l^c etc r ^« <- '^^■. tit t^^'jTi^- fT^x^ir^' A CHARGE THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD. A CHARGE THE DIOCESE OF OXFORD, AT HIS THIRD VISITATION, NOVEMBER, 1854. SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD, CHANCELLOR TO THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, UORD HIGH ALMONER TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. MDCCCLIV. A CHARGE, ETC. My Reverend Brethren and my Brethren of THE LaLTY On meeting you thus again officially, after a third interval of three years, I would first beg you to acknowledge humbly with me the mercy of God, Who has kept us through this past time, and allowed us again to meet together in this house of prayer. Death has, during these three years, been very busy round us ; but our time of service has been still continued — our day of grace prolonged. Yet, at every place of our gathering through the Diocese we miss those who, when we last assembled, knelt and sat beside us, and from whose empty place there may well seem to come to us the sound of the midnight cry, and the warning voice — ' Be ye ready also ; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.' Of the Incumbents of the Diocese, no fewer than forty-three have been called to render up their great account since last we met. Of your more numerous body, my Lay Brethren, many more must have been taken. Oh ! that this thought might arouse us all to more active labours for God in our several spheres; for B which of us may not be taken before again this Diocese is visited ; and we know that ' the night Cometh, when no man can work.' When I met you last, I endeavoured, before I surveyed the present state of the Diocese, or the more general interests of the Church, to re- view our own Diocesan proceedings for the last three years; and as I have reason to believe that you were then interested in that review, I propose, in my present remarks, to follow the same course. And, first, I will lay briefly before you the out- line of suchactsasareespeciall}' connected with my own ofiice. Since I last addressed you, I have been able, through God's mercy in preserving my health, to carry on to a considerable extent that plan which you, my Reverend Brethren, so cordially welcomed, of my ministering with you in your several parishes, and so making the episcopal ofiice really known in its true pastoral character amongst our scattered flocks. I have thus taken part during these three years in more than 216 parishes. The hearty wel- come you have given me has made those, seasons amongst the happiest of my ministry. Never, I can assure you, am I so well pleased as when by any means I can strengthen your hands in your parishes, and join with you in your pastoral work. There are, I need not tell you, many accidents belonging to the circumstances of my office in the Church of this land whicli tend to withdraw its holders from that direct ministry of /^\ ^ UIUC ' souls, and those spiritual cares, in which are indeed its truest functions and highest exercise. And we, in our own inner life, and our church round us, in the straitening of appointed channels of grace, are in great danger of suffering by our being thus drawn to commerce so largely with the outer and less spiritu il parts of our charge. From these it is a special blessing to withdraw into the greener pastures of your direct ministry of souls — to unite with you in those common acts of worship and spiritual communion, whence the smaller differences of our several opinions vanish as forgotten things, and we are, and feel ourselves to be, all one in Christ Jesus. During the last three years, above 14,057 persons have been confirmed l>y me, and in the same space 150 candidates for the sacred ministry have been ordained by me to the Priesthood, and 199 to the office of a Deacon. Turning from my own special charge to our common Diocesan action, we shall, I think, find that these three past years have been very far from a time of inactivity. In them have been pro- duced, or perfected, or strengthened amongst us, various plans and instruments of service, which will, 1 humbly trust, long prove blessings to the Church, and mark with no common stamp of im- portance this period of our Diocesan History. And first amongst these I may mention the opening, at Culham, of that Training School for Schoolmasters, to lay the foundations and complete the building of B 2 which so many of us have laboured long and hard. To God alone be all the praise, who put it into the hearts of his servants to contribute so liberally to this great work; but to the many donors, both amongst the laity and clergy, through whose aid these buildings were reared at a cost of 19,700/., I desire, on behalf of this Church and Diocese, to tender thus publicly my grateful acknowledgments. So far as we may venture at present to speak, we may trust that this large sum has not been spent in vain. We are now approaching the close of our second year's actual work, and we have already sent out as schoolmasters nineteen young men, who are winning in their several spheres a high esteem for their place of training. Of these, ten are employed within this Diocese ; three in the associated Diocese of Gloucester and Bristol, and six in other Dioceses ; two of these having been sent for preparation under our training for the posts they now fill. Besides those who have thus gone forth, we had, at the close of September, sixty-eight scholars in residence, and their conduct and attainments give us solid grounds ■ for hearty satisfaction. In the class list of students in the training schools connected with the Church of England, to whom certificates of merit Avere awarded, after examina- tion by Her Majesty's Inspectors at Christmas last, thirty-three out of thirty-five of our students gained their certificates, a proportion larger than that attained by any School but two ; the one so small a School, that it could not fairly be judged of by the same measure as our own : the other one, which sent up for examination only half of its eligible students. As the result of this examination, we received towards the expenses of the year, from the public grant, 1245/., three Schools only stand- ing before us ; namely, Battersea, Cheltenham, and St. Mark's, Chelsea, whilst the Diocesan Institution which stood next to us received 500/. less than our earnings.* It would be unjust not to notice this * Tables extracted from Mr. Moseley's Report on Training ScJiools, for the year ending Christmas, 1858 : i. e., on the first and, as yet, only completed year of our operations. N.B. These tables are comparative, and show the relative results with respect to all Training Schools in the country. I. Results of Ceetificate Examinations. Certificates of Merit. Class List of Students in Training ScJiools connected with tlie Churcli of ISngland, to lohom Certificates of Merit have been awarded hy the Committee of Council, after Examination before Her Majesty'' s Inspectors, at Christmas, 1853. MALES. No. of First Second Third Total Training School. Candidates. Class. Class. Class. Certiiicates. Battersea 84 3 33 31 67 Carmarthen . . . 27 1 3 14 18 Carnarvon . . . 10 1 2 5 8 Chelsea, St. ) Mark's . . . ) 59 1 16 25 42 Cheltenham . . . 59 8 21 16 45 Chester 18 12 6 18 Chichester . . . 9 5 2 7 Durham 16 1 7 8 16 Exeter 25 44 2 2 9 11 7 24 18 37 Kneller HaU Highbury 39 8 13 21 Oxford 35 i 13 19 33 Winchester . . . 18 1 6 8 15 Worcester . . . 23 6 12 18 York & Hipon 36 1 7 14 22 Here we are first in the ratio of certificates to candidates, great success as a sterling proof of the ability and conscientious labours of our Rev. Principal and his assistants. In reviewing the detailed accounts of this Institution, I have observed with satisfaction the great number of applications for masters which have come from the Diocese and the increased proportion of pupils whom it has sent up. Few, however, of these are Queen's scholars, our Queen's except Durham and Chester, the latter of which did not send in above half its students who were ehgible, and the former a col- lection of but sixteen, so small that it scai'cely comes into the comparison. II. Amount of Public Gbants on the Accounts of Certificates and of Queen's Scholaeships, Christ- mas, 1853. £ s. d. Battersea 1963 15 Carmarthen 620 Carnarvon Chelsea, St. Mark's 1345 Cheltenham 1540 Chester 680 Chichester 285 Durham 515 Exeter 705 KnellerHall Highbury 758 Oxford 1245 Winchester... 615 Worcester 715 York and Ripon 750 From the first of these tables will be seen oui* success as com- pared with other Colleges in the general examination. From the second, the amount of public money we earned altogether towards our first j'ear's expenses. It is observable that in the second table we aioodi fourth, and the fifth in order are 500^. behind our earnino-s. scholars having been draAvn ahuost entirely from other counties. This has arisen not from our Queen's scholars having gone elsewhere, but from their paucity amongst us, since we have in the Diocese only thirty-three Schools having pupil- teachers, and in them only forty-two pupil-teachers.* I would, therefore, once more remind the Managers of Schools of the great advantages now offered to them by the pupil-teacher system, under which they may obtain so much help in providing for the * The following are the Church of England Schools for Boys in the Diocese in which Pupil-Teachers are employed, as given in the Report of the Committee of CouncQ for Education 1853-4 .— BERKS. Aldermaston. Clewer. Reading, St. Giles. Speen . Sunningdale. Wallingford. Wantage. Windsor. Old. Park. St. Mark's. OXFOEDSHIEE. Banbury. Benson. Bradwell. Chipping Norton. Chm-chill & Sarsden. Cowley. Cuddesdon. Henley. Ibstone. Nuneham. Lewknor. Oxford, St. Mary's. St. Paul's. BUCKS. Aylesbury. Brightwell. Claydon. Great Marlow. Stoke Pogis. Stoney Stratford. Upton cum Chalvey. Waddesdon. Witney. Number of Pupil-Teachers in the Church of England Boys' Schools in the county of — OXFOKD. BERKS. BUCKS. TOTAL. 14. 18. 10. 42. Total Schools having Pupil-Teachers, 33. Total Pupil-Teachers in Diocese, only 42. Total Schools Jiaving such, only 33. 8 expenses of their Schools, whilst they open for their best pupils a useful career for life. The first point needful for thus raising your Schools is to provide them with certificated masters ; and though, if our students could have left us earlier, every one would have been already engaged, yet, from the Managers of the Schools who applied for them being unable to wait the completion of their full term, there will at Christmas next be several certificated masters ready for you. In another way, the Culham Institution may materially aid your difli'erent Schools : your own schoolmasters may be received there for a season, and obtain, even in a short stay, much valuable in- struction as to managing their Schools. A difi'erent class of schoolmasters, moreover, may obtain great assistance from a visit to it ; I mean certificated masters who have training puj^ils under them ; for their duties towards these are new and undefined, and many of them difiicult. To these the Prin- cipal at Culham has paid special attention; and there are few masters who might not profit greatly by observations of his methods and oral consulta- tion with him on the difficulties of their charge. During these three years, the Allied Training Institution for Schoolmistresses has been opened in the Diocese of Gloucester and Bristol ; and on that occasion, and at the consecration of its Chapel in February last, the representatives of this Diocese were received with a hearty Christian cordiality which gave no faint promise of that harmonious co-opera- tion in this good work, which we trust to see long uniting these connected Dioceses. This School is now in full operation : seven pupils from the Diocese have been in it, two of whom are now eno;ao;ed with Schools in it. We have been permitted also to complete another Diocesan Institution, to Avhich I look, under God's blessing, for the happiest results. The 1 5th of June, on which we formally opened the buildings which had been raised at Cuddesdon for assisting in the Theological and Pastoral Training of Candidates for Holy Orders, will long live in my memory, and I doubt not, my Brethren, in the memory of many of you also, as a day to be much and gratefully re- membered, and on which we dare not doubt that there was vouchsafed to our endeavours an abun- dant blessing from our God. Most encouraging was it to us that so large and so venerable a portion of the Episcopate of the English Church joined with us in holy communion, in prayer, in the ministry of the Word, and in public exhortation, on our day of solemn inauguration: most moving was it to our hearts to see amongst them, to name no others, where I might mention all, the still youthful energy which, on the other side of the globe, is gathering in Melanesia to the Lord ; and the silver hairs, but still, I thank God, unbent form, of almost our eldest Bishop : most cheering was it to me, and I acknowledge it anew this day with affectionate thankfulness, amongst the many trials of my office, and of these times, to see so many representatives 10 of every district, and of all opinions, in this Diocese, assembled around me, to meet those Right Reverend Fathers of our Church in the services and actions of that eventful day.* You will rejoice with me in knowing that we have already within those walls eight students, who, having completed their university course, are now preparing there for the work of the ministry. I beseech you, my Brethren, in your hours of secret prayer, to remember us and them in your intercessions before God; that He may grant us wisdom, power, and love, and enable us to send out thence many faithful men to preach boldly the pure Word of Christ's Gospel ; to minister His Sacraments faithful!}", and to be, under Him, the blessed instrument in saving many souls. My experi- ence as a Bishop during these last nine years would have proved to me, had I needed such proof, that there is nothing that we more want than such institutions, where those who are soon to go forth to exercise, too often almost without assist- ance, the perilous ministry of souls, may pursue a course of sound theological study — may learn by practice, under wise direction, how to conduct their pastoral ministry, and may have opportuni- ties of retirement, thought, and prayer, which it would be hard for them to obtain elsewhere, and * A full account of the proceedings- of the day is to be found in the Appendix to the Sermon of the Bishop of New Zealand, " A Little One shall become a Thousand." Vincent, Oxford ; Eivingtons, London. 11 which are so peculiarly precious in the months which precede their ordination. Such a prepara- tion, if God vouchsafe His blessing to it, will, I am persuaded, be the best security we can afford to our young men against the peculiar dangers of the present time. To say nothing of other evils, and they are not few, arrogance, and its natural result, extreme opinion on any side, whether verg- ing towards the specious infidelity of latitudina- rianism on the one hand, or to the poisonous blight of Roman error on the other, are the natural con- sequences of men undertaking, without a careful theoloo;ical trainino;, the difficult work of the Christian ministry. Private imaginations, the con- ceits which are bred of the fancy, narrow minded- ness, a set of shallow opinions, self-willed rashness, ignorant obstinacy, party spirit, with its shib- boleths and its unchristian judgments, and its uncharitable speeches and all its injuries to souls — these are the natural fruits of men undertaking to be teachers of others, whilst as yet they know nothing, or next to nothing, of that whereof they affirm much, and that much confidently — of men going forth to teach and to speak, who are really dependant for their own views on the hasty and too often muddy current of popular opinion, as it streams thx'ough the various channels of the reli- gious journals and passing literature of the day. Our aim, my Brethren, will be to form in its strength and its simplicity, in those who come to us, the marked features of a devout, sober, earnest, 12 practical, well-instructed Churcli of England piety ; to make them well acquainted, as the foundation of all other learning, with that pure Word of God which we acknowledge as our rule alike of faith and practice, and then to add to this such an acquaintance with that primitive antiquity to which our Reformed Church points as the best expositor of Scripture, and to those great lights of our own communion, Richard Hooker, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Andrews, and their fellows, as shall furnish them with armour they have proved, alike against the specious novelties of Geneva and the deadly subtleties of Rome. Once more, I earnestly ask your prayers, and wherever you can give it, your co-operation in carrying out this great work; which we have undertaken with a trembling sense of our own insufficiency for its due discharge, but with an humble trust in God's mercy to accept for Christ's sake, and bless our undertaking. Two other Diocesan Institutions, of which I spoke to you three years ago, have since been augmenting their strength, and preparing for a wider range of charitable action. At Wantage, five sisters are engaged in their work of Christian charity. Fifty-seven penitents have here come under our hands, of whom we trust that thirty-eight have, through God's mercy, been rescued from a life of sin. An arrangement of great moment has been concluded with the Managers of the Oxford Penitentiary, who are to 13 pay 100/. a-year to the expenses of maintaining at Wantage ten penitents to be drafted into that house after trial from their own inmates. This enlarge- ment of its numbers renders new buildings neces- sary. The estimated cost of this will be 3000/., of which 1100/. is now raised, and 500/. more ex- pected ; whilst its conductors are earnestly appealing for aid in supplying the remaining deficienc}^ At Clewer, where we have now seven sisters and twenty-one penitents, funds have been raised for erecting the first portion of the buildings necessary to contain seventy-five or eighty penitents, with provision for receiving penitents of a higher class, and an infirmary and pro- bationary ward. Fifteen acres of land having been obtained for the purpose, the first stone of these buildings was laid by me on the 27th of last June. Here, too, help is required; as much as 3000/. more being needed for the completion of the work. Out of seventy-seven who have been inmates in this house, we have good reason to believe that fifty- two have been rescued from the destroyer, and given back to life, ' sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind.' To these institutions I look with a deep but hopeful anxiety. Many causes have prevented the growth amongst ourselves of those charitable and relief ious sisterhoods which, both amongst O ' CI Romanists and the Reformed communions, have flourished and done good service in various parts 14 of the continent of Europe. Great in many ways will be the gain to us, if our Church can pervade such institutions with her own spirit, and bring them under her rule, and thus provide in them fresh opportunities for her children's service, and carry out through them in new directions her works of mercy. We have just seen, in the need of such nurses for the wounded as our allies possess at Scutari, how great a practical want of our social system might be hereby supplied; and there is, moreover, floating at large amongst us an energetic spirit of exertion, which, if left simply to itself, is too likely to run into extravagance and folly; but which, under the rule and direction of the Church, may be a blessing to those in whom it dwells, as Avell as to those on whom it expends its strength. But I do not disguise from myself, and I would not hide from you, the great difficulties which must be surmounted before we can see such institutions well ordered and indigenous amongst us. Rather would I state them freely to you, and seek the aid of your prayers, suggestions, and co-operation in overcoming these hindrances, and winning for our Church these new instruments in advancing the kingdom of her Lord. They are, then, such as these — first, in their very founda- tion we are met by the difficulty of finding dis- creet and sober-minded women to become the first members of such societies; both because they are new, and all novelties at first repel 15 the cautious, and also because they are asso- ciated in the English mind with Popish errors and abuses, — and next in their conduct. For whilst, for the reasons just given, amongst the first mem- bers of such bodies the ardent and enthusiastic are likely to predominate, we have, from the freedom of our habits, and the very purity of our faith, peculiar difficulties in restraining or directing their impulses. The Church of Rome has no such difficulties ; for here, as elsewhere, her perversions of the truth are so craftily devised, that she can seize and make use of human frailty for her own purposes. She can preach freely the superior holiness of virginity and the ascetic life, and thus allure the enthusiastic to fill her sisterhoods. She can bind their inmates by vows of chastity and obedience, she can stimulate and yet govern their excited religious emotions, by her doctrine of the meritorious value of acts of devotion and submis- sion; and thus, however in so doing she may debase the souls of her children, she can make them the passive and efficient instruments of her sagacious counsels and determined will. We can use no such means, but must with the utmost clearness declare the simple gospel truth, that married life is every whit as holy and as accept- able to God as the service of our unmarried sisters ; that vows which the Lord has not commanded are dangerous and ensnaring, if not absolutely un- lawful; and that the duty of obedience can never supersede that highest jurisdiction of the indivi- 16 dual conscience which is the necessary correlative of the inalienable and awful responsibility of pri- vate judgment. Here then are our difficulties, for overcoming which we need specially not only wise counsels, but also the candid judgments and active co-operation of the sober-minded, and the hearty prayers of all. In another work, also, of great importance, God has graciously prospered our endeavours during the last three years. When, seven years ago, the Diocesan Church Building Society was founded, I pressed as strongly as I could upon the Diocese our need of many new churches and parsonage houses ; and our still greater need of so restoring and rearranging many of our old parish churches, as to o;ive back that birthrio;ht of a fittino- and com- modious place in them, of which many conspiring circumstances had, to a great degree, robbed our poorer brethren. The mode in which that appeal has been responded to is a matter for our deep gratitude to God. Our Diocesan Society has raised and expended, since its commencement, 9607Z. 55. But this alone would be a most in- adequate measure of the good which has resulted from these efforts; for this 9607/. 5s. has led to the expenditure of 110,000/. more within the Diocese from other sources. During the last nine years, thirty-five new churches, and nineteen parsonage- houses have been built, eighteen churches have been rebuilt, and seventy-two restored and en- larged; by which means additional accommoda- 17 tion for more tlian 16,159 persons has Leon pro- vided, of which places 14,643 are free. Of these, eleven new churches have been built, nine re- built, and twenty-one restored, and ten parson- ages provided, or are in progress of formation, with- in these last three years.* Yet let no one think that our work, in this particular, is now done; so far from this being the case, the returns furnished me give us a list of fifty-seven new churches wanted, and very many still remain needing urgently that work of restoration which has already given a new impulse to the spiritual life of not a few of our parishes. AVhilst this is the case, the funds of our Association are so exhausted that, with no money in hand, and with * The Churches built, rebuilt, and restored during the last three years, are as follows : — Built. — Colnbrook ; Great Marlow ; Kidmore End ; St. Paul, Banbury ; South Banbury ; Eastbury ; Clifton (Deddington) ; Little Tew ; Eton ; Tyler's Green ; Milton under Wychwood, at the sole cost of J. H. Langston, Esq., M.P., and the Rev, Antony Huxtable. Rebuilt. — Culham, and Horsepath (except the chancels) ; Lamborne-Woodlands ; Hedgerley ; Sandhurst ; Chalfont St, Peter (chancel and south aisle) ; Chaddleworth (chancel), at the sole cost of B. Wroughton, Esq.); Pishell, Salford. Restored. — Oare ; St. Paul's, Oxford, a chancel added; Faring- don; Wallingford; Shottesbrook ; Winterborne; St. Michael's, Oxford ; Sonning ; Denchworth ; Wootton ; Marlston ; Kid- dington ; Dorchester ; Hurley ; Kirtlington ; Harpsden ; Great Rollright ; Forest-hill ; Aston Tirrold ; Swyncombe ; Steeple Barton ; Stanford in the Vale. The Parsonage-houses are at Wardington ; Motlington ; Cud- desdon ; Speenhamlaud ; St Ebbes, Oxford ; Colnbrook : Cran- bourne ; Dorchester ; Liuslade ; South Banbury. C 18 an annual income of only 450L, we have already- promised grants to works now in progress to the amount of 5701. To restore these funds, it has been proposed that a general effort should be made, by holding meetings throughout the Diocese; and I would very earnestly entreat you, my brethren, lay and clerical, to assist us in this work; by attending, and getting others to attend, the projected meet- ings, by obtaining annual subscribers, and by raising contributions for our funds. I cannot doubt but that we should at once double our annual income if the real claims of our cause on their attention were brought before the yeomen and gentry of our counties. For this is, indeed, a work of charity for these our brethren, and specially for their poorer brethren around their o-svn doors; and what greater blessings can we bestow on them than those of a resident ministry, and a fitting and commodious place within the House of God? In aiding this work we have, moreover, the satisfaction, which is too often withheld from us, of knowing that it is one as to which no difiPerence or division of opinions can exist; and that here, therefore, without the pos- sibility of any compromise as to our peculiar views, we may enter with entire heartiness upon the blessed and uniting work of common labours for our brethren and our Lord. To all Avho are willing to aid us here, our admirable secretary, the Rev. R. Gordon, of Elsfield, to whose able and 19 untiring labours we are most deeply indebted for our past success, will gladly supply every necessary amount of information. Beyond our intended meetings the only remaining means of supplying the resources which we need will be by collections made within our churches. For this end, I shall be ready, next year, to issue a letter of pastoral invitation, if it meets generally the wishes of the Diocese. Touching on this subject enables me to thank you for the mode in which you responded to my last address, by which 1551/. 12-s. 8t/., raised from 433 parishes, was added to the funds for buildinof the Culham Training^ Colleofe. I turn now to what we have been enabled to do as to another paramount duty of the Church — the providing for the education of the young of our o^yn communion. Of the great work effected, in the completion of our Training School for Masters, I have already spoken ; and, contemporaneously with this, many schools and masters' houses have been built throughout the Diocese. Besides some goodly structures, the sole work of private founders, I have before me a list of fifty-nine school-rooins, and twenty-seven schoolmasters' residences, with ac- commodation for 5,626 scholars, which have been built within the last few years, in forty-five places within the Diocese, at a cost of 22,542/., of which 1475/. were contributed by the J^ational Society. Further, an attempt has been begun in this year to increase the funds supplied by this Diocese for the Curate Aid Society ; and this effort c 2 20 will be continued, please God, in the ensuing spring. Most earnestly do I commend this admirable Society to your support. It must, by its consti- tution, be wholly free from every party bias, since it leaves to the incumbent, for whose parish the curate is to be supplied, the selection of his assistant. And it touches the very central heart of our wants, the deficiency of the pastoral ministry in our ill-endowed and overgrown parishes ; yet so small are its means, compared with the demands made upon it, that whilst it is enabled, at present, to make 332 grants, it has 264 appli- cations before it, to which, for lack of funds, it can grant nothing. In these three counties it aids six parishes* with grants amounting to 290Z. a-year, whilst it gathers, * The following parishes in the Diocese are aided by this Society : — Shipton £30 Abingdon 30 Walton, Aylesbury 80 Chipping Norton 30 Windsor, H. Trinity 40 Beaconsfield 80 Total £290 The amounts received from the Diocese in Parochial Collections and Local Subscriptions since the year 1850, are as follows : — £ s. d. For the year ending Easter 1850 166 7 10 „ 1851 176 10 9 „ „ „ 1852 131 11 2 „ „ „ 1853 143 17 8 ,. 1854 136 12 10 21 I lament to say, from our Diocese, no more tlian 136/. 125. lOd. One other institution Avas proposed last year, and is likely soon to be in active operation, the benefit of which you will all, I think, appreciate. It is termed the Clergy Provident Society, and its aim is to assist those clergymen whose total income does not exceed 300/. a-year to secure for their families the aid of ordinary life insurance, as well as to provide, by payments in times of health, for the receipt of two guineas weekly in disabling sickness. And now. Brethren, let me turn your thoughts for a few minutes from the past, whilst I endea- vour, so far as the occasion and our time permits, to take with you a brief survey of our present state. The first feature which has struck me in dwell- ing recently in thought upon this subject, is one for which we cannot too heartily thank God ; it is the amount of internal quietness and mutual confidence which He has granted to us, compared with our state three years ago. As to that which upon this subject immediately concerns myself, I cannot content myself without expressing before you this day, first, my humble praise to God, who has put it into your hearts, my Reverend Brethren, and my Brethren of the Laity, to render to me as your Bishop such unvarying assistance, and then my thanks to you, for your hearty support of the various plans I have brought before you for the 22 good of the Diocese, for the liberality of your con- tributions, and the efficiency of your co-operation. And yet again I must heartily thank you for your kindness shoAvn on so many occasions towards me personally, for your charitable judgments, for your attention to my requests, for your generous aiFec- tion. Amidst the many toils and trials of a Bishop's office, no earthly support can be so great as that loving confidence of his Diocese, which God has graciously put it into your hearts so largely to extend to me. May He make me less unworthy of so great a mercy. Of this first blessing the present peacefulness of our Diocese is, I believe, one of the natural conse- quences. The episcopal office is, by God's appoint- ment, so much the connecting bond of the Diocese, which without it inevitably breaks up into a set of petty principalities, under a multitude of accidental chiefs, that where the bond is firm between the Bishop and his Diocese, the Diocese becomes, as a consequence, itself more peacefully and firmly united. But further, this peacefulness may, I be- lieve, be traced to a second powerful cause, for which I have greatly to thank those most valuable though unrewarded officers of the Diocese, the Rural Deans. I have no doubt that to the better acquaintance with each other which has resulted from the Rural Chapters ; to the habits they en- gender of mutual consultation and action ; and above all to the real Christian harmony which results from the united worship, for which they 23 afford the opportunity, our present internal peace is to be in a great degree attributed; and this is borne out by the fact, that wherever the Rural Chapter is most flourishing, and its meetings best attended, there the union of the Clergy of the district is most complete. May God, my Brethren, multiply and increase amongst us this blessing of a city which is at unity with itself: may He enable us to guard against everything which in our conduct, our words, or onr thoughts as to one another, may mar this unity, and so grieve the Holy Spirit of Peace : may He keep us from party spirit, from forming or countenancing any sectional views within our common Church : may He keep us from uncharitable judgments and uncharitable language concerning those who, in things lawful, or in the various allowed shades they give to truths we hold in common, differ from us and from our own peculiar views : may He teach us, whilst we strive simply, earnestly, and without compromise, to teach truth as we see it, to be ready to make large allowances for others ; to believe that they may see some truths which we see not ; and to refuse, as the very principle of schism, to be banded into any school or party within the Church, witli separate interests to defend, party combinations to defend them, and party watchwords as the instru- ments of such a treasonable union. Of course, my Reverend Brethren, when I press thus earnestly upon you the great duty of cultivating unity amongst ourselves, I take for granted that in 24 tilings essential we are really one, and that between the far greater number of us disunion and suspi- cions (where unhappily they do now to some degree exist) rest on no deeper foundations than miscon- structions of each other's meaning, ignorance of our real agreement, and too exclusive an admission of our own view of common truths. There are, of course, exceptions on both sides; but as to the great majority of our body, every year more con- vinces me that this is the case. The grounds of our differences are often abstract difficulties, in- volved in the very system of Theism, which are absolutely irreconcileable by human intellects. Others are differences which far more concern the use of words than the ideas which those words so imperfectly symbolize, whilst others have no deeper root than in the different views which different minds, from their very constitution, must take of common truths. Now, if this be so, it follows that whilst we must state fully and openly, and act strictly upon our own views of truth, we may heartily co-operate and cultivate loving inter- course with our brethren, whose views in many respects we honestly deem defective or mistaken, and desire to see amended. Let me for a moment illustrate my meaning by an outline sketch of what appears to me to be the rela- tions between the two chief schools of thought now within our Church. The one arose from a most blessed revival of earnest personal faith in Christ, which led those whom it possessed to protest with 25 all the energy of truth against a system which had too often taught men to be well satisfied with mere decency and an earthly morality, provided they had been baptized and continued members of the visible Church. The truth, given to these teachers to maintain, (and nobly, for the most part, in their earlier days, they maintained it,) was the need of the renewal of each individual soul, and of the gift to it of a true living faith in Christ, through God's Spirit working on it before it could be saved. But every truth, taken singly, is in danger of leading men into error ; and the danger accompanying this revival was, that men's minds should be fixed so exclusively on the energetic working of God's Spirit in the individual soul, which He renewed unto salvation, that the great truth of the peculiar Presence of God the Holy Ghost personally Avith the Church of Christ, and all the other truths which follow from this first, such as the Grace of Sacra- ments, and the responsibilities and the blessedness of membership in the Church, should be lost sight of, and men grow to think of that Grace of God alone as really present, which was visibly effectual. The absolute truth lies in the perfect harmony of these two facts in the Divine economy. But the posses- sion of absolute truth is a rare gift to such as we are ; and the one party, therefore, in maintaining the need of the effectual working of God's Holy Spirit on the individual soul, are ever necessarily in danger of practically losing sight of his Personal Presence with the Church ; the other, in maintain- 26 ing that Personal Presence, of leading men to rest their hopes -on that Presence, without experiencing in their own souls His converting and renemng power. Thus, when members of these different schools of thought contemplate the position of the other, they are tempted, the one, to charge their brethren with encouraging a lifeless formality, the other, with denying the Grace of Sacraments and the Church's Hidden Life. Yet surely there is for all faithful members of our Church, much as they may seem at first sight to differ, a true point of concord, in the common meeting-place of their respective truths. Surely if, instead of being ready to cast upon one another the mutual reproaches of infidelity to our common Church, we would, without compromising one iota of our conscientious belief, each recoo-nise the other's truth and then bend all our efforts to convey to them our own, we should have found out that master secret of Christ's blessed Gospel — how, in- deed, whilst ' we loved as brethren' to ' contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the Saints' — how, indeed, to ' speak the truth in love.' Or, take a matter of practice, in which the same difference of opinion is expressed and fixed, and by which it is too often embittered — I mean the conduct of our public services. On the one hand there is, as we are all aAvare, a strong tendency to multiply their number and to add to them as much of outward circumstance and beauty, of music and chanting, as the ritual of our Church allows. 27 On the other hand there is a strong tendency to resist all such services as innovations ; to maintain stiffly what is sometimes called the simplicity of our Protestant worship, to banish from it all that can appeal to the eye, or the ear, or the natural taste, to keep it as strictly as possible to reading God's Word, to preaching its great truths, and to a distinct utterance of the prescribed words of prayer and praise, upon absolutely prescribed occasions. Now from this diversity of practice there is too apt to grow up amongst us first estrangement, and then bitterness of feeling, mutual suspicion, and too often mutual reproach. For it is easy on the one side to point to the Puritanical rejection of our ritual as savouring of the Popish Mass Book, to the verge of which this extreme simplicity approaches ; to impute to it an undervaluing of devotion; to charge it Avith re- ducinof all relio;ion to the intellectual admission of certain truths ; and to show by the undoubted ex- ample of others, how such a scheme of religion tends at no distant period to the disregard of the very truths which were at first idolized, whilst it conducts the worshipper by the downward steps of less frequent prayers, less venerated Sacraments, and colder and more merely intellectual worship, to the chill and misty flats of the Genevan heresy. On the other hand, it is easy to brand as merely sensual all admission of the objects of the senses into the worship of God — to urge the facility with which often-repeated acts of public worship grow 28 into formality, and to point to the pealing anthems, long processions, sublime spectacles, and wreathing clouds of incense, with which the noblest paintings, the most melting strains of music, and the most perfect artistic skill have filled the greatest Christian Temple of the West, to show how fatally the spiritual worship of the humbled soul may dege- nerate into the gorgeous ceremonial of the Papacy. But are these mutual reproaches, with all their consequent embitterment of party strife, just, charitable, or necessary ? Is there no meeting point where, for all members of our own commu- nion, both sections of our Church may rest, without any sacrifice of that which they deem the more ex- cellent way, and from which therefore, whilst they continue their o"\vn mode, they may yet sincerely respect in each other the true piety which leads them to an allowed variety of practice? I have no doubt there is ; and that it lies not in any formal adjustment, for universal practice, of any fixed number of services, or amount of ritualistic development. As to these, our Church leaves to us — and, I believe, most wisely leaves to us — a wide liberty on either side ; and provided that this liberty be not exceeded, and that the feelings and habits of the body of worshippers in our Churches are tenderly regarded before any changes are made, neither party has any right to impute evil to the other. But for the point of unity we must go further than this mere absence of mutual reproach ; and we must, I believe, find 29 it — first, ill being willing to admit the danger which, from man's infirmity, must beset our o^^m practice. Secondly, in being equally ready to allow the truth, which, however mingled with human error, yet disposes our brethren to cling to their own practice. And, thirdly, and above all, in fixing more steadily our view on that great ob- ject of every faithful mhiistry — the true conversion to God and the building up in the Faith of Christ of souls which he has redeemed. For there is a truth and a danger upon both sides. There is a truth : for we ought to conse- crate every faculty, both of soul and body, to God's direct service ; to ' praise Him upon the lute and harp, with the cymbals and dances,' as well as with the living breath of the heart's devotion ; and we cannot join together too often ' in magnifying our Redeemer and our God ; though seven times a day we praised Him for all His righteous judgments.' And yet, on the other hand, it is the secret ofifering of the heart in every worshipper which alone He will accept, and there maybe cases in which this may be offered to Him most purely in worship the least assisted by external additions, and where the pro- portion of secret to public devotions is the largest. There is, too, on both sides, a danger. For a ritual rich in the externals with which the senses mainly are concerned may be acceptable to an unrenewed heart, and tend to deepen its self-deceiving slumbers. The mere frequency of services may have the same eff'ect; and, on the other side, a so worship in which the avenues of all the feelings of our nature are kept closed is in danger of growing merely intellectual, and infrequent worship chills the warmth of prayer, and strikes with a benumb- ing paralysis the very soul of devotion. Nor are these dangers to be averted by a simple adoption of the opposite system. For neither will the fewest or simplest forms destroy formality ; since that obsti- nate parasite can live and grow amidst the rigours of the Pole, as well as in the heat of the Tropics, and men can fix their self-righteous trust as easily on droning out the dull repetition of the coldest form as on joining in the richest and most gorgeous ser- vices; and so, ere this, reformers have found it easier to kill by outward treatment the devotion on which formality fastens than to get rid of the formality itself. Nor will the best appointed and most frequent services kindle in the unrenewed soul one spark of genuine devotion. The safeguard from these opposite dangers is, indeed, to be found in our higher value for the common truth — that our whole ministry is vain, un- less, through it, as God's instrument, souls are con- verted to Him, and daily renewed to greater holiness. And in acting on this conviction we shall, even with allowed diversity of action, find unity of soul with our brethren. The most developed ritual and frequent services will lose their danger, and by degrees even cease to be objects of suspicion to all reasonable men, if those who conduct them are indeed full of a burning desire to save souls in the 31 simple Gospel way of Justification by Faith in Christ crucified; and services of the plainest sim- plicity will yet be kept free from aridity and chill, if they are full of love to the person of our Lord, and are offered in a ministry which is spending itself in passionate desires to bring souls to Him. Blessed, my Brethren, were it for us here, and, oh ! most blessed for us at the day of His appear- ing, if, laying aside our party judgments and our uncharitable words, we bent the whole force of our spirits to win from Him this burning love for souls — this single-eyed resolution to count all else in vain until by His Spirit they were converted to Him. And if, leaving as far as possible the strifes of these busy times, we were more fully to devote our energies to dealing in detail with the souls committed to our charge — to awakening in them a deep and personal sense of sin — a real value in their own experience for the work of Christ's atone- ment, and a resolution never to rest until they had sought and found Him as their own Eedeemer, we should soon, my Reverend Brethren, know at once more strength and more unity in our high and arduous calling; we should find our own spirits kept, through God's help, in quietness and confi- dence amidst all the trials of these dangerous times. Suffer me to add to these general principles a word or two of more detailed caution. We should then, I am certain, secure more abundantly the blessing of the peacemakers, if we would lay down for ourselves the rule — 32 I. Of never making or encouraging remarks upon another's ministry, unless charity or neces- sity require. II. Of cultivating all lawful opportunities of free religious intercourse with our brethren in the ministry. Isolation breeds suspicion and estrange- ment; free religious intercourse engenders sym- pathy, confidence, and love. III. Of avoiding meetings and societies within the Church, the bond of which is not her ministry, her work, or her objects, but peculiar and discri- minating views on these j for such must soon be- come, if they are not at first, the gatherings of partizans, which will infallibly injure our charity, and too probably divide the common body. The distinction is simple and important. Clerical meetings, for example, the mere bond of which is that you exercise in the same district a common ministry, and at which, with a due regard to official position in the Church, you meet your brethren of all shades of opinion, are a powerful instrument of union ; whilst such gatherings, if limited to those who hold, or suppose themselves to hold, the same peculiar views, and to which others are not bidden, become direct encouragements of a censorious spirit, and incentives to schismatical action. No labour, no watchfulness can be too incessant and minute, in seeking to maintain around us and within ourselves a loving spirit. If it shall please God to give us this gift, great will be our service for Him; for as divisions in the religious 33 body of the nation are the great impediments to the nation's religious life and service, so are our suspicions and uncharitable judgments of each other in the Church the one master cause of our Church's weakness in her work. How can it be otherwise, when such words as these meet us in every page of God's Word — ' By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one to another.' 'Be ye all of one mind; love as brethren, having compassion one of another: be pitiful, be courteous.' That we have, as I believe, more of this brotherly union than we had is then first one of God's greatest gifts to us for the present, and next one of His best promises for the future. With this greater peace amongst ourselves, I trust I do not err in believing that we are doing our work, upon the whole, with increasing dili- gence. There are, I believe, very few, if any, of our present body who are drawn away from their proper labours to those diversions, against which, in my first Charge, I felt it my duty to give you my emphatic warning ; and the returns which you have made to me show an increase in the number of our services, our celebrations of the Holy Eucharist, and, contemporaneously with these, of our worshippers and our communicants. I shall not, I trust, weary you by giving you a few of the figures which mark this improvement. Whereas, then, in 1848, 191 places in the Diocese were returned to me as having only a D 34 single service on the Sunday, there are now, in Berks, but two parishes which have not double duty, in almost all cases with a second sermon, or catechising; and those two adjoin each other, and with a joint population of less than 500, are under one rector ; Avhilst in many there are three services upon the Sunday, and frequent week-day services. In Oxfordshire, there are only eleven parishes with very small endo^vments, and a population varying from sixteen to ninety, which have but one full service each on Sundays, with, however, a second in the adjoining parish; and fourteen others, all with endowments too small to maintain a single pastor, and sharing, therefore, the services of the clergyman with a neighbouring parish; and but four other cases ; whilst, in Buckinghamshire, there are but twenty-one parishes of the like small popu- lation and poverty of endowment, in which there are not at least two Sunday, besides other services. In the frequency, also, of adminis- tering the Holy Communion, there has been a marked increase. In 1848, there were 6 parishes in which that Holy Sacrament was administered only three times in the year; 238 in which it was administered only four times; and only 98 wherein it was administered monthly. There are now none in which it is administered less than four times; only 131 parishes in which it is ad- ministered so infrequently as that; and 233 parishes in which it is administered at the least once in the month, and upon the greater Feasts. There were then 35 but seven, there are now thirteen, churches where it is weekly offered to the faithful worshipper. More- over — which I think especially worthy of your notice — the average attendants at the celebrations have increased in number as these have become more frequent. The average attendance in 1848, in 112 places, where the administration was only four times in the year, having amounted to 1706; whereas, the average attendance at the same places, at the present more frequent celebrations, amounts to 1808 persons; so that, instead of the multiplication of the celebrations having — as some have feared it might, — diminished, it has directly increased the number of attendants at every cele- bration. I do not doubt that nothing but the laudable desire to introduce even salutary altera- tions as gradually as possible, has prevented a more universal increase in the number of the times of celebration. But I earnestly and aifectionately entreat you, my Reverend Brethren, to offer, at the very least, once every month, to the flock intrusted to you, this eminent means of grace. To turn now to another point. Not only are Schools, as we have seen, multiplying in our Diocese, but they are also increasing in efficiency and rising in character. This I attribute in great measure to the results of that system of Diocesan School Inspection* which is every year * See in the Appendix the General Instructions for the Direction of the School Inspectors. D 2 36 more completely pervading our parishes, and which has never failed, especially where uniformity in the subjects of instruction has been adopted by the School Managers, to raise very speedily the character of the School. To my Reverend Brethren of the Clergy who, without any other remuneration than the sight of the good which they have done, and the gratitude of their brethren and their Bishop, have undertaken and so efficiently dis- charged this important office, I desire here to tender my public thanks. In another respect, moreover, I feel certain that I am not deceived as to the improved condition of this Diocese. Nothing can be more marked than the alteration which I observe in the conduct, manner, and demeanour of those whom you have at my recent circuits through your parishes brought before me for confirmation. Levity, once too common amongst us, has even in its slightest indications, I thank God, been of late the very rare exception to the manifest attention, feeling, and intelligence which have distinguished your candidates for that holy rite. With this improvement as to our home interests, I am thankful to find, as could scarcely fail to be the case, an increased interest in the Church's general work: larger contributions, and, what I prize by far the most highly, multiplied parochial associations, for promoting the Church's missionary work, both in our colonies and amongst the heathen. 37 That I may not weary you with details, I will contrast the collections of only two years, to show you at a glance the amount of the increase within the Diocese. In 1846 there was collected in it for the Church Missionary Society, 2267/. 9s. 2■> » %1^, ^;^