, from the first da^vn of our history, the records of Provincial Synods, held here as elsewhere throughout Chris- tendom. AVe have absolute proofs of their actings, and we possess the decrees they enacted both in Saxon and in Norman times. Moreover we find it

» Milner's Cliurcli Histori/, in loco, Vol. ii., Cap. 24.

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admitted as a principle from a very early date, that the body of the Clergy had some share in these Councils, even when held for purposes strictly ecclesiastical. It cannot indeed be proved that they were so far entitled to this participation in the Councils of this land, as that these were in any way of less authority, though composed only of the Bishops of the Church, in whom alone the ultimate power of passing decrees was here, as elsewhere, lodged. But practically Presbyters were early admitted to give their counsel, and in Saxon times laymen were present, and gave their assent in these Synods. And though the jealous policy of William the Norman early severed the Laity from these assemblies, yet so far as concerned the body of the Clergy, this principle of their participation in council was continually more developed : thus, e. g.^ we find the Canons of the Council of Aries held 314, subscribed by a Priest and Deacon of the English Church; and later, in the records of our own Councils, we find the Deans and Archdeacons attending with procuratorial letters from their Clergy; and again, not long after, in a.d. 1277, we find the Archbishop summoning with the Bishops and greater dignitaries the procurators of the whole of the Clergy of the several Dioceses.*

Here, then, we have, before the attempt of Edward I. to compel the attendance of the Clergy

* A Mandate of Archbishop Boniface in 1257, ordering them to bring these procm*atorial letters, may be found in Wilkins' Concilia, i. 723.

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Avith the other members of his Parliament, before the praemunientes clause of Avhich so much has been made, the Archbishop summoning as his proper Provincial Synod, the same body which ■we now term the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. Nor did the struggle which suc- ceeded the attempt of Edward to compel the Clergy to serve in Parliament at all affect the constitution of this body. Archbishop Wake, indeed, in the first heat of his controversy with Atterbury, en- deavoured to establish a distinction between the Convocation and the proper Ecclesiastical Synod of the Province, so far as concerns their original design ; and he has been followed of late by those who have fovind it more easy to repeat — sometimes without observing his nice distinction between the origin of the body and its character — than to sift the g:rounds of his assertion. Yet he allows that the Convocation 'agreed upon Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions, that the Archbishop ratified them, and that they were forthwith pub- lished as his Provincial Ordinances :' * that is, he allows that it did the work, and claimed the power of a Provincial Council : and he allows further, that in process of time no other Provincial Councils were held amongst us. He lived, moreover, as we may gather from his correspondence, long enough, and profited enough by the clearer lightf which was

* Wake's State of the Church, Chap. i. Sec. 39. t Both as to Ai'chhishop Wake's views and the whole ques- tion of Convocation, the new edition of the Eev. T. Lathbui-y's Jlistory of Convocation contains most important matter.

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thrown upon the subject by the deeper erudition of Wilkins, to modify greatly his earlier views on the subject of Convocation, and we hear no more from him of this distinction, which in the heat of contro- versy he had endeavoured, not without confusion, to establish. Nor has any essential change since altered the relation of these Provincial Convoca- tions to the Church. For their essential character depended upon this, that they were the Synods of the Clergy, in their respective Provinces, called together by the summons, not of the Crown, but of the Metropolitans, to whom, and not to the Crown, the writs were returnable. From the first the Archbishop summoned them, sometimes merely at his own will, but often also at the King's require- ment. Then, besides making Canons, they granted benevolences, and imposed taxes on the Clergy, which no more transformed these Councils of the Metropolitan from a spiritual into a civil body, than the discussion of ecclesiastical affairs can change the King's great Council of the Par- liament from a civil into a spiritual body; for whatever they discussed, or decreed, they assem- bled as the Body Spiritual, at the summons, and to the aid of their spiritual chief, the Archbishop of the Province, as his, and not as the King's Council; and, as such, they decided upon many of the highest points of directly Doctrinal Theology.*

* Thus it was Convocation which adopted the doctrine of Transubstantiation before Wicliffe could be tried for his alleged heresy.

m

Thus these bodies continued until the submission of the Clergy in the year 1532, which was, two years later, confirmed by Act of Parliament. But neither did that act, which passed before the Keformation, and which was aimed at the Pope's power and its legatine exercise, and not against the Spirituality of this realm, aiFect the ecclesias- tical constitution of the Convocation of the Pro- vince. What it did Avas this — it provided, I. That Convocation should not be assembled without the King's writ; but it left to the Archbishop, when he had received that writ, still to convoke it, as his spiritual council, by his spiritual power. II. The act prohibited the Council, when so called together by the Metropolitan, from one particular exercise of its conciliar functions — namely, the making of Canons, — until the King's special licence to enact them was obtained. III. It pro- vided that even when, in virtue of such licence, such new Canons were prepared, they should pos- sess no authority, nor should it be lawful to publish them, until they had been assented to by the Cro^vn. IV. It re-asserted by a special enactment the old common-law principle, that no decree, even with the Sovereign's assent, should have validity which was contrary to the laws of the realm. In all other respects, the act left the Synod unaffected; and these limitations of its power clearly do not, in any measure, change its character. When sum- moned, it is still the Archbishop's Provincial Council, called together before him by an act of

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liis spiritual power, to the exercise of which the King has assented. When deliberating, it is still as the Body Spiritual, though it cannot exercise some of its most important functions without the Sovereign's licence, nor declare its conclusions without his sanction, nor make them valid without his agreement, or against his laws. But it is still the gathering of the Body Spiritual according to its ancient custom. So argues Bishop Gibson, whom none can suppose inclined to press this matter too far : ' Nothing appears in the manner of an English Convocation but what is truly ecclesiastical ; for as to the Archbishop exercising his summoning autho- rity at the command of the King, this is so far from changing our Convocations into civil meetings, that it is no more than an obedience, which has been ever paid to Christian Princes,'* Such it solemnly declares itself to be, when, in the prayers with which it opens its deliberations, it does not hesitate to beseech of God, that He who, by His Holy Spirit, was present with that first Council at Jeru- salem, would now, in like manner, brood over, and direct this holy Synod.

But even if this point is established, and it is admitted that our Convocation is the solemn ^ather- ing of our Provincial Council, Ave are met by the objection, that there is now no sufficient ground for its assembling. Now this objection must rest on one of two grounds — either that our existing system

* Synodus Anglicana, &c. p. 19. F 2

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is so perfect that it needs no change, or that such changes can be better made by other means. Yet which of these two propositions can be seriously maintained? Every thoughtful member of our body will noAv admit the pressing necessity of our being able to adapt our services, our ministrations, and many parts of our parochial system, to the work which has gro'UTi up before our Church in its missionary operations at home and abroad ; to the duly increasing requirements of our multiplying numbers ; and, above all, perhaps, to the needs, the diiiiculties, and the character of that peculiarly intelligent, and therefore peculiarly tempted middle class, which is daily increasing around us. Most men will admit further that, for the efficiency and peace of the Church, we require some means of reconsidering a body of Canons such as ours, which no man can obey, and the existence of which, therefore, as the Church's written law, must produce either a licensed anarchy, or the arbitrary supremacy of those who should be constitutional Rulers; and of perfecting a set of Rubrics, which instead of being now, as they were meant to be, rules securing uniformity of prac- tice in things indiiferent, have, in many instances, become, through the nmltitude of unsettled ques- tions which have grown up under them, occasions of strife and badges of party difference. For many of our most troublesome differences concern prac- tices admitted on both sides to be wholly imma- terial in themselves, but which as different inter-

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pretations of disputed rules have grown into the symbols of opposing views : and this ground of dif- ference might be removed at once by an authorized interpretation of the doubtful text, either one way or the other; since the difference is not about tlie matter, but about the interpretation of the rule.

All, moreover, I believe will admit that our present means of enforcing discipline, even amongst ourselves of the Clergy, are such as must be re-con- structed. Here, then, are real practical difficulties to be solved; difficulties which daily impair our efficiency; which endanger our position in the nation ; which far above all other evils, by restrain- ing our spiritual action, prevent the salvation of souls, and make our Church, if she submits with- out remonstrance to such evils, surely guilty of their blood. It is, then, for the remedy of these practical abuses, which in every institution of which men form a part must grow up with the lapse of years, that we need the living action of the Church's Provincial Council ; for it is for such works as these, and not as has been suggested for such mutual consultation as may be found at Clerical meetings, or for such Diocesan matters as Boards of Education and Church Building Com- mittees can transact, that we rejoice to see the revived action of our Convocation.

There is, then, work needed to be done; but further, that work, we maintain, can most safely and most properly be done by this instrument. For if committed to any other, it must be either

TO

to the Houses of Parliament alone, or to them pre- ceded by special commissions from the Crown. Now to the first of these modes there is one suffi- cient objection, even if no other could be urged, namely, that every day proves more plainly that Parliament cannot, without the assistance of some other body, do the work we need. For such changes need in their framers much consideration, great knowledge of details, great acquaintance with the temper, feelings, and desires of those whom they would aiFect ; and Parliament has not, and for the most part know^s that it has not, these qualifications ; and in the judgment of all men, has not time for the amount of discussion and delibe- ration w^hich such legislation, if carried on only within its walls, would certainly require. Would, then, all we need be best supplied by the action of Parliament, aided by the inquiries and reports of commissions from the Crown ? for many reasons w^e think not. First, because there would be about such a mode an arbitrary character wholly alien from all our institutions. It is true that such commissions have in former times been issued, yea, and done good service; but the chiefest of these were commissions for the appointment of which Convocation had applied, and which acted to a large degree with its delegated power; and as to those which had not this sanction, we must bear in mind that they were appointed in times of eminent and pressing trouble, when for the season it was judged

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necessary to suspend the ordinary rules of con- stitutional practice; and such precedents no wise man would needlessly follow. Secondly, because the substitution of such a method for the delibera- tion of the Church's own lawful Provincial Council would wound needlessly many tender consciences, and become a new, and too probably powerful cause of further troubles and perhaps divisions in our o^vn body, and a ground for fresh triumph to our watchful and malignant enemy the Papal schism in this land. Thirdly, because such com- missions would necessarily want one of the chiefest requisites for enabling Parliament to proceed after- wards with successful legislation on such a subject- matter, namely, that opportunity of free and open discussion in the face of the Church between the advocates of various views, which alone can duly inform the public mind, prepare men for salutary changes, and at last lead to their peaceful enactment. We come then to the conclusion, ( 1 ) that by the constitution of the Church, the due adjustment of her own internal policy is to be sought from God's blessing on the deliberations of her Councils. (2) That we have, of God's providence, still pre- served to us that which is in all essential points such a Provincial Council. (3) That there are matters amongst us needing urgently its present handling. (4) That to no other body can their due discussion be so well entrusted. But behind all these there still lurks the ol)jection which, after all, has with many minds the chiefest weight, namely, apprehensions

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more or less undefined of the possible evils which may- arise from this revival. With some, these are nothing more than the shadowy forms which every change conjures up before minds of a certain class. Such persons must be reminded that there is a special* ' Avoe for feeble hands, and faint hearts which have not faith :' that no changes are so violent, or so destructive, as those which at last but surely avenge the long procrastinations of those who have timidly allowed the daily upgrowth of evils which a prudent courage would with safety have severally abated : that in our own case, the loss of our whole position may be the result of not in time adapting the working of our system to the w^ants of those for whose benefit alone we can defend its maintenance : that it is in the body politic as in the body natural ; as to which he who would too closely scrutinize the possible dangers which await his moving, and act upon such fears, must sink by an inevitable necessity into the torpors of a fatal lethargy. For, as our clear-sighted Paley suggests, ' Were it possible to view through the skin the me- chanism of our bodies, the sight would frighten us out of our wits. Durst we make a single move- ment, or stir a step from the place we were in, if we saw our blood circulating, the tendons pulling, the lungs blowing, the humours filtrating, and all the incomprehensible assemblage of fibres, tubes, pumps, valves, currents, pivots, which sustain an

* Ecclesiasticus, Cap. 2.

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existence at once so frail, and so presumptuous?'* Yet to such a host of dangers we habitually close our eyes, judging it the wiser course to incur the perils of living rather than to die of stagnation. To which this only need be added, that with all our inaction we cannot prevent the changes which these advocates of stillness dread; for that these are daily inflicted on us by those who have neither the knowledge or the time needful to make them really beneficial.

But sometimes these objections take a somewhat more definite form. As for example, the revival of Convocation is spoken of as a party movement ; to which we must answer that this is only so far true, as that it is the movement of that party which believes in the Church's life, and seeks for its per- fection ; for that amongst its adherents and strongest advocates may be found the names of thosef who have been identified with both the great schools of thought under which the members of our Church are ranged.

But again we are met with the confident asser- tion that this revival of the active powers of our Synod will inevitably lead to increased strife and division within our body. Yet why should it do so? What is there in the character of English Clergymen which makes them alone of their nation

* Paley's Natural Theology.

t It may suffice to mention that of the late Eev. J. Kemp- thorne, to illustrate my meaning.

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unable to deliberate without embittered feeling? Surely, in the sight of our existing differences, it is difficult to maintain such an argument. For, if we may trust at all to experience, should we not conclude that these differences have been exasperated by the long suspension of our delibe- rative powers, and would be certainly abated by their revival? For what in the body politic so aggravates the bitterness of party strife, as the one-sided gathering of eager partisans, at which men bid against each other for party popularity with inflammatory language, and thereby disturb the judgment and inflame the passions of them- selves and of their hearers ? What, on the other hand, is more certain and uniform than the quiet- ness which is breathed over this strife, and the disappearance of these phantoms of exaggeration and delusion, as soon as the duly constituted re- presentative body opens, with fixed rules, well balanced numbers, and a sense of responsibility, its authorized debates? And who can doubt that we are suffering daily from the bitter and in- flammatory language which our ecclesiastical agitators deal forth to their applauding hearers, or that these self-chosen champions of mis-stated truths would sink into their deserved insignifi- cance, if, with the solemnizing sense of respon- sible authority, the grave Elders, the cautious Dig- nitaries, and the carefully elected representatives of our Clergy deliberated on these same topics, under God's guidance, sought by and given gra-

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ciously in answer to their earnest prayers? In truth, every argument now urged against the Church's Synods, may be found put forth with more ability and equal truth against the holding of a Parliament in those unhappy days when the first Charles was deluded into the belief that the meeting of an English House of Commons would increase the bitter strifes which it only could allay. But, again, it is urged that such assemblies Avould rush at once into polemical strife. Yet why should this happen? Certainly the experience of the present Convocation would suggest no such fears; nor would the great majority of those who would form such a Council, desire or suffer such a perver- sion of their deliberations from their true objects. We have not our Faith to seek. We are well con- tented with our catholic Formularies, with our scriptural and anti-papal Articles. Surely we may trust that the sober piety of the chosen repre- sentatives of the English Clergy would guard us from such a danger. No argument can be more unfair than that drawn from the sad and disgraceful days which shut in so darkly on the close of the last active Convocation. A great political revolu- tion had then irritated every nerve of the great body politic, and the strifes of that extraordinary period, with its disputed succession, its family discords, and its social disruptions, were repro- duced in the gatherings of the Clergy. But — not to urge that, at the very time when, to shelter Hoadly from universal censure the Convocation

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was silenced, those long strifes were hushed, and Wake himself, then at peace with Atterbury, was looking forward with hope and pleasure to an useful session, — 'why should the troubles natural to so anomalous a season be taken as the true type of the consultations of our Clergy, rather than those long repeated brotherly deliberations which through so many previous years had ren- dered such substantial service to the gospel truth and practical efficacy of our Reformed Church?

At all events the prophets of evil should surely allow a trial to be made, since a failure would but, in fulfilling their prophecies, bring to their side the whole practical judgment of the Church. Nor could any irremediable evil be thus done; for on its first appearance the Crown could interpose, and would be supported in that interposition by all reasonable men. Indeed, the safeguards which surround our existing Convocation, ought to pre- vent any from giving way to the apprehensions that in thus making trial of its possible usefulness, they are letting loose powers which, once let loose, it would be difficult again to restrain. For let it be remembered how many are these safeguards.

First, the absolute power of adjournment is now, by the consent of both Houses, vested in the Archbishop and Bishops, who could, therefore, by prorogation, terminate at any time any dangerous deliberations; or if, on the other hand, the dangers of the Church arose from the Episcopal order, the Church might be saved from evil by the dissent of

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the Clergy in the Lower House. Further, if the whole body of the Clergy were in danger of being led into incautious action, the Crown can, at any time, by a writ of exoneration, require the Arch- bishop to prorogue the whole body. Still more, when sitting for dispatch of business, the royal prerogative of issuing a licence for a special object may be so used as to define strictly the subject- matters on which the Houses shall deliberate. But yet, further, when the two Houses have agreed on any canon, it has, as we have seen, no validity, and cannot even be published until the Crown has con- sented to it ; nor can it then have the effect of law until it has been ratified by the two Houses of the Legislature. Surely, from a body legally sur- rounded by this series of jealous and effective checks, no danger of excessive action need be apprehended.

It is the more important that we notice this carefully, because many have spoken as if, in the revival of our Convocation, it were proposed to summon a Convention of the Church, Clerical and Lay, with new and untried powers of uni- versal change. Of such a scheme few of the advocates for a restored Convocation would be the supporters. And here is to be found the justifica- tion of that limit put last session to the delibera- tions of the Committee appointed to inquire into the reform of Convocation, which precluded their considering the question of the admission to the S3aiod of Lay representatives. Such a body would

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manifestly have been a Convention of the Church, not a Convocation of the Clergy. Now, to the calling such a body into action all these objections of the unknown perils, upon which the Church was entering, would truly have applied; and no prac- tical man can doubt that they would have had weight enough to prevent so uncertain a venture. For this plain practical reason, therefore, and not from any doubt that the direct concurrence of the Laity with us in our Councils, if it could safely be obtained, would add an immeasurable weight to our deliberations, was this question wisely deferred until a reformed Convocation of the Clergy, under the sanction of the Crown, could practically decide how, in their judgment, that full co-operation of the Laity, which is simply essential to our welfare, could be most safely and efficiently secured. The difficulties which beset that question do not appear to me to rest chiefly on the admission of the Laity into Synods of the Church ; to make the decisions of which binding they have, I believe, the same rights to give or withhold their assent, as her Presbyters have to tender their counsel^ or her Bishops to make their decrees ; but upon the rela- tions of such a representation of the Church to the Imperial Parliament. For if the Laymen of the Church were thus, as a body, directly represented in her Councils, Parliament could in no sense any longer claim, as the representation of her Laity, to act as her interior Legislature. I do not mean that even this would destroy that connexion between

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Church and State, from which, in spite of many- correlative evils, I believe tliat both bodies in this land receive unspeakable advantages; because the Parliament, though no longer cognisant of the interior spiritual concerns of the Church, as the Council of her Laymen, might, as the Great Council of the Nation, still legislate for her ah extra^ as the National Establishment. But it is plain that such an altered set of relations would be a great step towards the open severance of the present union of the Nation and the Church. Just the opposite will, I doubt not, be the effect of the revival of the active powers of the Convocation of the Clergy; for that which now above all things threatens the continuance of that salutary union, is that Par- liament, without the knowledge of details, or acquaintance with the Church's principles and mind, and above all, without the time essential to successful legislation for her, is her sole interior Legislature, and consequently that her essential interests are intolerably disregarded; whereas, when the Convocation has considered and publicly discussed these questions previous to their coming before Parliament, the members of the Legislature will approach them with a knowledge of the whole subject in all its bearings, which can be in no other way attained. Nor would this, as is some- times asserted, hand over to the Clergy the settle- ment of all Church questions ; for though Convo- cation would consist only of Clergymen, yet it could decide finally on nothing, until that decision

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were affirmed by the voice of the Laity in Parlia- ment.

For these reasons, my Brethren, amongst others, I rejoice unfeignedly in that practical revival of the constitutional Council of our Church, which we have been permitted to witness ; and I would urge upon you the duty of earnest prayer, that in all our gatherings God may give us the ' spirit of power and love and of a sound mind,' and guide us into such decisions as may best promote His glory and the salvation of our people.

But, my Brethren, let no man so mistake my meaning as to suppose that I look to the restoration of our Convocation, or to any other outward change, as to that which is to have the chiefest force in re- viving what is decayed, and strengthening what is weak amongst us. God forbid that I should so mis- lead any one. No, my brethren ; to Him only, the Strengthener and Reviver of His Church, would I look myself, or point your eyes. These outer matters, important as the}^ undoubtedly are in their place, do but incidentally affect our highest welfare. It is to the mighty working of His Grace in us, and through us, that we must look for every truly great result. For this, then, my Brethren, whether Laity or Clergy, let us seek more earnestly in every way of His appointing. Let us labour together to remove whatever may mipede His working, resist His influences, and drive from us His quickening, saving presence.

Such benumbing causes we may doubtless find in

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our coldness and waywardness, in our slothfulness and secularity, in our self-will and our divisions. May it please our God in these interior matters to work His work mightily amongst us. May He touch our own souls : may He enable us to feel more deeply in our own experience the energy of His converting grace. May we more fully understand how bitter is the curse of unforgiven sin, and never rest till we have sought and found His pardon and His love. May we, more than we have ever done, know in our own experience that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; and having found for our own souls the unspeakable blessed- ness of full reconciliation with our God, and had the love of Him poured into our hearts, producing in them that love of men which is the true founda- tion of all persuasive speech, may we go forth with the unutterable longing bred of such a saving knowledge in redeemed souls, to witness, by word and deed, in our several parishes, to young and old, of His mighty grace and of His great salvation.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

GUIDANCE OF DIOCESAN INSPECTORS,

Prepared hy the Suh-Committee on Diocesan Inspection, adopted hytlie General Committee, and supplied to their Lordsliips the several Bishops in those Dioceses ichere they may seem to be applicable.

The duty of a Diocesan Inspector is one of great interest and importance. He is the medium of carrying the Bishojj's influ- ence, and of convejdng an assurance of the Bishop's sympathy, into every school which he visits. Such an office requires consi- derable dehcacy and judgment to execute it with advantage ; and it is with a view to afford you assistance in your important labours, that you ai-e fm-nished with the following hints for your guidance.

The favour with which the inspection of schools under epis- copal sanction was generally regarded in those dioceses where the experiment was made, fourteen years ago, by the National Society, and the increasing popularity and acknowledged useful- ness of Diocesan Inspection dm-ing the last few years, aiford ground to expect that you will usually find clei'gymen and school-managers ready to avail themselves of yom' services in the inspection of their schools. At the same time, you should be careful in assuring them, that j'ou desii'e to claim no control over them beyond that which they are disposed to admit and to re- gard as conducive to the advancement of theii" pupils in religious and secular knowledge and in moral discipline.

Your first duty will be, to ascertain the actual state of each school by personal examination, aided by the explanations of the local managers. In the performance of this duty you will derive material assistance from the forms which are furnished by the National Society, These forms have been drawn up with great care ; they have undergone frequent revision ; and they have now stood the test of use for some years in more than one diocese. In proportion, moreover, to the degree in which the managers of different schools adopt one plan of instruction for the same

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period, will be your power of comparing with facility and accu- racy tlie relative progress made in the various schools.

As the chief end proposed is, to see that the children ai'e learn- ing that which is ostensibly taught to them, the first object of the inspector will be, to ascertain whether the children do or do not understand what they are learnmg ; and the best method of accomplishing this is, to encourage the teacher, if he be dis- posed, to mstruct the chikben in the presence of the inspector, who, by asking a few questions as the lesson goes on, may easily acquire the knowledge he desires. Your particular attention is invited to the importance of carefully examining the lower classes in every school ; since it is a raost valuable maxim in itself, as it was also a favomite saying of the honoured founder of oiu* National System, Dr. Bell, that the character of a school- master is hest ascertained hy the order and the a/ptness to learn prevailing in the lowest class in the school.

Another of yom* duties, more delicate than the first, will be to draw the attention of managers to those points in respect to which their school is, in your judgment, capable of improve- ment.

With reference to the arrangement of the time, it is desirable that you carefully examine the time-tables ; and you may find it useful to obtain copies of time-tables adopted in schools of good reputation, for the purpose of recommending any changes which you may see occasion to suggest on this subject.

In conducting the examination of th^schools on religious sub- jects, whether in the Chm-ch Catechism or in the Holy Scriptures, you will do well always to invite the assistance of the parochial clergyman, giving him the option of undertaking any portion of it which he pleases, in your presence.

In respect of religious knowledge, it is hoped that you will usually find the children familiar at least with the words of the Chm'ch Catechism, and that in most schools a considerable por- tion of the upper classes will be able to render an intelligent account of its contents. With reference to the religious instruc- tion in the lower classes of the school, it may be useful to remind schoolmasters of those parts of the Catechism to which the Church ' chiefly' du'ects attention — viz., the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. By the directions at the end of the Baptismal Service, she evidently regards acquaintance with these as a necessary preliminary to a ' further instruction' in the remaining portion.s of that formular}'. By attending to

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tills direction, the younger children will be made to understand the more simple and practical portions of that excellent formu- lary, before they enter upon the study of the deeper and more difficult ; and they will be spared the discoui-agement of having their memories loaded with forms of words to which they can attach little meaning.

You cannot lay too much stress on a familiar acquaintance with the Scriptm-e History. Children of a very tender age may be led by oral teaching to take an interest in the story of our Blessed Lord, and even to retain in their memory a connected account of his labours of love, and of his death and resur- rection. As they rise in the school you will of course ex- pect a general acquaintance with the whole of the Bible history, which may be acquired from abridgments. It is, however, par- ticularly important that there should always be combined with the use of these the study of successive portions of the Scripture itself with minute care and accuracy ; and that you should specially inquire how far they have been accustomed to draw practical inferences from the facts of Scripture history in which they have been insti'ucted.

In secular instruction your chief attention should be directed to three points :

1. Reading with distinct articulation, accuracy, proper em- phasis, and fluency. In proportion as excellence in these points is attained, children will take delight in exercising this accom- plishment at home, and convert it into a source of pleasure and improvement to other members of their families.

2. In addition to accuracy in ciphering, be careful to recom- mend that it be turned to a practical use — viz., that every child be taught at the earliest possible period to make out an account. Where children remain long enough at school to advance far in arithmetic, they should be instructed in book-keeping, mensura- tion, or navigation, as most likely to benefit them in after-life.

3. In writing, be pleased to advise that they be much exer- cised in writing from dictation and from memory, that so they may gradually acquire the power and the habit of arranging their thoughts and of committing them to paper. Considering also the changes of residence which are continually taking place in this commercial country, and especially in this age of emigra- tion, it is our duty to provide that every child who has passed through our schools shall experience no difficidty in communi- cating with his relatives or others by letter.

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Above all, be critically observant of the moral discipline of the school, and the demeanour of the scholars. A meek spirit of cheerful and prompt obedience is a more graceful ornament, a more precious treasure, than a sharp wit. A gentle and modest carriage, with moderate attainments, is to be greatly preferred to a far higher standard of intellectual cultivation, in the absence of that best evidence of religious training.

Finally, may you commence your work with such earnest prayer for the help of God as shall secure you his blessing ; and in prosecuting it may you exhibit such a spii'it of kindness towards the children, who are the lambs of Christ's flock, as shall win their affection towards yourself and towards the Church which sends you forth ; and at the same time express to them the earnest desire felt by their Bishop to promote their temporal and eternal welfare.

THE END.

LONDON :

SAVILL AND EDWAKDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

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P^a rae^ofJ' ve^^f^^^5

CHARGE

TO THE CLERGY

DIOCESE OF SALISBURY,

AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION,

IN AUGUST, 1855.

BY WALTER KERR,

BISHOP OF SALISBURY.

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SALISBURY : BROWN AND CO., CANAL.

LONDON : RIVTNGTONS. OXFORD : PARKER.

By the same Author.

SERMONS,

PREACHED AT ROME,

During the Seasons of 1580—1851, and 1851—1852,

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