iSJS^NnLF 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/churchprogresschOOrichrich 
 
-^2 
 
 CHURCH PROGRESS. 
 
 A CHARGE 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 TO THE CLERGY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE DIOCESE OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES IRICHARD, 
 
 BISHOP OF WINCHESTEK, 
 FKELATE OF THE OKDER OF THE GARTER. 
 
 AT HIS 
 
 EIGHTH VISITATION, 
 
 IN SEPTEMBER, 
 1858. 
 
 LONDON: 
 THOMAS HATCHARD, 187 PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1858. 
 
^.&Lfr<J^ 
 
 i a I 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by George Barclay, Castle St. Leicester Sq. 
 
TO 
 
 THE CLERGY 
 
 OF 
 THE SEVERAL DEANERIES IN THE DIOCESE OF WINCHESTEB, 
 
 PRINTED AT THEIR REQUEST, 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY 
 
 THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND AND SERVANT, 
 
 C. R. WINTON. 
 
 Farnham Castle, Oct. 1858. 
 
fiS3 
 
 A CHARGE, 
 
 My Reverend Brethren, 
 If, on former occasions of meeting you 
 at a season of visitation, my first train of 
 thought was connected with recollections of 
 the past, the recurrence of another periodical 
 gathering, after the lapse of another cycle of 
 years, will give birth to reflections of a kindred 
 character with yet more of vividness. The 
 reminiscences of days that are gone by for 
 ever are always solemn, sometimes affecting. 
 Some one departed who will never return, 
 something done which never can be done 
 again, acquires a sacred place in memory. 
 Passages in our life's history, of no moment 
 in themselves, — the ordinary routine of daily 
 occupation, casual conversation, change of places 
 or of persons, unheeded at the time, and fraught 
 with little interest, — assume an importance in 
 the retrospect quite disproportionate to their 
 original shape and pressure. And if this be 
 
 ivi36'?5J9 
 
true in regard to things immaterial and in- 
 different, how much truer is it in respect of 
 things of highest concern! 
 
 Let me connect this thought with the cir- 
 cumstances under which we assemble to-day. 
 Since the time when I first entered upon the 
 episcopal charge of this diocese, more than a 
 quarter of a century ago, how many revolutions 
 of the wheel of life our little world has wit- 
 nessed ! Within that period a generation of 
 pastors has been absorbed into eternity, men 
 looked up to in their day, each the centre of 
 a circle of his own, — some, perhaps, the leaders 
 of a little following. They and the flocks 
 they fed are all alike awaiting the sound of 
 the trumpet which shall summon them to stand 
 before the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. I 
 look around in vain for faces once familiar in 
 their accustomed spheres of duty. Their books 
 are closed for ever, and their candlestick is 
 removed out of its place. I listen in vain for 
 a friendly greeting from well-known voices. 
 The pitcher is broken at the fountain, and 
 the pastoral staff has descended to other hands, 
 and he who held it has gone to his long home 
 in the grave, whence he shall rise up no more 
 until the great day. What the poet sang in 
 his lament over a single village is well-nigh 
 realised in all: — 
 
" 'Tis now become a history little known 
 That once we call'd the parsonage-house our own." 
 
 Fewer than fifty remain at this day, through- 
 out the whole diocese, whom I found in their 
 parishes at my primary visit. One out of every 
 twelve, the small surviving remainder, stands 
 like a connecting link between the past and 
 present, embodying the traditions of a defunct 
 age, whose number is reduced successively from 
 year to year, till soon not a parish will be left 
 where men will remember Joseph, save by the 
 tablet in his chancel or the brass upon the 
 pavement, which records, for the instruction 
 of some future antiquary, the first and the 
 last day of his fleeting pastorate. 
 
 Yet, let us hope this is not their only 
 memorial. The Apostle speaks of his crowns 
 of rejoicing, and the seals of his ministry. They 
 survived after the time of his departure had 
 arrived and he was taken from them. And 
 ■ so of every faithful minister in Christ's Church. 
 When the grave cries Give, give! and the 
 mourners go about the streets, there will be 
 the spiritual children to perpetuate the name 
 of their spiritual fathers, and hand down their 
 memory in a record less perishable than the 
 most enduring monument, to latest generations. 
 
 But the lapse of time brings other changes 
 than that of persons. We can figure to our- 
 
 b2 
 
selves some sleeper who, a century ago, had 
 fallen into a deep trance, and, after his hundred 
 years of slumber, suddenly opened his eyes 
 again to the light of day, and awoke to con- 
 sciousness in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. We can imagine his bewilderment. 
 The earth would seem to him a new creation, 
 tenanted by a race of beings very dissimilar to 
 those with whom he had been wont to associate 
 — tillage and produce, and gardens of Paradise, 
 a smiling and a fertile land, instead of the waste 
 and wilderness — tens of thousands where he 
 had known hundreds, populous cities where 
 once stood the insignificant village hamlet — 
 men jostling one another along the crowded 
 thoroughfare of life with all that quickened 
 movement of mind and intellect which charac- 
 terises a country in its palmy state of highest 
 civilisation. He would stand amazed at the 
 developments of scientific research, the marvels 
 of steam power, the facilities of intercommuni-' 
 cation, — north calling to south and east to west 
 — a host of mighty forces at work, with a power 
 of expansion to which no limits can be assigned, 
 and fraught with results of which none can 
 fathom the extent: Look where he will, he 
 sees the mind in action — agriculture, manu- 
 factures, machinery, commerce, traflSc and tran- 
 sit, in every direction ; all departments of in- 
 
dustrial life exhibiting unmistakeable signs of 
 an age of gigantic enterprise and of activity 
 without a parallel. 
 
 Now it cannot be dissembled that, in this 
 phase of the world's history, our duties, my 
 Reverend Brethren, have undergone material 
 changes. No man can stand still in the eddy 
 of a whirlpool, or be quiescent and stationary 
 while all around him is in movement. As well 
 might he strive to stem the tide of the Atlantic 
 in the fierce surging of its waters, or wrap his 
 cloak around him and make way against the 
 storm and tempest which rend the mountains 
 in their fury. And hence arises the question, 
 whether the machinery of our Church is able to 
 bear the strain upon it. Is it sufficiently elastic 
 to expand to the extent required? Can it sus- 
 tain the pressure? Can it be made applicable 
 to the wants of a population which has doubled 
 itself since the beginning of this century, and 
 which the man of an hundred years may live to 
 see quadrupled in the interval between his birth 
 and death? Can it rise to the adequate dis- 
 charge of its duties in the correction of those 
 novel forms of error, and the propagation of 
 those new developments of truth, which the 
 actual condition of the country may demand? 
 Is there within itself such an element of vitality 
 as can survive the deadening influences which 
 
depress the overweighted and overtaxed minister 
 whose flock is counted by myriads of souls? 
 Has he means within his reach which can be 
 made available for compassing the ends for 
 which our parochial institutions were originally 
 designed ? 
 
 To such questions it is, or used to be, com- 
 mon to receive a negative reply. The inflexi- 
 bility of the Medes and Persians, and the pride 
 of purple and fine linen, were as household 
 words in their application to the framework and 
 the Clergy of our Church. Imputations of a 
 dignity which knew not how to stoop, of rules 
 without pliancy, of a system without the power 
 of expansion, and of metes and boundaries which 
 admitted neither of contraction nor enlargement, 
 were the staple arguments addressed to the 
 multitude from many quarters, and received as 
 truths by not a few who were not of the multi- 
 tude. And it must be admitted in candour, 
 and to our shame, that the deep slumber into 
 which the Church of the eighteenth century 
 had sunk gave a colour and currency to these 
 charges, which all the vitality and self-devotion 
 of a succeeding age have hardly sufliced to 
 counteract. 
 
 In looking back, however, to the origin of 
 our parishes, it will appear that the very theory 
 of their institution was based upon the principle 
 
of a division of labour within the compass of 
 individual exertion. Whether the ancient paro- 
 chial divisions were conterminous with those 
 existing for the purposes of pagan worship, or 
 were arbitrary portions of land, partitioned off 
 by the owners, on the introduction of Christi- 
 anity among the Anglo-Saxons, as the size of 
 their estates or the wants of their dependants 
 required, the number and extent of the parishes 
 were regulated by the circumstances of the 
 neighbourhood, and their limits were wide or 
 narrow in proportion to the amount of population 
 concentrated within a given space. A parish 
 was nothing more than that portion of a terri- 
 tory of which the inhabitants could be accom- 
 modated within its single place of worship, and 
 its spiritual wants supplied by the ministrations 
 of the single priest. And if needful, supple- 
 mental means were at hand, and were not with- 
 held. As the monastic institutions arose and 
 became more widely developed, they furnished 
 a body of itinerant labourers for missionary 
 work in their respective neighbourhoods, who, 
 without restriction to any definite territorial 
 limits, were recognised and authorised instruc- 
 tors, where and when their services were re- 
 quired. And further, in course of time, as 
 population increased, and families were scattered 
 at a distance from the original centre, or con- 
 
8 
 
 densed around a certain point at the confines 
 of the estate or parish, a second place of worship 
 was erected for their accommodation, and many 
 of those chapelries were formed which exist at 
 the present day, annexed to the mother church, 
 and have become, in many instances, superior 
 in importance and magnitude to the cluster of 
 habitations to which they were originally 
 affiliated. 
 
 Elasticity of expansion, therefore, is not 
 inconsistent with the theory of the Church of 
 England, and the primary construction of its 
 machinery. What advantage has been taken 
 of this liberty? It is so much easier to run in 
 the groove than to get out of the beaten track, 
 that some grasp of mind and fixity of determi- 
 nation must be possessed by those who are not 
 content to follow to-day the course pursued 
 yesterday, if they perceive it will fail to lead 
 them to the desired goal. To what extent, 
 then, has the life of the Church prevailed, so 
 as to overcome the inertness of routine, and the 
 benumbing fetters of immemorial usage? A 
 glance at the past, without going further back 
 than the present recollections of living men, 
 will be the best answer to the inquiry. 
 
 It is now more than forty years since the 
 first warning voice was raised which attracted 
 public attention to the means for increasing the 
 
9 
 
 efficiency of the Church of England. Two pub- 
 lications by the Kev. Dr. Yates, entitled, " The 
 Church in Danger," and " The Basis of National 
 Welfare," had the merit of leading the way, 
 and were speedily followed by practical results 
 in Parliamentary grants to the amount of 
 1,600,000/., and in the successive Acts for pro- 
 moting the building of additional churches in 
 populous parishes. These Acts have been much 
 blamed for complexity and inconsistency — I 
 think, in many respects unjustly. They are no 
 favourites with lawyers, and troublesome to 
 consult, because they involve the necessity of 
 careful and close comparison, in order to ascer- 
 tain the specific provisions applicable to the 
 particular case. But a practical experience of 
 the working of these Acts for many years en- 
 ables me to testify that they are invaluable 
 to church builders, in smoothing the difficulties 
 inseparable from their undertaking. The mul- 
 titude and variety of their provisions form a 
 material element in their usefulness. In build- 
 ing churches, at every step taken some interest 
 is affected, or supposed to be affected, and if 
 the Legislature had required all to have been 
 constituted according to one rule, without mo- 
 dification of circumstances as to patronage, dis- 
 trict, endowment, offices, or other incidents, 
 not one half of the actual number would have 
 
10 
 
 been erected. As eases multiplied, new clauses 
 were framed to meet tlieir specialties, and a 
 church builder now will rarely be at a loss to 
 find provisions suitable to his own peculiar re- 
 quirements, whatever they may be. Had there 
 been no complication, his choice would have 
 been limited to the bed of Procrustes. And as 
 to the inconsistencies, there is much exaggera- 
 tion ; where they exist — and they do exist — 
 they have arisen chiefly from that fruitful source 
 of ambiguity in modern legislation, the intro- 
 duction of words or clauses in the passage of 
 the bill through its various stages in Parliament, 
 without sufficient attention to their effect upon 
 the wording of other parts of the various Acts. 
 The first of these Acts was passed in the 
 58th year of George III. (30th May, 1818), 
 and in the same year were laid the foundations 
 of the Society incorporated by the 9th Geo. IV. 
 c. 42, for promoting the enlargement, building, 
 and repairing of churches and chapels. This 
 association has borne abundant fruit. Up to 
 March 31, 1857, it had received 5106 applica- 
 tions for aid. Grants have been made towards 
 the erection of 1092 additional churches, and 
 the rebuilding or increase of accommodation in 
 2684 old churches, to the extent of upwards of 
 a million (1,005,871) additional sittings, of 
 which three-fourths (775,673) are free. The 
 
11 
 
 cost of these churches exceeded 4,100,000/. 
 (4,132,988/.), of which the London Society con- 
 tributed 547,441/. The impulse given extended 
 to every part of the country. Mr. Cotton states 
 in his evidence given before the Select Com- 
 mittee of the House of Lords on Spiritual Desti- 
 tution, in the last session of Parliament, that 
 since 1801 the work of church building has 
 gone on increasing rapidly every year — 3150 
 churches have been built, at a cost of nearly 
 11,000,000/., raised by voluntary subscription, 
 for the most part.* 
 
 By the side of these large figures, the statis- 
 tics of a kindred diocesan association may sound 
 as insignificant. But I record with thankfulness, 
 that since the formation of the Winchester So- 
 ciety for promoting the increase of church 
 accommodation, it has aided in building or 
 enlarging 166 churches in Hants and Surrey, 
 with additional sittings for 51,458, at a cost of 
 278,296/., of which 33,493/. were granted from 
 the funds of the Society. A sum of nearly 
 the same amount, as a special fund for South- 
 wark, has been raised, and advantageously ex- 
 pended in promoting the building of churches 
 and schools in the suburban districts. In 
 Hampshire, within the last thirty years, 72 
 additional churches have been built, and 54 
 * Appendix to Report, qn. 141. 
 
12 
 
 rebuilt ; and in Surrey, 83 built and 31 rebuilt: 
 total, 240 new churches. During the same time 
 163 have been enlarged in Hants, and 121 in 
 Surrey : total, 284. The expenditure in build- 
 ing and improving has been 483,474/. in Hants, 
 and 820,999/. in Surrey: total, 1,304,473/. The 
 accommodation provided is 155,287 sittings in 
 Hants, and 162,156 in Surrey: total, 317,443, 
 for a population at the last census, but greatly 
 increased since in the neighbourhood of London, 
 of 1,082,621, being at the rate of scarcely 1 
 in 3^. For the three objects of churches, 
 schools, and parsonages, more than 65,000/. 
 have been expended annually in the diocese 
 during the last twenty-five years. 
 
 The details I have given may be taken as 
 proofs that the members of the Church have 
 shown no unwillingness to make provision for 
 their own wants, without laying any burthen on 
 those who dissent from her communion. Yet, 
 simultaneously with these efforts of voluntary- 
 ism, the agitation for the abolition of Church- 
 rates has become increasingly active. And 
 there is no doubt that the very erection of 
 these new churches has contributed not a little 
 to swell the cry, and has raised a class of 
 objectors within the Church, not less formid- 
 able than those without. With many of the 
 latter, the real, though not the avowed object, 
 
13 
 
 is the great question of tlie separation of the 
 Church from the State, and its reduction to the 
 level of one of the sects of the land. Many 
 join the attack on other grounds, as on the 
 plea of conscience, and the like, but its origin 
 is to be found in reality in hostility to the 
 Established Church, an institution said to be 
 out of keeping with all our other institutions, 
 and the greatest anomaly of the age.* But the 
 former class of objectors, members of our own 
 Church, have a substantial grievance of their 
 own, apart from all political or sectional con- 
 siderations. They are living in a district 
 chapelry, and find themselves rated, in common 
 with the whole parish, for the maintenance of 
 the mother-church, while they are required at 
 the same time to defray, without assistance 
 from the very rates to which they have con- 
 tributed, the expenses of their own. And in 
 the north of England especially, where the 
 parishes are of large acreage, it is mainly owing 
 to this cause that Church-rates have ceased to 
 be collected. It appeared, however, by the 
 last Parliamentary return, that of the 12,000 
 parishes of England, there were scarcely five 
 per cent in which organization against Church- 
 rates prevailed. In this diocese 16 gnly are 
 
 * Extract from " Nonconformist," in the " Liberator," 
 Jan. 1857. 
 
14 
 
 returned as having refused the rate, 8 in each 
 county. There are doubtless many more, 
 where the parishioners have paid with reluct- 
 ance and remonstrance, or where funds have 
 been provided from other sources, or collections 
 deferred under the expectation of Parliamentary 
 interference. The question has been too fiercely 
 agitated to be disposed of without an authorita- 
 tive settlement, and in point of fact the Govern- 
 ment are understood to have intimated their 
 intention of introducing a measure in the next 
 session. That measure, to be satisfactory and 
 safe, ought, in my judgment, to be founded in 
 principle on the basis of the present law, what- 
 ever be the modifications and exceptions which 
 accompany it. Meanwhile I gladly avail myself 
 of this opportunity to express my acknowledg- 
 ments to the churchwardens generally, who, in 
 the great majority of cases, have discharged their 
 diflScult and embarrassing duties with a zeal 
 and judgment which deservedly entitle them to 
 the thanks of the diocese. 
 
 These summary details, while they furnish 
 information, interesting, as I hope, to the mem- 
 bers of the diocese, as to the provision made 
 for public worship within it, may be taken as 
 evidences of progress in regard to our church 
 edifices generally. Other proofs of the spirit 
 which has been at work in adapting our eccle- 
 
15 
 
 siastical system to the wants of the times, 
 present themselves on every side. It may be 
 worth while to glance at them in connexion 
 with a Petition to both Houses of Parliament, 
 largely signed by clergy and lay members of 
 the Church in the beginning of 1833. The 
 petitioners, after thankfully acknowledging the 
 blessings, temporal and spiritual, which the 
 Church of this realm had been the instrument 
 in the hands of God of communicating to 
 the people, since the period of the Eefor- 
 mation, set forth their desire that all abuses 
 and imperfections should be removed which 
 impeded its usefulness, and its machinery 
 adapted to the exigencies of a greatly increased 
 population. They then suggested the import- 
 ance of amending the law in various respects. 
 Their principal recommendations are the fol- 
 lowing: — An appropriate course of professional 
 study for candidates for holy orders — abolition 
 of pluralities, of exemptions from residence, and 
 of sinecures — augmentation of poor benefices — 
 commutation of tithes — division of parishes — 
 additional curates — the licensing of places for 
 public worship in populous districts — improved 
 arrangement of churches for the accommodation 
 of the poor — revision of the boundaries of 
 dioceses — adjustment of church revenues — • 
 
16 
 
 extension of the ordinances of the Church to 
 all the foreign dependencies of the empire.* 
 
 These recommendations were coldly received 
 at first, and regarded by the majority with 
 suspicion and dislike, if not with positive hos- 
 tility. They were characterised by many as 
 the wild innovations of extravagant men, who 
 were pulling down the Church. Not a few 
 made it a matter of conscience to touch nothing 
 which had been consecrated by the use of their 
 forefathers, and had sufficed for their edifica- 
 tion. Each stone on which a sacrilegious hand 
 was proposed to be laid, was the keystone of 
 the arch, which once removed, the whole build- 
 ing would totter to its fall. Some, more far- 
 
 * In no department of church extension has progress 
 been more remarkable of late years than in the provision 
 made for the spiritual instruction of the population in our 
 foreign possessions. The first colonial see, that of Nova 
 Scotia, was erected in 1787, followed by that of Quebec in 
 1793, and after long intervals, by that of Calcutta, in 1814, 
 and two West Indian bishoprics in 1824. To these five 
 many others have since been added, and latterly in rapid 
 succession, so that at the present time the table of colonial 
 bishoprics comprises a list of not fewer than thirty-four in 
 number. Others are in contemplation, some in progress ; 
 and a munificent individual, to whom the Church at home 
 and abroad has been already indebted to an unexampled 
 extent, is understood to have devoted a sum of 15,000/. to 
 the erection of a see in the latest of our colonial depen- 
 dencies, New Columbia. 
 
17 
 
 sighted, who gave countenance and support to 
 the measures of improvement, found themselves 
 in an unpopular minority, and were ostracised 
 in influential quarters. 
 
 How stands the case at present, after the 
 lapse of no more than a quarter of a century, 
 as to each of these heads of reform ? Let me 
 briefly advert to some of them. 
 
 The better preparation of candidates for 
 holy orders stands in the front rank of the 
 recommended measures, and to a certain extent 
 provision has been made for giving effect to the 
 wishes of the petitioners. Systematic theolo- 
 gical teaching has been promoted. Initiation 
 into pastoral duties, in the many ways in which 
 a layman can work, has been advantageously 
 practised. Cambridge has established her 
 Voluntary Theological Examination, rendered 
 compulsory by the requisition of nearly all the 
 bishops. Oxford has created her Professors 
 of Pastoral Theology and -Ecclesiastical History, 
 to whom the late Dean Ireland added an useful 
 coadjutor by the foundation of an Exegetical 
 Professorship. Durham and Dublin have their 
 divinity students, who, having obtained their 
 testimonium after completion of the course of 
 study, are certificated as Licentiates in Theology. 
 At King's College, London, at St. Aidan's, 
 Birkenhead, at Birmingham, divinity schools 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 have been founded, where non-graduates are 
 successfully trained for the work of the mmistry. 
 Here and there Diocesan Colleges have been 
 provided, an example which doubtless would 
 have been followed more generally, if counter- 
 vailing disadvantages, inseparable from sec- 
 tional education for the ministerial office, had 
 not indisposed the public mind to look with 
 favour on the policy of these institutions. It is 
 the characteristic merit of an University that its 
 teaching is affected by the peculiarities of no 
 particular school. If the individual colleges 
 have their idiosyncracies, the harm is counter- 
 acted by their mutual relation to the general 
 body, — the common centre round which all 
 revolve, and where they lose their shibboleths, 
 if they have any. The eclectic institution, on 
 the contrary, wears the colours of its single 
 presiding head, sees with his eye, listens with 
 his ear, speaks with his voice, walks with his 
 gait, and in the very path in which he himself 
 has trodden. Under such exclusive influence 
 independent opinion has scarcely power to act, 
 the character is moulded after one uniform 
 type, and the mind of the student, like the 
 habit he wears, is shaped into a distinctive cut 
 and fashion. 
 
 Preparation, however, of a healthy and effi- 
 cient character, is indispensably necessary — 
 
19 
 
 more preparation than the generality of candi- 
 dates for holy orders yet exhibit. I earnestly 
 ask such of you, my Reverend Brethren, as are 
 mcumbents, to reflect how much depends on 
 you in this matter — on you, much more than 
 on the Bishops. I hear it said, " The Bishop 
 ought to raise the standard — he should require 
 higher qualifications — he should reject more 
 sternly." But the Bishop can only take the 
 candidates as they are presented to him : they 
 are not his choice — he has rarely ever been 
 consulted as to their fitness ; and he and his 
 chaplains can do no more than ^x a minimum 
 of qualifications, of indispensable attainment 
 before imposition of hands can be granted. 
 And then, as in cases of frequent occurrence, 
 if few come up to the level of his wishes, the 
 parishes can scarcely be left altogether destitute, 
 because the best provision for their wants is 
 not at hand, — the pastor, overburthened or 
 sick, or aged, cannot be disappointed alto- 
 gether of the staff on which he hoped to 
 lean, because it is not of the choicest mate- 
 rials ; a staff of reed, instead of the staff of 
 David or Elisha. 
 
 The aggravation or the alleviation of the 
 Bishop's load in the discharge of this part of 
 his duty, which Archbishop Leighton felt so 
 onerous that he assigns it as one of the reasons 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 which led to the resignation of his see,* rests 
 materially on yourselves. It often amazes 
 me to find, in my conversations with can- 
 didates, how little they who offer them have 
 inquired into their previous habits or studies ; 
 how unaware they are of their actual degree 
 of preparation ; how tolerant of a low calibre 
 of mind, giving no promise of a ministry likely 
 to come up to the apostolical standard, — 
 a ministry which none may despise ; how 
 satisfied to rest contented if they find their 
 future helpers in possession of those purely 
 formal qualifications which are no evidence of 
 a heart for the work, or, where the heart is 
 not wanting, of gifts essential to the efficient 
 discharge of pastoral functions. There is no 
 part of a Bishop's duty more painful than that 
 of rejecting a candidate for holy orders, of 
 whose devout spirit and pious life he entertains 
 no doubt, but in whom he finds none of that 
 power of mind and aptitude to teach which 
 are indispensable qualifications for duly execu- 
 ting the work of the ministry according to the 
 exigencies of the times. What wonder, if the 
 gap be thus patched up with dead wood, that 
 soon the fence is broken down, and the sheep 
 are scattered ! Meanwhile, the trained school- 
 
 * Pearson's " Life of Archbishop Leighton," prefixed to 
 the " Commentary on St. Peter," vol. i. p. 115. 
 
21 
 
 master treads upon the heels of the unskilled 
 neophyte, and first-class certificates, and pupil- 
 teachers, and aspirants for the honours of com- 
 petitive examination, put to shame the scanty 
 store of biblical reading and the stammering 
 tongue of him whose lips ought to keep 
 knowledge. 
 
 Even under circumstances the most favour- 
 able, weak and inadequate is the best influence 
 which can be brought to bear on candidates 
 for holy orders at the season of ordination itself. 
 The words of one of the Bishops of our Church 
 often occur to my mind at those periods. He 
 speaks of his aim to make them apprehend both 
 what belongs to a spiritual life and to the pas- 
 toral care; and then he adds, — "On these 
 subjects I spoke much and often to every one 
 
 of them apart This was all that I could 
 
 do : but, alas, how defective is this ! " * 
 
 There is one thought which brings comfort 
 under these considerations, and we may thank- 
 fully take refuge in it. He who has promised 
 to be with His ministering servants alway, is 
 able to mould all their hearts according to 
 His will, and to preserve in integrity and free- 
 dom from error the eternal truths committed 
 to the keeping even of these earthen vessels. 
 
 * Burnet's " History of his own Times." The Conclu- 
 sion, vol. ii. p. 643. 
 
22 
 
 While the petitioners ask for a higher 
 standard of preparation for the ministerial 
 office, they are silent on the subject of general 
 education. Not that in 1833 there was no 
 need of improvement — that schools were uni- 
 versal, scholars in fair proportion to the popu- 
 lation, teachers competent for their work, or 
 the staple of instruction satisfactory. Progress, 
 however, had even then begun. Parliamentary 
 returns in 1818 gave a total of 19,230 day- 
 schools in England, and 674,883 scholars, — or, 
 1 in 17-25 of the population. In 1833 the 
 day-schools had increased to 38,971, and the 
 scholars to 1,276,947, — being in the proportion 
 of 1 in 11*27 of the population, and an increase 
 of 89 per cent on the numbers in 1818. In 
 the same year a grant of 20,000/. was con- 
 tributed by the Government ; and the like 
 sum was annually voted till 1839, when the 
 Committee of Council on Education was formed. 
 A vast stimulus was immediately applied to the 
 various agencies engaged in the work of edu- 
 cation ; training-schools were established in 
 town and country ; and in 1846, the minutes 
 which now form the basis of government aid 
 were framed, the certificate and pupil-teacher 
 systems were set in action, and grants were 
 annually voted, increasing from 30,000/. in 1839, 
 to more than 600,000/. in the present year. The 
 
23 
 
 results may be described summarily in the words 
 of Mr. Horace Mann, writing in 1854 : — 
 
 " The records and the recollections which 
 describe society so recently as fifty years ago, 
 bear testimony to a state of ignorance and im- 
 morality so dense and general, that if any member 
 of the present generation could be suddenly 
 transported to that earlier period, he would 
 probably be scarcely able, notwithstanding 
 many abiding landmarks, to believe himself 
 in England, and would certainly regard the 
 change which half-a-century has witnessed in 
 the manners of the people as but little short 
 of the miraculous. Comparison is scarcely 
 possible between the groups of gambling, 
 swearing children — no unfavourable example 
 of young England then — whom Raikes of 
 Gloucester, in 1781, with difficulty collected 
 in the first Sunday-school, and any single class 
 of the 2,400,000 scholars who now gather with 
 alacrity, and even with affection, around their 
 318,000 teachers."* 
 
 In this diocese the work has proceeded with 
 steady advances. In 1829, 30,461 children 
 were returned as under education in day and 
 Sunday-schools connected with the Church. 
 In 1851 the numbers had more than tripled, 
 being 103,769. There are now more day- 
 * " Education Census Report," p. xv. 
 
24 
 
 schools (89 of all denominations) in the single 
 union of Winchester than there were in the 
 whole county (83) a century and a quarter 
 ago. The schools in Lambeth are 6 times as 
 many (297 of all denominations) as in all Surrey 
 (48) at the same time. The proportion per 
 cent of scholars to population in Church 
 schools is 6*87 in Hants, and 4-53 in Surrey. 
 
 These figures have a satisfactory sound ; 
 but it is far more important to ascertain the 
 character of the schools than their number. 
 Have the trained teachers of both sexes, who 
 have been sent forth from the diocesan train- 
 ing schools of Winchester and Salisbury, com- 
 mon to the two dioceses, raised the standard — 
 I will not say to the point desired, but to any 
 noticeable degree of improvement ? Have cer- 
 tificated masters and mistresses, and pupil - 
 teachers, repaid, in the ability and success of 
 their services, the pains and cost expended on 
 their preparation ? I have sought answers to 
 these inquiries from the Inspectors, and it will 
 be useful to give some of the results I have 
 gleaned. 
 
 In Surrey, Mr. Brookfield speaks favourably 
 of the relative merits of its schools, as not 
 surpassed by other portions of the kingdom. 
 Of the 332 schools inspected in 1857 in his 
 district (including with Surrey, Sussex, Kent, 
 
25 
 
 and the Channel Islands), the classification 
 stands thus : — 75 good, an increase on former 
 years; 119 fair; 138 moderate, including some 
 of a lower type. Among the noticeable features 
 which characterise them, Mr. Brookfield enu- 
 merates a prevailing spirit of kindness and 
 parental consideration, and an absence of 
 harshness and uncontrolled temper on the part 
 of the teachers, and of crouching looks and 
 sense of irksomeness among the children, which 
 used to be so common. " And," he adds, " of 
 the moral character of the schools generally, 
 or of their teachers, it would be difficult to 
 speak in terms too favourable." The defects, on 
 the other hand, lie principally within the region 
 of method and management. He apologises 
 for being a faultfinder, but needlessly. It is 
 the most important part of his office, and the 
 faults themselves deserve the careful attention 
 of the teacher and the clergyman. He specifies 
 the following : — Schools, good five years ago, 
 are not making advance upon what they had 
 then achieved ; reading deficient in articulation 
 and expression ; answers inaudible ; rudiments 
 taken for granted as familiar, though in fact 
 unknown ; arithmetic taught by abstract and 
 conventional rules, rather than by bills of 
 parcels, and devices derived from actual life ; 
 limitation of attention to the clever and in- 
 
26 
 
 dustrious, to the neglect of the dull and indo- 
 lent of the class. 
 
 For Hampshire I have derived valuable in- 
 formation from Mr. Jones, the late Inspector 
 under the Diocesan Board of Education, and 
 from the Rev. Mr. Warburton, Government 
 Inspector in that county. 
 
 Mr. Jones, during 1857, visited 185 schools, 
 conducted by 210 principal teachers. Of these, 
 QQ were trained and certificated ; 40 trained, 
 but not certificated ; 5 certificated, but not 
 trained; and 99 neither trained nor certificated 
 — a number which I hope to see decreasing 
 year by year. He reports the average age to 
 which children remain at school to be on the 
 decrease,* which is not a favourable symptom 
 of the efficiency of the schools. Parents, even 
 of the poorest and most ignorant class, will 
 often sacrifice something of their children's 
 earnings if they find them improving under 
 attendance. They are not incompetent judges 
 of their progress, though themselves, as they 
 say, no scholars. Of the 228 schools visited 
 in 1856, 163 were revisited in 1857, and of 
 this number 72 had improved, with a consider- 
 able increase in the average attendance — a fact 
 which may be taken in corroboration of the 
 
 * In 1856 it was 10-8 ; in 1857, 10-1 : showing a de- 
 crease of •?. 
 
27 
 
 remark just made ; 8 had retrograded, 4 of 
 tliem from change of teachers, and 83 remained 
 stationary. The demand for juvenile labour is 
 on the increase, a circumstance giving ad- 
 ditional value to the night-schools. In 60 of 
 the parishes visited these schools were in ope- 
 ration, with 1742 registered pupils, and an 
 average attendance of 1255. Secular instruc- 
 tion, for the most part, is all that is given in 
 them ; but they are invaluable in maintaining 
 a healthy influence, and in leading to the 
 Sunday-school. 
 
 Mr. Warburton expresses surprise that 
 although H. M. Inspectors always visit a new 
 school as soon as invited, and the capitation 
 grant is paid for the twelvemonth preceding 
 the first visit, without requiring the certifica- 
 tion of the teacher, in all cases where the 
 registers have been kept, and the school ex- 
 hibits any signs of vitality, yet no more than 132 
 schools in the 390 parishes within his district 
 are in connexion with the Committee of Council. 
 It is to the small country schools that Govern- 
 ment assistance is commonly found not to ex- 
 tend, though, independently of the probabiHty of 
 their obtaining the capitation grant, they would 
 derive benefit, direct or indirect, in almost 
 every case, from the Inspector's visit. Doubt- 
 less this is owing, in a great degree, to the 
 
28 
 
 difficulty of providing funds adequate for the 
 payment of certificated teachers, as the mini- 
 mum salaries at which they are procurable are 
 generally beyond the reach of the managers 
 in small parishes. A minute of council, which 
 shall make some provision for aiding schools 
 of this class — the most in need of any — would 
 be a great boon.* Sometimes, however, dis- 
 inclination to connect the school with the 
 Committee of Council arises from an undefined 
 dread of an intermeddling from without with 
 the management — an apprehension which, as far 
 as my experience goes, may be dismissed alto- 
 gether. Not a single instance of such inter- 
 ference has occurred, to my knowledge, within 
 my diocese. Sometimes, too, there is a shrinking 
 from the publicity of the tabulated reports ; but 
 these, wisely or unwisely, are now suppressed, 
 as far as the public is concerned, and supplied 
 in manuscript only to the parochial clergyman, 
 and the visit of the Inspector now differs little 
 from that of a private friend. The zeal and 
 devotion of clergy and teachers are of unex- 
 ampled amount, but the same sacrifices and the 
 same exertions might be made to tell more on 
 results. Many are the schools in which the 
 teachers are working up to their utmost strength, 
 often beyond it, and the parochial clergyman is 
 * See Appendix A. 
 
29 
 
 himself labouring like a second teacher ; and 
 yet their toils are frustrated by the irregularity 
 of the organisation and want of proper ap- 
 pliances for teaching. The remedy, my Ee- 
 verend Brethren, in many cases, is in your own 
 hands. I can but indicate and recommend it. 
 Connexion with the Committee of Council 
 would provide a cure for both these defects ; it 
 would furnish method and money, — assistances 
 which can be supplied at present from no other 
 quarter. 
 
 I give the conclusion of Mr. Warburton's 
 communication entire, and in his own words. 
 
 " However reluctantly one would believe 
 that the majority of our female teachers are 
 defective in the power of organization, which is 
 at the bottom of all good school-keeping, I am 
 afraid it must be admitted that such is the case. 
 There are some few excellent infant-schools in 
 Hants ; but though I could point to no less 
 than 8 or 10 first-class boys' schools, I do not 
 know of one girls' school worthy to stand in the 
 foremost rank. There are several schoolmasters 
 employed in this county, who are quite worthy 
 to stand at the head of their profession. I do 
 not mean in amount of personal and intellectual 
 gifts or acquirements, though in this respect 
 they rank as high as any, but rather on account 
 of their professional qualifications. Without 
 
30 
 
 instituting invidious comparisons, I am inclined 
 to think that few other parts of the country are 
 so well off in this respect, and that the cause of 
 education in the county generally is enjoying 
 a large measure of the Divine blessing, and 
 making satisfactory progress. The general level 
 is rising, though there are here and there dis- 
 couraging circumstances to be encountered ; and 
 among these, perhaps the principal is the early 
 removal of the children from school, owing to 
 the gross indifference of parents. Not long 
 since the cry was for schools, now it is for 
 scholars to put in them. Within the schools 
 themselves, one observes pretty generally un- 
 mistakeable symptoms that the new system of 
 instruction, of which the aim is, not so much to 
 impart information as to awaken the intelligence 
 and cultivate the moral nature of the children, 
 is beginning to tell in the ability to grapple with 
 simple questions put in unfamiliar forms, in the 
 clearness and definiteness of their conceptions, 
 in more cheerful obedience, and greater candour, 
 honesty, and love of work." 
 
 In regard to Sunday-schools, I can add 
 nothing in the way of enforcement to the re- 
 marks I offered on the last occasion of addressing 
 you. Those remarks, it will be remembered, 
 led to an active movement throughout the whole 
 county of Hants, where the Archdeacon, with his 
 
SI 
 
 wonted energy, seconded by able and zealous 
 coadjutors, presided personally at more than 
 sixty conferences of clergy and laity, church- 
 wardens, teachers, pupil-teachers, and others 
 interested in the welfare of the parishes, in 
 every part of the county. These meetings were 
 reported as likely to lead to hopeful results ; and 
 I would now put the question to each — What 
 have you done in your own sphere ? What step 
 in advance have you gained for your own 
 Sunday - school ? What voluntary teachers 
 have you added to it ? What number of child- 
 ren, who have left the daily school, have con- 
 tinued their attendance on Sunday instruction? 
 I must add emphatically, that I regard this class 
 of schools with unabated interest — with growing 
 convictions, if that were possible, of their impor- 
 tance, and with a yet more earnest desire for 
 their increased efficiency. 
 
 The prayer of the petitioners of 1833 in 
 regard to pluralities has been effectually an- 
 swered by successive acts of the legislature. 
 No second living can now be held in conjunction 
 with another, unless one is under the annual 
 value of 100/., and the two churches are within 
 three miles of each other. The effect of the 
 present stringent limitations may be tested by 
 the operation of the law in this diocese. In 
 1831, previously to the passing of the first 
 
32 
 
 restriction Act, there were 122 pluralities. 
 Twenty years later the number was reduced to 
 41, being a diminution of two-thirds. At the 
 present time, one half of this reduced number 
 has disappeared. Of the 21 pluralists yet 
 remaining, five only would be permitted under 
 the present law ; and in no instance would such 
 permission be injurious, or, indeed, otherwise 
 than necessary, if the duties of the small and 
 insufficiently endowed second living are to be 
 discharged at all. The average population of 
 the 10 parishes is 335, and the average income 
 of the 5 incumbents 175/., with 3 parsonages on 
 the 10 livings. None will say that these are 
 inordinate emoluments, or populations too large 
 for individual ministerial superintendence. 
 
 Exemption from residence is disallowed 
 altogether, except temporarily, during illness, 
 and, in the case of chaplains and others, during 
 their discharge of actual duty. Of sinecures, 
 those alone remain which are in lay patronage 
 — few in number, and year by year in process 
 of gradual absorption. 
 
 I come next to the petition for augmentation 
 of poor benefices. This has been provided 
 from two sources, independently of the annual 
 grants made by the Governors of Queen Anne's 
 bounty. First, — under the operation of an Act 
 passed in 1 and 2 William IV. c. 45, enabling 
 
33 
 
 ecclesiastical persons to augment small livings 
 to the amount of 300/. per annum, of which 
 many corporations, sole and aggregate, have 
 availed themselves to a considerable extent ; 
 secondly, and chiefly, — out of the Common 
 Fund at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Com- 
 missioners for England. From the latter source, 
 a larger amount of relief has accrued to the 
 poorer benefices than is generally understood — 
 inadequate, indeed, in comparison with their 
 wants, but an instalment of good, adding 
 materially to the comforts of many a parsonage, 
 and now advancing rapidly in annual increase, 
 as the revenues under the control of the Com- 
 missioners are gradually developed. The total 
 number of benefices thus permanently aug- 
 mented, exclusive of districts formed under the 
 New Parishes Acts, amounted, on the 1st of 
 November, 1857, to 882, with an aggregate 
 population of 2,392,326 ; and the grants made 
 by the Commissioners in respect of these bene- 
 fices, exclusive of the value of land and tithe- 
 rent charge, annexed in certain cases, amount to 
 the annual sum of 46,833/. In addition, the 
 Commissioners, up to the same date, had consti- 
 tuted, under the New Parishes Acts, 254 districts, 
 with an aggregate population of 875,941. The 
 annual payments in respect of these districts 
 amount to 35,137/., making a total permanent 
 
 D 
 
B4 
 
 charge on the Common Fund, for augmentation 
 and endowment of parochial cures, of 81,970/. 
 per annum. The Common Fund is further 
 charged with an annual payment of 18,000/., 
 due to the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, 
 as interest upon the loan of 600,000/. stock, 
 borrowed in 1843 for the purpose of forthwith 
 constituting, under Sir Eobert Peel's Act, 200 
 districts, with an endowment of 150/. per annum 
 each.* Large sums have been also paid by the 
 Commissioners for building and aiding in build- 
 ing parsonage-houses in many parishes. 
 
 During the last two years the available 
 surplus has been such as to justify the resump- 
 tion of grants so long suspended from want of 
 means; and capital sums of 5000/. and 18,000/. 
 respectively, in addition to the amount before 
 mentioned, have been appropriated towards 
 making better provision for the cure of souls. 
 To meet the first sum of 5000/., benefactions 
 from private contributors to the amount of 7000/. 
 were offered and accepted ; and a proportionate 
 amount has been obtained to meet the larger 
 sum set apart for distribution in the present 
 year. 
 
 The annual revenue thus appropriated re- 
 presents a capital of many millions, devoted 
 exclusively and in perpetuity to the use of the 
 * " Tenth General Report of Eccles. Comm." pp. 5, 6. 
 
35 
 
 parocliial clergy. Yet it would be a great 
 mistake to infer that the number of poor bene- 
 fices has decreased, or to expect that decrease 
 is likely soon to occur. Paragraphs meet the 
 eye continually, enumerating the hundreds of 
 livings with incomes below a given sum, and 
 every neighbourhood affords examples, notorious 
 and undeniable, to verify the fact. The reason 
 is obvious. Where one church is augmented, 
 three are built, for the most part with endow- 
 ments so insufficient, as to stand in need of 
 increase. So that, if additions have been made 
 to the income of 1100 or 1200 clergy within the 
 last fifteen years, the clergy of 3000 new churches 
 have arisen, within little more than the same 
 period of time, to fill the vacuum, and claim in 
 turn the aid of the Commissioners. 
 
 That inadequate parochial endowments are 
 a great evil, seriously detrimental to the use- 
 fulness of the Church, none will deny, and least 
 of all the Bishop, who has means of knowing 
 beyond all others the privations suffered by 
 the pastor, and the grievous hindrances to his 
 ministry, in an ill-endowed cure of souls. A 
 witness of great experience gives in evidence 
 before the Committee on Spiritual Destitution, 
 that " the smallness of the income of the clergy 
 greatly interferes with their ministerial useful- 
 ness," — "it diminishes their influence over the 
 
 d2 
 
36 
 
 people, and impairs their energies in their work." 
 Another states — " My clerical income is so 
 wretched that I am not able to devote my whole 
 time, as I ought to do, to my church and dis- 
 trict. My endowment is only 80/., and being 
 a family man, I am obliged to educate my own 
 children myself." * 
 
 But the truth is, that the choice lies between 
 two evils. The alternative is a poor clergyman 
 or a heathen population, — ill-endowed churches, 
 or none. Private liberality has been exhibited 
 in an unexampled degree, and in no part of the 
 country to a greater extent or with more readi- 
 ness than in my own diocese; but no available 
 resources are sufficient to compete with the 
 wants of a population which has doubled itself 
 within the memory of living man. Take the 
 case of the London district alone, a portion of 
 which is included in my own diocese. *' Since 
 the census of 1851, the population has increased 
 by 254,608 souls, and it is now increasing at the 
 rate of 60,000 souls annually, requiring the erec- 
 tion and endowment of fifteen additional churches 
 every year, to keep pace with the population." f 
 "Wait to lay the foundations of your fifteen 
 churches," say many, "till competent incomes 
 have been provided for the future ministers." 
 
 * Appendix to Report, qn. 102, 103, 5838. 
 t Qn. 1306, 1307. 
 
37 
 
 And these objectors have much to say in defence 
 of their position. On principles of political 
 economy they are unassailable. For my own 
 part, however, I must frankly confess I cannot 
 consent to leave the 60,000 souls in the heathen- 
 ism of neglect, destitute of means of grace and 
 instruction, because I have no other means of 
 ministering to their wants than by creating an 
 additional number of what are somewhat invi- 
 diously termed pauper benefices.* If the choice 
 lies, as I fear must be admitted, between no 
 pastor at all, none to care for the 60,000 souls, 
 and the man of smallest means, "by poverty 
 depressed," with all the drawbacks of Lenten 
 fare throughout the year, and the anxieties in- 
 separable from a straitened income, I hope it 
 will not be attributed to any want of sympathy 
 on my part with such a lot, or to insensibility 
 for its privations, if I can entertain no doubt 
 which alternative to prefer. Men are not want- 
 ing who will stand in the gap, and enter devo- 
 tedly into these ungrateful fields of labour, as 
 they are sometimes deemed, with all their dis- 
 advantages. Take the portrait of one of this 
 class, of whom the world is not worthy. 
 
 " I spent a day at the house of the clergy- 
 man of that district, and I have no hesitation 
 in saying that the circumstances in which he 
 * Appendix G. to Report, p. 592. 
 
38 
 
 lives are inferior, in point of comfort, to those 
 of most schoolmasters certificated under the 
 Government. His house is of the poorest 
 description. He lives in the midst of his popu- 
 lation; he has none of the ordinary comforts 
 and luxuries of life which are generally con- 
 sidered to be due to a person in his station. I 
 have no hesitation in saying that his ministerial 
 usefulness is impaired by the inadequacy of his 
 income; but I feel bound to say this, that I 
 never met with a man more happy in his work ; 
 he did not complain of his position, further than 
 generally to observe that he was not able to do 
 so much among the people as he would be de- 
 lighted to do, had he the means." * Another 
 witness before the Spiritual Destitution Com- 
 mittee states in evidence that " the earnestness 
 of the clergy in visiting, their self-devotion, 
 working on miserable pittances, and giving 
 themselves up entirely to their work, is beyond 
 all praise." And the Committee, in quoting this 
 testimony in their Report, " deem it their duty 
 to add, that the general tenor of the evidence 
 before them largely confirms this statement." f 
 Men of this stamp are nursing children for 
 God, and He will give them their wages. 
 Further suggestions in the same Petition 
 
 * Appendix, qn. 168. Evidence of the Bishop of Ripon. 
 f Report, p. vii. 
 
39 . 
 
 recommend division of extensive parishes, — 
 provision for additional curates, — license of 
 unconsecrated places for Divine worship, — 
 and improved arrangements in parish churches 
 for the better accommodation of both rich and 
 poor. These are measures now^ so trite and 
 familiar, as scarcely to admit of a passing re- 
 mark, — a quarter of a century ago they were 
 new and startling, offered with much hesitation 
 and cautious apology by men who felt they 
 were taking a step in advance of their forefathers, 
 whose boldest plea for increased efficiency in 
 the Church was urged on no more venturesome 
 ground than that of zeal without innovation. 
 
 Not that these improvements, obvious and 
 necessary as they now seem, were matured 
 without difficulty, or carried into effect with 
 universal acquiescence. To reduce a parish 
 of many miles in extent to an area which can 
 be compassed by ordinary walking powers, or 
 out of 100,000 souls to assign 4000 to the charge 
 of an individual minister, would appear measures 
 reasonable enough to command general approval. 
 But at every step some interest, local or per- 
 sonal, is affected. Some object that the head 
 of the parish will be too much lowered, — his 
 influence impaired. Vestries complain that the 
 parish is cut up into shreds and patches, and 
 that they do not like new-fangled arrangements 
 
. 40 
 
 and nondescript parishes.* Sometimes con- 
 science, or prejudice, or old associations, or a 
 local Act, or the apportionment of a charity, 
 raises an obstacle. Patronage is to be ad- 
 justed, boundaries to be defined, — a very fertile 
 cause of discussion, I might have said of dispute, 
 — rights of property are to be respected, vested 
 interests to be compensated, civil and ecclesi- 
 astical liabilities and privileges to be carefully 
 distinguished, before the smallest angle can be 
 cut off from an area, large as a petty king- 
 dom, and a sound parochial system effectually 
 realised. 
 
 Whether every subdivision should be com- 
 plete in itself for all ecclesiastical purposes, 
 with its church and minister in all respects 
 independent of the original parish, is a question 
 on which much diversity of opinion still exists. 
 The evidence before the Spiritual Destitution 
 Committee is conflicting. The Rector of St. 
 George's, South wark, a man of much experience, 
 thinks that, " generally speaking, the more 
 parochial subdivision can be carried out the 
 better, and thus independent parishes be created ; 
 but," he adds, " there are exceptional cases, 
 where it is better to have one individual having a 
 larger area, and many subordinates under him." 
 He instances the example of a very poor division 
 
 * Appendix to Report, qn. 2852. 
 
41 
 
 of a parish, where, if constituted into an inde- 
 pendent parish, the incumbent has to struggle 
 with great difficulties.* Canon Dale admits 
 that, in theory, it is most desirable that every 
 district with a population of a certain amount, 
 commonly fixed by witnesses at 4000, should 
 have its own minister, with an entire and ex- 
 clusive property in him, were it not that his 
 income, insufficient for his own support, or for 
 relieving the necessities of the poor, would 
 place him under very disadvantageous circum- 
 stances. "My conviction is," he says, "that 
 unless the district contains what I should call 
 the elements of a parish, with a part of the 
 population able to contribute to the necessities 
 of the poor, it would be much better that it 
 should remain dependent upon the parish 
 church, for then not only would it draw upon 
 its funds, but the pastoral care of the people 
 would always be provided for.f Incumbents 
 seem generally to lean to this opinion. The 
 current of my own experience does not run in 
 the same direction. Mr. Kivington, an intelli- 
 gent and active layman, seems to me to touch 
 the gist of the question. "It is better,*' he says, 
 "to commit a district to the independent care 
 of a clergyman, where he understands he has 
 the responsibility, as he can work more comfort- 
 ♦ Appendix, qn. 1991-2019. t Qn- 2790. 
 
42 
 
 ably than if he has a sort of undefined relation 
 to the rector of the parish." * Mr. Rivington, 
 however, lays stress upon an independent in- 
 come. For myself, I prefer to additional curates 
 district incumbents, even with small endowments, 
 with districts entirely independent of the original 
 parish for ecclesiastical purposes, with exemption 
 from liability to maintain the fabric of any other 
 than the church of the district, and a claim to 
 the performance of all religious rites, with all 
 fees and offerings assigned to its own proper 
 minister. All recent legislation, and especially 
 the New Parishes Acts, have sanctioned these 
 principles, and instances of districts, dependent 
 by any link whatever upon the mother-church, 
 or the incumbent of the undivided civil parish, 
 will soon become exceptional throughout the 
 country. 
 
 The rapid increase of population in many 
 parts of this diocese, especially in the suburban 
 districts, and some of our coast towns, and 
 around the railway stations, has given an active 
 impulse to this work of parochial subdivision. 
 In Hants 51 ancient parishes, and in Surrey 34, 
 total 85, being about one-fourth of the whole 
 number of original benefices, have been broken 
 down into cures of more convenient size ; and 74 
 
 ♦ Qn. 3045. 
 
43 
 
 new districts have been formed in the former 
 county, and 77 in Surrey: total, 151. 
 
 After all, however, parochial subdivision is not 
 always practicable, and where practicable, not 
 always sufficient. Who shall say that the clergy 
 connected with 140,000 souls in Lambeth, or with 
 more than 55,000 in St. George's, South wark, 
 or with 75,000 in Portsea, — in which parishes 
 respectively, 46,000, 12,000, and 15,000, ad- 
 ditional sittings are required to provide for that 
 part of the population to which no religious 
 body whatever affords any accommodation for 
 public worship — shall meet their parishioners 
 for religious teaching and common prayer no- 
 where but within the narrow walls of their con- 
 secrated churches? If so restricted, what a 
 mockery would it be to bid them not to forsake 
 the assembling of themselves together? How 
 call upon them to use the Liturgy of our 
 Church, if they are never to meet in common 
 worship ? It is matter of thankfulness that our 
 mouths are not so closed, and that our liberty 
 of action has not been fettered by any such 
 suicidal regulations. Yet the time has not long 
 gone by, if indeed it be now passed altogether, 
 when, if a Bishop were himself to exercise, or 
 give license to another to exercise, the functions 
 of his ministry within the walls of an uncon- 
 secrated building, not a few would have con- 
 
44 
 
 sidered it a scandal in the Church. A quarter 
 of a century ago, Cottage Lectures were con- 
 sidered as an irregularity ; so much so, that in 
 one of my earliest charges I found it necessary 
 to vindicate the free action of the incumbent or 
 curate for exposition of Holy Scripture and 
 prayer with the people in their own houses, each 
 within his own cure.* He is breaking no law, 
 whether he call them to meet him at their own 
 homes or in his school-room, or whether they 
 cluster around him, unbidden and uninvited, in 
 those open-air services now familiar to our ears, 
 which have taken their place in many populous 
 districts, among the stated ministrations of our 
 parochial clergy. 
 
 Encouraging details have been given me 
 by a Southwark incumbent of the unabated 
 interest evinced by his hearers — their marked 
 attention even to the close — and the eagerness 
 with which the tracts distributed at these gather- 
 ings have been sought after. These meetings 
 have taken place on Sunday and week-day 
 evenings, the attendance varying from 70 to 
 700, the largest numbers on Sundays. In one 
 instance only had any attempt at disturbance 
 occurred, when an intoxicated Romanist en- 
 deavoured, but ineffectually, to interrupt the 
 
 * Second Charge, 1833. 
 
45 
 
 preacher. I give the texts of some of the 
 sermons, as specimens of the subjects judi- 
 ciously chosen for addressing the particular 
 class of persons present on these occasions : — 
 Eph. ii. 20, Jesus Christ the chief corner-stone ; 
 Luke xix. 20, The Son of Man seeking to save 
 that which was lost ; 2 Cor. v. 17, The new 
 creature in Christ Jesus; Jer. viii. 22, Balm in 
 Gilead; Rom. v. 6, When yet without strength 
 Christ died for us ; John x. 3, The sheep hear 
 the voice of the Shepherd ; 1 Pet. i. 19, " The 
 precious blood of Christ;" John iii. 14, 15, The 
 serpent in the wilderness; John iii. 16, "God so 
 loved the world, that he gave His only-begotten 
 Son;" Num. xxxv. 11, The cities of refuge ; 
 John xii. 32, "I, if I be lifted up," &c.; 1 John 
 i. 9, " If we confess our sins," &c. 
 
 Very motley is the assemblage which stands 
 around the preacher on these occasions. There 
 may be seen the stout drayman in his woollen 
 coat, the coalheaver in his sou'wester, the white- 
 coated baker and the red-coated postman, the 
 railway porter and the carman, the tidy labourer 
 in his clean white smock, or Sunday suit of 
 rusty black, and the untidy labourer in his dirty 
 shirt sleeves. What Christian spectator who 
 witnesses these extraordinary scenes will fail to 
 recognise the testimony borne to the messenger 
 of the glad tidings of the Gospel from our Lord s 
 
46 
 
 days downwards, — '' The common people heard 
 him gladly?" 
 
 Evidence was given before the Spiritual 
 Destitution Committee of the usefulness of 
 these services. One witness stated that, having 
 circulated notice by handbills of his intention to 
 preach in the open air, on a common adjoining 
 the town, a large congregation was collected, 
 chiefly of poor people, many of them weavers, 
 who had not been in the habit of attending 
 the church at all. And he adds, "I believe 
 from that very day there was an increase of 
 at least 200 in the ordinary Sunday congre- 
 gation."* 
 
 The Rector of St. George's, Southwark, 
 whose attendances have varied from 100 to 
 2000, bears testimony to the peaceable and 
 respectful conduct of the people; so much so, 
 he adds, "that when an effort has been made 
 to disturb us, it has been put down by the 
 people themselves." In answer to a question 
 whether the main advantage of the open-air 
 services is that of drawing the people into the 
 churches, or a thing to rest in itself as an end, 
 he replies, " My principle has always been to go 
 out to bring them in." f 
 
 * Appendix, qn. 4161-66. 
 
 t Qn. 1101-4. Another witness, who, it will be ob- 
 served, has not tried the experiment, speaks unfavourably 
 
47 
 
 The services to which I have been referring 
 may be classed under the head of the Home 
 Missionary work of the parochial minister. 
 Measures of a similar tendency, on a larger 
 scale, have been suggested and carried into 
 effect in some instances — all having for their 
 object the extension of the parochial system, 
 and its application to the varied forms of spirit- 
 ual want, arising among the gatherings of popu- 
 lation around some new centre of industry, or 
 in the crowded suburbs of our metropolis and 
 great commercial capitals. Home Missionary 
 Associations have been organised in some dio- 
 ceses, and clergy sought out with special gifts 
 for influencing such as are estranged from all 
 rehgious ordinances, and ministering to them as 
 best they may, until, under God's blessing, they 
 have gathered a flock which may be collected in 
 a church. Short services, and plain expositions 
 of the word of God, are also among the ex- 
 
 of open-air addresses. " Have you done anything in the 
 way of addressing the people in the open air? Nothing 
 whatever. Do you find persons whom you would meet in 
 the streets, if you preached in the open air, come to your 
 church ? Many of them are such. I find it much better to 
 visit them, and talk to them in the school-room. Some- 
 body might preach on the opposite side of the way, and we 
 might have an altercation; or some dissenting preacher might 
 do so in the first instance, and thus produce awkwardness. 
 Do you think there is much use in street-preaching ? None 
 whatever." 
 
48 
 
 pedients which have been resorted to, with the 
 same object in view. Such services, the Litany 
 for instance, with or without a sermon, at any 
 hour of the day, have been introduced into 
 many parishes of my diocese, and, as I am 
 informed, with advantage. I am ready to 
 sanction them whenever desired, provided they 
 do not supersede, and are not substituted for, 
 any ordinary service of the Church. 
 
 What has been said of Church improvement 
 since the year 1833, will suffice to show that 
 the stakes have been strengthened and the cords 
 lengthened. And will any now call these 
 measures destructive? Will any see in them 
 the elements of spoliation and subversion, the 
 devices of men who are sapping and under- 
 mining the foundations of our Zion, under the 
 pretence of building up the wall and reviving 
 the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and 
 fortifying the bulwarks around the city ? Has 
 one step been taken too far in advance ? Could 
 a single line of extension have been spared, or 
 ought a single forward movement to have been 
 checked, as going beyond the mark, and in 
 excess of what the exigencies of the times de- 
 manded? Were they who asked for the fuller 
 developpaent of the resources of the Church 
 other than her true sons and defenders, the 
 promoters of her utility, and the instruments, 
 
4Q 
 
 under God, of diffusing more widely the bless- 
 ings in her charge ? 
 
 Yet these Reformers knew where to stop. 
 They could discriminate between the improve- 
 ment of the machinery, and the safe-keeping of 
 the material which the machinery was to work. 
 While they prayed that new channels of use- 
 fulness might be opened, they earnestly implored 
 the authorities to guard the invaluable blessing 
 of their Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy. Doubt- 
 less they would have extended their prayer to a 
 plea for the safe-keeping of our Authorized 
 Bible, in a version to which use has imparted 
 a sacredness only second to that of inspiration 
 itself, had proposals for revision been as current 
 then as during the last few years. Revision of 
 the sacred text, except for the satisfaction of 
 the learned, and as a help for students of Scrip- 
 ture, in their more minute examination of God's 
 holy word, would lead to dangers from which 
 at present I see no means of escape. Mean- 
 while specimens of labours in the direction to 
 which I have adverted, conducted in a spirit of 
 just and reverent caution, have already shown 
 that, while our translation is not so free from 
 all flaw or inexactness of rendering as to be al- 
 together " without spot or wrinkle, or any such 
 thing," it is yet an adequate counterpart of the 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 original, alike for the devout reader and the 
 unlettered Christian man. 
 
 Would that this value for our formularies, 
 in the very type in which we have inherited 
 them, were felt universally ! The last Session 
 of Parliament witnessed an endeavour in the 
 Upper House to procure a revision of that 
 form of Common Prayer which, for so many 
 centuries, has been the exponent of the devo- 
 tional feelings of our congregations, in all the 
 joys and sorrows of the soul, under every 
 diversity of circumstance, and in all the phases 
 of life. The attempt met with little support 
 from any quarter of the House, — with none 
 from any member of the Episcopal bench. In 
 common with all of them with whom I^have 
 had an opportunity of conversing, without 
 claiming the merit of absolute perfection for 
 our Church Services, I earnestly deprecate any 
 tampering with them, under whatever specious 
 guise the alterations may be recommended. 
 Particular views may advocate change in one 
 direction or another, expressions may be modi- 
 fied to harmonise with this or that shade of 
 opinion, a little more latitude given here, or a 
 Hitle more restriction enforced there; but this 
 at least is certain, that nothing will be omitted 
 which many will not strenuously desire should 
 
61 
 
 be retained, nothing added which a large section 
 would not consider superfluous, or even objec- 
 tionable — no form of expression, varied ever so 
 cautiously, against which protests would not 
 be entered as involving the dilution of vitally 
 important doctrines, or the admission of dan- 
 gerous error. 
 
 Meanwhile, it is next to impossible but that, 
 under these operations, that broad platform of 
 divine truth would be narrowed, on which 
 Churchmen with permitted differences have 
 been accustomed to stand, from father to child, 
 generation after generation, on common ground, 
 in the unity of brethren. It was well said by 
 one of the Bishops in Convocation, where entire 
 unanimity prevailed in reference to this subject, 
 that " he believed the poor throughout the 
 country received the English Prayer-book with 
 a reverence next to the Bible, and any sugges- 
 tion to alter it would shock their deep feelings 
 of Christian devotion." 
 
 Our formularies, indeed, are a common in- 
 heritance, which every member of the Church, 
 lay or clerical, has a mutual interest in preserving 
 sacred and inviolate. They are to him, in regard 
 to his religious belief, what Magna Charta was 
 to the barons as to their political status^ — the 
 solemn declaration and definition of his Christ- 
 ian liberty. It is with pain I see a tendency 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 in the minds of many to give a meaning to 
 particular passages at variance with the whole 
 tenor of the doctrine of our Reformed Church, 
 and to cull out from the writings of individual 
 divines of high name opinions sometimes diffi- 
 cult to reconcile, sometimes in direct antago- 
 nism to expressions in our liturgical forms and 
 articles. But as nothing is more easy than to 
 exhibit these discrepancies, so is nothing more 
 fallacious. You may prop up any diversity 
 of doctrine by a catena of isolated passages 
 from our soundest theologians, the general 
 tenor of whose writings is notoriously opposed 
 to the particular view they are quoted to sup- 
 port. Words loosely employed, forms of ex- 
 pression which have acquired in lapse of time 
 a certain controversial meaning not originally 
 belonging to them, phrases capable of being 
 interpreted in more than one sense, are often 
 pressed into a service very different from that 
 designed by their authors. There is no such 
 fixity of meaning in the language used in dif- 
 ferent treatises, and at different times of life, 
 by the same divine, as can make a superficial 
 Trader certain that the author is always strictly 
 consistent with himself. But, whether consis- 
 tent or inconsistent, whether uniformly orthodox 
 with a logical precision, or otherwise, it is not 
 on individual divines, of whatever weight or 
 
wisdom, that we are at liberty to pin our faith. 
 To the definitions and explanations of the 
 framers of our formularies, gathered collectively 
 and expressed authoritatively — not to the de- 
 tached dogmas of any one of them in particular 
 — we have given our assent, as to the recognised 
 standard of appeal for all the members of our 
 communion. We are pledged, not to the private 
 judgment of the profoundest and the holiest 
 amongst them, but " always so to minister the 
 doctrines and sacraments, and the discipline of 
 Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as 
 this Church and realm have received the same." 
 Take, as a case in point, the Adoration of 
 the Eucharist. Among the most revered of 
 my predecessors in this see. Bishop Andre wes 
 stands prominently forward. In his Answer 
 to Bellarmine the following passage occurs: — 
 ^^ Imo Christus ipse Sacramenti res, in et cum 
 Sacramento, extra et sine Sacramento, ubi ubi 
 est, adorandus esty* "Truly Christ Himself, 
 the res Sacramenti, both in and with the Sacra- 
 ment, out of and without the Sacrament, where- 
 soever he is, is to be adored." Separate this 
 sentence from the context, and it might seem 
 to be the warrant of one of the fathers of our 
 Church, of highest authority, for the adoration 
 
 * "K^spons. ad Apol. Bellarm." Angl. Cath. Libr. 
 pp. 266, 267, quoted by Goode on the Eucharist, p. 820. 
 
54 
 
 of the elements, as containing the body of 
 Christ on the table. And in this sense it has 
 been quoted, and passes current with many. 
 But the Church has spoken here, and very 
 differently. " Lest the same kneeling [of com- 
 municants] should by any persons, either out 
 of ignorance or infirmity, or out of malice and 
 obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved, it is 
 hereby declared that no adoration is intended, 
 or ought to be done, either unto the sacra- 
 mental bread or wine, then bodily received, or 
 to any corporal presence of Christ's natural 
 flesh and blood. For the sacramental bread 
 and wine remain still in their very natural 
 substances, and therefore may not be adored; 
 for that were idolatry, to be abhorred of all 
 faithful Christians."* 
 
 Bishop Andrewes, therefore, with all his 
 claims upon our respect, is not to be heard if 
 he speaks at variance with the Church in this 
 matter. But in reality there is no need to fear 
 his antagonism. Archbishop Wake vindicates 
 the true meaning of the disputed passage. 
 " How this Bishop thought Christ truly present 
 in the Sacrament we have seen before, and may 
 from thence easily conclude how he supposed 
 He might be adored there ; viz. as in all other 
 holy offices, in which we confess Him by His 
 
 * Declaration at the end of the Communion Service. 
 
m 
 
 divine power to be present with us, but es- 
 pecially in this sacred mystery. And thus we 
 all adore Him, both in, and with, and without 
 the Sacrament, — we confess Him to be truly 
 present, and therefore truly to be adored by 
 us."* And any other interpretation would be 
 in contradiction with his doctrine in another 
 treatise, one section of which is against the 
 teaching of " the belief of Christ in the Sacra- 
 ment ^w^ speciebus" and another against "the 
 external adoration of the Sacrament." f 
 
 In connexion with this ambiguous and double 
 meaning of passages in our old divines I have 
 referred formerly, and must now refer again, to a 
 phrase used in common parlance, though not in a 
 common sense, by our own Church and that 
 of Rome — the Real Presence in the Eucharist. 
 Abundant quotations of language which might 
 be employed by the Romanists, and taken to 
 mean a bodily presence in their sense of the 
 words, may be produced from the writings even 
 of those of our old divines who are known to 
 have combated most strongly the doctrine in 
 question. And they are cited as evidence that 
 a doctrine, not distinguishable from that which 
 it was one of the main objects of the Reforma- 
 tion to overthrow, and declared in one of the 
 
 * Archbishop Wake's " Disc, of the Holy Eucharist." 
 t " Minor Works," pp. 13, 15. 
 
56 
 
 Articles to be " repugnant to tlie plain words of 
 Scripture,"* is not inconsistent with the teaching 
 of our Church. And certainly, when Bishop 
 Cosin tells us that " upon the words of con- 
 secration the body and blood of Christ is really 
 and substantially present, and so exhibited and 
 given to all that receive it," he seems to speak 
 the very language of the Council of Trent. 
 But then he adds immediately, and in the 
 same sentence, " and all this, not after a phy- 
 sical and sensual, but after an heavenly and 
 incomprehensible manner," which at once re- 
 conciles him with the declaration of the Article, 
 that " the body of Christ is given, taken, and 
 eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and 
 spiritual manner." And if this seems irrecon- 
 cileable with substantial presence, hear him 
 again, speaking of the change in the elements, 
 — "It is a change of state and condition, which 
 alters not the natural properties of the element." 
 The Fathers " understood no change than that 
 which is common to all Sacraments, whereby 
 the outward natural part is said to be changed 
 into the inward and divine, only because it 
 represents it truly and efficaciously, and makes 
 all worthy receivers partakers thereof; and 
 because, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, and of 
 Christ's holy institution, the elements obtain 
 * Art. xxviii. 
 
57 
 
 those divine excellencies and prerogatives wliich 
 they cannot have of their own nature. And 
 this it is which was taught and believed for 
 above a thousand years together by pious and 
 learned antiquity concerning this most holy 
 mystery."* 
 
 Bradford himself, a martyr for the truth, 
 might be adduced as holding the corporal 
 presence of Christ in the Sacrament. " I do 
 believe," says he, " that Christ is corporally 
 present at, and in the due administration of, 
 the Sacrament." But he adds, — " By this word 
 corporally^ I mean that Christ is present cor- 
 porally unto faith. "f 
 
 And so Dean Aldrich, — " If we rightly un- 
 derstand the presence, it is not material with 
 what adverbs we affirm it. We may say, it is 
 really^ essentially^ nay, corporally present ; that 
 is, it is present inasmuch as it is really received, 
 to all intents and purposes, for which the res 
 ipsa, the essence, the substance^ the very body 
 would be useful to us, if it were physically 
 and locally present ; and the difference between 
 us and the Papists is plain." J 
 
 In our own Article the word spiritual is 
 
 * Cosin's "Hist, of Transubstantiation," ch. vi. s. 7, and 
 s. 1. 
 
 I " Acts and Monuments," p. 1608. 
 \ " Reply to Two Discourses." 
 
58 
 
 joined with heavenly^ — " after an heavenly and 
 spiritual manner ;" so that the one explains 
 the other, and none can mistake the sense in 
 which the latter word is used. And this cau- 
 tion is not superfluous, as Bishop Jeremy 
 Taylor warns us, — " We say that Christ's body 
 is in the Sacrament really, but spiritually. 
 They, too (the Papists), say it is there really, 
 but spiritually (for so Bellarmine is bold to 
 say that the word [spiritual] may be allowed 
 in this question.) Where now is the difference? 
 Here, by spiritually they mean present after 
 the manner of a spirit : by spiritually we mean 
 present to our spirits only ; that is, so as Christ 
 is not present to any other sense but that of 
 
 faith or spiritual susception They say 
 
 that Christ's body is truly present there, as 
 it was upon the cross, but not after the manner 
 of any body, but after that manner as an angel 
 is in a place, i. e. there spiritually. But we, 
 by " the real spiritual presence of Christ," do 
 understand Christ to be present as the Spirit of 
 God is present in the hearts of the faithful, by 
 blessing and grace ; and this is all that we 
 mean besides the typical and figurative pre- 
 sence."* 
 
 It is matter of deep thankfulness that our 
 Church utters no uncertain sound in her formu- 
 
 * Works : Bishop Heber's edition, vol. ix. p. 428. 
 
59 
 
 laries in regard to those great verities which 
 our Reformers asserted and established, and 
 in defence of which many shed their blood. 
 They took away nothing which their know- 
 ledge of Romish corruptions taught them might 
 safely be retained, and in their desire to pre- 
 vent schism, made the fewest possible changes 
 consistent with the preservation of a pure faith. 
 Can the children be safer than while they copy 
 the example of their parent, speak with her 
 plainness, avoid with her the ambiguities of 
 language, which mystify, if they do not corrupt, 
 the truth ; nay, even abstain from some phrases 
 lawful, lest they be wrested into wrongful 
 meaning ? Cranmer permitted the use of the 
 word "altar" metaphorically; our Church acted 
 more wisely in excluding it altogether from her 
 formularies. It is the " table," the " Lord's 
 table," the "holy table"— never the "altar." 
 The spirit of Dean Aldrich's caution, in regard 
 to one theological term, may be well applied to 
 a more extensive class of debateable phrases. 
 " The Church of England has wisely forborne 
 to use the term of Real Presence in all the 
 
 books that are set forth by her authority 
 
 So that if any Church-of-England man use it, 
 he does more than the Church directs him ; if 
 any reject it, he has the Church's example to 
 warrant him ; and it would very much con- 
 
60 
 
 tribute to the peace of Christendom if all men 
 would write after so good a copy." * 
 
 Theological differences, it is to be remem- 
 bered, are not now the subjects of private 
 disputation, ventilated only by scholars in their 
 closets. In a country like our own, where 
 every man lives, not only under the observation 
 of his neighbour, but, through the medium of 
 the press, within the view of the whole com- 
 munity, there is no question connected with 
 religious teaching or ministerial duty which 
 is not liable to come in turn under public 
 discussion as to the latitude allowed by our 
 Church in regard to it. The latest point in 
 dispute is Private Confession. What are its 
 limits ? To what cases does it extend ? Is it 
 general or particular, voluntary or of obli- 
 gation ? 
 
 The canons in force before the Reformation 
 recognise the practice fully, and declare it to 
 be of universal obligation. And these canons, 
 by a proviso in 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, and by 
 1 Eliz. c. 1, s. 10, have a parliamentary autho- 
 rity given to them, as " still to be used and 
 executed, provided that they are not contrariant 
 or repugnant to the laws, statutes, and customs 
 of this realm." The subsequent enactments 
 
 fh bear upon the use of confession have 
 
 * " Reply to Two Discourses." 
 
61 
 
 been examined with much care in a recent 
 publication, entitled " A brief Inquiry into the 
 Law of the Church of England with respect 
 to Private Confession." The author shows to 
 satisfaction that the ancient canonical rules 
 have been so far superseded by the course 
 of legislation since the Keformation, and es- 
 pecially by the successive Acts of Uniformity 
 in their bearing upon the Book of Common 
 Prayer, that authority for the practice of 
 private or auricular confession must be derived, 
 if from any source, from the formularies of the 
 Church itself. 
 
 What, then, is the direction of our formu- 
 laries on this subject? Sometimes silence is 
 said to speak louder than words. Now in the 
 " Homily on Common Prayer and Sacraments," 
 in the second book, reference is made to the 
 commonly called sacraments of the Church of 
 Rome, which are not to be accounted as having 
 the like nature of a sacrament with baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper, alone retained as such 
 by the order of the Church of England. Of 
 the five other rites, excluded from the rank 
 of sacraments, three — Orders, Matrimony, Con- 
 firmation — are to be retained as godly states 
 of life, or as ordinances for the instruction, 
 comfort, and edification of Christ's Church. 
 The remaining two — Penance, of which Con- 
 
62 
 
 fession is a noted part, and Extreme Unction — 
 are passed over altogether, as not to be re- 
 tained in any sense, either as sacraments or 
 as rites. If, therefore, Extreme Unction is no- 
 toriously disallowed and disused, there seems 
 no greater authority here for the retention of 
 Private Confession. Both practices stand upon 
 the same footing as not among the permitted 
 rites " worthy to be set forth," as the ex- 
 pression of the Homily has it, " by public 
 action and solemnity, by the ministry of the 
 Church," though not to be reckoned among its 
 sacraments, which are two only, as generally 
 necessary to salvation. 
 
 Authority, then, is not given in the Homily. 
 Is it then to be found in our ordinary liturgical 
 services ? There I read in the opening Exhort- 
 ation at the beginning of Morning and Evening 
 Prayer, that " the Scripture moveth us .... to 
 acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and 
 wickedness, and that we should not dissemble 
 nor cloak them before the face of Almighty 
 God, our Heavenly Father ; but confess them 
 with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient 
 heart .... and although we ought at all times 
 humbly to acknowledge our sins before God, 
 yet ought we most chiefly so to do" — not in 
 the private confessional, which might have 
 been expected to be set forth as the chiefest 
 
 i 
 
63 
 
 exercise of this duty, but — " when we as- 
 semble and meet together" in common prayer. 
 
 Or is authority given in the warning for the 
 celebration of the Holy Communion, where, if 
 any where, it may be expected to be found? 
 There the communicant is exhorted to search 
 out and examine his conscience — to examine 
 his life and conversation by the rule of God's 
 commandments ; and whereinsoever he shall per- 
 ceive himself to have offended, there to bewail 
 his own sinfulness, and to confess himself to 
 Almighty God ; and, finally, if any be a griev- 
 ous sinner, he is to repent him of his sins, 
 or else come not to that holy table. No men- 
 tion here of private confession as a means of 
 preparation for the Holy Communion. And 
 with these directions agrees the answer to the 
 question in the Catechism as to what is re- 
 quired of them that come to the Lord's Supper, 
 namely, to " examine themselves whether they 
 repent them truly of their former sins, stead- 
 fastly purposing to lead a new life." No men- 
 tion here again of private confession as an 
 adjunct to self-examination and resolves of 
 amendment. 
 
 But then, besides these general directions, 
 there is another, on which reliance is placed. 
 If by the means proposed the sinner cannot 
 quiet his conscience, he is to " open his grief" 
 
64 
 
 to a learned and discreet minister of God's 
 word, that, by the ministry of God's holy word 
 — a sentence frequently omitted in references 
 to this passage — he may receive the benefit of 
 absolution. And what this means may, per- 
 haps, receive some light from the injunction 
 coupled with the power of binding and loosing 
 in the Ordination of Priests, — " Be thou a faith- 
 ful dispenser of God's holy word and sacra- 
 ments." The corresponding direction in the 
 Homily is to the same effect as that in the Ex- 
 hortation to Communion, with, perhaps, a little 
 more latitude as to the party to be consulted 
 in the emergency. " If any do find themselves 
 troubled in conscience, they may repair to their 
 learned curate or pastor, or to some other 
 godly learned man, and show the trouble and 
 doubt of their conscience to them." They are 
 to open their grief ; they are to show their 
 trouble or doubt — that which specially dis- 
 quiets them, and so burthens their conscience 
 that they cannot give it ease by the ordinary 
 means. This is a provision for their relief 
 from the weight which oppresses them, but 
 it is not language which gives a warrant 
 for that liberty of private confession, now con- 
 tended for as lawful, and which, in the manner 
 of its exercise, it is difficult to distinguish from 
 the practice repudiated expressly and pointedly 
 
65 
 
 bj the Homily. " It is against the true Christian 
 liberty that any man should be bound to the 
 numbering of his sins, as it hath been used here- 
 tofore in the time of blindness and ignorance." * 
 It is this numbering of sins, obligatory before 
 the Reformation, but forbidden by the homily, 
 which introduces the practice of the interro- 
 gative system in receiving confession. The 
 Eomish priest puts his specific questions, lest 
 the enumeration of any single sin should be 
 omitted, and nullify the benefit of absolution. 
 " We must take heed," say they, " that we for- 
 get nothing : for all those sins that are for- 
 gotten may not be forgiven." f Our Church 
 instructs the minister of God's word to move 
 the sinner to open his grief, to listen to his 
 own spontaneous disclosure of the weighty 
 matter which troubles him ; but he is not 
 bidden, — by inference, I think he is forbidden, 
 — to probe him by suggestive inquiries, or to 
 conjecture causes which may be imaginary and 
 foreign to the present distress. 
 
 It is important, however, to refer to the 
 history of this part of the service. Two Books 
 of Common Prayer were compiled and set forth 
 by order of Parliament, in the reign of Edward 
 
 * Homily on Repentance. 
 
 f Latimer's " Sermon on 3rd Sunday after Epiphany," 
 vol. ii. 398. 
 
66 
 
 the Sixth, — the first, in January 7th, 1549; the 
 second, being a revision of the first, in April, 
 1552, with order for its use throughout the 
 kingdom, from the feast of All Saints following.* 
 The variations show the progress of the Reform- 
 ation, and are well worthy of attentive con- 
 sideration. Of those which bear upon the 
 present point, the following are the most 
 remarkable : In the first book the direction is 
 to this effect — " If there be any of you whose 
 conscience is troubled and grieved in anything 
 ... let him come to me . . . and confess and 
 open his sin secretly . . . that of us (as of the 
 ministers of God and of the Church) he may 
 receive comfort and absolution . . . requiring 
 such as shall be satisfied with a general con- 
 fession not to be ofifended with them that do 
 use, to their further satisfying, the auricular 
 and secret confession to the priest ; nor those 
 also which think needful or convenient, for the 
 quietness of their own consciences, particularly 
 to open their sins to the priest, to be ofifended 
 with them that are satisfied with their humble 
 confession to God, and the general confession 
 to the Church." In the second book the ex- 
 hortation is altered to a form which is sub- 
 stantially the same as that in use at present, 
 sanctioned and established at the last revision 
 
 * Cardwell's " Two Books of Common Prayer compared." 
 
67 
 
 in 1661. In this book, first, the penitent whose 
 conscience is disquieted is no longer directed 
 " to confess and open his sin and grief secretly ^^^ 
 but simply " to open his grief," as it stands at 
 present. Secondly, the words, " that of us (as 
 of the ministers of God and of the Church,) he 
 may receive comfort and absolution," are altered 
 to, " that by the ministry of God's Holy Word 
 he may receive the benefit of absolution :" "to 
 show," says Wheatley, "that the benefit of 
 absolution (of absolution, I presume, from in- 
 ward guilt,) was not to be received by the 
 pronouncing of any form, but by a due appli- 
 cation and ministry of God's Holy Word," — 
 referring to John, xv. 3, Now ye are clean 
 through the word which I have spoken unto 
 you; and to 2 Cor. v. 19, God was in Christy 
 reconciling the world unto Himself^ not im- 
 puting their trespasses unto them, and hath 
 committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 
 And in agreement with this, the Rubric in the 
 first book ordering the same form of absolution 
 to be used in all private confessions, which is 
 provided in the ofiSce for the Visitation of the 
 Sick, was left out at the revision. And then, 
 thirdly, the caution to the communicant, who 
 is satisfied with a general confession, not to 
 be ofifended with such as use auricular and 
 secret confession to the priest, is omitted alto- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 gether. These are material changes, which 
 mark the mind of the Reformed Church with 
 a distinctness which cannot be mistaken. And 
 in directing our attention to them with a care- 
 ful scrutiny, we shall be only acting in the 
 spirit of the advice given by the compilers of 
 our Liturgy in the Preface affixed to the Book 
 of Common Prayer at the last revision : "If 
 any man who shall desire a more particular 
 account of the several alterations in any part 
 of the Liturgy shall take the pains to compare 
 the present book with the former, we doubt 
 not but the reason of the change will easily 
 appear." 
 
 Then, further, the case for which provision 
 is thus made, is clearly exceptional. Self- 
 examination, confession to God, repentance with 
 amendment of life, are the ordinary require- 
 ments ; these failing to quiet conscience, a 
 further remedy is prescribed, not applicable 
 and not recommended under all circumstances, 
 but reserved specially for an extreme emer- 
 gency. And so, in the Rubric in the Visitation 
 of the Sick, after sundry directions, it is added, 
 " Here shall the sick person be moved to make 
 a special confession of his sins, if he feel his 
 conscience troubled with any weighty matter. '^ 
 And for such exceptional case, among the 
 occasional prayers at the end of the service, — 
 
69 
 
 prayers obviously not to be offered indiscri- 
 minately on all occasions of using the office^ 
 but only at certain times, — after the prayers 
 for a sick child, or person under small hope of 
 recovery, or at the point of departure, provision 
 is made for another peculiar category in a 
 prayer "for persons troubled in mind or in 
 conscience," meeting the special case of one 
 who has confessed the weighty matter with 
 which his soul was burthened. 
 
 If, then, this special confession to the priest 
 be not obligatory, in all cases, before Communion 
 or even on the sick-bed, there is absolutelv no 
 shadow of authority in the formularies of our 
 Church for the practice of habitual private 
 confession, sick or well, with or without some 
 disquieting grief to be opened.* The abuses 
 to which it has led are matters of history. 
 They are among the most notorious offences 
 of the Romish system. Even with all her ap- 
 pliances, with the safeguards thrown around 
 the communications of the priest with the peni- 
 tent, by the comparative publicity of the con- 
 fessional in the open church, and by the definite 
 rules for his guidance, it is "a perpetual danger," 
 in the words of Jeremy Taylor, "by which he 
 that loves it may chance to perish. And of 
 this," he adds, " there have been too many sad 
 * See Appendix B. 
 
70 
 
 examples remarked, evidencing that this private 
 confession hath been the occasion and the op- 
 portunity of the vilest crimes." * 
 
 The system of the confessional is as foreign 
 to the spirit of the Gospel as to the manly com- 
 mon sense and independent mind of the great 
 mass of the members of the English Church. 
 The spirit of the Gospel is " repentance towards 
 God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 The mind of our congregations will not tolerate 
 an empty formalism in the place of these life- 
 giving truths, or the substitution of an unscrip- 
 tural confession to sinful man, of like passions 
 with themselves, in the stead of sorrow for sin 
 before God, "with groanings that cannot be 
 uttered," true conversion of heart, and holiness 
 of life. They will never endure to see the 
 weaker members of their families subjected to 
 an authority which, if it does not taint and con- 
 fuse the moral sense, subdues the mind to the 
 extinction of all independent volition, and chains 
 it captive with passive submission to the will 
 of a spiritual director. 
 
 And then, mark the consequences, too much 
 to be dreaded as probable, if not inevitable. 
 There will be a jealousy attaching itself to those 
 domiciliary visits which form so important a 
 part of your pastoral duty. The cottage door 
 * " Dissuasive from Popery," part ii. s. ii. vol. xi. p. 35. 
 
71 
 
 will be closed against you, or averted faces will 
 meet you, and suspicion cloud the brow of your 
 parishioners as you enter. That famiHar inter- 
 course which has so often cleared a doubt, or 
 solved a difficulty, or thrown a light upon your 
 public teaching, will be restrained or rejected 
 altogether, and you will find yourselves paralysed 
 in one of the best arms of your ministry. For 
 such a loss, the setting up of a confessional will 
 be a sorry compensation. 
 
 Is this deference to the world's opinion ? Is 
 it a shrinking from the discharge of duty in a 
 particular department of ministerial work, be- 
 cause it is unpopular? If it be so, I earnestly 
 pray that we may be delivered from a spirit so 
 unworthy and so time-serving. But " we have 
 not so learned Christ." We have not thus read 
 the apostolical lesson. True it is, that one who 
 was not a "whit behind the very chiefest apostles" 
 has bidden us look beyond the world's view of 
 what is truth to the court of highest appeal. 
 " With me it is a very small thing that I should 
 
 be judged .... of man's judgment but 
 
 He that judgeth me is the Lord." But how 
 does he preface this appeal to the paramount 
 jurisdiction of his Divine Master? " Let a man 
 so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, 
 and stewards of the mysteries of God." * What 
 * 1 Cor. iv. 1-4. 
 
72 
 
 w6 want as such ministers and stewards is a 
 more spiritual discernment of truth, that we 
 may make a more simple, clear, apostolic pro- 
 clamation of it to our flocks. The most efficient 
 minister is he in whom the word of Christ dwells 
 most richly in all wisdom. Then is his store- 
 house fullest of things new and old ; then the 
 whole treasury of Divine grace is poured forth 
 in most gracious abundance ; then unsearchable 
 riches are at his command to minister to the 
 indigence of each soul that is under his charge ; 
 then will liis parish realise the possession of 
 that precious blessing which God promised as 
 His choicest gift to penitent Israel — "I will give 
 you pastors according to mine heart, which 
 shall feed you with knowledge and understand- 
 ing." * We have it on the authority of God 
 Himself, that the pastor who feeds is the pastor 
 after God's own heart. Christ makes it the 
 burthen of His special commission and the test 
 of the pastor's love : " Feed My sheep. Feed 
 My lambs." 
 
 And this is the safest criterion for judging 
 of the reality of our work, and of the soundness 
 of the foundation on which it rests. Are we 
 feeding the flock of Christ out of love to the 
 Divine Shepherd? No heart work without 
 heart Iovq. Legislation can only bear upon 
 
 * Jer. iii, 15. 
 
73 
 
 externals. It may provide means of progress, 
 but it cannot set the wheels in motion. It mav 
 build churches, but it cannot put fire upon the 
 altar. It may multiply schools, but it cannot 
 cleanse the way of a young man, or teach him 
 from a child to know the Holy Scriptures, 
 which are able to make him wise unto salvation 
 through faith which is in Christ Jesus. It may 
 give man s word, and at the human bidding 
 great may be the company of the preachers, 
 but it cannot make the inefficient man useful, 
 it cannot convert indolence into activity, or 
 transmute the formal, the unscriptural, the 
 unspiritual into the able and faithful minister 
 of the New Testament. God is the sole Dis- 
 penser of His own grace. God alone quickens 
 His own word from the letter that killeth to the 
 Spirit that giveth life. 
 
 May He, my Keverend Brethren, grant to 
 you these heavenly gifts in fullest measure ! 
 May He acknowledge you as His true servants 
 in His acceptance of your ministrations, and 
 testify to their faithfulness, as when He said of 
 him whom He was about to send unto the Gen- 
 tiles, — " Behold he prayeth." Join with me, 
 brethren beloved in the Lord, in this mutual 
 prayer for yourselves, for each other, for me. 
 Join in brotherly love and unity of spirit, in 
 commending each the other to God and to the 
 
74 
 
 word of His grace, which is able to give us an 
 inheritance among all them that are sanctified. 
 
 " Almighty God, who by Thy Son Jesus 
 Christ didst give to Thy Apostle St. Peter 
 many excellent gifts, and commandedst him 
 earnestly to feed Thy flock; Make, we beseech 
 Thee, all bishops and pastors diligently to 
 preach Thy Holy Word, and the people obe- 
 diently to follow the same, that they may 
 receive the crown of everlasting glory ; through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord.'^ Amen. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Appendix A. (Page 28.) 
 
 Extract of a Letter from an Incumbent of a small Benefice 
 with 280 souls at the last Census^ in the Diocese of 
 Wiiichester, to the Bishop. 
 
 " I am induced to state the case of my own school, 
 
 bearing, as it does, upon connexion with Government. 
 
 "When I came here in 1852, 1 found a most incompetent 
 mistress teaching seven children. I dismissed her as soon as 
 possible, and, having raised the subscriptions from 21. to 12/. 
 a-year, was in a position to offer 20Z. a-year. 
 
 "Knowing the great advantage the school in the parish I 
 came from derived from Government, I endeavoured to get 
 a certificated mistress. I applied to the Salisbury Training 
 School, the one at Brighton, and the Home and Colonial in 
 London, and received the same reply from each, — that no 
 certificated mistress ever went out under 35/., besides 
 augmentation. 
 
 " I was therefore obliged to be content with one who had 
 only had some training. I get a person of about nineteen, 
 who stays two years, and then leaves ; and, unpromising as 
 this sounds, the school has prospered, and the numbers have 
 gradually increased to thirty -three. 
 
78 
 
 " The last mistress, however, remained three years, and 
 was to have gone up for a certificate in December, and the 
 Committee of Council sent 50*. as Capitation-money in con- 
 sequence : but, unfortunately, she has had an offer of mar- 
 riage, and has not returned since harvest ; and if she had 
 got her certificate, I could not have expected her to stay 
 above a year at the salary I give. 
 
 " The Capitation-money is the only direct advantage 
 which Government affords to schools, and of that it is usual 
 to give the master or mistress a portion. 
 
 "Mr. Watkins, in the Minutes, 1857-58, p. 294, speaks 
 of the augmentation as the private fortune of the master or 
 mistress. 
 
 " If Government would continue inspection and capita- 
 tion-grants to well-conducted village -schools, unable to 
 obtain the services of certificated persons, I think much 
 advantage every way would result. Moderate qualifications 
 are suflScient for such schools, and it is not those with the 
 highest certificates who make the best teachers. Mr. 
 Brookfield says (Minutes, 1857-58, p. 387):— "The pre- 
 ponderance of efficiency, indeed, is somewhat, though very 
 slightly, in favour of the third, or lowest class of certificates." 
 
 "According to a memorial in the September number of the 
 National Society's monthly paper it appears, that out of 522 
 schools in the diocese of Bath and Wells, only 81 possess 
 certificated masters and mistresses. The 441 remaining 
 schools are in the poorest parishes. The reason given is, 
 the smallness of the population in the rural parishes, and that 
 the resources are generally in proportion to the population. 
 
 " This is exactly the case of the school here : it is too poor 
 to derive any help from Government, for the 50^. received 
 this year is quite an exception : it is the first, and perhaps 
 the last annual grant." 
 
79 
 
 Appendix B. (Page 69.) 
 
 I confine myself to the evidence supplied by the formu- 
 laries of our Church, because to those who have solemnly 
 endorsed them by subscription such an appeal must be 
 sufficient. It would be superfluous to say to the audience 
 addressed in this charge, that our Reformers, while they 
 vindicated the original doctrine, restored the originsll prac- 
 tice of the Church. But in nothing was the work of the 
 Reformers more entirely a restoration, than in the depart- 
 ment under review. 
 
 The verdict of ecclesiastical controversy is all but 
 unanimous, that Confession^ as now defined, and now im- 
 posed by the Church of Rome, was unknown in the earliest 
 times ; and the unanimity would have been complete, had 
 not Bellarmine and other apologists for Rome maintained a 
 different opinion. It can scarcely be regretted, indeed, that 
 they have done so, since their opposition has called forth 
 such a cloud of witnesses on the other side. For other- 
 wise, we might never have had the profound researches of 
 Daille,* combating in detail the positions of Bellarmine, and 
 Petavius, and Tournely ; and proving by thirty cogent 
 arguments, that the doctrine in question was established 
 in the thirteenth century, and not before. 
 
 We might not have had that collation of authorities 
 exhibited by our learned Bingham,^ and embracing the 
 testimony of Chrysostom, and Basil, and Hilary, and Am- 
 brose, and Austin, of Maximus Taurinensis, and of Cassian. 
 
 We might not have had the labours of such authors as 
 
 * " Dallseus de Auric. Latinorum Confess." 
 t '* Christian Antiq." book xviii. c. iii. 
 
80 
 
 Hooker,* and Jeremy Taylor,! proving that that doctrine 
 " is new even in the Church of Rome itself, and not 
 esteemed any part of the Catholic religion before the 
 Council of Trent." 
 
 Nor might we have had the services of more modern 
 writers in establishing the same point; as, for instance, 
 Dr. Pusey, who, in his edition of Tertullian, has given a 
 most elaborate note to prove that Exomologesis is not con- 
 fession, nor confession itself what Rome understands it to 
 be. Tp qiiote one example in the editor's words : — 
 
 " If Romanists would fairly consider this, there could be 
 no way in which confession to God alone, exclusive of man, 
 could be expressed, if not here. St. Chrysostom says, " to 
 God alone" — "apart, in private" — "to Him who knoweth 
 beforehand " — " no one knowing " — " no one present save 
 Him who knoweth" — " God alone seeing" — "unwitnessed" 
 — "not to man" — "not to a fellow-servant" — "within" — 
 "in the conscience" — "in the memory" — "judging thyself" 
 (in lieu of the priest being the judge) — "proving ourselves 
 — each himself, not the one to the other" — "in church to 
 God" {i. e. in the general confession). Accordingly, one 
 Romanist writer boldly pronounces all these passages spuri- 
 ous ; and, since they are unquestionable, another, of great 
 name, Petavius, condemns them as " being uttered in a 
 declamatory way to the ignorant multitude, for the sake of 
 impressiveness ;" but certainly, poor as such an excuse 
 would be for what, according to Romanists, is false teach- 
 ing, the passages are too numerous and too uniform to admit 
 ofit."t 
 
 * ** No, no: these opinions have youth in their countenance; an- 
 tiquity knew them not, it never thought nor dreamed of them." — 
 Hooker's Works, Kehle's edition, book vi. c. xiv. 
 
 t Works, vol. xi. p. 11. Heber's edition, 1839. 
 
 X " Library of the Fathers." Oxford, 1842. Vol. x. p. 401. 
 
 London :— Printed by G. Barclay, Castle St. Leicester Sq.