A CHARG^ 
 
 DELIVERED TO 
 
 pCcTtluMu 
 
 TxIE CLEKGY OF THE DIOCESE 
 OF ROCHESTER, 
 
 AT HIS SECOND VISITATION IN 1885. 
 
 By ANTHONY W. THOROLD, D.D. 
 
 NINETY-EIGHTH BISHOP. 
 
 "My strength will I ascribe unto Thee, for Thou art the God of 
 my refuge." 
 
 " What an organism is depends upon what it does. Its activities 
 make it." 
 
 WITH LITHOGRAPH DRAWING. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MUEEAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 . 1885. 
 
 Vrice Two Shillinqs.
 
 TO MY BRETHREN THE CLERGY. 
 
 " For you, who have loved and lahoured yourselves, not 
 for yourselves, but for the folk of your time, and not for 
 your time only, but for coming generations — for you there 
 shall be life as broad and far-reaching as your love ; for 
 you, life-giving action to the utmost crest of the great wave, 
 whoso crest yoia sometimes were." 
 
 . UlUC 
 
 /'
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Four Years more . 
 
 II. Questions and Answers . 
 
 III. Developments . 
 
 IV. The People 
 V. Government 
 
 VI. Truth .... 
 
 33 
 44 
 52 
 67 
 83
 
 " Once a real ChristiaB, the world did not vanish before 
 my eyes ; it rather assumed nobler proportions, as I myself 
 did. Instead of a mere empty, fleeting theatre of ambi- 
 tion, alike petty, whether deluded or achieved, I began 
 to see therein a noble sufferer needing help ; a mighty 
 misfortune resulting from all sorrows of ages past and to 
 come, and I could imagine nothing comparable to the happi- 
 ness of ministering to it under the eye of God, with the 
 help of the Cross, and the Gospel of Christ." — Lacordaire.
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
 CHAPTER T. 
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 
 
 " The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his 
 occasional efforts, but by his ordinary life." — Pascal. 
 
 My Reverend Brethren, 
 
 1. Four years bring many changes. With changes 
 should come fuller self-knowledge, openings for new 
 effort, windows of inspiring hope let into lives, which 
 sometimes seem commonplace and dull, a wholesome 
 if melancholy conviction of the irreparableness of the 
 past. To some Grod has sent sorrows, so barbed that 
 they will rankle till we die, so sacred that they never 
 pass our lips, so luminous with revelations of the 
 Divine character, that when we feel God's face over 
 us, the keenest anguish becomes " a solemn scorn of 
 ills." Some have had disappointments, but have come 
 through them to understand the tender wisdom of God. 
 Others have been laid aside from duty ; then after an 
 interval of useful inactivity have returned to their 
 work with an exhilarating happiness unknown for 
 years. We may have been sharply censured for words 
 we never uttered, or for motives which never even 
 occurred to us. We took no notice. Pascal has his 
 reflection on "the power of flies, which win battles, 
 hinder our soul from action, devour our body." All
 
 6 CIIAEGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 have their flies in turn, and they are only flies. As 
 we grow older, we may become more sensitive of our 
 shortcomings. Mistakes corrode lis, for we know now 
 how near wisdom is to goodness. We increasingly 
 wonder at our slackness in prayer. We must have 
 vexed some people by simply doing our duty. Others 
 we have tried to conquer by kindness, and we have 
 failed. Well, some penalties are honourable rewards, 
 and some disappointments take their consolation with 
 them. Grod sees and understands. That is enough. Let 
 us be sure that if during these four years we have been 
 simply and truly trying to serve God, and to save men, 
 we must have done some little good, and won some pro- 
 gress in holiness. As for mistakes, the fewer there are 
 the better, for they injure influence, and they weaken 
 self-respect. But we have to wait, perhaps years, before 
 some of our so-called mistakes justify a repentance for 
 them. As to damaging the Church, they probably all 
 together make as much impression on it as a child's 
 pellet gun on Gibraltar Rock. A friend once asked 
 Bishop Tait, " Which is the harder work, being Bishop 
 of London, or being Head Master of Rugby ? " The 
 Bishop, after a little thought, replied, "The work is 
 about the same. Each is as much as a man can do. 
 But London is a far less anxious charge than Rugby. 
 At Rugby each morning before I rose, I thought to 
 myself, ' Now, to-day I may make some blunder in 
 temper or management which might seriously injure 
 Rugby School.' But in London I have the comfort of 
 thinking that, no matter what mistakes I may make, I 
 can't I'uin the Church O'f England." . . ^ 
 
 U.UC
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 7 
 
 2. Since last I visited you, more of our brethren 
 have gone out by the Appian Way, Archdeacon 
 Grant, whose Bampton Lectures gave an impulse to 
 missionary effort which our great Church Societies 
 feel to this hour, laid us all under debt to him for his 
 great knowledge of affairs, his serene but inflexible 
 judgment, and a character that mellowed in its autumn 
 beauty.* The Master of the Charterhouse many of 
 the young clergy will long cherish in respectful 
 memory, for his great erudition and his paternal kind- 
 ness. By the deatli of Canon Pritchett, St. Paul, 
 Charlton, suffered the loss of an experienced parish 
 priest and a warm-hearted friend ; our Diocesan So- 
 ciety was deprived of an honorary secretary whose 
 capacity for business was equalled only by an un- 
 rivalled experience of diocesan affairs, with an exem- 
 plary diligence in attending to them. Sutton, Sander- 
 stead, and Carshalton, Eeigate, Wandsworth and Kew, 
 Battersea and Champion Hill, Southwark, Bermondsey 
 and Rotherhithe, Northfleet, High Halstow, Green- 
 hithe and Kingsdown have all lost incumbents, widely 
 differing in length of service, in the burden of years, 
 in gifts, experience and learning, and have been filled 
 by successors who justify bright hope for the future 
 prospects of the Church. 
 
 3. There have also been changes. Canon Money has 
 left us for Cheltenham after thirty years of laborious 
 and exemplary service. Mr. Lingham has resigned 
 the great parish of Lambeth for a well-earned repose. 
 
 * An admirable selection of his sermons has Leon edited by his 
 B(jn, the Eev. Cyril Grant. (Bosworth, London,) 
 
 *
 
 8 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Barnes proved too heavy for Mr. Ellerton's strength. 
 Bishop Anson has exchanged Woolwich for the work 
 of a missionary bishop in the great North-West. Our 
 own Chapter has been called to surrender, not without 
 disappointment, yet with a proud satisfaction, one of 
 the most learned of its body to succeed Bishop 
 Moberly in the Sec of Sarum. Two other names, 
 associated in immediate succession with the deaneries 
 of Barnes and Newington, demand our respectful 
 regret. Archbishop Tait, by his firm and sagacious 
 government, restored the Primacy of all England 
 to a di2:nitv and influence it had not enioved since 
 Tillotson was at Lambeth — with his Primacy, the 
 great Church he ruled. Bishop Jackson united in a 
 conspicuous degree three moral qualities not often 
 combined — humility, courage, and tenderness. Balliol 
 would hardly have elected him Visitor, but for a dis- 
 tinct appreciation of his mental capacity. At Lincoln 
 his administration struck deep roots, still vital and 
 fruitful of good. In London, by the exercise of his 
 patronage he brought three men to the front who have 
 helped, and are helping to make East, South- West, and 
 West London, plantations for all noble activities under 
 the wing of the English Church. " We, my brethren, 
 shall be dead soon, and then it is only the fact of our 
 work that will speak for us through all eternity." 
 
 4. '' Four 3^ears more," however, tell not only of 
 death, but of life. Let us look back for a moment to 
 see what our God has already done for us, mindful of 
 a saint's caution, " Let nothing of all that thou doest 
 seem much to thee," also of the biting epigram of
 
 FOUR YEAES MOEE. 9 
 
 almost tlie greatest literary genius of tliis age, " The 
 capacity for good work of tlie kind that goes on with- 
 out trumpets is diminishing in the world." 
 
 5. In my primary charge I stated three urgent mat- 
 ters — the unsatisfactory circumstances of St. Saviour, 
 Southwark, tlie insufficiency of churcli accommodation 
 for the growing population, our claim for a share of 
 help from the Cliurch outside. We have been wonder- 
 fully helped with them all. A well-considered scheme for 
 abolishing the annual church rate at St. Saviour's, for 
 vesting the patronage in the Bishop, and for securing 
 an adequate income, has been sanctioned by Parliament. 
 A great scandal is ended. The restoration of the fabric 
 will assuredly be put in hand so soon as the principal 
 parishioners assure me that the time is come for it. 
 Impatiently to anticipate a difficult task is almost a 
 greater blunder than to leave it too long undone. 
 
 The Diocesan Conference of 1881 unanimously re- 
 solved that ten new churches were immediately 
 requii-ed ; and in the autumn of 1882, encouraged by 
 the promise of Mr. Francis Peek to build a tenth churcli 
 at his own cost, on the condition of nine others being 
 built to meet it, I launched the scheme on the diocese. 
 Five years seemed needful for accomplishing it. Three 
 have proved to be enough, for the money is raised. 
 In all cases the Ten Churches Committee declined to 
 undertake a personal superintendence of the details. 
 By apportioning a block sum of £4000 to each of the 
 localities where a churcli was needed, they succeeded 
 in stimulating the liberality of the respective neigh- 
 bourhoods, and thereby enlisting sympathy and effort.
 
 10 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Special donations for a particular church were assigned 
 to it, in addition to our own grant. When the Ten 
 Churches Committee approved the plans, the local 
 Committee signed the contract, supervised the payment 
 of the hullder, and were responsible for the proper 
 completion of the work. Thereby the germinal orga- 
 nisation of a new parish was formed where it had not 
 previously existed, and the living Church was ready 
 to take possession of the material one. The work, so 
 far as our Committee is concerned, is now, thank God, 
 done. Eight of the ten churches are consecrated and 
 at work ; the ninth, in Camberwell, is to be commenced 
 immediately. For the tenth (our third in Battersea) 
 the block sum of £4,000 will be ready when required. 
 
 A tabulated statement of the Ten Churches Fund is 
 placed at your disposal. I have also thought it would 
 gratify you to possess, bound up with this charge, a 
 lithographed sheet of the elevations of the churches 
 themselves. Let us remember (I beg the several 
 incumbents especially to remember) that the easiest 
 part of the work, that of asking, giving, building, is 
 behind. The hardest part, steady pastoral duty for 
 the love of Christ, and the salvation of souls, now 
 completely begins. 
 
 Two other observations. When our Fund was 
 started, two churches in Battersea and Peckham 
 already projected would liave been utterly crippled 
 by our diocesan effort if we had not put them on our 
 list. The patronage schemes and plans of both these 
 we accepted from the promoters. Also for two otlier 
 churches, one within, the other on tbe edge of the
 
 FOUE YEARS MORE. 
 
 11 
 
 metropolitan area, much needed, and likely, for a 
 similar reason, to be indefinitely delayed, we felt it 
 equitable substantially to assist. Tliey are at Sutton 
 and Plumstead ; now consecrated, and in use. 
 
 The Ten Churches, 
 
 Iiicunibcnt and Name of Parish. 
 
 Accommodation. 
 
 Topulation. 
 
 Free or Rented. 
 
 Rev. H. E. Jeunings. 
 St. Clement, East Dulwich. 
 
 About 1,000 
 
 About 10,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. A. E. Bourne. 
 All !Saints, Battersea. 
 
 700 
 
 8,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. R. Taylor. 
 St. Faith, Waudswortb. 
 
 850 
 
 9,000 
 
 Half Free. 
 
 Rev. W. Stone. 
 St. Mark, Depttbrd. 
 
 G3G 
 
 5,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. G. Collctt. 
 St. Mark, Pcckbam. 
 
 800 
 
 7,500 
 
 Half Free. 
 
 Rev. T. C. Johnson. 
 St. Katharine, Rotherhi the. 
 
 750 
 
 8,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. E. J. Hensl.y. 
 St. Luke, Bermoudsey. 
 
 665 
 
 8,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. J. Holroyde. 
 St. Andrew, Battersca. 
 
 Nearly 600 (north 
 aisle not built) 
 
 11,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. H. Wells. 
 St. Bartholomew, Camberwell. 
 
 700 
 
 7,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Rev. H. Percival Smith. 
 St. Stephen, Battersea. 
 
 650 
 
 7,000 
 
 Free. 
 
 Ten. 
 
 6,751 
 
 80,500 
 
 Free. 
 
 G. In my last Charge, referring, not without reason- 
 able envy, to the aid so liberally given to the Bishop 
 of Bedford's admirable work in East London, I asked, 
 " What have we done to deserve to be so totally for- 
 gotten ? " That question has had its anticipated reply, 
 though few could have dared to expect that the help 
 would come either so fully or so soon. We have now six
 
 12 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 mission stations planted and at work, or projected and 
 on the eve of being planted in our larger half of poor 
 London. St. John's College, Cambridge, has led the 
 way, not unmindful, it may be, of the close connection 
 which nearly four centuries ago existed between that 
 princely foundation and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. 
 The mission is planted in St. John, Walworth ; Mr. 
 Phillips laboriously and devoutly superintends it ; and 
 Bishop Ellicott, once a Fellow of St. John's, honours 
 and edifies the people by an annual service. 
 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, is projecting a mission in 
 the parish of St. George, Camberwell ; Mr. Campbell, 
 the clergyman in charge, has been cordially welcomed 
 by the venerable Incumbent ; and I am confident that 
 the Royal College will adequately support both with 
 resources and sympathy an effort as truly missionary in 
 its area, population, and necessities as any city in Japan. 
 The Charterhouse has selected perhaps the most anxious 
 spot in Southwark for a mission ; and Mr. Curry is 
 devoting himself to a duty, which melancholy people 
 may not inaccurately describe as the forlorn hope of 
 South London ; but which he, just because of its com- 
 plicated difficulties, regards as a post of honour. Clare 
 College has appointed Mr. King to be head of a mission 
 in Rotherhithe. Wellington College is coming into 
 St. Peter's, Walworth ; and the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury has nominated Mr. Lucas to the post. Pembroke 
 College, Cambridge, is projecting a mission in All 
 Saints, Walworth, which will be commenced when 
 the missionary clergyman is found. Now just consider 
 what all this means. In money it is worth at least
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. J 3 
 
 twelve hundred pounds a-year. It implies pastoral 
 care, kindly sympathy, and the regular ministrations 
 of grace for 30,000 souls. It should prove the basis 
 of the parochial system in at least six new districts. It 
 will bring about happy and personal contact between 
 the bright side of life and the shadowed, between the 
 buoyant gladness of the young men who from time to 
 time will come down to visit the missions, and the 
 opaque dull lives of countless toilers, who from one 
 year to another never gaze on the verdure of summer 
 time, nor feel the spray of the tossing sea. It means 
 to those who have never yet been called to bear the 
 burdens, or bow under the sorrows of actual life, an 
 opportunity of measuring the chasm that divides the 
 extremes of English society into two alien worlds, and 
 of bridging it over with simple kindness. One of 
 the happiest signs of times, which need something to 
 make one cheerful about them, is the moral and social 
 revolution that is secretly transforming many of the 
 young gentlemen of the upper class in the apprecia- 
 tion of their personal responsibilities for the millions. 
 
 Sociableness is the breakwater of Revolution. In 
 most cases our young friends will get more than 
 they give, and in a commonwealth regenerated by 
 truth, elevated by example, softened by kindness, 
 surprised by justice, a new England may presently 
 be born, as lofty as the England of Elizabeth, as 
 virtuous as the England of Cromwell, as prosperous 
 as the England of Walpole. " We are saved by hope." 
 
 Te Ueum Laudamus.
 
 14 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 7. I said we had six ; and I trust they are an instal- 
 ment. In ten minutes I could indicate districts for six 
 more. Perhaps soon Oxford may help us. 
 
 8. One other addition to our organisation I must 
 notice, the replanting of the Wilberforce Mission in the 
 locality for which it was originally intended, and its 
 being housed in its own premises at Newington. The 
 income is small — merely the interest of £10,000; but 
 it is aided by a commodious house, which our mis- 
 sionary occupies, and to which we are now adding a 
 room, to be put to many useful purposes for our Lay 
 Readers. 
 
 It was not so much a friend's recognition of a 
 friend, as the slight reward of services to the Diocesan 
 Society, done so ably and unweariedly by Mr. Grrundy, 
 when I invited him, as the best qualified person I 
 knew, to accept the post of first Wilberforce Missionary 
 in the Rochester diocese. 
 
 9. Now you may fairly ask, if these new efforts have 
 interfered with the old ones, and if any check to our 
 permanent institutions can be traced, excessive of what 
 might be expected to accrue from abnormal and excep- 
 tional effort ? You shall judge for yourselves from the 
 appended schedules. 
 
 The Diocesan Society has been in existence nearly 
 eight years ; and the most effective way of indicating its 
 value is to ask what we should do without it ? Year by 
 year its income must fluctuate. All incomes fluctuate ; 
 and depressed trade is apt to affect charities first. My 
 own impression is that we have really done very well, 
 and have much to be thankful for.
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 
 
 15 
 
 EocHESTER Diocesan Society. — Extenditure. 
 
 1881-84. 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Mission 
 Build- 
 ings. 
 
 Sites. 
 
 Par- 
 sonages. 
 
 Mission 
 Clergy. 
 
 Scrip- 
 ture 
 Readers. 
 
 Mission 
 Women 
 
 Total. 
 
 43,760 
 
 32 
 
 grants 
 
 £. 
 
 5,951 
 
 50 
 grants 
 
 3,202 
 
 11 
 
 grants 
 
 2,150 
 
 7 grants 
 
 £. 
 
 12,000 
 
 74 
 grants 
 
 £. 
 
 3,674 
 
 100 
 grants 
 
 £. 
 
 4,356 
 
 184 
 grants 
 
 £. 
 75,093 
 
 The Diocesan Board of Educatmi, to which I shall 
 have to return in another chapter, has always been 
 somewhat overshadowed by the Diocesan Society, 
 almost equals it in the importance of its operations, 
 quite equals it in the enterprise and courage of its 
 executive body. If it has never been appreciated as it 
 deserves to be, the reason is that its cause has been so 
 seldom explained, or advocated in the pulpits of the 
 diocese. There have been important changes in the 
 staff, for both Mr. Woodhouse and Mr. G-arnier have 
 (to our great regret) vacated their posts of diocesan 
 and assistant diocesan inspector of schools. They 
 have been succeeded by Mr. Johnson in the former 
 office, and Dr. Bailey in the latter. So far as I can 
 judge, the examining work is done with kindness, 
 ability and enthusiasm. It must occasionally happen 
 that there is an appearance of hurry. The income is 
 lamentably insufficient, though, with a few windfalls, 
 and occasional offertories, we have never yet had an
 
 16 CHAEGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 empty treasury. But we must not go on like this. 
 There is something almost base in it. Our new 
 departure has been in the direction of an organising 
 master, and Mr. Seabrook has succeeded both in dis- 
 appointing those who hesitated about the expediency 
 of creating the office, and in surpassing the hopes of 
 those who, knowing the man, and the work he had to 
 do, and the condition of the financial problem the 
 Board has had to solve, expected good results, hardly 
 so good. I consider Mr. Seabrook one of the most 
 useful officers in the diocese, and his function vital to 
 the existence of our voluntary schools. In the Arch- 
 deaconry of Eochester alone, during the past year, 
 out of 57 schools visited by him, no less than 40 have 
 earned an increased grant; in 31 there has been an 
 increase of school pence, in many, increased average 
 attendance and greater regularity. During the same 
 period he has paid 307 visits, held 141 consultations 
 with managers and teachers (half a day being allowed 
 for each), conducted 142 examinations of schools, paid 
 67 calls on teachers when near their schools for friendly 
 inquiry, and conducted a large general correspondence. 
 He appears to me to earn his £300 a year. To those 
 who concur with me in this view, but have not yet 
 subscribed to the Education Board, such a practical 
 expression of their sympathy will be opportune. The 
 best evidence of his usefulness in keeping our voluntary 
 schools from sinking is the circumstance that during 
 the last four years only 2 schools have been surren- 
 dered to the Board out of all our large and poor dis- 
 trict •, and these are far more than compensated by the
 
 FOUR YEAES MORE. 
 
 17 
 
 spirited efforts of Churchmen in Eedhill and Reigate, 
 Lee and Blackheath, Chatham, St. Mary, St. Mary-the- 
 Less and Holy Trinity, Lambeth, and St. John, Ken- 
 nington, to supply the additional accommodation in- 
 sisted upon by the Educational Department, and to that 
 extent anticipating further provision by the Board.* In 
 no department of our diocesan work do I take a keener 
 interest than in our education work. With the excep- 
 tion of our Sunday School work, which does not 
 entirely satisfy me (Mr. Johnson is to inquire into it 
 this year), all our work is solid, vital and growing. 
 The Board is conducted without a farthing of charge 
 for ofi&cial expenses, and in your name and in that of 
 the diocese I offer my cordial thanks to the Secretaries, 
 Treasurers, and General Committee for their untiring 
 and very able attention to our education affairs. 
 
 Rochester Diocesan Board of Education. 1881-84. 
 
 Total Income 
 for Four 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 
 Number of 
 
 Annual 
 
 Sub- 
 scribers 
 for Four 
 Years. 
 
 Total 
 
 Number of 
 
 Offertorifs 
 
 and Amount. 
 
 Depart- 
 ments 
 now 
 In- 
 spected. 
 
 Increase 
 
 in 
 Depart, 
 ments. 
 
 Total 
 Number of 
 
 Children 
 Examined. 
 
 Total 
 
 Number 
 
 Competing 
 
 for 
 
 Scholars' 
 
 Prizes. 
 
 Expenditure 
 
 for Four 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 
 for Four 
 
 Years. 
 
 Average 
 Number. 
 
 Average 
 Amount 
 E.xpended. 
 
 £. s. 
 5,563 12t 
 
 309 
 
 170 
 
 521 
 
 11 
 
 270,000 
 
 3,633 
 
 £. s. d. 
 3,853 14 1 
 
 
 £. s. d. 
 363 19 
 
 £. 8. d. 
 943 12 6 
 
 •• 
 
 •• 
 
 67,500 
 
 908 
 
 £. s.d. 
 963 8 6 
 
 * We have the clear addition of 3976 school places accruing 
 from this additional provision, to set against the loss of 579 places 
 caused by the two surrenders at Woolwich. 
 
 I This includes a legacy of £1800, 
 
 C
 
 18 
 
 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Our Diocesan Branch of the Church of England 
 Temperance Society maintains its place in the first rank 
 of Diocesan brandies in the kingdom. The numbers 
 sliow a marked increase. 
 
 Number of Members. 
 
 Abstaining 
 1880. 
 
 Temper- 
 ance 
 1880. 
 
 Total 
 
 1881. 
 
 Abstaining 
 
 1884. 
 
 Temper- 
 ance 
 1884. 
 
 Increase 
 
 Ab- 
 stainers 
 
 Decrease 
 Temper- 
 ance. 
 
 Average 
 Expenses 
 4 Years. 
 
 10,547 
 
 2,611 
 
 13,158 
 
 13,152 
 
 2,263 
 
 2,605 
 
 348 
 
 £783 
 
 N.B. In addition to the adults there are 18,161 children abstainers, 
 making a total of 33,576. 
 
 While I regret the diminution in the number of our 
 non-abstaining members, the increase in the abstaining 
 is remarkable, and abundantly justifies our Temperance 
 Sunday, with that grand opportunity for the counsels 
 to temperance which it promotes, and for the annual 
 income which it supplies. If our income is about as 
 much as we are likely ever to receive, with our many 
 other claims, it should always be understood that the 
 work of our Temperance missionaries needs a steady 
 contribution, and that the more vital our work is, the 
 larger wdll our sense of necessity be. It is a dead 
 limb that feels no hunger. The Council have resolved
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 19 
 
 to secure the services of a clergyman wlio shall give 
 help at meetings during the week, with his Sundays at 
 his own disposal. Give him your support. 
 
 Temperance legislation is not likely to flag, when 
 the enfranchised and instructed millions appreciate the 
 opportunity of assisting their representatives in Parlia- 
 ment with their own ideas on the general subject of 
 Sunday Closing and Local Option. Still more will 
 this be the case when the franchise is given to 
 women — inevitable if not imminent. The only appre- 
 hension of thoughtful people then will be, that tliei'e 
 may be a little danger of passionate and crude legis- 
 lation too much in advance of public opinion, and 
 roughly inconsistent with the legitimate freedom of 
 individuals. In which case we may lose the perse- 
 vering efforts of fifty years by the rashness of a single 
 niglit. 
 
 Our carefully chosen missionaries are doing their 
 difficult but practical work under the constant super- 
 vision of vigilant superintendents. Let no one be 
 apprehensive about the firm resolution of the Council 
 that tlie confidence and liberality of the diocese shall 
 not be in this respect abused. 
 
 Our Diocesan Lay Helpers Association more than 
 holds its ground, numbering 86 lay readers, against 
 55 in 1880; 59 lay preachers, against 24 in 1880; 
 and 337, against 310 lay workers enrolled in its 
 body. Some of the work done by them is conspicuously 
 useful. J\lany, however, are increasingly alive to the 
 importance of some real test of the actual qualifica- 
 tions for teaching of lay readers and preachers. Mr. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 CHARGE TO THE CLEEGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Grundy's Winter weekday Greek Testament class, at the 
 Wilberforce Mission House, now takes away all excuse 
 for want of opportunity for self-preparation, perhaps 
 may expel from a few the feeling frankly expressed by 
 a young lay evangelist I remember to have read about, 
 who said to a friend, counselling real preparation, " I 
 hate study." Men who hate study are hardly qualified 
 to teach. The subject of lay -ministration is increasingly 
 occupying the attention of the Church, and has been 
 much before Convocation. It should be clearly under- 
 stood that the creation of a new office, such as that of 
 sub-deacon (which on the whole I myself prefer), is 
 not within the Church's present powers ; and that the 
 office of a permanent deacon, that is of one who will 
 not expect to be admitted into the Priesthood, im- 
 plies, according to the mind of Convocation, a lower 
 standard of attainment, unpaid service, with detach- 
 ment from profession or trade. Our Church folk at 
 Rochester have been in the true van of the movement, 
 when they acted on the conviction of an honest worker, 
 quoted in my last Charge, who observed, " Miss, you 
 will do nothing without our female brethren." I 
 should like to preside in every rural deanerj'- in the 
 diocese over just such a noble and cheery army of 
 workers as I meet every Advent in the Rochester 
 Corn Exchange. 
 
 10. What are the true constituents of diocesan 
 progress, so far as statistics can test it ? These four, 
 I think : Clergy ; Buildings ; Full Church Member- 
 ship; Money. 
 
 As to Clergy, our ordinees have grown from 210 in
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 
 
 21 
 
 the years 1877-80 to 286 in 1881-84. The propor- 
 tion of graduates is satisfactory. 
 
 Ordinations. 1 881-84. 
 
 
 
 
 King's 
 
 
 
 King's 
 
 
 
 
 
 College 
 
 
 
 College 
 
 
 No. of 
 
 
 
 or 
 
 
 
 or 
 
 
 Ordi- 
 
 Deacons. 
 
 Graduates. 
 
 Loudon 
 
 Priests. 
 
 Graduates. 
 
 London 
 
 Total. 
 
 nations. 
 
 
 
 College 
 
 of 
 Divinity. 
 
 
 
 College 
 
 of 
 Divinity. 
 
 
 9 
 
 155 
 
 130 
 
 25 
 
 131 
 
 117 
 
 14 
 
 286 
 
 I may add that I have usually more applications for 
 ordination than titles to offer. 
 
 During the same four years 23 Churches have been 
 consecrated ; and if the new church consecrated in 
 February had been ready earlier (as we expected), we 
 should have had a new church consecrated every other 
 month during that time. This would be insignificant 
 in such wealthy and stirring dioceses as London, 
 Manchester and Ripon : in our narrow and poor area 
 it means much. For the four previous years, six out 
 of the 18 churches consecrated were private contribu- 
 tions; now we have only three such out of 23. It is 
 not that our friends are forgetting us, but that the 
 diocesan conscience is stirred. Soon we may discover 
 that we have built them only just in time.
 
 22 
 
 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 
 
 1881-84. 
 
 
 
 Churcbes con- 
 crated 1881-4. 
 
 Distiicis 
 assigned. 
 
 Erected by 
 private bene- 
 factions. 
 
 By public Con- 
 tributions. 
 
 Churcbes en- 
 larged and 
 restored. 
 
 23 
 
 19 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 11 
 
 A comparison of our confirmees during the two 
 periods is not complete, from the circumstance that in 
 the first year of the first quaternion of years, there 
 were only 7 confirmations with 679 confirmed. But to 
 take two single years for comparison, the confirmees 
 of 1878, when there was a large arrear, were 8022 ; 
 those of 1884 were 11,110, showing an increase 
 of 3088. 
 
 Confirmations. 1881-84. 
 
 No. 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Under 14. 
 
 Under 15. 
 
 Under 16. 
 
 Total 
 
 under 
 
 16. 
 
 M. F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 297 
 
 14,143 
 
 26,880 
 
 41,023 
 
 846 
 
 960 
 
 2698 
 
 3213 
 
 3076 
 
 4504 
 
 15,297 
 
 You will form your own judgment on the Financial 
 Statement of our several diocesan societies, which 
 immediately follows. Of course it includes the Ten 
 Churches Fund. Contributions promised, but not fully 
 paid, will come into the statistics of the next Charge. 
 Unless St. Saviour's is taken in hand, we can hardly 
 hope for such a large statement four years hence.
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 
 
 23 
 
 Diocesan Finances. Receipts. 
 
 Object. 
 
 1878-80. 
 
 1881-84. Total. 
 
 Diocesan Society . 
 
 £28,188 
 
 £79,834 £107,572 
 
 Diocesan Board of( 
 Education . . . f 
 
 £1,751 
 
 £3,812 
 
 £5,563 
 
 Diocesan Temperance! 
 Society . . . . ) 
 
 £1,083 
 
 £2,877 
 
 £3,960 
 
 (a.) Diocesan Lay ) 
 Helpers . . . . | 
 
 £213 
 
 £128 
 
 £341 
 
 (b.) Bishop's Charitable [ 
 Donation Fund . . | 
 (Private.) 
 
 £1,030 
 
 £282 
 
 £1,342 
 
 Total .... £32,165 
 
 £86,933 
 
 £118,748 
 
 (rt.) For this Fund I do not publicly solicit funds. The expenses 
 are but small. 
 
 (h.) The larger amount under the years 1878-80 was swelled by 
 one donation of £500 from a dear and munificent friend 
 now in rest. There are always a few each year who 
 kindly remember this fund ; few know how helpful it is 
 in ways and for objects not to bo met otherwise. 
 
 Ill addition to these sums, we have to thank God for 
 one sum of £30,000, given by an individual towards 
 the augmentation of the incomes of the Bermondsey 
 clergy; and for another sum of £5000, given hy two 
 parishioners towards the further endowment of Christ 
 Church, Mitcham. 
 
 " The silver and the gold are Mine, saith the Lord."
 
 24 
 
 CHAEGE TO THE CLERGY OP ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 The schedule at the foot of this paragraph may 
 throw additional light on the amount of vitality per- 
 vading our diocesan work. A Bishop may or may not 
 answer his letters, but he cannot help receiving them. 
 The letters of 1884 show an increase of 2206 over 
 those of 1880. Our Diocesan Committees are attended 
 with a punctuality which justifies the belief that our 
 machinery is not likely to rust for want of co-operative 
 administration. Interviews fluctuate in numbers ; if 
 they are helpful to the diocese, they are indispensable 
 to me. 
 
 1881-84. 
 
 Total Letters 
 received. 
 
 Total 
 Committees. 
 
 Total 
 Interviews. 
 
 32,946 
 
 266* 
 
 486 
 
 * A few of these are external to the diocese. 
 
 11. A brief survey of our territory, with a com- 
 prehensive glance at the activities of the last four 
 years in church building and restoration and general 
 development, shall finish this chapter. 
 
 In the Archdeaconry of Kingston, Crowhurst Church, 
 famous by its enormous yew-tree, has been beautifully 
 decorated and restored. The new church of Dormans- 
 land is built and consecrated. The liberal benefaction 
 of a resident landowner has much aided its endowment, 
 and the parsorage is in progiess. In my next Charge 
 I hope to tell you that the Collegiate Church of Liug-
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 25 
 
 field, almost as worthy of restoration as St. Saviour's, 
 South wark, is seriously taken in hand. Burstow 
 Church has been delightfully restored ; now only one 
 church is left for the restorer's skill and the Church's 
 effort in the Rural Deanery of Reigate. Horley 
 Church and parish are an instance, if we wanted it, of 
 the spiritual value of the restoration of a fabric. I 
 have opened a mission chapel here, of which a layman 
 takes efficient charge every Sunday night. St. Luke, 
 Reigate, has been restored : the vicar who restored it 
 rests from his labours. Nutfield has been restored, and 
 the church at Blindley Heath has been enlarged and 
 improved. Two new churches are projected at Rich- 
 mond, but neither moves. The difficulties about one 
 of them are very serious. Chipstead, the lona of the 
 diocese, has been very beautifully restored by a 
 parishioner, in tender memory of one who was half 
 his life. Caterham has been remarkable for Church ac- 
 tivity. The beautiful district church (it will be quite 
 beautiful when the tower is completed) of St. John 
 the Evangelist was consecrated in 1882. The mother 
 church has been enlarged by an additional aisle, and 
 ornamented by an exquisite spire, which dignifies a 
 beautiful neighbourhood, and peeps across at me here, 
 constantly though silently asking when I am coming 
 there again. At Godstone station the mission school- 
 room has been usefully enlarged. St. Barnabas Church 
 at Sutton is consecrated. When a new rector comes to 
 the mother parish, I hope to see Christ Church district 
 and church vigorously set on foot. Mr. Turner has the 
 sympathy both of Bishop and o-f people. At Carshalton,
 
 26 CIIAllGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 under their new rector, a mission chapel, not before it 
 was wanted, is already set on foot ; and the interesting 
 old church, which all love, and not all admire, may 
 soon become the real ornament of one of the most pic- 
 turesque spots in Surrey. The parish church of Hook 
 has been rebuilt and consecrated. Merton has now a 
 commodious mission chapel in charge of a clergyman 
 who has gained invaluable experience in Bermondsey. 
 At Streatham the three new churches I spoke of before 
 are beginning to move, and the congregations are 
 being gathered ready for them. The Memorial Church 
 to Mr. Eardley in Emmanuel parish is already com- 
 menced. A fifth church is contemplated in Bedford 
 Park. At Balham the Church of the Ascension has 
 been built, consecrated, and filled without a penny 
 taken from diocesan funds, and a new church in that 
 neighbourhood is talked of, if a suitable district can be 
 arranged. At Putney I have opened a new mission 
 building of the right sort and in the right place. In 
 a district taken out of St, Anne, Wandsworth, a new 
 church is beiug vigorously promoted by the curate in 
 charge, aided in his University career by the Bur- 
 sary Fund initiated in the Deanery of Barnes seven 
 years ago, and maintained there with unflagging per- 
 severance. St. Faith, Wandsworth, one of the most 
 imposing structures our Ten Churches Fund has 
 produced, will soon group round itself vicarage and 
 mission-room. In no part of the Diocese is Church- 
 work more vital or growing than in our youngest 
 Archdeaconry, 
 
 12. When we come to the Archdeaconry of South-
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 27 
 
 wark, we confront the tremendous poverty, the growing 
 population, and the accumulating anxieties of London 
 South of the Thames. In Penge a new church is rapidly 
 approaching completion, to be fit for consecration in 
 October. In East Dulwich Mr. Francis Peek has built, 
 at his own cost, a new church of fine proportions and 
 ample accommodation. I consecrated it on Trinity 
 Sunday. St. Peter's is being completed at the entire 
 charge of a neighbour on Sydenham Hill. The new 
 church at Dulwich, contemplated under the new scheme 
 for Dulwich College, will be proceeded with as soon as 
 the funds are forthcoming. The Chaplain has it in hand. 
 In Battersea the Ten Churches Fund has promoted, 
 and I have consecrated, two new churches. All Saints 
 and St. Andrew's ; and for the third, St. Stephen's, 
 the committee of the fund have promised £4000. The 
 Vicar and Rural Dean of Battersea has, in the same 
 period, invited me to dedicate St. Mary by the Park, 
 and St. Luke, Battersea ; to consecrate St. Mark and 
 St. Michael. To meet the needs of quite a new popu- 
 lation, an important new district is now being formed 
 on the west of Altenburg Gardens, which will include 
 St. Matthew's district, lately under the charge of Rev. 
 Cornelius Witherby, and it is placed under the care of 
 the Rev. F. H. Baring, younger son of the late Bishop 
 of Durham, and once a missionary in the Punjaub. 
 In the mother parish of Clapham, where the staff did 
 admirable work during Mr. Bowyer's lamented absence, 
 the mission chapel, opened by me some three years 
 ago, has lately been enlarged. In Peckham, St. Mark's 
 Church has been largely assisted by the Ten Churches
 
 28 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Fund, and consecrated. The proprietary church of St. 
 Chrysostom has been consecrated, vested in the see, 
 and is made into a parish. Newington is being cheered 
 and regenerated by the three college missions that are 
 come or are coming there ; and twice it has been my 
 good fortune to be summoned to St. Paul, Walworth, to 
 open mission buildings, the first being a Nonconformist 
 chapel, for which its proprietors had no further use ; 
 the second quite a new building of some architectural 
 importance, both together furnishing additional accom- 
 modation for nearly 1200 people. In Salamanca, Lam- 
 beth, I have opened a useful mission room. In South 
 Lambeth, the church of St. Barnabas has been greatly 
 improved, and to his already considerable organisation 
 at All Saints, Mr. Allen Edwards has added a chapel of 
 ease. In Kennington Mr. Brooke, Yicar of St. John's, 
 has voluntarily taken over from the charges of the 
 Diocesan Society the St. Michael district, formerly in 
 St. George, Camberwell, and in addition to a com- 
 modious mission chapel for the poor of the neighbour- 
 hood, which I was glad to be able to open, has erected 
 an entire block of elementary Church schools. Probably 
 schools are the surest way of winning this terribly 
 degraded neighbourhood to Christ. In the mother 
 parish of St. Mark I have opened with great satisfac- 
 tion a commodious and much-needed mission room. 
 In South wark, I hope to see All Hallows completed, 
 St. Saviour restored, St. Thomas removed. St. Mark, 
 Horselydown, under an Act passed in 1884, has been 
 re-united to the mother parish of St. John, from which 
 it never ought to have been severed. The mother
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 29 
 
 cliurcli of Bermondse}^, after a century of useful 
 life, has been sensibly beautified and restored, and a 
 mission chapel has been erected for the use of the 
 working-class. Christ Church, Bermondsey, has been 
 cleaned and ornamented. St. Augustine's has been 
 completed, and a commodious vicarage erected hard by. 
 The church of St. Luke has been promoted, and largely 
 aided by the Ten Churches Fund. St. Katherine's 
 Church in Eotherhithe, largely aided by the kind 
 churchfolk of Chislehurst, is one of the happiest results 
 of the same effort. 
 
 13. In the Archdeaconry of Rochester much good 
 work has been done, and more is projected. In Deptford, 
 St. Mark's Church has been entirely built by the Ten 
 Churches Fund for a district taken out of St. Paul's. 
 The new church projected at Hatcham is still in the 
 air. Three new churches are being projected in the 
 parish of Lewisham, and the mother church has been 
 enlarged and restored, another eminent monument to 
 Mr. Blomfield's genius. An important chapel of ease 
 has been built and consecrated in the parish of St. 
 Stephen. Last autumn I opened a striking and useful 
 mission-room in Christ Church, Greenwich. The new 
 church of St. John, Plumstead, has been consecrated, 
 aided by the Ten Churches Fund. It has been expected 
 for many years. A new district is contemplated out 
 of St. Paul, Charlton ; a new church should follow. 
 
 A mission chapel is greatly needed in a po23ulous 
 suburb of Northfleet ; a site is the difficulty. The 
 rector of St. Mary, Chatham, already meditates the 
 restoration of his church. It must be a work of faith.
 
 30 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 It seems only a few months since I opened with sincere 
 thankfulness a practical mission building in a difficult 
 corner of this parish. Frindsbury has been bravely 
 restored, and is an ornament to the historical neigh- 
 bourhood, looking down, though by no means in a 
 supercilious spirit, on the Castle, and the Medway, and 
 the Cathedral. An admirable coffee-house has been 
 opened in St. Peter's, Rochester. At Gillingham 
 a move forward is imminent. A large and very im- 
 portant artisan population has sprung up on llie 
 Chatham side of it, for which it is important to 
 make immediate spiritual provision. We have pur- 
 chased a picturesque and central site, large enough for 
 church, parsonage, and mission-house, and it is hoped 
 a missionary clergyman will be appointed by the 
 Rochester Diocesan Society so soon as money is set 
 free by churches already consecrated coming on for 
 endowment by the Commissioners. This corner of tlie 
 diocese, close to the Medway and the dockyard, has a 
 curious interest in being the locality of a new and not 
 much known sect called tlie Jezreelites, or " the New 
 and Latter House of Israel." The founder of the sect, 
 who died last March, styled himself James Jershom 
 Jezreel, his real name being James White. He gave 
 himself out to be the messenger of God, and claimed to 
 receive direct revelations, which are contained in " The 
 Flying Roll." They hold that Jesus died only for the 
 salvation of those souls who have lived since Moses. He 
 did not die for the salvation of the body, therefore not 
 for Adam and those before Moses, who paid their penalty 
 by death. For the salvation of the soul the Gospel is
 
 FOUR YEARS MORE. 31 
 
 sufficient ; for that of the body the law must be added 
 by the 144,000 ; therefore every member of the New 
 and Latter House of Israel adds the law to the Gospel. 
 After the rebellion in lieaven, it was necessary to 
 prove the just spirits, and to give those wlio did not 
 withstand Satan an opportunity to repent. This is 
 accomplished by the spirits receiving human bodies 
 and souls. The just spirits who withstood Satan are 
 now upon this earth, destined for natural immortal 
 bodies, and will constitute the 144,000 twice told who 
 will receive Cliiist when He comes to reign a thousand 
 years. Every member of the House of Jezreel hopes 
 to be of the 144,000 who will not die. The Jezreelites 
 who die will be recognised and conversed with by the 
 144,000 alone. To them a higher state of spiritual 
 bliss is awarded than to Grentile Christians, who have 
 the spirits which did not withstand Satan in heaven, 
 l)ut not being rebellious, they were not cast out. 
 
 Important buildings are in course of erection on 
 twenty acres of ground, and will cost £100,000. The 
 Assembly Hall alone is to cost £25,000. Large sums 
 of money are contributed from all parts of the world. 
 There is a college, where boys and girls are taught, 
 houses and shops have been purchased, and the com- 
 munity is not only religious, but, as with the Salvation 
 Army in London, the Mormonites in Utah and else- 
 where, trading on a large scale. Services are now 
 conducted in an iron room^ which is ci'animed ; and 
 no one who has been at the pains to read of this 
 last melancholy heresy will wonder at the Yicar of 
 Gillingham's anxiety to see the district sup])Iied with
 
 32 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 the antidote of the Church's teaching, and the help of 
 her ministrations.* 
 
 Such is the plain, I hope not tiresome, account of 
 four years more of Church work. 
 
 " If we Have done well, and as befits tlie subject, it is what we 
 desired ; and if we have done ill, it is what we could attain unto." 
 
 Anyhow, remember, that all real work is seed as well 
 as harvest. As there approaches those of us who are 
 on the slopes of the mountain towards the west, what 
 Carlyle writes about as " that constantly advancing 
 inevitability of death and judgment," many of us are 
 coming to see as we never saw so clearly in days of 
 buoyancy and vigour, that if we make our works, 
 our works are making us, us and our Heaven. 
 " Travel, travel back into life. Take along with you 
 this living earnestness ; for earnestness alone makes 
 life and eternity." 
 
 * I am indebted to Eev. J. Thompson Phipps, the Assistant 
 Chaplain to H.M.S. Prison, Chatham, for information about the 
 House of Jezreel.
 
 ( 33 ) 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 
 
 " The mere amount of a man's intellectual power, or tlie mere 
 degree of truth in a man's doctrine, is never a complete test or 
 assurance of the power he will have over other men. If you 
 really want to help your fellow-men, you must not merely have 
 in you what would do them good if they should take it from you, 
 but you must be such a man that they can take it from you." — 
 Kev. Phillips Brooks, D.D. 
 
 14. When I issued a schedule of questions to you 
 in the spring, I felt assured you would permit me 
 thus to take counsel with you over the common 
 problems of our great duty. 
 
 In a few cases, through, I fear, want of perspicacity 
 in my questions, to statistics of finance and even of 
 Sunday School work (which have not unfrequently been 
 quite omitted), the answers given have not been exact 
 enough to answer any useful purpose of publication. 
 For the greater part of the returns, which I am sure 
 must have involved much real labour, I am sincerely 
 grateful ; and if in some of the answers I have ob- 
 served traces of an incisive humour, probably they 
 made the task of writing less irksome to you — certainly 
 they made the duty of reading more agreeable to me.* 
 
 * Twelve returns arc not forthcoming at all. 
 
 D
 
 34 CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 15. The clergy do not give so gloomy a report of 
 the depreciation of tlieir professional incomes as the 
 midland or eastern dioceses might be expected to 
 afford ; but they are not too cheerful. The corn 
 average is annually sinking ; is it at its lowest ? Some 
 portions of glebe have lately been selling well, but 
 for reasons of personal convenience to the purchasers. 
 In thirty-six parishes there has been an increase of 
 income, in seventy-one a diminution. There is no 
 serious foreboding, except in the heart of South 
 London, about the cessation of seat-rents. The extra- 
 ordinary tithe is sure to be brought up again before 
 Parliament, and there is au invidious side to it. The 
 controversy must be conducted with prudence. 
 
 Parishes 
 giving 
 returns. 
 
 No. of 
 
 glebe 
 
 houses. 
 
 Total 
 amount of 
 insurance. 
 
 Conse- 
 crated 
 
 churches 
 and 
 
 chapels. 
 
 Total amount 
 of insurance. 
 
 Total amount 
 
 of insurance of 
 
 churches and 
 
 glebe houses. 
 
 299 
 
 201 
 
 £339,870 
 
 335 
 
 £1,598,815 
 
 £1,938,685 
 
 16. The Table above indicates the number of churches 
 and glebe-houses insured in the diocese, and the amount 
 of the insurances. It would take a good deal of money 
 to buy these back, if we should ever be invited to do 
 so ; and it is a very grim humour, which on the one 
 hand threatens us with a disendowment, which would 
 not permit us to retain glebe-houses and places of
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 35 
 
 worship, and on the other hand scourges us for a 
 gloomy unbelief in preferring to continue to possess 
 them. In some instances the amount of insurance, 
 especially for Church fabrics, is much less than it 
 ought to be. Will you consider this ? 
 
 17. With respect to your Communion Plate^ let me 
 urge two matters. Never suffer any portion of it to 
 be sold, without special permission from me. For 
 what may seem old and battered and past use may 
 be an antiquarian relic of great value. Then I am 
 not quite clear that the custody in which it is kept 
 is always of the safest. The dwelling-house, either 
 of the incumbent or of one of the churchwardens, is 
 best. 
 
 18. The Diocesan Directory, under Mr. Grundy's 
 management, pays its way, and is an increasingly in- 
 terestiug record of Diocesan progress. Moreover it is 
 accurate. I wish I could be as cheerful about the 
 Chronicle. For four years, with a perseverance that 
 deserves a better reward, we have trimmed the sails, 
 altered the course, improved the shape, and strength- 
 ened the crew of our little schooner. Still her keel 
 grinds on the shingle, still she cannot push herself out 
 to sea. This year I have taken some personal trouble 
 with it (having had unusual leisure) ; yet in vain. 
 The circulation has indeed gone up from 400 to 600 ; 
 but there must be a sale of 800 for a financial 
 success. Nevertheless the committee would try again, 
 unwilling to make a derelict of it. Will you en- 
 courage us ? 
 
 19. To one question of a business character asnwers 
 
 D 2
 
 36 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 were returned singular for their uniformity. " Have 
 you experience to justify an opinion as to the pro- 
 bability of a sufficient maintenance for the incumbent 
 supplied from the offertory alone ? " Four incumbents 
 have expressed a hope favourable to such an idea ; the 
 vast majority have given an emphatic opinion to the 
 contrary. Even in parishes where a better state of 
 things might have been looked for there is occasionally 
 found a difficulty in raising church expenses. There are 
 58 such parishes in the diocese. Surely it would be a 
 hazardous step just now gratuitously to throw the main- 
 tenance of the clergyman entirely on the voluntary 
 system. The truth, as I showed in my Primary Charge, 
 is that the conscience of the entire Christian community 
 needs to be educated and stimulated in the duty of giv- 
 ing a regular amount of their income to God ; moreover 
 it has yet to be proved that larger sums are obtained for 
 / religious and charitable purposes by a weekly offertory, 
 than by the old-fashioned monthly collections. Three 
 things I ask leave here to observe on this subject of 
 giving, made very clear to me from long experience. 
 One is, that the gifts of a congregation will always 
 very much depend on the preaching and example of the 
 clergyman. If he is a truly spiritual teacher, who pro- 
 claims the Person, and the work, and the love, and the 
 glory of Christ, as the substance and foundation of his 
 teaching, there will be no lack of wiUing givers, no 
 baseness of meagre gifts. Then it too often happens 
 that where people have had everything in the way of 
 church building done for them, and thereby have been 
 under no happy discipline of sacrifice and effort, if they
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 37 
 
 have gained in one way they may have lost in another. 
 It may prove far harder to persuade them into habits of 
 Hberal giving, than if they had had to raise their own 
 building from the very ground. With all our vaunted 
 liberality for philanthropic and religious objects, we 
 Church people are still behind the Wesleyans in the 
 regularity and proportion of our almsgiving ; and were 
 all the charitable folk in England, whose names are in 
 every collecting list, and of whose munificence persons 
 who never give a farthing get an unjust share of 
 credit, to be gathered together into one place to be 
 counted, they might easily be packed into Westminster 
 Hall. 
 
 20. The returns inform me that in several instances 
 a second Holy Table has been placed in a church 
 without authority from my Court. This irregularity 
 must not be repeated, and in every such case applica- 
 tion must be made for a faculty to justify the retention 
 of it. The late respected Incumbent of the Ascension, 
 Lavender Hill, took the proper course in such a matter 
 of applying to the Court for a faculty, and after the 
 usual legal process he obtained one. No doubt a 
 second Holy Table is an innovation, but there are 
 already many innovations. We all have been guilty 
 of them in turn, and there are likely to be more. 
 Those who think them Roman must settle it with the 
 great Scottish Church of John Knox, which for three 
 centuries has celebrated the Eucharistic feast at several 
 tables, entirely unconscious of doctrinal error. As a 
 matter of fact, there is no doctrine involved in the
 
 38 CHArvGE TO THE CLEKGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 matter at all, which Bishop Bickersteth clearly under- 
 stood when he sanctioned one in a side aisle of Halifax 
 Parish Church, where I have myself seen it. It is a 
 simple question of additional accommodation. Where 
 the three conditions of economy, convenience, and 
 devotion are proved to be combined, no objection will 
 be made by me to the granting of a faculty. In every 
 case the petition for it must be signed by the incumbent 
 and churchwardens, and the feelings of the parishioners 
 ascertained in public vestry. Greatly, however, I 
 deprecate the application for a second Table without 
 solid cause. 
 
 21. On the passing of the Burial Law Amendments 
 Act in 1881, in a letter to the Archdeacon of Rochester 
 and St. Albans I used these words: **If we give them 
 a chance of showing it we shall soon find out that Non- 
 conformist ministers can be Christians and gentlemen 
 too in the exercise of their new rights. When Monica 
 was dying, she said to her son, ' Bury me where thou 
 wilt, for nowhere am I far from God.' If we of the 
 English Church can catch with any adequacy the 
 spirit of these words, and act them out into all their 
 width and fulness, though we have lost something, we 
 shall gain more." That language of hope has been amply 
 justified. In reply to the question (affecting 70 parishes) 
 — " Have you met with any difficulties about the 
 solemnisation of funerals in your Churchyard since the 
 passing of the Burial Amendments Act of 1880?" 
 not a single difficulty lias been alleged. There has 
 been peace over the grave, as well as within it. To
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 39 
 
 my intention, then expressed, of consecrating additional 
 graveyards, when invited to do so, I have adhered. 
 There have been nine such consecrations. 
 
 22. The question, " Do you ever meet with objec- 
 tions about the shape and limits of our present diocese," 
 has been answered variously, but with this reply vastly 
 preponderating, " The people know nothing about the 
 matter." Those on the borders, whether towards 
 Canterbury or Winchester, feel somewhat lonely ; but, 
 whatever our boundaries miglit be, some must find 
 themselves distant from the centre. Perhaps when 
 the next census is taken, and tlie population of the 
 diocese — which increases in South London alone at the 
 annual rate of 30,000 — has turned its two millions, a 
 readjustment of boundaries may be required. 
 
 23. To one more question — " Does the Church of 
 England appear to you to be fiiirly holding her own 
 among you ? " but one answer is given. It is decidedly 
 in the affirmative. A suitable hopefulness is the 
 reward of diligence, and the cliild of prayer. It is 
 not, however, clear to me that in all our parishes this 
 cheerfulness is quite justified. 
 
 Still less confident am I that our lay brethren, 
 unimpeachable as their attachment to the English 
 Church may be, would everywhere give their voices 
 for that hopeful verdict. At a critical period of 
 the Church's history, the people we have to win (by 
 no means all of them Epicureans) are the neutral folk. 
 They may or may not have abstract ideas on Church 
 government, many old and tender associations, close 
 personal interests, much spiritual enthusiasm ; but they
 
 40 CHAEGE TO THE CLEEGY OF EOCHESTEE DIOCESE. 
 
 observe conduct, value power, and feel wrongs. Gren tie- 
 folk in country villages, who have found their clergy- 
 man at once impracticable and irremovable, may have 
 something to say soon about the tremendous trust and 
 the accumulating mischiefs inherent in the freehold 
 nature of a benefice under our English Church law. 
 Other people besides squires are quickly coming to the 
 conclusion that the right of one man to neglect some of 
 his parishioners, to annoy others, and perhaps to scan- 
 dalise all, so long as he can possibly hold his benefice, 
 must very soon have some limitation assigned, to it, 
 if the Church is to continue as she is. It has been 
 well said that " there is nothing on earth that has such 
 power to destroy Christian life as a society of men who 
 bear the name of Christ without manifesting His spirit 
 and life." Should such a society ever in any way 
 come to be identified with even a small minority of 
 the English clergy, the salt would indeed have lost 
 its saltness, and the sooner it is cast out the better for 
 the Church of God. 
 
 24. Only on one more question would I write a few 
 words, tender and respectful. Question 5 is one of a 
 technical character, and legally necessary, touching 
 your physical capacity for discharging the duties of 
 your office. Some personal experience on this subject 
 is my claim for alluding to it. When the dial-plate 
 of a man's life points to sixty, it is his duty as well as 
 his wisdom to be often considering with himself which 
 of the duties proposed to him come first, which second, 
 which even nowhere. He has also to learn, and with 
 quiet cheerfulness, that as we cross the watershed of
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 41 
 
 life, and come down with our face to the setting sun, 
 
 our last years need not be the least fruitful in mellow 
 
 and yet inspiring activity, in serene and wide-hearted 
 
 kindness, if we will but look to the quality of our work 
 
 even more than to the quantity ; if we will practise 
 
 self-denial and husband strength. Indeed, I have often 
 
 thought within myself that I should like to pass a law to 
 
 compel men of mature years to take a year's vacation 
 
 when they have reached the Divide of life. It would 
 
 be the best economy both for themselves and their 
 
 people. It would make a pleasant break in perhaps a 
 
 jaded and monotonous past. It would enable them, 
 
 with restored strength and freshened interest to take 
 
 up their suspended burden. As I sit and think of you, 
 
 dear brethren, how many there are of you whom I 
 
 could gladly and gratefully dismiss for such an Indian 
 
 summer ; and if you have worked well and bravely, 
 
 your people, so far from grudging you your repose, 
 
 might even help you to go, and would " wish you 
 
 good luck in the Name of the Lord," perhaps consoled 
 
 by the prospect of a little change for themselves. Yet 
 
 who will be wise enough even to begin to think of it 
 
 as possible, and so release Nature from her stern and 
 
 yet merciful obligation of presently forcing him to take 
 
 it in a rather abrupt and inconvenient fashion ? As 
 
 Carlyle says, " A man must not only be able to work, 
 
 but to give over working." 
 
 " Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, 
 We whom God loves ? When pain ends, gain ends too."
 
 42 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Odd Statistics. 
 
 [It does not seem necessary to give precisely the same kind of 
 statistics this time as last, except where returns of a sufBciently 
 exact nature make comparison possible. Thns statistics of Church 
 accommodation and services and schools are not repeated.] 
 
 Church Work (1). 
 
 Number 
 
 of 
 Parishes. 
 
 Total of 
 Church 
 AVorkers. 
 
 Eeading 
 
 Rooms for 
 
 Working 
 
 Men. 
 
 Winter 
 
 Concerts for 
 
 Working 
 
 Men. 
 
 District 
 Visitors. 
 
 Choirs. 
 
 (80) 
 291 
 
 (80) 
 17,749 
 
 (80) 
 81 
 
 (80) 
 176 
 
 (80) 
 2435 
 
 (80) 
 6299 
 
 (84) 
 298 
 
 (84) 
 20,175 
 
 (84) 
 125 
 
 (84) 
 231 
 
 (84) 
 3055 
 
 (84) 
 7322 
 
 Church Work (2). 
 
 Baptisms. 
 
 Marriages. 
 
 Services for 
 Cliildren. 
 
 Scope for 
 Deaconesses 
 
 Bible Classes. 
 Number. 
 
 (80) 
 31,468 
 
 (80) 
 9,977 
 
 (80) 
 195 
 
 in 
 
 104 
 
 Parishes. 
 
 (80) 
 4035 
 
 (84) 
 34,092 
 
 (84) 
 10,952 
 
 (84) 
 221 
 
 (84) 
 4931 
 
 All of you must be seriously thinking over that 
 threatened disendoAvment of the Church, Avhich her 
 foes Avill undoubtedly force on, Avhenever it suits them
 
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 43 
 
 to do so. To some of you the suspense of a prolonged 
 agitation may seem almost a graver mischief than the 
 most humbling defeat. The inevitable paralysis of 
 much important effort, through the uncertainty gene- 
 rated by an impending revolution, the grievous divert- 
 ing of the energies of the clergy from pastoral and 
 spiritual activities to matters of defence, organisation, 
 and money, the growing fermentation of suspicion 
 and even rancour between those who claim to retain 
 endowments inherited from their forefathers, and those 
 who desire to alienate them for civil objects, may 
 prove to be far worse evils than the most naked poverty 
 — will be nevertheless evils which may even prove 
 blessings, if they persuade us to salutary reforms, and 
 stir us to increased devotion. 
 
 To words I have already addressed to the repre- 
 sentative laity of the diocese I will not add more here, 
 if for no better reason than that there is a possible risk 
 of talking ourselves into a panic, with an inevitable 
 loss of dignity in yielding to it. The Church has never 
 yet cared to stir herself, either to know or use her full 
 strength, and her enemies guess still less of it. If we 
 clergymen must grasp the sword as well as the trowel, 
 be it so. Some of us are more in love with the trowel, 
 and have had more experience in using it. But, come 
 what may, the building of the walls of our Zion shall 
 still go on — cheerily go on; and to use the trowel with 
 im flagging diligence may prove the true secret of 
 keeping the sword in its scabbard. 
 
 " The question is not, What loages hadst thou for thy 
 work ? but lIoiD was thy work done ? "
 
 44 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 " We think that we are to do great things hy help of ii'on bars 
 and perspiration. Alas ! we shall do nothing that way, tut lose 
 some pounds of our own weight." — Kuskin. 
 
 25. To the question, " Have you any suggestions to 
 make as to further organization for the diocese ? " " No " 
 was almost invariably written, and with a decisive jjen. 
 I am not surprised. It does not follov/ from this that 
 existing organization is not capable of further, even 
 inevitable, development, or that we need be reluctant to 
 push enterprises, to which the assent of the diocese 
 in council has been given. Again and again we have 
 passed admirable resolutions in favour of taking up as 
 a diocese middle-class school education, but so far we 
 have debated, and decided, and stood still. Cannot we 
 do something more than talk ? A resolution of Canon 
 Burrows, to the effect that middle-class schools should 
 be included in the area of the Board's operations, was 
 carried in the summer, and a committee of the Board 
 is now considering how eifect can best be given to it. 
 Of course it cannot be carried out in any effective way 
 without a good deal of permanent labour and a Capital 
 Fund. This Capital Fund would be wanted for loans
 
 DEVELOPMENTS. 45 
 
 to start and furnish schools, the loans repayable with 
 or without interest, in instalments running over not 
 more than five years. As one school was started and 
 made independent we should take up another, feeling 
 our way and securing our ground, and we should win 
 hack from one class of the population what we had been 
 compelled to surrender in another. If the Board should 
 feel justified in using Mr. Arthur Witherby's legacy of 
 £1800 as a basis for this fund, surely we might be 
 able, without any frantic convulsion of effort, to raise 
 it — if even by loan — to a serviceable sum ; though 
 never to be entrenched upon for donations at moments 
 when emotion prevails over judgment ! I cannot resist 
 the conviction that if that munificent and far-seeing 
 churchman, to whose anonymous munificence we owe 
 the sum of £5000 which made the St. Saviour's scheme 
 practicable, and whose deep interest in Church schools 
 all over the metropolitan area is well known, could 
 have been consulted on the question, it would have 
 won his instant approval and his liberal support. As 
 probably no special effort will be made during the 
 coming year, the Ten Churches Fund being com- 
 pleted, and St. Saviour's restoration being immature, 
 I do not know why we should not make an effort for 
 the development of our Education Board. It has 
 never yet received its share of diocesan support ; now 
 may be its opportunity. 
 
 Much, however, must depend on the appointment 
 of the new Assistant- Diocesan Inspector, as well as 
 on the forthcoming report of the Committee.
 
 46 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 EocHESTER Diocesan Board of Education, 1884. Schedule A. 
 
 Depart- 
 ments 
 Visited. 
 
 N uiuber 
 on Books. 
 
 Average 
 Attendance. 
 
 Present at 
 Exami- 
 nation. 
 
 Children 
 altogether 
 withdrawn. 
 
 Children 
 partially- 
 withdrawn. 
 
 521 
 
 75,976 
 
 59,258 
 
 67,800 
 
 70 
 
 296 
 
 i.e. from 
 
 Prayer-Look or 
 
 Catechiim. 
 
 EociiESTER Diocesan Board of Education, 1884. Schedule B. 
 
 Depart- 
 ments 
 Visited. 
 
 Very good. 
 
 Good. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Pupils 
 
 being 
 
 Examined 
 
 for Prizes. 
 
 Scholars 
 
 Examined 
 
 for 
 
 Prizes. 
 
 Total. 
 
 521 
 
 135 
 
 258 
 
 128 
 
 1885. 
 492 
 
 1885. 
 1,079 
 
 1885. 
 1,571 
 
 26. The Diocesan Conference, after two important 
 discussions, requested me, at its last session, to take 
 steps for founding a Sisterhood and a Deaconess insti- 
 tution for the diocese. It did not seem to me expedient 
 to launch both schemes together. Not only might it 
 have proved impossible to find funds for starting two 
 cognate iostitutioDS at once, but I should have regretted 
 even the appearance of encouraging the idea that they 
 were in any way to be regarded as rival agencies. 
 Already we have the Clewer and Wantage sisterhoods 
 working among us, as well as one which has laboured 
 with great devotion and perseverance in the parish of
 
 DEVELOPMENTS. 47 
 
 St. Peter, Vauxhall, under the care of Mr. Herbert. 
 On the whole I feel it best to set first to work with 
 a diocesan institution for Deaconesses, and I shall not 
 be sorry that we are likely to have the benefit of the 
 Report of the Upper House of Convocation on a most 
 important subject, before we deal with the Sisterhood. 
 No subject presses more than this ; none is more potent 
 with great issues for the Church ; none will less brook 
 delay ; none so imperatively calls for wide-heartedness 
 and courage. Our Deaconess Council is formed, our 
 locality chosen,* a sparse sum of money contributed, 
 and, I could have written a month ago, our Head 
 Deaconess is ready to begin. It has pleased God, how- 
 ever, to take Miss Martin away, when she had been 
 just long enough known to us for us thoroughly to 
 appreciate her capacity and goodness. The hope of 
 this work gilded the last months of her life with a 
 buoyant though serene happiness. Our conviction 
 must be that there has been a Divine purpose for us 
 too in this delay ; our faith that there is some one else 
 of whom God kuows, quietly waiting to be summoned. 
 It is our wish to train our deaconesses to do everything 
 that sisters can do, so no loss need accrue from the 
 temporary suspension of one of our schemes. The 
 devotional life of the home will be tenderly and soberly 
 nurtured, for, please God, it shall not be true of our 
 deaconesses what has been by some one said in contrast 
 
 * Only £300 has been given by the diocese, barely half of what 
 is required to justify a prudent Council in sanctioning our com- 
 mencement of the work. The Treasurer is Lieut.-Col. Geary, R.A., 
 Old Charlton, S.E.
 
 48 CHARGE TO THK CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 of sisterhood with deaconess work : " a sister is ; a 
 deaconess does." May ours both be and do. As shown 
 in a previous schedule, 106 incumbents have stated in 
 their returns that they have scope for deaconess work in 
 their parishes. Of these not an inconsiderable number 
 are hopeful about being able to maintain one. So far 
 the action of the Conference is abundantly justified. 
 But it is one thing to vote a new institution, another to 
 maintain it. It seems generally admitted that two 
 years is the normal period for efScient training, and 
 that the second year tests the probationer's vocation 
 for the work. It is also certain that suitable persons 
 are likely to offer themselves without means to pay for 
 their training, and there would be the dilemma of 
 losing valuable service or running the institution into 
 bankruptcy. We hope to begin with six probationers. 
 It will be a privilege for me to become responsible for 
 the training of one probationer for two years, who I 
 should prefer to be a clergyman's daughter resident in 
 the diocese. If the maintenance of two others could 
 be guaranteed in the same way (the expense is £40 a 
 year), we should be relieved of some financial anxiety. 
 The institution is so eminently essential to our populous 
 diocese that I hope the clergy will consent to fall in 
 with a proposal which the rural deans considered with 
 favour both last and this summer, that once in three 
 years they should give an offertory for the " Deaconess 
 Home." It may be well also to organize a series of 
 drawing-room meetings, to enlist associates and pro- 
 bationers, and to win friends. I expect your sympathy, 
 I claim youi: support, I am assured of your prayers.
 
 PEVELOPMENTS. 49 
 
 27. The subject of Clergy Pensions was referred to 
 a committee of the last Conference, and a report was 
 made on it. The committee is re-appointed, and I 
 trust the diocese may be able to take action when the 
 final scheme is before us. An actuary's sanction of 
 course is indispensable to any scheme. Much ought 
 to be done in favour of opportune resignations, and 
 thereby further public edification, if anything is found 
 practicable. The laity may be expected substantially 
 to contribute to it ; the clergy will justify their doing 
 so by accepting it for themselves. My own best and 
 heartiest sympathy will go with it. It has been far 
 too long delayed. 
 
 28. The question, of a body of Diocesan Preachers 
 will, I hope, be considered by the Spiritual Aid Com- 
 mittee before the next meeting of Conference. It 
 greatly recommends itself to my judgment, for it ought 
 to stimulate pastoral activity, encourage the parochial 
 clergy, exhilarate the preacher, and edify the flock. 
 It need involve no liability beyond the travelling 
 expenses ; it confers just that kind of service which 
 carries with it its own reward. 
 
 29. Let me now press on your attention a few other 
 matters worthy of more diocesan support. The Dio- 
 cesan Society is utterly unable to aid with curates' 
 stipends ; consequently we rely for that indispensable 
 support on two invaluable Church societies. The 
 Church Pastoral Society is making us thirty-one grants 
 for curates, to the value of £2290, and eleven for lay 
 agents, of the value of £720 — a total of £3010, aiding 
 thereby a total population of 287,880. Five fresh
 
 50 CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY OF EOCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 applications wait for enlarged funds. The Additional 
 Curates Society makes us thirty-seven grants to thirty- 
 six parishes, amounting to £2300, and seven grants 
 under Rule 6 to seven parishes, amounting to £475, 
 representing a total of forty-four grants, in money 
 value £2775, for a j^opulation of 370,665. Here twelve 
 applications are still unaided. How grateful the 
 diocese ought to be for this help, and, may I add, 
 v/hat a true service is rendered to the entire body, 
 when the incumbent of an opulent parish lends his 
 pulpit for their claims ! Mr. Meek Clark, Yicar of St. 
 Stephen's, South Dulwich, permits me to plead the 
 cause of the Additional Curates Society in his church in 
 December. Will any one propose his for the Pastoral 
 Aid Society? These, further, are the main points 
 of the claim. As past generations have endowed the 
 beneficed clergy, so the present should aid the unbene- 
 ficed with movable endowments, which can follow the 
 shifting population. It is really a lay question ; and 
 yet at present more than 40 per cent, of all stipends 
 paid to curates comes out of the pockets of the clergy. 
 It is in the interest of the diocese that for this object 
 the richer parishes should associate with the poorer 
 through these foster-mothers of the Church. 
 
 30. The Charity for the Eelief of Poor Clergymen, 
 their Widows and Children, within the Archdeaconry 
 of Rochester, requires and deserves further support. 
 Perhaps it is one which has a strong ground of appeal 
 too, with the clergy as well as the laity. On examining 
 the list of subscribers, I observe no aid coming from 
 sixteen parishes in the Rural Deanery of Rochester,
 
 DEVELOPMENTS. 51 
 
 none from fourteen in that of Cobham, none from 
 fonrteen in that of Woolwich, none from ten in that 
 of Gravesend, only one (which is, I am sure, a pure 
 oversight) from the important deanery of Greenwich, 
 not one from Deptford. The Treasurer— Rev. H. B. 
 Stevens, Yicar of Darenth, near Dartford — will give 
 information and receive subscriptions. 
 
 31. Many of the Surrey clergy are familiar with 
 the admirable and successful Middle Class School for 
 Boys at Cranleigh, in Surrey. A school of a similar 
 kind for girls is about to be opened at Bramley, and 
 although no insignificant words of mine can possibly 
 add weight to the testimony of the venerated Bishop 
 of Winchester to the importance of such a school, 
 being asked I willingly give them. Exact knowledge, 
 religious training, and refined manners in the girls of 
 the rising generation are of indispensable value to the 
 future of the English people. All these advantages the 
 scholars in the now projected school, which I would 
 recommend to the Church folks in our division of 
 Surrey, are quite sure to receive. If by any effort 
 of hers in modern times the Church of England has 
 earned the respect and gratitude of the nation, it has 
 been by her exertions for elementary education. Her 
 duty as well as her interests are quite as vitally affected 
 by her efforts for the middle class. 
 
 " A creed which is to command our allegiance must 
 be in harmony with the existing facts of life — must 
 explain them, control them, animate them." — Principal 
 Wage. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " What is needed in the world — is a certain general permanent 
 force of compassion, humanity's standing self pity, as an ele- 
 mentary ingredient of our social atmosphere, if we are to live in 
 it at all." 
 
 32. Perhaps the surest ground of hope for a real 
 moral progress in all classes of the community, is the 
 deepened apprehension by the Church that her efforts 
 for the community must be over body as well as soul, 
 also in her very solemn appreciation of the worth both 
 to God and man of the commonest human life. No 
 one would deny that in her rural parishes the Church 
 has watched over the homes and families of the 
 peasantry with a kindly, almost a parental care; or 
 that the closed parsonage and the silenced church bells 
 would be to many an English village nn irreparable 
 loss both of example and kindness. It is not so easy 
 in the great centres of population either to reach the 
 individual, or to make the efforts of the most complete 
 organisation much felt, or to ameliorate the hardships 
 and temptations of a working man's lot in any appre- 
 ciable way. But there are certain principles and 
 methods of action (by some of us recognised long ago,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 53 
 
 by the public at large regarded as an important dis- 
 covery) which lie at tlie very root of a permanent 
 elevation of the people. The dwelling lies at the 
 foundation of health, self-respect, and virtue. If a 
 man makes the house, the house makes the man. 
 There is no need to remind you what the domestic 
 circumstances of the labouring class are in many 
 districts of South London. I thought St. Giles's had 
 taught me a good deal, about which an old man once 
 said to a little girl, " If yoa want to be sure there is no 
 God, you have only to look round you in St. Giles's." 
 But I am not sure if I did not think All Hallows, 
 Southwark, worse when Mr. Berkeley took me round 
 it just two years ago. No efforts we clergy can make, 
 whether in church or school, can be of more than 
 infinitesimal value, so long as whole families herd 
 together like swine in a sty, and the very rudiments of 
 decency are impossible. Lord Salisbury's recent Bill 
 aimed at two tremendous evils — the bad drainage and 
 overcrowding. The unfortunate excision of the clause 
 which made landlords responsible for the sanitary 
 condition of unfurnished houses, vitally impaired the 
 Bill. It was not Lord Salisbury's fault. 
 
 33. But home is planted by the parents, if it is filled 
 by the children. Much of the detestable, and I fear 
 hardly exaggerated evil which has lately been brought 
 to light results from the incredible negligence and 
 selfishness of parents. There are noble exceptions. 
 When at St. Giles's, I came across a working man who 
 himself told me that he paid nine shillings a week rent 
 to ensure two rooms, for himself and his children. He
 
 54 CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 added, " It costs me my beer." What I should like to 
 do (and I will do it, if the clergy will encourage me), 
 is to appoint a Sunday, in the course of next year, to 
 be a Parents' Sunday (should it be "Whit Sunday?), 
 when from every pulpit in the diocese the burning 
 words of tender and godly men shall impress on their 
 congregations the solemn joy, the awful privilege, the 
 tremendous responsibility of God's gift of children, as 
 well the paramount duty of parents in vigilantly, wisely 
 guiding them as to the books they read, the friends they 
 make, the profession they choose, the diversions they 
 enjoy. Of course (where practicable) there should 
 be an offertory, and I cannot conceive a more fitting- 
 object than our Diocesan Education Board. 
 
 34. Here I must introduce a few careful words on 
 a most difficult subject — the promotion of purity by 
 public and organised methods. Greatly I deprecate 
 open addresses to men by others than men. Of course 
 every rule has its exception. Let women deal with 
 women. AVe shall all do well to remember what has 
 been written of a great Italian saint, that " if he 
 had to speak of anything connected with sins against 
 purity, his words were so chosen that they conveyed, 
 without unveiling, his meaning, and evil seemed on 
 his lips to lose its nature." This is a rare gift. Those 
 who do not feel to possess it are hardly called to a 
 duty for which it is indispensable. Our instincts in 
 this matter err most safely on the fastidious side. For 
 to warn is sometimes to suggest. The tempter is ever 
 vigilant. Nature is stirred, details are full of poison. 
 Two possible dangers fill me with unspeakable horror.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 55 
 
 One is, that this subject should be constantly clang-led 
 before the minds of young men and boys, until the air 
 of the sewers percolates their entire system. A good 
 cricket club would be far more to the purpose, with 
 occasionally a careful sermon on the body as the Temple 
 of Grod. No thought, no truth will prove so inspiring, 
 so solemnising as this. The other danger is that young- 
 unmarried girls should be encouraged to think it their 
 duty to undertake the rescue and supervision of their 
 fallen sisters, and to hear, perhaps to repeat tales of 
 wickedness, which no personal experience can have 
 enabled them to mitigate, and which even to know 
 (sometimes, alas ! never to forget) soils the whiteness 
 of the soul. There are some whom God calls to it — 
 noble, almost divine women, before whom we might 
 gratefully stand bareheaded, for the reverence we feel 
 to them for their redeeming and sisterly pity. Our 
 prayers follow them, our ungrudged, though wondering 
 respect. But not all women, assuredly not girls, are 
 summoned to it ; so do not sanction, but firmly de- 
 precate it, and you will have the parents on your 
 side. 
 
 Our Diocesan Branch of the Church of England 
 Purity Society, which I was invited to form at the last 
 session of Conference, I have for the present placed 
 under the charge of the Rural Deans. With the less 
 anxiety can I postpone Diocesan effort in more detail, 
 because of the network of individual and defensive, 
 and also remedial activities, spreading itself, and 
 augmenting in an ever-growing organisation over 
 our entire area, by means of the Girls' Friendly and"
 
 56 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Young Women's Help Societies.* I bless God for 
 tliem both. They supplement and complete each other 
 while working on an independent basis. 
 
 35. Recreation for the people cannot absorb us, but 
 it should interest us ; and where they see that we care 
 for their secular life, they become the better disposed 
 to appreciate our spiritual offices. Two things I would 
 suggest, as something to begin with. Give them music 
 all the year round. On summer evenings try to find 
 some open space, where you can hire a band, and 
 provide seats, and ask your people to come as your 
 guests, say from 7 to 10 on a Saturday evening. Lord 
 Brabazon, one of the truest friends London artisans 
 possess, is making this increasingly practicable by his 
 admirable movement in favour of open spaces and 
 playgrounds for the people. The hire of chairs and 
 programmes will go a long way towards the expense, 
 and people who are reluctant to give for religious 
 objects will often be ready to assist this one. Ask 
 Mr. Alexander, of St. Paul's, Walworth, how he has 
 prospered with his summer evening concerts this 
 year. In the winter they must be held in-doors. For 
 nothing so elevates, soothes, recreates as music does. 
 
 " If when in cheerless wanderings dull and cold 
 A sense of human kindliness hath found us. 
 We seem to have around us 
 
 An atmosphere all gold." — Clough. 
 
 * It sounds incredible, but one of our suburban incumbents, 
 living within gunshot of Brixton Rise, in answer to the question 
 as to his knowledge of " G. F. S.," did not know what I meant by 
 the expression. The mostenergetic and irresistible of all our diocesan 
 activities had not found him out. Probably he Avill know soon.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 57 
 
 AYe have some capital choirs in South London now, 
 and they will readily assist if kindly invited. The 
 amateur concerts given by ladies and gentlemen from 
 the other side of the town, to which I alluded in my 
 last Charge, have been continued, and with the hap- 
 piest results. The other matter in which we, alas, are 
 wofully behind our Transatlantic kinsfolk is the matter 
 of Free Libraries. In Boston, Massachusetts, I saw 
 some years ago a free library which filled me witb envy 
 for London, and it is constantly used by the people it is 
 meant for. In London the vestries inflexibly decline 
 to put the Free Libraries Act into force, deterred by 
 heavy rates, sceptical of the desire of the people to have 
 them, conscious, it may be, that the effort is at present 
 premature. The only persons whom they might hurt 
 would be our friends the publicans. The money they 
 would cost would soon be saved, and it would earn an 
 interest of its own in the result it must eventually 
 produce. If the clergy will stir in the matter it may 
 presently be done. Vicious literature is on the increase. 
 36. Institutes for youths of both sexes are perhaps of 
 even greater necessity than for men. As a matter of 
 fact the streets are in many cases, both in winter and 
 summer, the only possible place for air and exercise. 
 Institutes or guilds, where there is society, a library, 
 innocent games, and simple refreshments sold at cost 
 price, are often, so far as protection from evil is included 
 in the word, the very salvation of the young. I am not 
 unconscious of the financial difiSculty, and I do not in 
 the least wish my brethren to hamper themselves with 
 self-made anxieties. But in most parishes there are
 
 58 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OP ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 laymen who are friendly, business-like, and in hearty 
 sympathy with an object like this. Paley has well 
 written — the passage applies to entertainments as well 
 as to other things — " Few will ever be found to attempt 
 alterations but men of more spirit than prudence, of 
 more sincerity than caution, of warm, eager, impetuous 
 tempers. If we are to wait for improvement till tlie 
 cool, the calm, the discreet part of mankind begins it, 
 I will venture to pronounce that (without His inter- 
 position with whom nothing is impossible) we may 
 remain as we are till the renovation of all things." 
 The young clergy sometimes startle their elder brethren 
 with exj3eriments and efforts in this direction. Let us 
 beware how we discourage them merely because we 
 could not make them ourselves. Depend upon it that 
 sociableness with the working classes is a prime duty. 
 We must make it plain, even at a little risk, that we 
 value their friendship, and that we should like to be 
 acquainted with them. That will be the way, the only 
 way, of making them one with us. [A gentleman 
 never patronises.] 
 
 Do you remember Sir Henry Taylor's pathetic lines : 
 
 " Look round about on this (once) populous town ; 
 Not one of those innumerable house tops 
 But hides some spectral form of miseiy, 
 Some peevish, pining child, and moaning mother, 
 Some aged man that in his dotage scolds, 
 Not knowing Avhy he hungers, some cold corse. 
 That lies unstraightened, where the spirit left it." 
 
 Philip Van Artevelde. 
 
 Human folk claim sympathy for all their life, need 
 help for all their necessities. To bring a smile into
 
 THE PEOPLE. 59 
 
 a sad face, to provoke a laugli from a morose nature, 
 to tempt people to forget their troubles, if only for an 
 hour, is often to give a cup of cold water, that shall 
 not lose its reward. 
 
 o7. As to the most effectual ways of attracting 
 working folk to Divine worship, and the kind of service 
 they prefer when they come there, the popularity or 
 unpopularity of much ritual, the legitimacy of evan- 
 gelistic effort, and the permanent results of parochial 
 missions, we all think we have something to say. We 
 differ, and differ widely, and with good cause for 
 differing. The plain truth is that " the people " is a 
 large expression ; that the working class contains in 
 it every possible variety of cultivation, prejudice, taste, 
 and association ; that a clergyman is very apt to give 
 what he can give and do best_, is equally apt to suppose 
 that what is agreeable to him is helpful to others. As 
 Pascal quaintly says, " Our own interest is a wonderful 
 instrument for putting out our eyes in a pleasant way." 
 Those who affii'm that what the working class prefer 
 is our sober beautiful liturgy, and those who affirm 
 that they do not understand it; those who say they 
 like ritual, and those who say that they cannot abide 
 it ; those who fear to scare them by evangelistic effort, 
 and those who think it the only way of winning them ; 
 those wlio claim the Church's authority, and adopt her 
 standards as the true way of getting and keeping them ; 
 those who deliberately efface the Church in their 
 methods and teaching, saying that the fir«t thing to do 
 is to make a man a Christian, the second is (at a long 
 interval) to make him a Churchman — all claim to have
 
 60 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 soraetliing to say for themselves, all maintain their 
 theories from their own experience, all are casting their 
 net into a fathomless sea with all sorts of fish in it, 
 all are right, none exclusively right. What we need 
 (to borrow a phrase of Sir Henry Taylor's) " is force 
 combined with circumspection." 
 
 " The perpetual tendency of religion is to become 
 either a mere philosophy, or a mere popular tradition 
 — and who shall say which is the worst evil ? Either 
 when the Church forgets that its first work is to seek 
 the lost and preach the Grospel to the poor ; or when 
 it seeks only, and hy any means, to establish an influence 
 which it intends to be salutary over the multitudes or 
 the ignorant — it is in danger of becoming such a reli- 
 gion as can only be held or conceived of by the few who 
 are able to investigate or study ; or, on the other hand, 
 of sinking to the degradation of a popular faith, which 
 can check unchastity but cannot prevent murder." * 
 
 38. Not for one moment would I deny or even 
 extenuate the actual inconveniences, and the possible 
 hindrances that may result from evangelistic services 
 undertaken lightly, done rashly, repeated unwisely, 
 followed up negligently. They do interfere with the 
 regular parochial system ; they do unsettle some people 
 permanently ; they do make others discontented with the 
 Church's quiet and sober ways. Some who are stirred 
 grow colder than ever afterwards ; some who have a 
 fervour of conversion scandalise the Church and wound 
 
 * All this sermon of the Dean of St. Paul's on the Twofold 
 Deht of the Clergy deserves reading — ' Human Life and its 
 Conditions,' p. 143.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 61 
 
 their own souls by presently falling away. But some 
 of these results do not so much matter in the light of 
 what compensates for them ; others are in the nature of 
 things, and we must be prepared for them, unless we 
 never mean to make any special efforts for Christ. 
 Some indicate an actual gain, others are incidental to 
 all activities and ventures of the Church's enthusiasm. 
 In truth, it is the law of all mission work, whoever 
 conducts it, whether within or without the Church, that 
 the first excitement must evaporate; it is not therefore 
 of necessity wasted, or insincere. Also observe that if 
 the usual result of such work should be found to be, 
 as I confess I have almost always found it, rather a 
 quickening and deepening of the spiritual life of godly 
 people, than the calling in in large numbers of people 
 outside the Church's reach into the enjoyment of her 
 ordinances, and the confession of her Lord, all it means 
 is, that this is the wise way in which it pleases God to 
 bless and own and deepen her work. The clergy of 
 South London are stirring to mission work. Who would 
 daunt them ? who would not rather cheer their hearts 
 and strengthen their hands ? Over-much fastidiousness 
 paralyses us in the end for any real effort. We wait ; 
 we think ; we weigh. The opportunities pass and life 
 is gone. In Bermondsey, this spring, solid work was 
 done. It was a great disappointment to me not to be 
 permitted personally to help it. Lambeth, Newington, 
 Kennington, Balham, and Woolwich are arranging for 
 a mission next Lent. If I obey distinct medical advice 
 (as a precaution against a chronic disorder) I fear that 
 a voyage to a warmer climate may compel my absence
 
 62 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 again. You will not grudge me time enough for 
 getting quite well. 
 
 39. The "Free and Open Church Movement "* is, 
 I believe, attracting increased attention. It is already 
 in some neighbourhoods seriously affecting the income 
 derived from seat rents, and has a way of being 
 infectious. Its idea is magnificent, and when I remind 
 you that of our ten new churches eight are altogether 
 free and unappropriated, no one will justly say that the 
 idea of a parish church free and open to all alike has been 
 ignored by the promoters of the fund. But two matters 
 want lookiug at, both even with anxiety. Elsewhere I 
 have indicated the opinions of almost all the incumbents 
 of the diocese as to the imprudeuce of relying on offer- 
 tories alone for the maintenance of the clergy. In 
 this view, how unwise it might be to make a gratuitous 
 crusade against seat rents. It is further alleged that 
 the congregations in free and open churches are apt to 
 be mnch more fluctuating than in seat-rented; that 
 there is not the same personal help to the clergyman, 
 nor association with the parish ; and that we should 
 be careful not to permit to grow up unchecked or 
 unadmonished a perilous habit of wandering from one 
 church to another to compare preachers, to criticise 
 music, to admire building, even to avoid offertories, 
 not always to hear truth and to worship God. 
 
 I observe in many of your replies a preponderance 
 
 * On the whole subject of the Evangelisation of the Masses, 
 I recommend to your attention the Eeport of a Joint Committee 
 of the Canterbury Convocation on ' The Spiritual Needs of the 
 Masses of the People,' to be bought at the National Society's 
 depository.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 63 
 
 of preference for the principle of appropriation, even 
 where the seats in other respects are absohitelj free. 
 
 40. In my Primary Charge, I offered my younger 
 brethren some counsels on Preaching. Let me add only 
 a few words on a subject which deserves many. Do 
 not readily give in to what is often only a worldly cry 
 for short sermons. You need a great deal more expe- 
 rience than you can claim now, for making a fifteen 
 minutes' sermon that shall be really useful. Either so 
 much will be compressed into it, that it will become 
 loaded and obscure ; or (what is, perhaps, more likely) 
 so little will go into it, that it will be impossible to 
 endure it. You are to be careful, thoughtful, systematic 
 teachers of the people, or you can win no influence, 
 and will reap no reward. Sometimes I fear that 
 incessant extemporaneous pi-eaching must in the end 
 only encourage verbiage, and compel shallowness. A 
 clergyman who before he has been preaching twenty 
 years, magnificently dispenses with his manuscript, 
 will one day wish occasionally to return to it, and will 
 find it impossible. If it is a sort of baseness in a young 
 man of this time never to be able to preach without 
 a manuscript, it may prove a deplorable mistake never 
 to preach with one. 
 
 4-1. A word of counsel let me add about choirs, 
 which cost the important annual sum of £16,598. 
 Be very careful whom you admit into them, and do 
 not suffer the recommendation of a good voice, or a 
 knowledge of music to be the only considerations. It 
 may possibly answer the purpose of a man, who has 
 no character, but who wishes to advance himself.
 
 64 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 to join a parochial choir, which adds to his social 
 respectability, and perhaps improves his musical attain- 
 ments. It must not answer your purpose, nor can 
 it tend to the glory of Almighty God. A devout 
 choir, conscious of responsibility, and feeling honoured 
 by being permitted to lead in the worship of Divine 
 song, is an amazing help to the devotion of a congre- 
 gation. A choir thinking only of the music, and of 
 personal display, is a very melancholy hindrance to it. 
 Have nothing to do with such a choir. If you do 
 not insist on their being communicants when they join 
 you, expect it presently. 118 surpliced choirs in the 
 diocese are communicants now, out of a total of 176. 
 
 42. I also offered some observations on the practice 
 of Evening Communion which, after an animated and 
 useful discussion in several of the leading Church 
 journals, was finally dismissed with much less acerbity 
 and far more respect than would have been possible ten 
 years ago. To that discussion I have nothing new to 
 add, except in the way of a needful explanation. One 
 who has felt constrained to resist innovations of his 
 brethren, may fairly be invited to justify innovations 
 of his own. Twenty-eight years ago, when the question 
 had not been even stirred, I was called, when quite a 
 young man, to succeed Bishop Bickersteth, at St. Giles'- 
 in-the-Fields. It was a charge of 25,000 souls. To 
 my great concern both early and mid-day communions 
 were scantily attended by the poor ; and it occurred to 
 me that the quiet evening hour might suit them better. 
 Before taking any action, I consulted the Bishop. His 
 answer was indecisive. I felt sure he meant me to
 
 THE PEOPLE. 65 
 
 use my own discretion. Had he forbidden me then, 
 I should instantly have obeyed him. Later on, after 
 my fuller experience of its necessity, had he, or his 
 wise successor, forbidden it, I could not have disobeyed 
 him. But I might have declined in such a parish 
 to become responsible for fatally diminishing the 
 people's highest privileges, and I think I should 
 have respectfully placed my resignation in his hands. 
 I quite admit that the early hour is no difficulty for 
 working men. They are used to it. But I am 
 quite sure it is impossible for their wives, and for 
 domestic servants, and for many medical men. Also, 
 I concur with those who for their own edification 
 prefer the early hour. To the objection, however, that 
 it encourages indolence, I can only say, so far as the 
 clergy are concerned, that the most self-denying service 
 we ever took at St. Pancras was at the monthly 
 evening Communion, when, after a heavy day's labour, 
 we administered the Holy rite often to over two hundred 
 communicants ; sometimes in the end so exhausted that 
 I for one hardly knew how to walk home. Any who 
 have even the faintest suspicion that an evening Com- 
 munion necessarily implies slovenliness or irreverence 
 I invite for fairness' sake to visit, if they have oppor- 
 tunity, the church I have already named, on the evening 
 of the last Sunday in the month, and I am mistaken if 
 they will not be impressed with the pathetic reason- 
 ableness and the blessed solemnity of that quiet holy 
 Service, as they have seldom been impressed before. 
 
 The letter below reached me with one of the Visita- 
 tion Returns. Is our brother to be forbidden ?
 
 66 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 " After a long-lived prejudice against Evening Communions, I 
 have come firmly to the conviction that without them the Church 
 is practically excommunicating the great body of the wives and 
 mothers of the poorer woi-king classes. They can attend Church 
 at no other time. No morning hour would suit them ; nor would 
 their husbands permit them to attend at any but an evening hour. 
 I should like to begin an Evening Communion monthly, but I feel 
 that it would be too great a deviation of custom for a parish priest 
 to introduce without the approval of his bishop." 
 
 *'To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain 
 the weak : I am made all things to all men, that I 
 might by all means save some." 
 
 This chapter must close with an expression of 
 reverent and grateful affection to the memory of one, 
 to whom the entire British people owes more than to 
 any man of the century. It may truly be said of the 
 seventh Earl of Shaftesbury that he first made philan- 
 thropy a living force in politics. He was the Gordon of 
 public life. Essentially an aristocrat, he will ever be 
 remembered as the tribune of the English people. If 
 compassion is a Divine quality, he was truly a child of 
 Grod. He combined the simplicity of nature which in- 
 tuitively conceives great enterprises with the devotion 
 that joyfully makes sacrifices for accomplishing them, 
 and the perseverance which cannot rest imtil they are 
 complete. He has not, indeed, been laid in the sanc- 
 tuary of kings, but he has a secret tender niche of his 
 own, in the hearts of the multitudes who "have no 
 helper " ; and what a welcome he must have had in 
 " the everlasting habitations " !
 
 ( 67 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GOVEKNMENT. 
 
 '* It is dangerous to say to tlie people that the laws are uot just, 
 for men obey them only because they think them just. Therefore 
 it is necessary to say at the same time that they must be obeyed 
 because they are laws, as superiors must be obeyed not because 
 they are just, but because they are superiors. All sedition is 
 averted if this principle be established, and it be understood what 
 is rightly the definition of justice." — Pascal. 
 
 43. Truth, charity, order, severally promote, col- 
 lectively ensure, the growth of the Kingdom of God. 
 Truth proclaims its ideas, order regulates its energies, 
 charity cements its life. It is easy to have them 
 separately, hard to ensure them together. Each pre- 
 dominates in turn in the single personalities that 
 colour and shape its history. Of order I want to 
 speak now, not only from the standpoint of the ruler, 
 but from that of the ruled, a subject not inopportune 
 for this time, and certainly tempting one to be some- 
 what sceptical of a living poet's remark that, according 
 to his " observation of life, subordination comes more 
 easily to men — at least to gentlemen — than the exercise 
 of authority does." It was to promote order, as well 
 as to check disorder, that a Royal Commission was 
 appointed in 1881 to inquire into the constitution and 
 working of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the report of 
 
 F 2
 
 68 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 the Commissioners has been published. Of the two 
 bulky volumes, almost the more important, certainly 
 the more interesting, is the second ; and I cannot too 
 much press on those who have leisure for it to read the 
 minutes of evidence, which indicate at once what the 
 leading Churchmen of the time really wish for, what 
 would satisfy them, how much more reasonable some 
 of them are than others, how patient and gentle we 
 ought all to be in turn, how " Justice is the interest 
 of the stronger." 
 
 Three typical witnesses I will quote, out of many, on 
 the points of liberty, the spiritual independence of the 
 Church, and the first Prayer-book of King Edward YI. 
 
 Sir Emilius Bayley (pp. 163-6), is, ''unless in very 
 extreme cases, against putting the law in force against 
 the clergy" — is " in favour rather of relaxation than of 
 stringency " ; thinks " it would be more desirable to 
 give more power to the bishops in dealing with such 
 questions"; does "not approve of the old system by 
 which any one parishioner could originate actions." 
 '' You will always find one or two men in a parish 
 who are prepared to object to everything." 
 
 The Dean of St. Paul's (p. 353) desires " to (1) arrest 
 the tendency, which is comparatively a new one, to 
 govern the Church by case-made law ; also to guard 
 against absorbing it by legislation. (2) Restore to 
 the Church, as required by the change of time, the 
 reasonable and just power of dealing with her own 
 proper spiritual affairs, such as doctrine and worship, 
 subject to the cognizance and check of the State. (3) 
 Discountenance the spirit of persecution, for which all
 
 GOVERNMENT. 69 
 
 parties have suffered, and for which all parties are to 
 blame, but most those who make special boast of tole- 
 rance, and give to the different parties in the Church 
 what each can fairly claim on the ground of documents 
 and formularies. Lastly, remember that behind all 
 these questions is the Roman controversy, and that 
 one of the most telling allegations on the Roman side 
 is that the English Church is the creature of the 
 State, so tied and bound that it cannot settle so 
 small a matter as its ritual, or so great a question as 
 its doctrine, except by a State or lay court." 
 
 Rev. E. S. Foulkes, Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin, 
 Oxford (p. 96-103), when asked, " Should you say 
 there was more liberty for the individual clergyman or 
 for the Church generally in the Church of Rome than 
 in our Church ? *' replies, " Not more, certainly ; quite 
 the reverse " — thinks " that if the first Prayer-book of 
 Edward VI. were allowed the optional use, it would 
 show whether people were really honest in wishing 
 for that form, because the Edwardine form is in reality 
 the greatest contradiction to the doctrines of the Roman 
 Church about the Sacrament that could possibly be 
 invented. The whole essence of the consecration there 
 is made to consist in the prayer of invocation of the 
 Holy Grhost. As long as that prayer was used in the 
 liturgy, there was no dream of transubstantiation in 
 the mind of any Church." When it was expunged 
 from the Western liturgies, "■ that force was first im- 
 puted to the words of institution pronounced by the 
 priests which has issued forth in the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation. Calvin, who had as clear a head as
 
 70 CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY OF EOCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 anybody, said it was the only rational standpoint 
 against transubstantiation as being the root, basis, and 
 explanation of what is called the real, meaning by real, 
 spiritual, presence. If Edward VI.'s Prayer-book con- 
 tented everybody, I conceive it would put an end to 
 all further philandering with Kome." " The best way 
 of mitigating the existing dissatisfaction" would be 
 " to allow the optional use of that Communion office. 
 It contains every single thing that all admirers of 
 primitive times could, as loyal members of the Church 
 of England, honestly desire to bring them into com- 
 plete accord with these times." 
 
 44. On the report of the Commissioners, which 
 assuredly is not lacking in exhaustiveness of treatment 
 or intrepidity of counsel, I need not hazard many 
 observations now. \ We are to debate it at our next 
 Conference, and on some of its suggestions I frankly 
 admit that I have yet to make up my mind. These 
 points, nevertheless, are clear to me. The Diocesan 
 Court ought to be reinstated in its former vitality. 
 When, however, the power of complaint, now limited to 
 three parishioners, is proposed to be made as general as 
 possible, so that any Churchman anywhere may com- 
 plain against any clergyman anywhere, I cannot help 
 feeling that the Church is not likely to suffer from want 
 of liveliness should this become law. What is likely 
 to happen (and no one can fairly demur to it) is that 
 zealous Churchmen, who honestly think (with the 
 Romans to back them) that force is the right way 
 of restraining error, will instantly combine with the 
 £}^B^i?^i^^!M^S^ teiP^oB^?^^^ings in every diocese
 
 GOVERNMENT. 71 
 
 in England against any clergyman to whose irregu- 
 larities they object. Whether this would in the end 
 prove the best way of occupying a bishop's time, and 
 of promoting truth, charity, and peace in the Chnrch 
 at large, is a somewhat " contentious " matter. " It is 
 better to make the bishop responsible for his leave to 
 set the discipline of the Church in motion." With that 
 antecedent liberty, necessary might be a more fitting 
 word. Apart, however, from that consideration, the 
 more responsibility that is thrown on the rulers of the 
 Church the better. This is known to have been Arch- 
 bishop Tait's view, and he was among the most sagacious 
 of men. As to the Court of Appeal from the Provincial 
 Court to the Crown, I can see no reason for objecting 
 to it on the ground that the body to be consulted in 
 such cases is a body of lay judges, " learned in the law, 
 and to be summoned in rotation." Every person so 
 appointed, before entering on his office, is solemnly to 
 declare that he is a member of the Church of England 
 as by law established. Any one, morever, who has 
 read with attention and sympathy the volume of 
 Bampton Lectures by the late venerable Bishop of 
 Salisbury, on " The Administration of the Holy Spirit 
 in the Body of Christ," may be permitted to inquire 
 why the presence and help of that Holy Spirit is likely 
 to be denied to faithful laymen, such as that body of 
 judges would presumably be, when sitting in solemn 
 council upon the highest affairs of the Church, and 
 charged by the Living and Ruling Head of the Church, 
 with the grave duty of giving her counsel. 
 
 If Lord Devon's proposal were carried, that the
 
 72 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 right to appeal from the Provincial to the Final Court 
 should belong to the defendant only, the defendant 
 would have it in his option not to appeal to a court of 
 whose constitution he might disapprove. It might be 
 best of all to act on the Archbishop of York's sugges- 
 tion — " Let the bishop have power to make an order in 
 all matters affecting the conduct of public worship, 
 which shall be binding until reversed by the Court of 
 Appeal. Let there be an appeal to the Archbishop's 
 Court, either from such an order or from a trial in the 
 Diocesan Court. Once make the bishop's authority a 
 reality, and not an utterance of which no court will 
 take notice, and he would be able to compose many 
 of the disputes which now arise about such subjects 
 without prolonged litigation." 
 
 45. As to the expediency of legislation, it should be 
 observed that, with the laudable object of giving full 
 satisfaction to the consciences of all concerned, the 
 report is substantially a series of delicately-balanced 
 equipoises, and if the bill founded on the report were 
 to come out of the operating-room, say of the House of 
 Commons, amputated of one or more of its vital pro- 
 visions, the same result might again happen as did 
 happen at the passing of the Pubhc Worship Regula- 
 tion Bill — the bishops would in vain try to escajie 
 responsibility for an enactment which they had the 
 courage to initiate, but not the power to control. So 
 Avhat would satisfy no one but the Church's enemies 
 might effect nothing but her deeper despair. It may 
 prove better, at least for some little time to come, to 
 remain as we are. Our present ills we know, certainly
 
 GOVERNMENT. 73 
 
 they are not more intolerable. The future ills, which 
 nnwittingly we might create by premature action, we 
 do not know. If it suits anybody to taunt us with 
 indecision or timidity they are welcome to do so. But 
 why should we suffer them to provoke us into com- 
 mitting suicide ? Their disappointment may mean 
 our safet}^ 
 
 46. If the Church has to wait some years longer for 
 an improved jurisdiction of her Ecclesiastical Courts ; 
 she has no longer to wait for moderate yet useful 
 reforms in her domestic legislation. The Pluralities 
 Amendment Bill became law on the 6th of August, 
 and as I distinctly recollect (on behalf of the then 
 Bishop of Exeter) laying it on the table of the House 
 of Lords, and moving its first reading in 1883 (after 
 it had passed a searching discussion through both 
 houses of the Southern Convocation), it is difficult to 
 understand how it can be said to have been hurried 
 through Parliament. It is not much more than a gentle, 
 though distinct push, to the languid elbow of an otiose 
 incumbent. There are otiose incumbents. There ought 
 not to be such. Their brother incumbents ought not 
 to encourage them to be, nor as a rule will they, if 
 they are dih'gent and exemplary themselves. It is 
 quite time that the small proportion of inert clergy, 
 which undoubtedly does exist and does harm, should 
 cease to be inert with impunity. As I have hinted 
 elsewhere, the irremovableness of a useless incumbent 
 is the most vulnerable point in the Church. The 
 composition of the Commission of Inquiry, as proposed 
 in the Act, is conceived in a spirit almost of democratic
 
 74 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 largeness. Many dioceses have experience of the 
 difficulty of inducing an easy-going incumbent to 
 appoint an active curate, even where the population is 
 large and the stipend ample. The difficulty should 
 disappear now. No alarm need, I think, he felt at the 
 probable operation of the 14th clause, which enlarges 
 the conditions under which two benefices may be held 
 together. Clause 12, which protects a resident curate 
 from sudden or vexatious interference, is equitably con- 
 ceived. The archdeacons of this diocese have already 
 been instructed to take steps for the election of the 
 diocesan members of the Commission, and I trust that 
 the Act may seldom be needed among ourselves. 
 
 47. In one matter of a disciplinary character I 
 claim the symjiathy of the clergy. I mean the barring 
 of unworthy clerks against the performance of sacred 
 functions, which, for a time at least, they have forfeited 
 the privilege of exercising. The honour of the Church 
 we serve, the welfare of the congregations to which we 
 minister, demand a constant vigilance and thorough 
 co-operation. It is a rule of the diocese (see ' Diocesan 
 Directory' for 1885, p. 83) that "clergymen from 
 other dioceses wishing to officiate for more than three 
 Sundays together in this diocese should apply to me 
 for permission." This leave is best invited through the 
 incumbent of the parish. It is by no means always 
 invited. Sometimes gentleness is the best way — always 
 it is the pleasantest. Nay, Pascal calls it " beautiful." 
 Why ? " Because he who goes to extremes will be 
 alone, and I will make no stronger cabal of people 
 who will say it is inexpedient." Sometimes firmness
 
 GOVERNMENT. 75 
 
 is indispensable for the welfare of the people and the 
 honour of God. A bishop is primarily responsible, 
 both to the Church at large and to his own diocese, for 
 protecting the laity from unworthy ministers. It is 
 among the most solemn of his consecration vows. It is 
 clear also that he has fuller access to sources of infor- 
 mation than any one else can have, and it ought not to 
 be too troublesome a task for the clergy before engaging 
 the services of one personally unknown to them, to 
 write to him for information and for his consent. While 
 a bishop, it is to be hoped, is the last person who would 
 refuse to give a brother who has been in trouble a 
 helping hand back into self-respect and usefulness, he 
 has a plain right to be treated with confidence before 
 he can be asked for sympathy. No one can press his 
 right to earn a piece of bread by doing duty in the 
 Church, or plead the circumstances of home, unless he 
 can produce the credentials of character and of orders. 
 But I feel ashamed to be compelled to argue about it 
 at all.* Only a few can require it. 
 
 48. The four sessions of our first Diocesan Con- 
 ference have been terminated, and the election of the 
 second took place in the spring. A Conference, which 
 initiated the Ten Churches Fund, invited the Bishop to 
 take steps for setting on foot a Sisterhood and 
 Deaconess Home, accepted the duty of establishing 
 
 * It ought to be well understood that under clause 7 of the 
 Colonial Clergy Act, a clergyman with colonial orders officiating in 
 an English diocese, without the consent in writing of the bishop 
 of the diocese, is liable for every oifence to pay £10 to the Governor 
 of Queen Anne's Bounty Board; and the incumbent knowingly 
 allowing it is subject to a like penalty.
 
 76 CHARGE TO THE CLEEGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Church middle-class schools in the dioeese, recognised 
 the importance of establishing clergy pensions, and of 
 employing the services of laymen for religious minis- 
 trations, has earned its claim to be practical. " Talk 
 is persuasive, and persuasion is force." A Diocesan 
 Conference, indeed, binds clergy and laity together in 
 a real and visible concord. It stimulates the interest 
 of the laity in ecclesiastical affairs. It widens the 
 horizon of the clergy in the discharge of their duties. 
 " Who is there," asks Thomas a Kempis, " who has all 
 his own way ? " Nevertheless most men wish for it, 
 and many think it their duty to try to get it ; and one 
 use of a Conference is that it shows men not only that 
 they cannot get it, but that they ought not always 
 even to wish to get it. That party spirit which we all 
 deprecate in others, but are slow to discover in our- 
 selves, is best prevented and combated by width of 
 knowledge, by community of work, and by stimulating 
 a latent generosity of nature which surprises those who 
 are not utterly buried in self-love with the irresistible 
 conviction that our neighbour, too, is taught of Grod, 
 and used by Him, and that we may borrow from him 
 as well as he learn from us. I am not sure, however, 
 that the Bishop is not helped by it more than any one 
 else ; for a Conference introduces into what I suppose 
 all would admit to be the monarchical feature of 
 the episcopal office just enough of the democratic 
 element to inform and strengthen without effacing or 
 coercing it. In the chair of his Conference the Bishop 
 is stirred by the presence and counsel and enthusiasm 
 of his brethren. In the chair of his see he is solitary ;
 
 GOVEKNMENT. 77 
 
 few know how solitary. Once a great saint wrote to 
 one called to the office : *' You will feel very lone- 
 some ; all high offices make one feel so. God's call to 
 you is to be a pillar round which others twine, rather 
 than a thing meant to lean itself." Conferences also 
 represent the co-operative principle in the administra- 
 tion of Church affairs, especially in the initiation of 
 plans and institutions. The Bishop, if he is a strong 
 man (and it is in every one's interest that he should be 
 strong), will be careful to remember that he is not 
 only president of a meeting, but bishop of a diocese. 
 While allowing free play to discussion, and not too 
 much intruding his own personality, he may occa- 
 sionally feel bound to give his distinct opinion on 
 matters of moment, to insist on toleration, and to 
 maintain justice. There are, however, risks in Con- 
 ferences which we shall do well to see, without being 
 too much alarmed by them. An institution such as 
 our Deaconess Home, involving trouble, labour, anxiety, 
 and money, ought not to be lightly decided upon 
 without a clear purpose of the Conference at large to 
 give it personal and solid support. Otherwise the 
 Bishop who takes up the task as a sort of foster-child, 
 relying on aid which is not subsequently given him, is 
 saddled with an unfair responsibility. There is also a 
 tendency when masses of men are brought together 
 for an atmosphere of temper and opinion to be suddenly 
 generated (quite alien to the individual natures of 
 members themselves), which is apt to be a little tem- 
 pestuous, and in the heat of the moment to move them 
 either to say things liable to be misunderstood by
 
 78 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 others, or too hastily to misunderstand things which 
 others have said. Perhaps we all feel a little guilty 
 of this in turn. It has been well observed that *' bodies 
 of men, nations, churches, races, families have their 
 definite character ; their ways of thinking, their 
 peculiarities of sentiment or passion. Bodies will act 
 without scruple, as perhaps no single one of their 
 members would act. In disputes, in the reform of 
 abuses, what could easily be settled between you and 
 me as individuals, cannot be set right, cannot be 
 mended between societies and parties ; concessions and 
 admissions cannot be made ; generosity cannot have its 
 course, because of impalpable yet decisive forces 
 controlling or hindering public action, though not 
 private." 
 
 49. In my Pastoral of 1878 some of you may 
 remember these words (p. 42) : " A Church with a 
 foreign body inside it^ such as the Ritual polity 
 declares itself to be, must very soon absorb, modify, or 
 expel it." Seven years have passed away, and a good 
 deal has happened. Promotions on the one hand, and 
 prosecutions on the other ; an intense and growing 
 weariness of intestine strife, an increasing and merited 
 appreciation of diligence, character and sacrifice on the 
 part of some who represent the advanced school ; last, 
 but not least, the deepening conviction in some minds, 
 which value truth even more than superficial con- 
 sistency, that "Ritualism does represent a side of 
 truth which needs recognition," have without dispute 
 changed the attitude of public opinion towards the 
 movement in a very material degree. Ritualism is not
 
 GOVERNMENT. 79 
 
 expelled, probably never will be. Ritualism is in this 
 sense modified, that while some have passed through 
 it, grateful for what they feel it has taught them, 
 others are less resolute in insisting on non-essentials 
 of worship at the risk of forfeiting some of its 
 essentials — not valuing ceremonial less, but prizing 
 unity more. It is impossible for me to escape the 
 conviction that Ritualism may soon become absorbed. 
 Yery many indeed have gone so far as to say that on 
 the day when the first Vicar of St. Albans, Holborn, 
 was instituted to St. Peter's, London Docks, the famous 
 memorial which prayed for a tolerant recognition 
 of the divergent ritual practice began formally to 
 be heard. Of course this does not mean that there 
 can be never again a judicial interference with grave 
 irregularities of ritual. To grant a coercive authority 
 on the understanding that it is never to be used is not 
 more foolish than dishonest. Still, I doubt if there is a 
 Churchman in England who has not been disappointed 
 by the results of past prosecutions, who would not 
 deplore the necessity for their being renewed, who 
 would not admit that to suppress error by force rather 
 than by truth is sometimes the surest way of aggra- 
 vating and disseminating it; who would not confess 
 that the corroding discontent, and the chilly defiance, 
 and the hard exclusiveness of Church people when 
 driven by themselves into a corner, as they think, for 
 conscience' sake, frequently prove very sore temptations 
 for truly earnest Christians, as well as grave perils to 
 Church and realm. 
 
 It does not seem to me that in this question of
 
 80 CHAR'GE TO THE CLEEGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 ritual, doctrine is the first matter at stake. Of course 
 we know that our brethren value it because it expresses 
 doctrine, and that they contend for it as essential to 
 their principles. Their affirming this claims respect 
 for their consistency ; it need not compel assent to 
 their position. To concede this plea is to beg the 
 whole question at issue, and to involve those who 
 resent the doctrine, far more than the ritual which 
 is the vehicle of it, in an inconveuient dilemma. We 
 cannot prevent their preaching the doctrine. The 
 Court of Appeal, to which the opponents of Ritualism 
 must of all people in consistency bow, has found 
 itself unable to forbid it. If we forbid it, we go 
 as much against the law as they. With or without 
 their ritual, by those who simply wear surplice and 
 stole, as much as by those who wear all the vest- 
 ments, the truths they devoutly cherish, and in- 
 flexibly maintain, are constantly declared in hundreds 
 of English pulpits. If illegal ritual were abolished 
 to-morrow, and all began to preach in black gowns 
 the *' Catholic doctrine," what would be the new salva- 
 tion for the English Church ? The matter at issue, 
 I say, touches authority, not doctrine. Here is the 
 question to be answered (and a host of laymen will tell 
 you so, if you are slow to believe it), — " Is the Church 
 worth maintaining, if many of the most gifted and 
 saintly of her sons deliberately break the law?" 
 
 In the attitude I have assumed towards Ritualism 
 (I trust this is the last time I shall ever have to speak 
 about it), my motive, purpose, and disposition have 
 never changed. My motive (as I explained in p. 43
 
 GOVERNMENT. 81 
 
 of my Pastoral of 1878) in not officiating in chiirclies 
 accepting an illegal ritual has been disciplinary ; for 
 I felt I could not condone a violation of the law. My 
 purpose was not so much to abolish existing irregu- 
 larities (which in this diocese would have been simply 
 impossible), but to prevent their increase. My wish 
 has been to carry out this resolution with as little 
 austerity and as much kindness as I could. I honestly 
 think it has answered. It is quite clear to me that the 
 religious bitterness which was simply blazing when I 
 came to South London eight yenrs ago is greatly 
 mitigated. Certainly not a single proposal has been 
 formally made to me to take proceedings under the 
 Public Worship Act, while there has been a distinct 
 check on the growth of unauthorised ritual. I have 
 had several opportunities of observing a cheerful 
 readiness to act on my advice, have seen nothing 
 of an insolent defiance to authority. In the case 
 of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lewisham, 
 and of the new Miission Chapel in St. John, Ken- 
 nington (where the advanced ritual of the mother 
 churches has not been introduced), I have gladly gone 
 to my brethren, and either confirmed or preached for 
 them. If this is inconsistency, it is based on a love of 
 justice, and I shall welcome opportunities for repeating 
 it. My own personal feeling about ritual is what it 
 always was. I belong to the flint age. But if I do 
 not care for it more, I think I fear it less, because 
 a man's voice means much more than his garments, 
 and his doctrine more than his ceremonial. Amid 
 all the clang of turbulent discords and external strife, 
 
 G
 
 82 CHArtGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 the Church's need of peace is greater than ever. The 
 true wisdom is for us all, in honest and true charity, 
 to try to understand each other, and to discover the 
 proper instruments for the highest ends. 
 
 Should I ever come to see that my attitude of 
 isolation has done its work, through helping to a better 
 appreciation of the reasonableness of discipline, and 
 that the Church can be better ruled and served by my 
 abandoning it, be sure that 1 shall abandon it with the 
 same sense of duty, and the same determination to 
 stand on my own feet, which induced me in the first 
 instance to assume it. 
 
 My first aim must be to endeavour after that truest, 
 though not blatant Protestantism, which best justifies 
 itself by keeping the English Church together. Your 
 first duty may be to be wise enough to see, and strong 
 enough to act on that famous sentence of Thomas 
 Fuller — " Contented to enjoy their own conscience." 
 
 " La bonte est le principe du tact, et le respect pour 
 autrui la condition premiere du savoir vivre." — Amiel.
 
 ( 83 ) 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 TRUTH. 
 
 " Tn^tll I hold not to bo that which every man troweth, but 
 to be that which lies at the bottom of all mens' trowings, that 
 in which these trowings have their only meeting-point." 
 
 F. D. Maurice. 
 
 50. " What are we teaching?" is no less important 
 a question than " What are we doing? " 
 
 It has been well observed by Mr. Shorthoiise that 
 "the greatest of all problems" is "that of granting 
 religious fi'eedom, and at the same time maintaining 
 religious truth." A profound sense of the value and 
 importance of truth is essential both to the maintenance 
 and propagation of it ; to disparage or denounce it on 
 account of the inconveniences and disturbances which 
 it creates is not to be on the side of Him Who not only 
 called Himself " the Truth," and declared to Pilate that 
 He had come into the world to bear witness to it, but 
 Who also explained that the object of that coming was 
 not to " bring peace upon earth, but a sword." It is a 
 melancholy law that we never can have as much as we 
 desire together of two indispensable things, truth and 
 unity. Those who are most in love with truth are apt 
 even fiercely to stand apart from those who do not 
 feel quite called upon to accept their definitions of it. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Those who are most in love with unity are often those 
 who have not much intellectual capacity for appreciating 
 the finer distinctions of truth ; and would almost 
 affirm that they do not particularly matter. Yet a 
 thoughtful observer who is sure that Christ is ruling 
 His Church, and that the Holy Spirit inspires it with 
 His grace and power, need not therefore lose heart. 
 There is much more charity than men suppose among 
 us, and much more truth ; and both are growing. 
 When the soul is free, and truly cares about the only 
 realities, it must sometimes find its earnestness kindling 
 into flame. Individual action — with all the self-will and 
 egotism, and fierce intolerance, and even wild eccen- 
 tricity that sometimes accompany it — has ever been the 
 motive power of all vast changes in the world : and 
 when accepted, absorbed, and transmuted into the cor- 
 porate life of the Divine Society, it is finally recognised 
 as an inspiration of God. In the deliberate judgment 
 of many it would be an enormous misfortune for every- 
 body if any of our existing schools of thought were 
 to die out, or to be turned out. Rather, as the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury lately observed in Convocation, 
 we want more depth.* Then goodwill come all round. 
 Church parties exist, and will continue to exist, first of 
 all for the simple reason that the human mind cannot 
 adequately grasp, or assimilate, or maintain the entire 
 system of revealed truth at once, or with equal sense 
 of appreciation and intelligence. Consequently it is 
 for the interest of the universal society that the 
 
 * " He wanted the Churcli not to be either High, Low, or 
 Broad, but deep." (Jixly 2, 1884.) ' Chronicle of Convocation.'
 
 TRUTH. 85 
 
 defenders of the common faitli should hold different 
 parts of the wall against adversaries from different 
 quarters, each taking under its own protection those 
 verities or principles which it is best able to defend, 
 through study of them and sympathy with them; each, 
 while mainly responsible for its own entrenchments, 
 not forgetful of, but really interested in, the skill and 
 vigilance of the others. Then, all truth being germinant 
 of its own activities, a second incidental advantage to 
 the Church will be found to accrue from the existence of 
 parties in that each, just in proportion to its sincerity 
 and earnestness, plants its own organization, and 
 matures its own results. The Church, too, in her 
 wisdom and motherliness, will not ostracise any of her 
 faithful children merely because they hope to do their 
 duty better by her and her Divine Head in separate 
 battalions, rather than in an indiscriminate and hetero- 
 geneous army. But she lays down these conditions, 
 not in form, but in spirit, if they would earn her bene- 
 diction. First she would say, If you must be apart for 
 the freer delivery of your message, and for the wider 
 use of your gift«, be it so ; but justify your claim by 
 exercising it. Let no one say of you that your 
 individuality is effaced, your doctrines diluted, your 
 vitality decayed. Be yourselves, not only by self-asser- 
 tion, which provokes controversy ; nor by vaunting the 
 past, which stirs contempt, but by filling with dignity, 
 quietness, and devotion the place in the Church given 
 you to fill, with sacrifices that others may imitate, and 
 diligence which the world would miss. 
 
 Also be careful to remember three things, equally
 
 86 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 needful for all — inadequately possessed by any — 
 sociableness, justice, and zeal. 
 
 51. The Anglican School ma}^, I think, justly claim 
 recognition of its services to the Church in these im- 
 portant particulars. It has set the example of regarding 
 the service of the Church (what Bishop Thirlwall once 
 said it ought to be) " as the highest work of art." It 
 claims for the organization of the Church, though with 
 arguments that will not satisfy all of us, an apostolical 
 and therefore a Divine authority. It presses about 
 the Sacraments what the Articles affirm of them, that 
 they, when worthily received, are actual means of grace. 
 It has discovered a fresh world of devoted and holy 
 activity for single women among the sick, poor, and 
 fallen. It has created a new school of Church song' 
 It has made the daily service both in town and village 
 a real and felt intercession for the toiling millions. 
 It has inaugurated church restoration. It has stirred 
 theological study. It has built Keble College. 
 
 52. The Liberal school in the Church has four tasks 
 in front of it, to the necessity and even propriety of 
 which some may demur. " If the removal of suspicion 
 from theology is of urgent moment, not less important 
 is the removal of its adulterations." There will be 
 differences of opinion as to the right definition of 
 " adulteration ; " no school will deny that some 
 adulterations have been removed, or that others need 
 to be removed. Liberal divines, who have not hitherto 
 been slow in detecting unauthorised additions to the 
 Catholic faith, may be expected to continue to do so, 
 watched and checked by the two conservative schools.
 
 TRUTH. 87 
 
 Anotlier task is to secure more freedom of ministry 
 and action, both for tbe Church and Nonconformist 
 bodies, in their relations towards each other. They 
 would repeal some, if not all, of tbe provisions of tbe 
 Act of Uniformity. It is not quite so clear to my own 
 mind that, though there might be some edification to 
 Nonconformist congregations from tbe occasional 
 ministrations of Anglicans, a prudent Nonconformist 
 would not do well to think twice about pressing for a 
 change in tbe law. While, however, I see tbe greatest 
 inconvenience in endeavouring to procure a repeal of 
 the Act by deliberately violating it, Christianity may 
 be the gainer when it is gone. 
 
 Church reform is likely to be further promoted by 
 this school in the Cburch, in tbe direction of enlarging 
 the powers of laymen in the administration of parochial 
 affairs, as well as in the question of patronage. All 
 of us are shy about touching the Prayer-book. It is 
 instructive to read tbe aspirations of a liberal church- 
 man in Canon Fremantle's Bampton Lectures on the 
 " World as the Subject of Redemption." Tbe volume 
 is full of interesting suggestions, which stir the mind 
 with a lofty ideal. Possibly you may not go with 
 him to the end of his journey ; you may be glad to 
 have had him at your side for part of the way. 
 
 One other special function of the Liberal school may 
 prove to be this — The gradual interweaving of the 
 secular with tbe religious in the great masses of 
 English society. It is quite possible that a crude and 
 incautious handling of this great task may occasionally 
 suggest the fear that the religious will be sacrificed to
 
 88 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 the secular. Sometimes also tbe social methods, 
 thoughts, and activities by which working folk are 
 thought to be conciliated to the idea and worship of 
 God, will prove even repugnant to sensitive church- 
 men. We hear now a good deal of Socialism, and we 
 shall hear more. It is not to be met by artificial 
 harangues, nor by prudent selfishness, nor by an 
 insincere application of the Tenth Commandment; but 
 by the careful teaching of economic science, by manly 
 sympathy, by honest discussion, and the removal 
 of unjust restrictions on the acquisition of property ; 
 last, not least, by the eternal principles of morality. 
 Liberal churchmen, in their ideas of life, their theories 
 of government, their personal studies, their intense 
 sympathy with the external features of human life, 
 have special access of their own to the millions. Mr. 
 Pater finely puts in his own words what, I suppose, 
 they would accept with joy and pride as their highest 
 ideal of duty : " The constituent practical difference 
 between men will be their capacity for trained insight 
 into their conditions (i.e. of the masses), and the future 
 with those who have most of it." To this God help 
 us all. 
 
 53. The Evangelical School, which, in the opinion 
 of some gusty critics, is in its decadence, in the judg- 
 ment of one whose life-ties with it, and deep respect 
 for it, should help him to a careful judgment, is still 
 active with life. But it is domestic life rather than 
 public, and it needs widening ; and, with all the other 
 schools, it owes much to Congress debates. When 
 Convocation was revived, it was unwise in its depre-
 
 TRUTH. 89 
 
 ciation of the Cliurch's inlierent right to discuss her 
 own affairs ; and even now a few of its most capable 
 and venerated men have no sense of conscience about 
 the Church's corporate activity outside their own 
 parishes. It is of course quite true that it ceased to 
 be on the crest of the wave when it had done its 
 immediate duty of vitalising the conscience of the 
 Church with zeal for the souls of men, and of dis- 
 interring from a deep grave the doctrines of grace. 
 It is also true that, like every other school in turn, 
 it has lately been in a transition state, recasting some 
 of its less essential tenets^ felicitously reconstructing its 
 public organs, both in diocesan and ruri-decanal gather- 
 ings coming into wholesome and invigorating contact 
 with the other schools in the Church ; and, in the 
 person at least of many of its younger men, becoming 
 healthily impregnated with the Cambridge theology. 
 It has been the fruitful and sometimes the audacious 
 parent of admirable innovations. Its great instrument 
 has been preaching. Yet no one can justly say of it that 
 it is indifferent to Sacramental ordinances. Its j)astoral 
 activities have been indefatigable. If its adversaries 
 have sometimes, not quite without cause^ charged it 
 with an (unconscious) injustice in claiming a monojDoly 
 of the Gospel, they have never been slow to confess 
 that they have lit their lamps at its candle, and 
 revived their zeal from its fire. 
 
 Mr. Beard, in his Hibbert Lectures (p. 414), savs of 
 this school, that it has shown itself least receptive of the 
 influence of the newer time ; that it is " not greatly in 
 sympathy with learning or science, or speculation of
 
 90 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 any kind — reading its own literature, absorbed in its 
 own labours, content with its own life." Some of this 
 has been only too true, but it is gradually ceasing to 
 be true, and its best men are eager to wipe away the 
 rejoroach. Were this school to be seriously impaired 
 in its activities, or weakened in its influence, every 
 other school would suffer. Yet those who with 
 Frederick Maurice have so sternly rebuked it for 
 what they have sincerely thought to be its irreverent 
 and artificial theology have never denied to it its 
 share in stirring the personal religious life of Church- 
 men generally ; and can there be much greater praise ? 
 It too has its own theological halls at Oxford and 
 Cambridge ; but its greatest and unrivalled achieve- 
 ment is the Church Missionary Society. 
 
 54. Again I say "What are we all teaching?" behind 
 which lies yet another question, " What ought we to 
 teach?" To you, my younger brethren, on whom in 
 eight years past, I have laid these hands — you now 
 number 521 — and who may reasonably claim guidance 
 and counsel from me ; to you, not as having dominion 
 over your faith, but as helpers of your joy, I chiefly 
 address the brief hints which follow. For controversy 
 you need not care to have capacity, but for truth you 
 must have a real passion. A controversial mind is quite 
 a distinct thing from a controversial spirit. There is 
 indeed a [^communis sensus of simpler, more elementary 
 accepted truths — vague, perhaps homely — * those mean, 
 despised truths that every one thinks he is sufficiently 
 seen in ' ; of inferior interest compared to each man's 
 favourite views, yet the condition and basis of them
 
 TRUTH. 91 
 
 all." But you need something more than tliis "pubh'c 
 idea of religion " for yourselves ; and your flocks claim 
 to be carefully and solidly instructed in those deeper 
 and more advanced topics round which move the great 
 conflicts of Christendom, which demand the keenest 
 intelligence and the most sustained attention, full of 
 absorbing interest to reflective minds, touching on all 
 sides the problems of secular life. The documents of 
 the Cliristian faith, the true doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment, the value of the Sacraments, the true conception 
 of Justification by faith, the proper attitude towards 
 unbelief, Eschatology — these are foremost among the 
 practical questions of Revelation which are always 
 vital, always young, about which the liglit will play 
 and grow as observation widens and thinking deepens, 
 and experience matures, and study enriches you. To 
 the bottom of them you must never think you liave 
 reached ; the concord of them can slowly come to you 
 only through the multiplying years ; they will be 
 practical if you are careful diligently to use them ; 
 consoling when you are content to listen to them as 
 from the lips of God. But you must study them, and 
 wait about them, and recognise the scantiness of your 
 knowledge, and learn from all books and all men in 
 turn, " and thirst for great masses of knowledge." 
 Never consent to sit down in a base content, as if 
 you had plumbed the well of Divine wisdom. " God 
 off"ers to every mind its choice between truth and 
 repose. Take which you please — you can never have 
 both. Every man's progr-ess is through a succession 
 of teachers, each of whom seems at the time to have
 
 y 
 
 92 CHAKGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 a superlative influence, but it at last gives place to 
 a new." The teachers need not be in contradiction ; 
 they ought to be in succession. " The more men you 
 honour, the more cisterns you have to draw from." 
 Listen to each, learn from all, follow only Christ. 
 
 55. A critical and exegetical study of Scripture 
 is at the root of all theological knowledge. But the 
 question remains behind, How did the text come there ? 
 Our own Church has propounded no theory of In- 
 spiration, and if you are prudent you will be careful 
 how you are in a hurry to make one. It may content 
 you for the present to be assured that the writers of 
 the Bible were inspired of God to declare His mind, 
 both as to facts and doctrines, by the fallible methods 
 of human speech and writing; and that He AY ho 
 knows the necessary imperfections of this method, and 
 of any method, will assist our honest efforts, will use 
 our inevitable divergencies towards discovering what 
 He means to say. 
 
 56. The doctrine of the Atonement is at the centre 
 of our revealed religion. It is a blessed but tre- 
 mendous mystery. Holy Scripture gleams with it 
 from Leviticus to Revelation. The sense of sin, the 
 holiness of God, the death of Christ, all are factors 
 in the problem. Whether in your definitions of the 
 doctrine, or your developments of it, do not go beyond 
 Scripture ; usually be careful to use its very words. 
 Never think or try to eliminate the idea of substitu- 
 tion. In some form or other it is sure to assert itself to 
 a candid mind. The dogma has a forensic side, yet do 
 not too much dwell on it as a legal transaction. It is the
 
 TEUTir. 93 
 
 exhibition of perfect Love, but of perfect Love satisfy- 
 ing Eternal Justice and reconciling the sinner through 
 a gospel which permits hope, kindles gratitude, and 
 satisfies conscience. No doctrine more than this claims 
 an equilibrium of truth ; none more rewards " that 
 moderation in word and act which is so akin to truth." 
 Preach it as a living message from God, with lips 
 steeped in humility and quivering with tenderness ; 
 fully, for how great the loss of diluting it ; solemn ly? 
 for consider what it means to be ambassadors of God. 
 
 57. Clearly understand, and continually declare, the 
 doctrine of Justification by Faith. Never shall I forget 
 how to me — a young curate, more than thirty-four years 
 ago — it came, while reading ' The Kingdom of Christ,' 
 with the power of a new revelation, dropping from 
 Heaven as an orb of light into my soul — that to be 
 justified by faith does not mean only in a technical 
 sense or with the intellect to accept a certain Christian 
 dogma, but that it is resting in, trusting on, the Living 
 Person of the Incarnate Jesus, spiritual union with 
 Whom means, for those who believe, life, peace, and 
 righteousness. Outside of this there can be but little 
 liberty and joy for a soul which dares not believe the 
 love God has to it, so cannot comprehend all that is 
 implied in His Divine Fatherhood. It is the one 
 doctrine which God ever honours with a multitude 
 of conversions. Out of it was the career of St. Paul, 
 and the repentance of St. Augustine. 
 
 58. The Sacraments are among the appointed ordi- 
 nances of the Church, and here almost more than any- 
 where be on your guard against either maiming the
 
 94 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 faitli or overlaying it. Everywhere indeed, but liere 
 pre-eminently, it is the risk of controversy that it aims 
 at destroying all the statements on the other side — the 
 truth, which is with the error, not only the error which 
 is with the truth. Here too we must consent to see the 
 true way out of party opinion — " which is not a com- 
 promise between them, but which is implied in both, 
 and of which each one is bearing witness ! " Never let 
 go, or water down the Catholic truth that Sacraments 
 " are certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace." 
 Of Holy Communion until lately there have been three 
 recognised doctrines.* The Roman teaches that the 
 elements are by consecration changed into the body and 
 blood of Christ by the conversion of their whole sub- 
 stances respectively into the whole substances of His 
 body and blood. The Lutheran holds that Christ con- 
 tains His body within the substance of the bread : and 
 that the two substances coexist together. But a novel 
 doctrine has lately been propounded which, I hope 
 without offence, I will call the Neo-Roman. This view 
 of the Eucharist teaches the objective presence of our 
 Lord in the Eucharist, not as implying any physical 
 change in the natural elements, yet holding that Christ 
 Himself is so really and truly in His glorified body 
 present in the Sacrament that He is therein to be adored. 
 You, I hope, teach the Anglican doctrine. Our formu- 
 laries are silent as to a " Presence." They say nothing 
 of our Lord's glorified body, but speak only of His 
 precious body and blood ; as that which He promised 
 
 * I do not include the Zwinglian theory, which can have no 
 weight with you.
 
 TEUTir. 95 
 
 and gave at the first institution of the Sacrament, pro- 
 raises and gives at every celebration of it now. Now, 
 as then, " the bread is the body of the Lord and the 
 wine His blood, by His will and all-powerful word, in a 
 mystery, by effectual substitution and representation in 
 spiritual and life-giving power, but not in literal fact." 
 None can partake of His body and blood but by faith. 
 Our Lord is everywhere to be adored, and of course 
 to be adored at the Eucharist, though not under the 
 elements of it. The Eucharist is a feast — on a sacrifice. 
 The sacrifice not continually offered by man, yet offered 
 once for all by Christ, is to be pleaded and accepted by 
 us, and accompanied on our part by spiritual sacrifices 
 of confession and thanksgiving, and self-surrender. 
 There is an altar, it is the Cross. There are priests, 
 for the whole Church constitutes a royal priesthood ; 
 yet they who minister being representative of the rest 
 may be called priests in a higher sense than others. 
 
 59. Of Baptism the 27th Article teaches that by it, 
 as by an instrument, they that receive it rightly, are 
 grafted into the Church, the promise of forgiveness of 
 sins, and of our adoption to be the sons of God are 
 visibly signed and sealed. Since the closing sentence 
 of the Article expressly teaches that the baptism of 
 young children is to be retained as most agreeable with 
 the institution of Christ, the inference is just that thev 
 do not, when receiving baptism, receive it wrongly, 
 though there must be an incapacity from the tender 
 age for receiving it rightly, in the fullest sense of the 
 word. Incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, 
 with its prospective privileges, consecrated society, and
 
 96 CHAEGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 redeeming purpose, must mean a great deal. If Christ 
 solemnly instituted it as the means of admission into 
 His Church, and if St. Paul constantly refers to it as 
 the beginning of the Christian life, and if the Nicene 
 Creed speaks of one Baptism for the remission of sins, 
 that teaching must be seriously defective — any how on 
 other lines than St. Paul's — which never alludes to it 
 from one year's end to another, and can logically find no 
 admission for it into its system of truth. Here suffer 
 me to observe that there is a real sense in which we 
 need not be too much alarmed about holding doctrines 
 which on the surface are apparently inconsistent, yet all 
 of which are plainly declared in the Word of God. If 
 they are to be found in Holy Scripture, and yet cannot 
 be quite logically reconciled in our human formulce, let 
 us fearlessly honour the Bible, and declare whatever 
 we find in it, sure that somewhere below the surface 
 the two branches of doctrine grow out of one stem. 
 When the infant comes to years of discretion, then con- 
 version has its true place and meaning, in the child's 
 being brought to true repentance for sin, and faith in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ ; whereby it is stirred into a 
 living sense of its fellowship with Christ's body, into 
 a conscious union with Him, with a fuller partaking 
 of the Divine Life, and a devout value of the privi- 
 leges of His people. I am quite clear that we shall 
 have to press upon Christian parents, much more than 
 some of us have hitherto been doing, the tremendous 
 responsibility of Infant Baptism, if we would stir them 
 up to faith and vigilance, in keeping their children 
 unspotted from the world.
 
 TKUTH. 97 
 
 60. To the problems of Escbatology, so increasingly 
 attracting Christian thinkers, I have sometimes thought 
 that the true key is to be found in the nature of the 
 intermediate state. The Church has no article on the 
 subject. The Fathers have greatly differed about it. 
 The tremendous warnings of Christ must be solemnly 
 and dutifully and carefully weighed. Let us consider 
 all Christ's character, remembering His scathing indig- 
 nation against the Pharisees, as well as His boundless 
 pity for the woman who was a sinner. " Our Lord is 
 Judge. His human character is not benevolence only ; 
 there is in it wise distrust, that moral sagacity which 
 belongs to the perfect man." Yet by some saintly souls 
 the final and incalculable results of the Licarnation in 
 ultimately reconciling all things to God, whether in 
 earth or heaven, have been felt to inspire a magnificent 
 hope for an ultimate restoration in the triumph of God 
 over sin. Most of all, let us remember our unspeakable 
 ignorance, both of the results of sin, and of the claims 
 of Divine Holiness, and of the limit of human resistance 
 to the will of God, and of the true way of manifesting 
 God's perfections to the universe. Who can tell how 
 God loves, how, whom, He can save? 
 
 Works hearing on the above. 
 
 Lee on the Inspiration of Holy Scripture. l)i;l)lin. 
 Jnkes on the Law of the Ofierings in Leviticus, Longman, 
 Work, Word, and Will, Archbishop of York. Murray. 
 Westcott's Historic Faith, Macmillan. 
 
 Drummond on Natural Law in the Spiritual World. Mac- 
 millan, 
 Bishop Temple's Bampton Lectures, Macmillan. 
 
 11
 
 98 (CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 Mozley's University Sermons. Eivington. 
 
 McLeod Campbell on the Nature of the Atonement. Mac- 
 millan. 
 
 Bishop O'Brien on Justification by Faith. Macmillan. 
 
 Vinct, Etudes Evangeliques. Paris. 
 
 Vogan on the Doctrine of the Eucharist. Longman, 
 
 Dean Church — Human Life and its Conditions. (Sermon 4.) 
 Macmillan. 
 
 Dean Plumptre — The Spirits in Prison. Isbistcr. 
 
 Pusey's Occasional Sermons. (Sermon 14.) Kivington. 
 
 I'arrar's Eternal Hope. Macmillan. 
 
 Wilson's Sermons preached at Clifton College. Macmillan. 
 
 Tulloch's Modern Theories in Philosophy and Peligion. Mac- 
 millan. 
 
 Flint's Theism. Blackwood. 
 
 Hutton's Essays. 2 vols. Macmillan. 
 
 Canon Fremantle's Bampton Lectures. Eivington. 
 
 Social Questions. By Eev. J. L. L. Davies. Macmillan. 
 
 Nature, Man, and God. By Eev. J. M. Wilson. Sonnenschein. 
 
 Muna-er's Freedom of Faith. Clarke. London. 
 
 61. On one other matter let me offer you a counsel, 
 
 not untinged with hope. This age has been called 
 
 " an age of arrested beliefs, dangerous to all, fatal 
 
 to many." We are still in the bewilderment and 
 
 even chaos of a new revelation of science, and for an 
 
 interval, which believers in the supernatural need 
 
 not gratuitously prolong, the discoveries of the new 
 
 tend to undermine the old. Now I advise you not to 
 
 be too much alarmed. Mr. Hutton, in one of his 
 
 Essays, quotes Browning to the effect that " the power 
 
 of Chi-istianity is only to be restored through an 
 
 approaching age of doubt : " 
 
 " Till man stand out again, pale, resolute 
 Prepared to die — that is alive — at last. 
 As we broke up that old faith of the world, 
 Have we next age, to break up this the new."
 
 TKUTH. 99 
 
 It may be so, and all these woful doubts and 
 struggles may be ordained as a searching discipline 
 for the shallow triflers of an Epicurean age, just as the 
 Imperial persecutions were for the primitive Christians. 
 But it is very apparent that the future of Christian 
 teaching, at least from the intellectual side, is with 
 those who can most truly distinguish the essential 
 from the non-essential, most gently separate the husk 
 from the kernel, most intrepidly accept "the splendid 
 task of disclosing to a waning scepticism the natural- 
 ness of the supernatural." What is morality ? Is 
 there a God ? Shall we live after death ? Are we 
 responsible ? Root questions are they not ? Comte 
 has propounded an " Atheism which professes a sublime 
 morality." But the morality is borrowed from Christ, 
 and the human soul cannot long live on negations. 
 Agnosticism is a wintry twilight ; but perhaps con- 
 scious doubt is better than licentious indifference. It 
 some look on it as being on the downward path from 
 faith to unbelief, others may consider it as being 
 on the upward path from unbelief to faith. The 
 pessimism which says, " Our life, what is it worth 
 but to despise it?" moves a sturdy scorn. But as we 
 reflect upon it, the scorn softens into pity. What 
 chance can the man who wrote that sentence have 
 had from his " environment " of having seen the best 
 of life ? He never can have stood in the slant of the 
 sun. For what Professor Tulloch calls the " Modern 
 Religion of Experience," it is hard to feel either in- 
 tellectual or moral respect. Ten times over give me 
 the creed of a stern but sincere Theist, whom we can 
 
 II 2
 
 100 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER T^IOCESE. 
 
 ** love with sorrow " — who can say, " Canst thou in 
 any measure spread abroad reverence over the hearts 
 of men ? That were a far higher task than any 
 other." The tremendous risk is that, with the muh.i- 
 tude, the loss of a creed may eventually mean a 
 weakened appreciation of the worth of morality, and 
 that virtue will disappear with the vanishing Christ. 
 Nevertheless, let us dare to hope that God is watching 
 over all these men, using them, though they know it 
 not, has something for the age to learn from them, 
 to add to the truth we have already, will at last help 
 them, if they are sincere, to find Himself. 
 
 62. Be you content to preach the objectiv^e facts 
 and truths of our Holy Religion. Be sure that the 
 Father of the spirits of men is in and by Himself for 
 His creatures the one essential truth, though in mani- 
 fold ways. Jesus Christ our Lord is the revelation 
 of His love and our necessity. Live for Christ, and 
 ask that your whole soul may be made to burn with 
 a consuming passion of love to Him. In all you do, 
 and say, and think, let your one aim be to be con- 
 stantly inspired by the Presence of the Holy Spirit, 
 tlie author of your holiness, the counsellor of your 
 activities, the comforter of your hearts. 
 
 63. My Reverend Brethren, in my concluding words 
 let me earnestly impress on you the great importance, 
 whether in doctrine, ministry, or ritual, of wisely 
 discerning the true proportion of things. Is it not 
 from a lack of this faculty that so much of our present 
 distress really springs ? A black gown or a white, 
 a cross over the Holy Table or no cross, turning to tlie
 
 TRUTH. 101 
 
 East at the Creed or not turning, surpliced choirs or 
 unsurpliced — why should these things so profoundly 
 disturb even thoughtful and saintly souls, when they 
 are not worthy, all of them together, to be put into 
 the scales against the worth of the very humblest soul 
 for which Christ was content to die ? Even graver 
 matters, about which there has been so much trouble 
 and warfare, apart from that disciplinary aspect of 
 them, of which I, at least, have not thought too 
 lightly, when calmly examined in their abstract value, 
 are utterly unimportant in comparison with duty and 
 love. If once they were found to be legal, or could 
 be made legal, what person of sense would give them 
 an unfriendly thought? If it is a serious thing to 
 break the peace, it is a serious thing also to miss 
 a chance of restoring it. Our first, our greatest, our 
 blessedest task is to bring redeemed souls, through the 
 ministrations of the everlasting Gospel, into living 
 fellowship with Christ and each other. Oh, that we 
 may with a sort of abrupt and indignant refusal to 
 be troubled by, or to be troubling with, trifles like 
 these, come increasingly to do our common task with 
 large-heartedness and joy. 
 
 Have you seen these words of Lacordaire? They 
 touch us all : — 
 
 " No one prizes purity of doctrine more than I do ; 
 and I may say that I grow daily more jealous over it 
 as regards myself. But a charitable valuation of 
 doctrine is the absolutely necessary makeweight of 
 theological inflexibility. A true Christian object is 
 to find truth not error in a doctrine, and to seek 
 
 H 3
 
 102 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 urgently to find it, even as one gathers a rose from 
 amidst its thorns. He who holds cheap the thought 
 of any sincere man, any man who has made obvious 
 sacrifices to God, he is a Pharisee, the only class of 
 men pronounced accursed by our Lord." 
 
 64. Then, hard as it may be to find time for study, 
 harder as it may prove for some of us still to be at 
 school, let us see that only a living mind can reach 
 living men. There is such a thing as a dead mind. 
 It is always a loss, sometimes a sin. By a dead mind 
 I mean a mind which has lost the power of assimi- 
 lating new truths, which refuses to consort with minds 
 alien to it, which suspects new ideas, resents new 
 adventures, never reads a new book, seldom opens an 
 old one. I do not say (God forbid that any one should) 
 that such a mind is not capable of rousing some, and 
 edifying others. It may still take things old out of 
 its treasures, and impart them to its fellows with the 
 grace of God. But it will not attract the young, nor 
 help the doubter, nor stem the tide of unbelief, nor 
 greatly swell the jubilate of the saved. With all our 
 heart and soul let us keep off as long as we can mental 
 deterioration. Let it never be said of us, '^ their 
 ignorance measures all things." Let us be young in 
 intellectual freshness, though we may be waxing old 
 in physical decay. beware of a petrified theology. 
 Keep well in the van of the Church. Be thinkers 
 still. 
 
 65. For if those behind us are tempted to push us on 
 faster than we care for — perhaps we did it ourselves 
 once — the true way to deal with them is not roughly
 
 TRUTH. 103 
 
 to bid them be quiet ; but to keep in front of them, 
 masters because guides. We cannot do without the 
 young, and the young, though they are not always 
 aware of it, cannot do without us. The way to help 
 the young is greatly to love them, and to be much 
 in their company, and to listen kindly to their often 
 inspiring, if wild, speculations, and always to remember 
 that youth is the ozone of the world. On the clergy 
 in middle and later life, who train the younger clergy, 
 and more or less influence them, the future of the 
 Church hangs. This is a fact which needs to be 
 appreciated more. 
 
 66. Once more let us be careful to keep ourselves 
 well in the movement of the time, and to beware of 
 the grave peril of isolation fr-om our brethren. Thank 
 Grod, in this diocese there is not much fear of this. 
 Constantly, when I meet you in council, I thankfully 
 feel we are like one great family ; and the vast help it 
 is to me personally so to meet you, makes me appreciate 
 the loss of those who insist on working by themselves. 
 
 "None of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to 
 himself." If we choose to transgress this law, the 
 Church loses something, and soon becomes indifferent 
 to it : we lose more. Alas ! we know not how 
 much. Forgive me for saying that one of the greatest 
 temptations we clergymen are prone to is egotism ; 
 and if nothing feeds it like isolation, nothing dis- 
 sipates it like society. Be sure to read that one of 
 Mozley's greatest sermons on the " Reversal of Human 
 Judgment," where he shows how the propagation of 
 truth may become the pride of dominion over souls ; 
 
 \
 
 104 CHAEGE TO THE CLEKGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 how a man may become absorbed in self-interest, 
 when he thinks that his object is the glory o£Christ 
 — how an egotistic, not a disinterested motive may be 
 the spring of the immense energy at which the Church 
 pays admiring homage ; how even those who feel that 
 they have a mission, may convert it into a snare to 
 themselves. " The mission becomes the final cause of 
 life ; " and he who has a mission seems sent into the 
 world chiefly for the benefit of the world itself. 
 The individual end of life — the inward discipline of 
 the soul — seems small and commonplace ; " it appears 
 an easy thing to them to save their own souls. A 
 thing, so to speak, for anybody to do." But what if 
 that easy thing somehow does not get done, till the 
 occasion for it is passed ? 
 
 67. Last autumn I was in Montana, going west. On 
 my right was the Yellow Stone River, flooded with 
 glacier water on its way to the Missouri and the Gulf 
 of Mexico. On the left soared into the cloudless blue 
 the snowy peaks of the Yellow Stone Range. The iron 
 road on which the express was traveling, on its way 
 to the Pacific, was an impressive testimony to the force 
 and enterprise of man. Close to the foaming river, 
 within hearing of the rushing train, within sight of 
 the beautiful mountains, were some tall dead trees. As 
 I looked out at them in the early morning, instantly 
 my thoughts flew back to home, and to the English 
 Church, and to the diocese, and to that multitude of 
 well-meaning men who will not see the signs of the 
 times, but go on hugging the idols of the cave within 
 them ; and it all seemed a vivid and sublime parable
 
 TRUTH, 105 
 
 of a good many melanclioly truths. Never let us 
 forget that our spiritual life has its ethical side. We 
 have our inner and our outer history. Christ is for us 
 as our ground of acceptance. He is in us, our Hope 
 of glory. Within these two sentences there lies an 
 entire system of theology. Motive qualifies conduct, 
 and conduct is the seeding of character, and character 
 will be the subject of judgment. Of all persons in 
 this world, we clergymen are the most liable to self- 
 deceit. We may, or we may not, be comforting our- 
 selves with the noble thought that we are on our 
 way to our coronation. We must rouse ourselves to 
 the awful conviction that soon we shall appear before 
 the judgment seat of Christ. What it will be to stand 
 self-revealed before Him who can tell ! It will be the 
 trying by fire. Some the fire will purify, some it will 
 consume, all it will search. There will be many a 
 reversal of judgment, many a change of place, many 
 a pang of surprise. The first will be last, and the last 
 first. The great scholar who used his learning to 
 feed his vanity will make way for the little child 
 who understood through love. The ruler who nursed 
 liis pride with brief authority, saved so as by fire, 
 may stand far away among the worshipping myriads 
 with but a distant glimpse of the King, under Whose 
 very face kneels and adores some humble pastor 
 who sought only the praise of God. Then, too, we 
 shall see — would we could see it better now ! — what 
 will be tlie losses of the saved. " To see first in the 
 day of Judgment that so very little or nothing had 
 been done for the love of God ; that of that little.
 
 106 CHARGE TO THE CLERGY OF ROCHESTER DIOCESE. 
 
 something liad been afterwards taken from God and 
 given to the world in some seeking for human praise ; 
 that amid the wood, hay, stubble of a whole lifetime 
 there had been but a grain here and there of what 
 was pure. It would be a misery to which all miseries 
 in this life concentrated in one would be nothing." 
 
 My brethren, to whom I owe so much, who are so 
 good to me, who show confidence in me, which some- 
 times puts me to shame, then makes me burn with the 
 desire to try to deserve it — in all that I have written, 
 one only thought has been present to me, not so much 
 to make you believe my doctrine, as to bring you 
 nearer to God, the Teacher of us all, in Whom alone 
 you can find the answer to all questions that He means 
 to answer here. For you I can wish no better wish, 
 for me you can breathe no loftier prayer, than that we 
 may increasingly discover " that the way to be a true 
 minister to man is always to accept new happiness 
 and new distress ; that even better than happiness is 
 the blessedness which comes to us out of our worst 
 griefs, borne meekly for the love of God." 
 
 Your Friend and Brother, 
 
 A. ^y. EOFFEN. 
 
 Selsdon Park, Croydon. 
 Oct. 29, 1885.
 
 " A religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must 
 express less care for personal consolation, and a more deeply 
 awing sense of responsibility to man, springing from sym- 
 pathy with that which of all things is most certainly 
 known to ns, the difficulty of the human lot,"
 
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